Citymapper - <AUTHOR> https://citymapper.com <comment><USER2> City mapper is used extensively in London, it's really really good. They are/where expanding into some form of Citymapper busses which is really interesting.

I had the chance to interview there, but I was put off by the absolutely terrible Glassdoor reviews[1] including consistent reports about the CEO and the internal culture.

Given that, I'm not too hopeful about the future of Citymapper. Right now they have a head start on others, but I don't see anything to justify the 300 million pound valuation.

1\. [https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Citymapper- Reviews-E1030...](https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Citymapper- Reviews-E1030688.htm)

<comment><USER3> Gosh, do people rely on Glassdoor? To turn down an interview? From my experience it's an outlet for people with a personal gripe and far from a good source of internal information about a company.

<comment><USER4> Yes, people do rely on Glassdoor. I am one of them. I only pay attention to the cons listed in positive reviews. Doing that has saved me from a couple of truly awful environments.

<comment><USER3> > I only pay attention to the cons listed in positive review

An interesting technique

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I worked at Citymapper. The quiet, grim truth of the place is that everyone there is gritting their teeth trying to do work they're passionate about in the face of an exec team who are all gritting their teeth trying to succeed in the face of a CEO who is legitimately abusive toward the people around him.

Everyone is scared of the guy for reasons I don't really understand. Also a lot of the current/ex employees have shares that they/we want to turn into real money, so there is a perverse incentive to keep quiet on the off chance that CM's CEO figures out how to make it a real business. Plus, a lot of our friends still work there. We don't want to shit on them and make their lives even worse.

For context, from one of the cofounders, I had it explained to me that the CEO sometimes loses it and screams at people. Curses at them. Belittles them. It's something everyone manages. I didn't believe it until it happened to me. And again. And again. Everyone tip toes around him. I've watched good people come and go from CM for years now. The best people don't stay. They've gone to DeepMind, Monzo, Lyft, Facebook -- other great companies. The people who stay at CM are mostly too scared to leave or beaten down enough to believe all companies are that bad. The Glassdoor reviews are legitimate. It's a toxic work place.

(edit: clarified the point about shares)

<comment><USER6> > _The people who stay at CM are mostly too scared to leave_

How does this happen to people? Are there really no other options or something? Are they barrel-bottom candidates on their final shot? I just can't imagine feeling like I need my employer more than it needs me.

<comment><USER7> Or, perhaps it isn't actually true.

<comment><USER6> It's definitely true for a general subset of people. I just don't understand how they got there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everyone uses this is Paris by now. They are especially gaining traction in the last weeks since people use it to know how to reach a place despite all the strikes via whatever means of transportations are currently working.

Integrating real time city bikes data and real time bus times is the killer feature for such a situation.

<comment><USER9> Agreed, they give better results than official apps (that tell you to take metros that are not currently driving because of the strike).

<comment><USER10> I have a different experience. Just yesterday Google Maps and Citymapper advertized me trips with transports that didn't run (lines N and U) because of the strikes. The official app Transilien only provided me trips that actually existed.

<comment><USER9> Okay, I was using vianavigo, maybe transilien is better (too many official apps..)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is also Transit, which I have used and liked for about a year now — [https://transit.app/](https://transit.app/)

I use it in Seattle and have found it to be very accurate and (most of the time) fast. I have a mildy annoying commute where I often need or want to switch buses and I have to quickly look up if a particular route goes where I am going. Transit has been good for that (in addition to regular point A to point B stuff).

</comment><comment><USER12> A few cool things (not necessarily exclusive to Citymapper).

\- Saving favorite places to get directions faster

\- Relying on their indications to use the best tube carriage and best exit for fastest exit / interchange (can save minutes!)

\- Enjoying gamification & stats on your trips using the 'Go' mode. This will the give you indications about how your daily journey compares to others, and the distribution of your transits by mode (e.g., tube vs bus vs train)

\- Sharing your trip with someone

\- Switching City when travelling

\- Not using Google Maps for everything

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been researching why my cities public transport isn't available in Google Maps. Turns out that the (mostly public) transport company assumes itself in competition to app vendors such as Google Maps and Citymapper; the bus company "doesn't own the whole experience anymore". So, while they give access to static routes with some delay, real-time data or accurate data is out of reach.

How do companies like Citymapper approach that issue? Do they usually pay fees to the transport companies, or do transport companies in the supported cities all give API access?

A proper app would definitely benefit public transport in my area.

(word has it that my area's transport tariffs are way to complicated to be mapped onto Google's API)

[Edit: to be more concise; the transportation company _doesn 't want_ 3rd parties to offer an app. How does Citymapper approach that?]

<comment><USER14> As long as a public transportation organization can expose their data as GTFS, then most transit applications should be able to provide routing.

[https://developers.google.com/transit](https://developers.google.com/transit)

This is what the CTA and Metra do in Chicago. Even Metra, not known for it's technical prowess, provides a GTFS realtime feed.

<comment><USER15> I don't think that's what the person you were replying to was asking.

More "how do they get the data from cities that don't want to give it to app vendors like Google"

<comment><USER14> If it's public transportation and run by a local government and the transit data isn't publicly available, then it's likely matter of civic engagement and using your power as a voter to make it happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What every single transportation app fails at is recommending a route which is technically worse, but less crowded or otherwise more preferrable.

I dont mind commute taking 10-20% longer, if I can take a seat, or trade changes undeground for changes overgrond or avoid connections with high opportunity cost, where being late cost you 30 mins wait for a next train.

<comment><USER17> In addition to the default "Best route", Google Maps has "fewer transfers", "less walking" and "wheelchair accessible" modes.

<comment><USER16> that is a step in right direction, but still doesn't allow me to express my route preferences

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow that looks really useful, I did not know of this app. Did anyone here on HN use it successfully? Having a single app to allow navigating cities and buying tickets is something I have been wishing for lately (especially in cities where there is no way to buy tickets either online or via an app).

<comment><USER19> I use Citymapper extensively on trips to cities it covers.

It's at its best in London (where, IIRC, the dev team is based): there, it's a life-saver. It's also effective in other first-rank anglophone world cities, such as New York. I've found its coverage can be patchy/incomplete in some cities, presumably because the data sources they aggregate are incomplete or inaccurate: at its worst, it degrades gracefully to the state of an offline maps app with a public transit route-finder.

It has been around for some years and they used to integrate with Lyft: I think the idea is to tie into transit pass apps as a way to monetize their service.

<comment><USER20> I once used it in Berlin (I'm not from Berlin) when there were unexpected line closures/delays. I could explain to the locals what was going on and the best routes to use. That was simply using the app. It had more info than the local staff/info screens.

<comment><USER21> I used it in New York, and it also knew about line closures which other apps weren't aware of.

One thing it's bad at (ironically because it was made in London) is the data model for Tube stations, it seems to think a Tube station is a point, whereas they often sprawl underground over large distances. It doesn't have much of a concept that you can be walking for 10 minutes to connect between lines, and will make dodgy suggestions on that basis.

<comment><USER22> The app certainly does take into account transfer times between lines. If you also require accessible transport it'll further take into account the transfer times by measuring the amount of lifts you need to take.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How the hell do so many people not know this app exists? This has been a page 1 home screen icon on my iPhone for years!

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't really understand Citymapper, everything in that app is available on Google Maps. What am I missing?

<comment><USER25> Citymapper has more features, some of which Google Maps has actually copied.

They still have some more unique features. I'm not sure which of the following have now made it to Google Maps but here are my favorites:

* Recommendations for routes that involve combining bike sharing with transit. (They call it multimodal labs)

* Commute alerts in case of disruptions.

* Map with all the transit features nearby.

* Shows car sharing options as well (such as Zipcar), in addition to Uber / Lyft of course.

* If you start a "Go" trip you get notifications on which station to get off at. On android it also works great with a smartwatch (full support for Android Wear).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I tried it in a german mid-sized-to-large city (Dortmund) and the result wasn't too great. Google Maps is superior, both in data and (maybe only slightly) in UX.

</comment><comment><USER27> I use Citymapper whenever I'm in NYC. In my experience, it's much better than Google Maps at providing alternate routes and predicting how long travel will take.

It also has many small touches that add up. My favorite ones are that Citymapper will tell you the optimal subway entrance to enter/exit and even which section of the train (front, middle, or back) to get on based on which one is closest to the exit in your destination stop.

<comment><USER28> Like many others, I have used CityMapper extensively in London, Berlin, Paris, Sydney, etc.

With public transport, and using the same data Google Maps has access to, it just gives better results _except_ for walking.

I don't quite understand how the walking component of the routing is always so bad compared to Google Maps.

I routinely end the trip when the walking section is on, and switch to Google Maps because it is so much better than CityMapper.

If they could fix that, they would have a killer app on their hands.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, it's sent me around the back of buildings more than once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> CTRL+F'd Philadelphia / Philly and no results, so:

I love this app for getting around Philly. It's spot on for planning out the best time to leave to get somewhere and I really like its UX.

I have saved so much time, hassle, and money when following its suggested routes … whereas with Google Maps or just my current knowledge of Philly transit I would have taken a worse transit option or just taken a cab.

Try it out!

</comment><comment><USER31> Citymapper is excellent, especially for short trips that can be done in many different ways. Sometimes, for longer trips, Citymapper shows "Uber" or "long walk" as part of a route. In those cases, I would generally prefer to bike, without a bike share. Is there a multimodal transit app that includes transit + cycling?

</comment><comment><USER32> I like using citymapper in cities where they have coverage, however, on Android (I found) that it simply destroys your battery. In comparison Google Maps is more gentle on memory.

In Poland, a great alternative (that predates citymapper) is jakdojade.pl that does inter-/intra-city transport and ticketing where possible.

</comment><comment><USER33> Looks like they have quite a few locations.

[https://citymapper.com/cities](https://citymapper.com/cities)

Still, the one they selected for me is in a neighboring country even, because there is none closer. I think in that case it would be better to state that none of their locations are nearby. Because for a moment I thought that that location was the only one in the app, which had me confused why it would be discussed on HN if the app was for that one place only.

On the page I linked above one can vote to add new locations. I doubt mine will end up in the app anyway though – there are not very many people in my country, and only a few people in the city I live. Even our capital city might be too small.

</comment><comment><USER34> Everybody used it in London, I couldn't get used to it since I mainly use Google maps.

In Lyon, France though google maps doesn't work so I recently gave citymapper a try and the interactive route where you can swipe through steps is actually really cool!

</comment><comment><USER35> Similar: OpenRouteService ([https://maps.openrouteservice.org/](https://maps.openrouteservice.org/)), based on OpenStreetMap.

<comment><USER36> I tried it for New York City and prefer using OpenStreetMap but don't see subway directions on it. Am I missing something or are subway directions not available in it yet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I don't see any advantage this has over plain Google Maps for Madrid, other than using a bit less Google in my life. Will try it out.

</comment><comment> half-kh-hacker Here in the UK, some schools mandate unpaid 1-3 week work placements. I actually applied for a place at Citymapper and got a promising reply, but eventually I guess it fell through the cracks because I didn't receive any communication after.

It would have been really cool to see what goes on in a focused tech company whose product I actually use (and like), but I guess these things happen.

<comment><USER4> Here is some unsolicited advice from a 42 year old who has spent a career in tech. If you are genuinely interested in a company and get one promising reply, keep following up until you hear 'no'. We were hunter/gatherers for a long time. Hunt the word 'no'.

This isn't an excuse, more a mournful confession. But in startups, things like unpaid work placements tend to fall fairly low on the list of priorities. It isn't that you're not valuable, it's just that in startups, your attention is divided between hundreds of highly valuable things.

If you genuinely want a job, be a squeaky wheel.

<comment> half-kh-hacker Sorry for being a bit late with the reply; I did consider following up, but didn't due to other factors, and found a placement elsewhere. (mainly, my distance from London.)

This is great advice, though. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> best transportation app, sadly boot time in my upgraded ios device is slower than maps or google maps.

</comment><comment><USER39> Currently in my home town for the holidays, but I'll take a look see when I get back to Boston after the new year. There's an app called "Transit" that does something that looks similar, I'll compare them.

<comment><USER40> Thanks for letting us know.</comment></comment>


Codecademy Offers Free Coding Classes for Aspiring Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/codecademy-offers-free-coding-classes-for-aspiring-entrepreneurs/?gwh=4D723F36921DC541A80766EBB6ABD582 <comment><USER2> "In 20 years, programming will be just another blue-collar job or related to almost every major employment field," Mr. Sims said

<comment><USER3> Says the non-programmer who knows squat about what he's talking about.</comment></comment>


Traffic Roundabouts Spread in U.S. - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19roundabouts.html <comment><USER2> For real fun, try meeting the Magic Roundabout in Hemel Hempstead for the first time at night, in heavy rain that obscures the lane markings ...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempste...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_\(Hemel_Hempstead\))

(I survived, but it was a close-run thing!)

<comment><USER3> There's one in Swindon which I did recently. I was surprised at how intuitive it felt. Or maybe I was surprised I made it to the other side...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)>

<comment><USER4> Also in Colchester - it's been there a few years now. It confused a lot of people when introduced IIRC.. Although when you get used to them, they can really speed up the traversal from one side to the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Roundabouts are no panacea and are commonly used in situations where other solutions would make sense.

One example is when a minor road crosses a major one. At rush hour, the traffic going straight across can saturate the roundabout. You end up with congestion in all directions due to both faster traffic having to slow down for the roundabout on the major road and the traffic on the minor road being "stuck" waiting for a gap. A crossroads with lights would work better in this situation but these are less common in the UK for large intersections.

<comment><USER6> No, but the 80-90% of situations they are suited for, they make safer and more efficient.

<comment><USER7> Can you cite research about the safety of roundabouts? I've heard this argument a few times and don't believe it. What's the evidence?

<comment><USER8> From the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: <http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/roundabouts.html>

This study* found: 39% overall decrease in crashes and a 76% decrease in injury-producing crashes. Collisions involving fatal or incapacitating injuries fell as much as 90%.

* <http://www.iihs.org/sr/pdfs/sr3505.pdf>

<comment><USER9> It's hard to crash and/or die in bumper to bumper traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Roundabouts seem to be spreading internationally, too. That's at least my experience. My small hometown in Germany (pop. 40,000) went from no roundabouts only ten years ago to at least four today. My even smaller university town (pop. 30,000) also has at least four brand new roundabouts. My own impression is that roundabouts were very uncommon in Germany only a few years ago but are no uncommon sight today.

I have never heard of any protest against them in Germany, only recently the exact opposite happened: the city wanted to put a traffic light at an intersection which lead many people to demand (unsuccessfully, in the end) a roundabout.

</comment><comment><USER11> Roundabouts make a lot of sense when designed properly, and in the right place. I love them (they're just plain fun to drive through), but these are probably the top issues:

1\. We mid-westerners, by and large, have never seen a roundabout before, let alone know how to properly drive through them. They weren't even so much as mentioned in driver's training classes around here until a few years ago. Whenever a new one goes up, there's a lot of confusion. The most common problem is misunderstanding or ignoring the yield sign: Some people treat the roundabout like a circular four-way stop and others just zoom in without yielding and cut off the traffic already in the circle.

2\. Inconsistent entrance and lane rules. We have two major roundabouts in this town, both installed within the last five years. One of them prohibits lane changes inside the circle, one doesn't. At one of them, traffic entering the roundabout yields to traffic in the roundabout. In the other, vice versa.

3\. Building roundabouts in an area for no good reason. On I-75 outside of Saginaw, there's an overpass with on and off ramps. A few years ago, they tore out the traditional traffic signal used on every single other on/off ramp in the state and instead put a roundabout on each end of the bridge. This was a very silly thing to do because the traffic volume was not that high in the first place. Moreover, it's a very industrial area with lots of big trucks and oversize loads that now have to navigate the roundabout very slowly and very carefully just to stay in the lane and not run into passenger vehicles whose drivers aren't paying attention.

</comment><comment><USER12> While living in France, I read a piece which claimed that roundabouts were safer in part because individuals perceive them as more dangerous (than lights, etc.). This leads people to pay more attention and be more careful when faced with a roundabout, which in turn leads to safer driving generally. If this psychological observation is correct, then what scares us about switching to roundabouts in the U.S. might be exactly what will make it safer to adopt them.

Also, Slate had a piece on roundabouts and safety with the following quote:

"Mentioning roundabouts seems to invoke some form of the famous "availability bias," which leads people make judgments based on the memories that can be brought most easily to mind. And so, the American who may have driven as a tourist in France or Greece a number of years back will shudder with recognition, associating the roundabout with terror and near misses. But motorists with such memories often fail to consider that they were driving as tourists in unfamiliar climes, perhaps only for a few days."

<http://www.slate.com/id/2223035/>

\---

As a side note, there is something ironic about the pro-American / anti-Europe arguments that inevitably surrounds the roundabout discussion. It feels to me like roundabouts are much more American, following the libertarian strand running deep in this country. Round-about = gov't no longer tell you when you may (green) or may not go (red). Instead, it forces you to trust in yourself and your fellow citizens.

</comment><comment><USER13> I grew up in a state that makes heavy use of roundabouts, but they call them rotaries. In general they worked wonderfully for traffic control although I did see the end results of a horrific accident when someone managed to go the wrong way on one causing a head-on collision. The ramps were highly angled in the "right" direction so they must have done it on purpose, although I can't imagine why.

Now I'm in another city where they are adding them all over the place including a street I commute to every day. The roundabouts here are significantly more dangerous than the ones we had where I grew up. Not only do people here not know how to use them (it's not like they are making people re- take their drivers license tests after installing these things), but they are not as well designed; most of the roundabouts here are being retrofitted into existing small intersections that used to be four-way stops. There's not enough room to curve everything the way so if someone goes when it's not their turn, it's going to be a right-angle collision.

I think roundabouts are great in theory, but they need to be done right and people need to be made to learn how to use them.

</comment><comment><USER14> Don't underestimate the idiocy of traffic planners. In my town we have roundabouts _and_ stoplights on the roads leading in.

<comment><USER15> Yep, we have them over here too in The Netherlands. This roundabout in my hometown scores very high on my dangerous-situations-you-rather-avoid list:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/KeizerKar...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/KeizerKarelpleinNijmegen.jpg)

Traffic lights for getting on and off the roundabout, and traffic that enters the roundabout actually has precedence over traffic that's already on it, contrary to common roundabout rules. Lots of accidents happen because of it, and I have no idea what made people think this was a good idea.

<comment><USER16> That's not a roundabout, it's a traffic circle. The article calls them monstrosities and not without reason (although they aren't all that bad).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I know of four roundabouts in my area (Minnesota.) Two work just fine and are properly marked.

One is completely useless, it's actually a series of 6 roundabouts attempting to control traffic in a shopping complex. The traffic level is so low that it might as well be normal, uncontrolled intersections.

One is used instead of a cloverleaf or stoplights to control the on/off ramps to a freeway. It's terribly marked and there is no way to know what lane you need to be in or where you ultimately need to go unless you've used it before. I have actually seen people get so confused that they just slam on their brakes and stop in the middle of the thing.

</comment><comment><USER18> A _lot_ of intersections in residential neighborhoods in Berkeley are very small roundabouts, about twenty feet across. This is part of the city's traffic calming policy (<http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/contentdisplay.aspx?id=8238>) , which also includes such things as random intersections that you just can't go through if you're in a car. As someone who doesn't have a car, I appreciate this, but I imagine that if I drove in town I'd be quite frustrated by the inability to use side streets. (Indeed, the main roads seem to be quite crowded.)

</comment><comment><USER19> Here's one of my local roundabouts:

[http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#...
(It's a large roundabout with 5 small roundabouts around it. Such that you can go round the large roundabout in either direction).
Great news the US is moving toward sanity.

<comment><USER20> Hah, I had to drive around that on my driving test. I distinctly remember the sinking feeling as we approached it.

Aced it mind.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We called them traffic circles in Syracuse New York. I drove through plenty of them in Ireland too, clockwise, which is a trip until you adapt to it.

I dream about roundabouts every time I'm stuck at a light in Silicon Valley and absolutely nothing is crossing the intersection. During rush hour here, the light stays green in one direction for several minutes, so you wait around a lot before you can get on to te main thoroughfares.

<comment><USER5> _I dream about roundabouts every time I'm stuck at a light in Silicon Valley and absolutely nothing is crossing the intersection._

Rather than redesign the road, this could be resolved with intelligent traffic lights that notice traffic flow (or lack of it). The lights in my town change to this mode after dark and often I'll see them turn to red but a few seconds later go back to green as I approach them.

<comment><USER21> Intelligent lights still won't work as well in a lot of situations. Roundabouts are just more natural.

Think of a situation where four cars approach a roundabout at exactly the same time. With a roundabout (and I've driven this exact situation in Germany) everyone can smoothly enter at the same time and continue on. No technology needed.

What would the intelligent stoplight do?

<comment><USER5> It's a tradeoff.

The OP was referring to waiting at lights in Silicon Valley, an area where there are literally thousands of 4 way intersections (as in most US cities). It would be impossible to convert every intersection (or even 10% of them) to roundabouts effectively (within a reasonable budget and maintaining the number of lanes American drivers are used to).

It would be easier to maintain the road layout and use intelligent lights to make the junction, say, 50% more efficient, than spend large amounts of cash making the junction, say, 80% or even 90% more efficient with roundabouts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Will the use of the metric system be next?</comment>


Ice Cream for Breakfast May Improve Mental Performance and Alertness, Study Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/23/ice-cream-breakfast-makes-smarter-japanese-scientist-claims/ <comment><USER2> What an irritating article. If you do anything pleasurable you don't normally do in the morning (like eating ice cream for breakfast) you're likely going to be in a better mood.

What happens when someone eats ice cream every day? I'm sure you will lose this effect. In fact, when this person skips a day of eating ice cream for breakfast they're going to be more irritable - classic response to addiction/habitual use.

I haven't read the original study and it's not to necessarily suggest that the author is pushing stupid science, it's the annoying pop science article posted here that people will pass around in semi-joking defense for eating more sweets.

<comment><USER3> Or maybe it was because the controls didn't eat anything at all.

"A possible explanation [for increased alertness[... is the simple presence of consuming breakfast vs. not consuming breakfast,"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just the headline the fat morons of America need to hear</comment>


A challenge with a prize - crypto, programming, logic, your choice. - <AUTHOR>

Greetings all,
I couldn't think of a better title - sorry.
I'm currently writing an article about the mathematics underlying public-key cryptography, and I thought I'd use an unusual example.  If you have a good pseudo-random number generator, you can distort the Diffie-Hellman-Merkle-Williamson public-key negotiation system into a public-key cryptosystem (sort-of).
So I've done that, and I thought I'd set a small challenge.  Now, I'm not an expert in these things, and the article will make clear that the real-world implementation problems are deep and subtle, but just to make things interesting I'm offering a prize.
I've generated a public key and embedded it in a small encryption program.  I've also used it to encrypt a short message.  If you can decrypt the message (and that should only be possible if you have my secret key) then I will send you a book of your choosing from Amazon up to the value of 30 pounds sterling.
If you're interested you can find the challenge here:
http://www.penzba.co.uk (slash) DHMW_Challenge (dot) txt
Please do not make it clickable.  Please do not link to it.  While it's in its current state it's specifically for you folks here on HN, and I don't want it found by Google. <comment><AUTHOR> To allow for differing time-zones, I will choose a winner at random from all correct replies received within 48 hours of the first correct reply. This allows for the possibility that this is trivial and there's an avalanche of correct responses.

EDIT: corrected typo - I'm half afraid there'll be a flood of correct answers in the next few hours ...

</comment><comment><USER2> Some words of advice: Don't make up your own crypto.

I didn't look at what your construction is, but there appears to be a flaw in the implementation. Your code does not generate a strong primes for the modulo. So, the order of the cylic group may be small.

You generally want p = 2q+1, where q is a large prime. Then there are only two subgroups of order 2 and q.

For your example prime 9062412837773369110292196105482480248709337252604489001268564868178757630921032967632809984689867835102097066512990361073635001670558988501315334600583471 is definitely not strong, so Z_p^* has many small subgroups.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know that in a complete implementation I should be using 2q+1 where q is a Sophie Germain prime. The implementation is deliberately unencumbered by anything not directly related to the actual process.

And I'm not inventing my own crypto. If you do take a look at the construction you will see that it's actually very well-known.

I appreciate your comments. They show me where the article will need to be extra clear.

Are you going to have a go at claiming the prize?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3>
      C:\Users\bmm6o>ping www.penzba.co.uk
      Ping request could not find host www.penzba.co.uk. Please check the name and try again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you check the name and try again? It works for me from proxies in three different time zones ...

Can you provide more information? How many times did you try?

<comment><USER3> It's working tonight. I don't know what the problem was. (from my home computer, So Cal, USA both times).</comment></comment></comment>


Surveillance software believed to be used against critics of Mexican government - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/nso-group-mexico-spyware-slain-lawyers-targeted-citizenlab-1.4231555 <comment><USER2> \- The Mexican government is committing crimes against it's citizens.

\- NSO Group is selling software to commit crimes.

\- Blackstone, the largest investment firm in the world, is planning to purchase controlling stake of that company.

What a wonderful world for those with no accountability.

</comment><comment><USER3> Translation: the latest known target of spyware that was sold to the Mexican government is the lawyer of an activist who has been killed.

</comment><comment><USER4> MEXICO!</comment>


Programming With End-Of-Data - <AUTHOR> https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2018/09/01/programming-with-end-of-data/ <comment><USER2> Article is about Lucid.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_\(programming_language\))</comment>


A Tiny Village in Vermont Was the Perfect Spot to Hide Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - <AUTHOR> https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/statement/tiny-village-in-vermont-was-the-perfect-spot-hide-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn <comment><USER2> I am sure I was not the only person here who chuckled at the last bit from this article:

> While there, he completed three volumes of The Red Wheel, and prepared his > famous commencement address, given at Harvard in 1978. In it, he excoriated > the West, and, in particular, America, for its godlessness, materialism, and > weakness of spirit. One hopes that after his time in Cavendish, Solzhenitsyn > would have changed that assessment.

In fact, Solzhenitsyn's attacks on the West remained firm over the following decades. Also, by the end of his life, he had essentially adopted a view by which Russia needed a strong hand, basically dictatorship. The difference between this strong hand and Soviet-era Communism, is that the latter was "godless" but the former would be "spiritual".

This is an aspect of Solzhenitsyn's character that still remains little known in the West. Yet the West should be aware that many of the Soviet dissidents whom it supported during the Soviet era completely flip-flopped their social and political positions in the 1990s. Some became outright nostalgic for the Soviet regime, others like Solzhenitsyn were desirous of a strong state just so long as it wasn't Marxist-Leninist. One feels that some of the dissidents who died in the 1990s were lucky that they did so before they could tarnish their own legacies.

<comment><USER3> In fact, Solzhenitsyn's views can be described as Chernosotenstvo (Black Hundred) - a form of ultra-nationalism and xenophobia similar to that practiced by members of KKK. I never understood his appeal to people who thought of themselves as liberals and humanists.

<comment><USER4> The literature stands on its own, aside from whatever personal political evolution occurred in his later years. In the 90s, it certainly appeared as though Russia was getting set up for exploitation by the west under Yeltsin. A nationalist move in ideology within that context is rational.

<comment><USER2> > A nationalist move in ideology within that context is rational.

It is one thing to be a little nationalist. It is another thing to suddenly start calling for the reintroduction of censorship and mass incarceration of dissidents, when you had built your entire career as a writer and thinker on attacking those very things.

<comment><USER4> It's possible I'm unaware of how far to the right he went. I've held a soft spot for Solzhenitsyn from his earlier literature. The KKK reference struck me as a slime and I felt compelled to reply. I'm willing to stand corrected, where is he calling for the incarceration of dissidents?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cavendish is a veritable metropolis compared to some of the villages in that area (Amsden, Downers Corner, Ascutney). If you're ever in the area, be sure to check out the Brewfest Brewing Corp. in Ludlow for an incredible selection of local VT beer.

<comment><USER6> It's weird that whenever talking about a remote place with nothing to do, people always recommend a brewery as the highlight.

<comment><USER7> Maybe it's because you can make it from mostly local ingredients and requires some skill to ensure it's made well. They also tend to exhibit an area's "soil characteristics imparted into flavor". It's more plebeian than snobbish wine so it exudes, in American vernacular, heartlandness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A talk by his son, given at the Brattleboro library a few years back.

"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Writing the Red Wheel in Vermont" [https://youtu.be/coSJeHcdmgs](https://youtu.be/coSJeHcdmgs)

</comment><comment><USER9> I find this article a reminder to me: there are people from Russia, China, <insert country>; who don't agree with all of the politics, policies, actions of their country's government (just like I don't agree with all of politics/policies/actions of my government).

Its a reminder to focus on individuals and ideas and how we treat them and avoid defaulting to guilt by ostensible association.

<comment><USER10> I've seen too many people fall into absolutism recently. Too many people disagree with someone on a single point and then discount everything they say based on that disagreement. If you are only handing out an "A" or an "F" when grading someone's arguments/opinions you are not thinking critically enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> his best and most important work is the Gulag Archipelago[0] and everyone should read it. Its an eye opener that shows how life under communism really is.

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

<comment><USER12> While a powerful literary work, TGA is _not_ a work of objective history.

<comment><USER13> I always found it more powerful, to truly understand the conditions, of someone who went through that - first hand.

Do you feel he embellished, or why would you state that?

<comment><USER14> Because that is one of the talking points of the Russian propaganda. Oh it is a fantastic novel, great novel but all fantasy.

It is the best at describing what USSR really was, lots of useful fools/tools in the West always had problem with it.

<comment><USER12> The general scholarly and scientific consensus is that the work is not rigorous, objective, or scientific. If you challenge this take it up with the scholars.

<comment><USER11> Funny how literature suddenly needs to be "rigorous, objective, scientific" when it criticizes communism, even though it's a first hand account written by a political prisoner.

Keep believing that propaganda.

<comment><USER12> Who's believing propaganda? I'm getting my info from several sources before I make up my mind, you apparently get yours from hearsay that says what you already want to belive. Am I missing something here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> how sad is it that I was happy to see neh still operational after all the trump budget cuts?</comment>


Opensourcing my codes for training AlexNet using Keras - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/duggalrahul/AlexNet-Experiments-Keras <comment><AUTHOR> Open sourcing my codes for training AlexNet using Keras, in three useful scenarios :-

        1. Training from scratch
        2. Finetuning a pre-trained model
        3. Extracting features from a specific layer

Github link : [https://github.com/duggalrahul/AlexNet-Experiments- Keras](https://github.com/duggalrahul/AlexNet-Experiments-Keras)

Blog post : [https://rahulduggal2608.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/alexnet- in-...](https://rahulduggal2608.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/alexnet-in-keras/)

Would love to take up suggestions/critical comments. Please report any bugs/issues under the issues section on the github project webpage.

Thanks</comment>


ScreenShieldKit SDK for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://screenshieldkit.com <comment><AUTHOR> Presumably, they are just observing for UIScreen.isCaptured property and this is just a brilliant marketing effort for Confide. The UIScreenCapturedDidChange notification only fires after the screenshot has already been taken, so I would assume that is not being used.

I'm in no way affiliated with them.</comment>


Ask HN: Framework or no framework  - <AUTHOR>

Last month I used my spare time to create a simple Django admin database that sorts lawyer names scraped with a simple spider I wrote in Python. I first tried Scrapy as suggested here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946640 but then I realized that I could do the same directly with Python in a much simpler way. Is the same true for Django?
Do you recommend using Python to develop my app instead of learning Django? Is there a good book or online source that builds a pure Python site in a tutorial fashion?
An example: Currently the search box only searches whole last names. One person I demoed wanted to see search suggestions so that he can search for names he doesn't exactly remember the spelling. Will this be easier to implement in Django or in Python?
I am new both to Python and Django.
Thank you <comment><USER2> I would stick with a framework especially during the initial phases of the Project, especially if you are new to Python. I am also fairly new and I found that I learned more by peeking my head in Django's codebase than any other book! Agreed it has a rather steep learning curve but is worth the effort.

You can incorporate double metaphone or soundex for partial search based on phonetic similarities. (See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Metaphone>) there are links listed in the entry including python routines.

You can also try <http://www.alchemyapi.com/> for named entity recognition (free for up to 70000) requests and peanuts for more.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you should stick with the framework, at least until your requirements exceed the frameworks capabilities.

There is always a simpler solution that you can one off. But is it worth your time to reinvent the wheel?

Also, I'm curious - were you able to do the same thing in Python that you did in Scrapy because you tried Scrapy first?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Scrapy has good documentation but still it didn't work for me. With Python it was easier and I understood what each piece of code did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Take a look at pylons. It's like django, but it offers more flexibility in choosing which components you use. If you think you would be better off without the ORM or template engine or form library, it's easy to just not use it.

<comment><USER5> Funny, flexibility is touted as a Django benefit. It's easy to just not use all of those Django things as well.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link to previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946640></comment>


Gogle - Google Search (check the Google logo at the end of the page) - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?q=Gogle&num=100&start=990 <comment><USER2> There's no connection between searching for "Gogle" and the "Gogle" at the bottom; type in "thing" for the search and the same thing happens.

<comment><USER3> My first thought was "how can it be that Gogle has no search results?". Then I noticed the extremely specific URL hacking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, reddit must have done another redesign. It looks exactly like news.yc now.

</comment><comment><USER5> Duplicate thread essentially:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=296244>

</comment><comment><USER6> Apparently gasull is _The Inspector-Very-Very-Specific_.

</comment><comment><USER7> Google does not serve more than 1000 results for a given query. Also they use yellow O images for pagination, something must be broken here :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Beware! If you google google you break the tubes of the interwebs!

Seriously, though. Neat! Made google drop an O!

<comment><USER9> [http://www.google.com/search?q=google&ie=utf-8&oe=ut...](http://www.google.com/search?q=google&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official&client=firefox-a)

When I googled google, the top story was about whether google was turning into big brother. Which I suppose answers that question as they're clearly not censoring it!

<comment><USER8> I never said they were censoring it... I just made a (rather bad) joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh noes!</comment>


American companies should say No to Saudi demands to geoblock content - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/silicon-valley-should-just-say-no-saudi <comment><USER2> I've been wondering about something similar recently. What can other countries do to an American webmaster if their laws are being ignored?

If you allow non-US IPs, does that mean you're implicitly accepting that you're serving other countries and thus you're expected to comply with any of their laws? What if you're selling an online service and a foreign user has a US credit card and billing address?

As for the linked topic... Saudi Arabia is a pretty horrible country in many aspects. I'd go one step further and say that American companies shouldn't be doing any business with them. This is a country where women are regarded as second-class citizens. It's fine if some people want to continue with their ultra-traditional gender roles, but you shouldn't impose it on everyone else.

<comment><USER3> A good start would be to ban defence companies from doing business with them.

<comment><USER4> And politically oppose the arms deals that western politicians routinely lend their time and personal capital to supporting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These countries will just block Medium, Snap, etc, if they don't comply. I don't see how fighting them on this is actually any better except that you get to pat yourself on the back.

To me, the more worrying cases are when governments demand removal of content worldwide, and that's being done by Western governments in the EU and Canada. Why is the EFF not demanding companies pull out of those countries?

<comment><USER6> Is withholding the best technology - that otherwise presumably would increase the quality of life of a nation's citizens if they had access to it - a good method of protest, or will it simply lead to other actors who are okay to support censorship and such to fill the gaps? I'm not sure of the answer.

<comment><USER7> I try to take a lesson from supermarkets: what blew the mind of many Russians during the Cold War was the existence of supermarkets. Many assumed they were either propaganda or only available to wealthy Westerners, and it had an extremely corrosive effect on the beliefs of Russians who understood how generally available such stores were in the US. The existence of supermarkets turned out to be one of our most powerful propaganda tools!

At a practical level, one of the most important things we can do if we really believe in Western society is simply live it and let other people be exposed to it. Time and time again, simply living well is infectious and does more to undermine totalitarian regimes than pretty much anything else. Most people (on any side of an issue) really want the same thing -- to live a nice life. Fighting stems from different visions of how to do that (or an inability to do that because of poverty, oppression, etc), but in a competition between ideals, the winner is generally the one that lets people live "better".

So as a method of protest, I'd argue it's a complete failure: it removes our most powerful tools, which are primarily exposure based, while leaving a power vacuum behind and getting virtually nothing in return.

The flow of culture from sharing messaging platforms is simply too powerful a tool to abandon as mere "protest".

<comment><USER8> Supermarkets weren't 1) being made directly available within the Soviet Bloc and 2) weren't being utilised for propaganda or censorship against Soviet and Communist dissidents.

The existence of the WWW is known. The existence of sites such as Medium or Snap are known. If those exist, but are blocked either by the Saudi regime, or with very clear "this content has been censored at the request of your government" then the abject political control is revealed.

Power often is most effective where it can act covertly. Forcing the hand, or even showing it, can weaken it.

<comment><USER7> My point wasn't that Snap (et al) were supermarkets; my point was that the US and Saudi Arabia sharing Snap allowed the Saudi Arabians to see metaphorical supermarkets inside of the US by easing communication.

I believe that this is significantly more powerful than the other thing, precisely because revealing a failure of providing a standard of living is more motivational than revealing the use of power in a regime like Saudi Arabia.

"Everyone knows the government filters X, but who cares, we can just use Y!" vs "Why do Americans all seem to have Z, but we don't?"

<comment><USER8> I suspect there are plenty of channels through which supermarkets may be observed....

Though this raises the question of how, across multiple cultures, regimes, and times since the early 20th century, government censorship _has_ been perceived.

My understanding is that Pravda and Isvestia were poorly regarded in the Soviet Union. The old joke: "There is no information in Izvestia, there is no truth in Pravda".

Elsewhere? More recently?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _As we've argued in the past, companies should limit their compliance with > foreign governments which are not democratic and where they do not have > employees or other assets on the ground._

Should a company also limit their compliance to a foreign government even if they are "democratic" and where they do not have employees or other assets on the ground?

</comment><comment><USER10> Saudis are LPs in a lot of funds and funds of funds.

So are most not super human rights friendly sovereign wealth funds like Singapore... where it's technically illegal to be publicly gay and I know they use to ban WSJ but not sure if they still do.

</comment><comment><USER11> Could we improve the title to be less clickbait sounding?

<comment><USER11> Thank you!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Now, in the midst of Saudi Arabia's sustained attack on Al Jazeera

If anyone at the EFF is reading this, the link tied to 'sustained attack' is behind a paywall; is there an alternative source that could be used?</comment>


George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1946) - <AUTHOR> https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm <comment><USER2> I love this essay. The whole essay is good, but I really like this paragraph:

>In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called _pacification_. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called _transfer of population or rectification of frontiers_. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called _elimination of unreliable elements_. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

<comment><USER3> Stephen Pinker quotes that exact passage in _The Better Angels of our Nature_. He rebuts:

> Orwell was wrong about one thing: that political euphemism was a phenomenon > of his time. A century and a half before Orwell, Edmund Burke complained > about the euphemisms emanating from revolutionary France:

> "The whole compass of the language is tried to find sinonimies and > circumlocutions for massacres and murder. They are never called by their > common name. Massacre is sometimes called _agitation_, sometimes > _effervescence_, sometimes _excess_; sometimes _too continued an excercise > of a revokutionary power_.

<comment><USER4> Some modern examples: capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion.

All involve killing a human being, but euphemisms are used to soften the reality.

<comment><USER5> whether abortion involves killing a human being is a matter of some debate

<comment><USER6> As someone who believes in "choice", if that's the euphemistic term, I will still argue that abortion absolutely involves killing a human being. That is a thing which you once were, given the natural course of events, it would grow into a living, breathing human like you or I. It's not like a sperm or an egg which have no potential until positive action is taken, the deed is done and that's becoming a human if we let it.

Which is Orwell's point, really. Abortion _is_ death. It also _is_ defensible. But because "killing" is hard and difficult to defend, we come up with euphemistic terms so we can stomach it.

<comment><USER4> I appreciate your intellectual honesty. Abortion is death, taking a human life.

The question is whether the justification suffices. For abortion, the justification is: "Because the mother doesn't want the child, we allow her to kill it in the womb."

<comment><USER7> The womb, her body, is her property. It's unfortunate that the child can't survive outside of it, but that doesn't make throwing it out comparable to Orwell's examples.

<comment><USER2> We don't generally allow people to murder during evictions, and infact often allow several months for the tenant to move out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah, Orwell. This was one of his pet peeves. He spent much of WWII translating news into Basic English for transmission to British colonies. The evasions and hyperbole of political speech had to be expressed in the plain and practical words of Basic English. That's a political act. Newspeak in "1984" came from that experience.

His list of worn-out metaphors understood by few, "ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed" is still apt. "Ring the changes" is misused in today's South China Morning Post.[1] My own favorite is "free rein", which is a horse term. (One not used by riders today; riders say "loose rein".) It often appears today as "free reign".

Today's metaphors come from popular culture rather than the classics, and age faster. This may not be an improvement.

[1] [http://www.scmp.com/sport/rugby/article/2002459/mark- coeberg...](http://www.scmp.com/sport/rugby/article/2002459/mark-coebergh- rewarded-form-hong-kong-ring-changes-asia-rugby-u20-sevens)

<comment><USER9> Indeed, "melting pot" makes me think of think-tanks or a busy "scene" area, it doesn't make me think of an actual melting pot, the words themselves doesn't conjure up the mental image that they refer to, so the strength of the metaphor is weak.

Reading Orwell's own writing in this article "like tea leaves caught in the sink" it conjures up a fresh mental image.

One thing I discovered during 6 years of living in central Europe is that speaking mostly with non-native English speakers leads to a necessary elimination of metaphors; you have to use direct words. I can't say "he's trying to pull the wool over your eyes" or "don't let the cat out of the bag" or whatever, because nobody has any idea what I'm saying, and it's not worth explaining. I considered it a kind of mental training, it taught me to speak plainer English.

<comment><USER10> >the words themselves doesn't conjure up the mental image >that they refer to, so the strength of the metaphor is >weak.

This is a fair summary of the problem with clichés. But as readers we share responsibility for this: if we were to read less casually and more critically, we would identify the metaphor on both levels, and increase our own understanding and experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I consider David Foster Wallace's "Authority and the English Language" to be a spiritual successor to this piece ([http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/AuthorityAndAmericanUsag...](http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/AuthorityAndAmericanUsage.pdf)). I'd recommend it to anyone who likes Orwell's essay.

<comment><USER12> Absolutely. Would give this 10 upvotes if I could and would have said it myself if you had already done so. Also very relevant is the essay "Ideology, Power, and Linguistic Theory"[1] by linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum (2004). I believe the spiritual predecessor of all of these to be in many ways Schopenhauer's (1891) essay "On Style"[2] Both are short, readable, and nutritious. :)

[1] [https://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/MLA2004.pdf](https://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/MLA2004.pdf)

[2] [https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/lit/cha...](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/lit/chapter2.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The below example is stunning. I feel sick to recognize the second paragraph (especially in academic writing), and I feel strong relief that the first paragraph can exist.

> Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

> I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the > battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men > of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance > happeneth to them all.

> Here it is in modern English:

> Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion > that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be > commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the > unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

<comment><USER13> As a counterpoint, I didn't quite understand the point of the first paragraph, until I read the second. And the second paragraph, while less poetic, is clearer in meaning in that it makes a concrete statement that can be evaluated, which in this case is good because it's clearly wrong. Success or failure in competitive activities exhibits a _strong_ correlation with innate ability, otherwise what would innate ability even mean? I don't see how I could make an argument like that on the first paragraph; it's too waffly and vague and grand.

<comment><USER14> I think you have a naive understanding of the theme in these paragraphs. Competitive situations do NOT have a strong correlation with innate ability. Outside factors will often have as much or more influence than innate ability (practice beats talent, as the saying goes). I suppose it depends on which 'competitive situation' we are talking about. That is the point of this comparison, though, saying 'competitive situation' leaves things overly vague.

To take a concrete example, 9/10 startups fail (or something like that, I'm sure someone has the correct ratio). Does that mean that 9/10 founders are innately unfit to found a company? It seems much more likely that success is a combination of getting the right people working on the right project at the right time in the right place and being noticed by the right people. Even the well educated, connected, entrepreneurial founder might fail because of any one of those (or other) factors.

The first paragraph explains this concept succinctly and beautifully. The fact that the second does not convey this meaning while technically containing the same information, is the point of this article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This essay has been on HN a few times before, but I'm upvoting this anyways. It's one of the greatest essays ever written. It will change how you write, and how you perceive the writing of others.

<comment><USER16> My favorite history professor in college plugged this essay in all of his courses. He often said it was one of the most important essays to read if you want to understand why politicians and public figures speak the way they do. It's one of those great essays that everyone should read at least once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What's frustrating about Orwell's writing advice here is that it doesn't really improve society unless everyone does it. If I write using Orwell's rules and my political opponent doesn't, I'll likely lose.

If anything, I wish that the phenomenon Orwell is describing would be used by the people on the "right" side more often--but people who are doing what they think is right don't as often feel the need to obfuscate it for PR purposes.

Ultimately I think understanding the phenomenon Orwell describes is fundamental. You should be able to read "Two died after a shooting incident involving LAPD officers" and know to look further to discover that meant "LAPD shot and killed two unarmed black men". But actually following Orwell's advice on how to write puts you at a disadvantage. Playing by the rules when your opponents aren't is a fool's game.

<comment><USER18> I don't think that is evident at all. Clear writing will resonate with the reader far more than hackneyed, pretentious constructions.

Many of the best communicators in history successfully employed "simpler" verbal constructions than those Orwell rails against.

<comment><USER17> > I don't think that is evident at all. Clear writing will resonate with the > reader far more than hackneyed, pretentious constructions.

Then why are all the most popular news sources full of clickbait, inflammatory headlines, and cliffhanger hooks?

> Many of the best communicators in history successfully employed "simpler" > verbal constructions than those Orwell rails against.

History is written by historians, and historians are biased toward things that interest them. Simpler verbal constructions might get written about more by an educated historian, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were the most influential in their time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Marxism and the Problem of Linguistics" (1950) by Stalin [1] is an interesting read to go alongside this. You've got Stalin saying that we shouldn't distort language so much so that it loses it's practical use in everyday matters simply because it is inherited from pre-communist ideologies. In a way he is saying that the slippery slope of language manipulation is useful for political purposes, but should not be followed all the way down into impracticality. This was a problem Stalin had as people were excessively fanatical to the point of absurdity to avoid being purged, so he had to give them the ability to limit their fanaticism by saying that some allowance for practicality in the use of language was part of the Stalinist orthodoxy and thus not "reactionary".

[1] [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950...](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950/jun/20.htm)

</comment><comment><USER20> On the other hand, there is Samuel Johnson's observation in his Life of Milton:

"No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations, and of kings, sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them."

</comment><comment><USER21> When I hear neologisms from the radical left or right this is the first thing that comes to mind. I don't take it as a writing style guide, rather as a guide to spotting tyranny.

The neologisms from FOX and social justice warriors are politics of language.

<comment><USER22> You know Orwell himself was a fairly radical leftist, at least in his youth? He fought in a Trotskyite group in the Spanish Civil War.

People read Animal Farm's denunciations of the founding of the USSR and confuse his anti-Soviet stance with an anti-socialist stance. He was disillusioned with the behavior of the Russian communists during the Spanish Civil War, which really turned him against them.

(The anti-fascist coalition was broadly anarchist, with a smattering of foreign, communist, socialist and other forces. Despite being <5% of the total coalition, the Russian communist government refused to provide material aid unless their forces were put in charge, which the coalition declined. Since the western governments (Britain, France, US) refused to help at all, the anti-fascist forces had no support, and were overwhelmed by Franco, ushering in decades of fascism in Spain.)

<comment><USER21> Interesting, thank you. However I did not intend to condemn all radical politics. Rather my point was that the promulgation of any political views by foisting a sympathetic vocabulary onto the public is tyrannical. Are there any political ideas that require a new vocabulary? I don't know.

<comment><USER23> > Rather my point was that the promulgation of any political views by foisting > a sympathetic vocabulary onto the public is tyrannical.

but the examples you gave of political views were "Far Left" "Fox News" "Social Justice Warriors" whereas George Orwell would be concerned about how the seemingly staid mainstream's use of political language. 'smart bombs' 'neutralize target' 'pacification [of Vietnam]' etc are all vocabulary promulgated by establishment politicians and mainstream newspapers and vastly more dangerous than what "social justice warriors" try to foist.

<comment><USER21> You're right in that the mainstream is guilty as well. I see SJWs as attempting to suppress free speech however, which I perceive as unambiguously tyrannical.

<comment><USER24> Do you not see a problem with your rhetoric? "SJW" is something Orwell would take issue with, especially your use of it.

<comment><USER21> I'm not so sure. "Social justice" often tramples free speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am enjoying the essay, to the extent that it makes C++ and its compile times seem not so bad.

But how much of the badness is really unique to the English language, or to the modern world?

My guess is that all times and places have wallowed in mushy rhetoric, and always will. If we look back at Pericles or Cicero or Jefferson and see better verbiage, that's because we are selecting for it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm surrounded by people who speak 'politically'. Rather than making their statements clear and explicit, they structure their words in ways that allow them to conceal the true meaning of what they said. Using verbs to misrepresent meaning makes it tough to have good communication and solid understanding between group members.

<comment><USER27> Be an example to others, speak plainly and clearly when opportunity presents itself. Assuming you are not in a too bad place, this may win you some friends who are made of the right stuff and separate you from those who like to impress, control or deceive with language. Of course, leaving for the better environment is sometimes the best option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > _If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out._

Does anybody know if this has been (properly) studied? It's not quite so obvious that succinctness is good for readability and comprehension, and I think it could also go the other way.

<comment><USER29> I don't know whether this has been or can be studied formally, but anecdotally I think modern writing often suffers from excess verbiage. Essays sometimes go on for a long time without saying much, and this can cause a lot of frustration for readers. I'm sure many of you have felt this frustration when reading political opinion pieces.

A fun exercise that illustrates Orwell's point, when reading a sentence, see how much you can reduce it without losing its original meaning. For instance, I frame your question as follows:

"Do we know if this has been studied? It's not obvious that succinctness is better for readability and comprehension. It might be worse."

You can think of this as the writer's version of code golf.

<comment><USER30> >but anecdotally I think modern writing often suffers from excess verbiage.

I love how meta this sentence is :)

<comment><USER29> ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Truly a great essay... When I reread it a couple years ago I made the semi- serious connection to bad but all too common object oriented programming practices as exemplified in Yegge's [http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom...](http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-nouns.html) Orwell says:

> As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in > picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in > order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long > strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and > making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way > of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have > the habit -- to say _In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption > that_ than to say _I think_. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only > don't have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother with > the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged > as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry -- when > you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech > -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like _a > consideration which we should do well to bear in mind_ or _a conclusion to > which all of us would readily assent_ will save many a sentence from coming > down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save > much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for > your reader but for yourself.

To me it's a funny, semi-serious connection. I see many Javalanders are very happy with Java, and have been for quite some time. For them it's easier, and quicker once they're in the habit, to fire up Eclipse (or IntelliJ), autocomplete and autorefactor and glue together this and that without having to think much (hey tests are green!), sling giant names and namespaces around dozens of files and directories up and down various call stacks in and out of giant systems like Spring and Hibernate, a few even try to match large programming patterns to everything... Yet still they frequently fail to convey in code just what exactly is actually happening. In many cases they just needed a few functions in a file or two with concise names that can be remembered and typed without assistance, even written faithfully on paper without having to use shorthand.

</comment><comment><USER32> I recall reading one of Christopher Hitchens' essays on language, where he referred back to this essay of Orwell's.

(I don't believe it was in his book 'Why Orwell Matters', but maybe it was.)

Hitch is possibly best known now as a vocal anti-theist, but his writings on language (mis-)use are delightful pieces.

</comment><comment><USER33> oppressive ideology in close association with bad prose, love this essay.

</comment><comment><USER34> Using the opulent language Orwell argues against in English language tests like IELTS is a sure way to increase your score.

<comment><USER35> To be fair, anyone who can use that kind of language does have enough grasp of English to communicate, if they choose to!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I detest this essay. I won't go too far into the reasons why, because David Beaver has already done an excellent job of that: [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992)

I'd also agree with Geoff Pullum's characterization of it as "a smug, arrogant, dishonest tract full of posturing and pothering, and writing advice that ranges from idiosyncratic to irrational" ([http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/04/04/eliminati...](http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/04/04/elimination- of-the-fittest/))

But apart from it being a very poor source of writing advice, I don't believe it's accurate in its diagnosis of _how_ language is deployed for political ends—the question is a much more complicated one than he claims here.

There exist actual good books that can teach you how to write better, instead of patting you on the back and allowing you to tut-tut at those plebians who write things that are "outright barbarous". Pinker's _The Sense of Style_ is one of those; Ann Lamott's _Bird by Bird_ is another. There also exist much better (and more accurate and scientific) resources about how language actually affects the way we think about things. Benjamin Bergen's _Louder than Words_ is an excellent start, and virtually anything from Lakoff's long list of publications is worth reading— _Metaphors We Live By_ is the classic, but _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things_ in particular is excellent from his more recent work.

<comment><USER37> The piece by David Beaver seems quite poor to me. What sense does it have to turn the Orwell's sixth rule ("feel free to break the rules if they stand in the way of plain speech") into a paradox? Its meaning is obvious. Bashing the active/passive voice rule or the use of metaphors is pure nit-picking, as already said by iso-8859-1. (And "milquetoast simulacra", WTF?)

<comment><USER38> A lot of people seem to get very angry about this. I wonder if this has more to do with memories of English teaching at school - where sometimes they do terrible things to writing - than to the content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Despite the fact it was meant for something probably different, this reminds me of what Umberto Eco wrote in his "Ur-Fascism": [...] _We kids hurried to pick up the shells, precious items, but I had also learned that freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric._

And, sad enough, nowadays we are full of rhetoric.

</comment><comment><USER40> Great essay, and a mantra to live by - "If it is possible to cut a word, cut it."

</comment><comment><USER41> I remember reading this in my high school English class, it was really the only substantive work that I ever come across on how not to write badly. I could never find another how-to work on how to keep your writing from being bad.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've often (but only casually) wondered why "Orwelianism" isn't a thing, like Marxism or Leninism or Reaganism/Thatcherism. I kind of understand why, as I think his world view outs such things as inherently abhorrent, but since when has that stopped people making idols out of people and dogma out of the things they say?

But still, it would be nice if "Orwelianism" meant "Adhering to the principles of George Orwell in encouraging critical thinking and considered reasoned observation" and if it became a school of political thought... alas, all good ideas are corrupted in the end, but human progress walks on the stepping stones of ideologies, and it seems we've had nothing but nasty ones for a very long time.

<comment><USER43> > encouraging critical thinking and considered reasoned observation

That's already called rationalism and/or empiricism. Why does it need a surname attached to it? It would only obscure the meaning. I think Orwell himself would not be pleased; he very much argued in favour of expressing yourself clearly. I think he has even wrote some kind of essay about it, but I can't recall the title.

<comment><USER42> I'm not saying Orwelianism should be a thing, I'm wondering why it isn't. As I said in my comment, it doesn't matter what Orwell himself has to say on the matter. By all accounts, Jesus (if he were a real figure) wasn't keen on the idea of organised religion, yet here we are. Once your dead, you lose any say in the matter and the words you leave behind will be appropriated, decontextualised and regurgitated to make you say things you never would.

I think Orwell has a lot of the traits that made people like Marx idols. A good chunk of his writing is actually instruction. And he has a lot of fans, but no fanatics. I merely find it curious that Orewlianism isn't an ideology.

I did take an extra step and pondered wether it would be a good thing, but that's a throw away thought.

<comment><USER27> > Jesus (if he were a real figure) wasn't keen on the idea of organised > religion, yet here we are.

That's interesting, could you post a source (if Bible, the book and verse?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Is this essay still under US copyright?

</comment><comment><USER12> What's the canonical way to cite this essay? Answers on the back of a bibtex napkin please.

</comment><comment><USER45> The proposed French translation is awful :)

</comment><comment><USER46> People want to promote horrible policies without Trumping themselves.

<comment><USER47> Not sure I understand?

<comment><USER46> Every time Donald Trump opens his mouth, something horrible comes out. His supporters are right about one thing: he says what he believes with almost no brain-mouth filter, and that's really the best thing about him.

People who support odious policies and want to see them enacted can't do that, so they have to weasel-word it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I used to like this essay, but the folks over at [UPenn's Language Log]([http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992)) do a great takedown of it, and I am inclined to agree with them. Orwell is extremely hypocritical (which many people try to claim is a "deliberate stroke of genius", with very little evidence to support it).

It's particularly a hit amongst center-left liberals who are emboldened into feeling like they are very righteous by not doing anything at all. The more accurate observation comes from commenter Mark F:

> _The reason Orwell 's essay makes some people angry is that it depicts > violations of stylistic rules as moral violations. Use the passive, it says, > and you are playing into the hands of the totalitarians._ I think that's > also why some people like it; people can feel like they're defending the > cause of freedom by writing concisely.

> _I tend to side with the former camp. I think people pick up on cant pretty > well without his help, except when it 's telling them something they already > want to believe. And in the latter case his help is no use._

<comment><USER48> It's also worth reading Asimov review of Orwell's 1984 ([http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm](http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm)).

There's a kind of person out there who really likes George Orwell, Steven Pinker, David Foster Wallace, Christopher Hitchens, etc. which all pander to a political sensibility that is very self-congratulatory about inaction, and consistently says "things are fine, don't rock the boat, you'll make things worse".

It's ironic that on HN, critics of Orwell's work are said to be "your typical critics", but really, it's Orwell and Pinker and co. that consistently push/pushed out tracts that are critical takedowns of third parties. So their readers are now smugly self-satisfied twice over: once when agreeing with the authors, once while dismissing their critics.

<comment><USER21> You have a point. There is always that possibility that a particular employment of language politics is just, so to reject all political neologisms risks rejecting the just ones too.

I struggle with the language of women's rights, for instance. I think about Orwell when I hear 'mansplaining' for example. Yet, at the same time I often see challenges that are unique to women.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Orwell's advice on how to write better English is at best naively harmfully, and at worst cravenly hypocritical. He never followed his own "rules", why in the hell should anyone else? Answer: because his rules are self-serving bullshit.

Case in point: Orwell uses passive constructions 40% more frequently than than an average English corpus. This essay is full of them. Language Log did a brilliant analysis of the essay's towering inaccuracy and hypocrisy:

[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992)

\---

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

And wouldn't you know it, the very first sentence of Orwell's essay runs:

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it.

\---

His rules are bullshit, and he knew it, which is why he was smart enough to ignore them completely.

<comment><USER50> I'm not sure how you're able to conclude that the guidelines are bullshit just because he himself fails to adhere strictly to them. All authors break their own guidelines from time to time.

I feel like this is something the HN audience should be familiar with. At least I personally know a lot of guidelines for creating maintainable software, but there are a host of conditions which will cause me to bypass them anyway.

<comment><USER9> The article itself basically says "I break these rules regularly, I'm not perfect either". But I think some people like to point out people's flaws to show off. Orwell's article is sincere.

<comment><USER51> Sounds cynical, but you're right. And people that like ti point out flaws in everything are "something the HN audience should be familiar with" :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Maps is mapping the indoors - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/111401917971052287374/posts/4LX2Kuw4N3J

<comment><AUTHOR> Related: [https://plus.google.com/111401917971052287374/posts/QsDJ3xQF...](https://plus.google.com/111401917971052287374/posts/QsDJ3xQFVGE)</comment>


Robot Exclusion Protocol - <AUTHOR> http://www.ftrain.com/robot_exclusion_protocol.html

<comment><USER2> I say "You understand Google, person?" at work a lot. Only strange looks so far.

</comment><comment><USER3> Note: This article was written in February 2002.</comment>


Build a Friction Welder (2012) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0zpqhhcmp4 <comment><USER2> If you want to see the effect of friction welding you only need 7 hexagonal plastic pencils:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn3VFXBTsDU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn3VFXBTsDU) (it's in German but captions should work well)

</comment><comment><USER3> Related: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF1mOTsYB0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF1mOTsYB0Q)

</comment><comment><USER4> Fran rocks.</comment>


Show HN: Share text and links between all your devices - <AUTHOR> http://cntrlc.me

<comment><USER2> Solves a need, but Apple (if you use both a Mac and iOS) and Pushbullet can do similar functionality way better. Still, I'm glad people are building these sorts of things.

<comment><USER3> Yup. Pushbullet is one my favorite and most used app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like a cool idea, but the site is not loading for me (stuck on loading spinner, no errors in console) - in Firefox/Mac.

Syncing content is a pain - the most convenient way I have of sharing data between my iphone and my mac is taking a photo of the screen! It takes 1 second and I don't have to open anything on my desktop.

Obviously that's a hack, so anything to make this process easier sounds good to me!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for trying it! I'll fix that asap.

[Edit]: Oops, can't duplicate on my Firefox/Mac. By chance do you see a console error (before I can add Sentry to the site)?

<comment><USER5> (Not the GP) I had the same stuck on spinner issue until I white listed the site in Disconnect (FF 36 on OSX).

Now it's white listed the page loads fully, with one warning in the web console, concerning [https://www.facebook.com/v2.2/plugins/login_button.php?...](https://www.facebook.com/v2.2/plugins/login_button.php?...):

This site makes use of a SHA-1 Certificate; it's recommended you use certificates with signature algorithms that use hash functions stronger than SHA-1.

<comment><USER4> Yep, sorry - was the "Disconnect" plugin. Sorry for the false report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool idea for a simple problem that I commonly encounter myself. I'd try it if I had a Facebook account. Other commenters mention existing apps with this functionality built in, but I like seeing these stripped-down solutions if you don't have, want or need the other apps. Which is sort of why the Facebook requirement is disappointing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I went back and forth on the Facebook thing. I think my generation cares a lot more about it than the younger generations - on the whole they just don't seem to care at all. FB is the absolute easiest - just one click and it's done. At the end of the day, that was the most compelling reason. It's open source, so if you want to help add other options... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Facebook login makes security quick and easy, and no Facebook permissions > are asked for.

Please don't. There are other ways to archive this, simple username and password using passport middleware for example. Forcing to connect to facebook just for a security manner seems lazy.

Great app and great idea. Love how simple it is.

</comment><comment><USER8> I made something similar a year ago. You just have to be on the same local network. [https://zach-share.herokuapp.com/](https://zach- share.herokuapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Cool. I use Google Keep for this.

</comment><comment><USER10> Always wanted this. Wanted to build myself but never happened. Good job!</comment>


Effortless post deployment testing with GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://assertible.com/blog/effortless-post-deployment-testing-github# <comment><AUTHOR> We've been working on a service to make post-deployment testing & monitoring web services turnkey (as simple as connecting CircleCI or Travis to a repository).

Assertible connects to a GitHub repositories deployment events and runs tests in response to successful deployments.

We are happy to listen & discuss any feedback!</comment>


Hero Patterns – A collection of SVG background patterns for your web projects - <AUTHOR> http://www.heropatterns.com <comment><USER2> Same UI designer is giving away quality SVG icons as well: [http://www.zondicons.com/icons.html](http://www.zondicons.com/icons.html)

<comment><USER3> Thank you for sharing! Is there any way to support these works?

<comment><USER4> Yes, the designer is creating some SVG icons[0] which you can get a discount on, if you sign up to the newsletter.

[0][http://www.heroicons.com](http://www.heroicons.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder how different browsers rasterize tiling SVG backgrounds. Ideally they should rasterize it once to a buffer and then just blit it a bunch of times. But if any browser tries to rasterize it every repetition that's a ton of vector drawing for some of those patterns and it may be hella slow on some device/browser combinations.

It's not immediately clear that they would do the smart thing because most times SVGs are rendered only once so you would want to render it directly. It's only tiling backgrounds where this optimization makes sense. But I think as a consequence of it being treated as an image in CSS rather than a DOM SVG element it's quite likely most browsers do render it to a buffer first, not as an optimization but just because they treat rasterizing an SVG just like decoding a PNG.

If nobody has noticed these being super slow I guess browsers are doing the smart thing.

<comment><USER6> On Chrome Mobile, it's just as speedy as any other website.

<comment><USER7> Can you specify Android or iOS? Android chrome is vastly different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool project. Did you consider adding a scale/zoom control? I think it would be a nice feature.

<comment><USER9> +1 for zoom. The only other way to do it would be using pseudo elements and scaling it—or something or other. But offering zoom on this site would be nice :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't explain why I absolutely love the _titles_ of the patterns. They're deliciously predictable, but just slightly unpredictable.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice work. I will definitely use this website.

</comment><comment><USER12> Note that some high frequency patterns cause horrible flashes and flickers when scrolling (or sometimes even when stationary) on some LCD monitors.

</comment><comment><USER13> Small suggestion: make the patterns bigger. Not many people do that, but it can give pretty good results every now and then

<comment><USER14> A long time ago, I figured I'd save bandwidth by making the background image a single pixel (don't ask why I didn't just set the background color, I don't have a good reason). That was back in the days when web designers tried to make their pages less than 15k.

The rendering of the image on the background in Netscape was so slow, you could see it draw the lines across the screen.

<comment><USER15> :) I encountered that with 2x2 gifs, two diagonal black against two alpha, to make a darkening half tone. Looked ok visually, but boy did it sieze browsers up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great work! Is it ok for commercial use?

<comment><USER17> Yes, license is CC BY-SA, [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

<comment><USER18> > If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute > your contributions under the same license as the original.

> build upon the material

Is there clearly defined difference between "build upon the material" and "using the material as part of your project"? Commercial use in most cases involves not wanting to release your own project under CC BY-SA 4.0. Even though it's possible to combine both (commercial use and CC BY-SA 4.0 for your own product), it's highly unlikely.

<comment><USER19> Yes. Use is simply that. You use it and don't modify it.

If your 'use' is more than copy & paste, you've probably crossed the line into the 'remix, transform, or build upon the material' line and need to distribute your versions of these things under the same license.

This doesn't mean your entire product needs to be under the license, only the derivative part(s).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Cool to see something built with Vue.js</comment>


Ask HN: Scala web devs, describe your stack - <AUTHOR>

How does web programming in Scala look like? Which stack is used? What kind of issues are you experiencing with frameworks like Play? <comment><USER2> First its recommended to have sbt installed. Also, I love giter8 which lets you setup your project structure layout like a snap.

Play is an awesome MVC framework inspired by Rails, so if your background is Ruby on Rails you'll love Play.

Recently, I developed an API using LiftWeb which is a lightweight full-stack web framework. It has many features that you may not find in other Scala frameworks like Comet and ajax support.

I dont have experience with developing UI with Lift, but the API I designed using Lift's net.liftweb.http._ can handle more than any application I developed using Ruby.

On the other hand, if you want a solid Database library, I used Squeryl and Slick, and for MongoDB: Rogue by Foursquare.

</comment><comment><USER3> Our stack Play 2.1, MongoDb and we use Lift mongo driver and Rogue DSL. I use incremental run (~run) when developing and can attach Intellij IDEA debugger so it's usually a pleasure to develop. In general IDEA's Play plugin is rather helpful. Sometimes I would like to add more conventions to Play (for routing, data binding) but that's probably because of my previous experience with Rails. Static typing is a good assistance when you develop something with non- trivial logics. Community is not as large as for say Rails, Django and sometimes I missed plugins (say for Hogan.js).

</comment><comment><USER4> Play 2.1 here. Scala for web dev is awesome. Other than I don't like Anorm, no issues with Play.</comment>


Star Trek Fans Make More Money (In This Specific Situation) - <AUTHOR> http://compellingsciencefiction.com/blog/2016-10-23-2.html <comment><USER2> Star Wars fans always ride single file... to hide their numbers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd recommend digging in to the raw data from the stackoverflow developer survey, there's some good stuff in there</comment>