How Typography Affects Readers - <AUTHOR> http://www.adpushup.com/blog/how-typography-affects-readers/ <comment><USER2> I did not finish that article precisely because of their fonts.

When I first opened the page, the text was displayed in a "Times" font, which looked very crisp but surprisingly bland, considering the topic of the text. I have NoScript running and I realized it was probably blocking the script that downloads a custom font. (In this case, "Karla" from googleapis.) Digging deeper, their css rules don't specify a fallback font (the css file _does_ , but it is overwritten by an inline style), so Firefox defaulted to the 'Times' font.

Ok, I thought, let me see that font-magic they are talking about in action, and I enabled scripts on adpushup.com. The result was... suboptimal. The letter spacing was huge and the fonts were extremely blurry.

I probably can't blame them for the fact the font displayed blurry. (A Firefox problem? Maybe Windows? I don't know what is going on in the background.) But I can, and I do, blame them for not being aware of the blurriness problem (Windows XP + Firefox can't be such a rare combination) and for not specifying a proper fallback font.

Well, those two things bugged me enough to stop reading.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

Thanks for pointing this out. XP+FF is indeed important, it is about 4% of our traffic. The CSS fallback is being fixed.

The font looks same on 7 & XP both: [http://www.browserstack.com/screenshots/21265f29764195b7a298...](http://www.browserstack.com/screenshots/21265f29764195b7a2985887cf62e7daebdf6f27) [http://www.browserstack.com/screenshots/a81e07f3288687d3fc0f...](http://www.browserstack.com/screenshots/a81e07f3288687d3fc0f5344c554a9ff3686c911)

Would you be kind enough to upload a screenshot of the blurry font? :)

<comment><USER2> Sure! Here is what I see (with scripts enabled):

[http://postimg.org/image/572wjz4rp/](http://postimg.org/image/572wjz4rp/)

It's similar to what browserstack shows (the wavy look of the top bar of the capital T in the headline, the "hat" on the capital O in the text), but in some ways it looks worse on my system, especially the bold face:

[http://postimg.org/image/r4zddrjs5/](http://postimg.org/image/r4zddrjs5/)

Note the jaggy lower part of the bold, lower case y, and how the bottom of the bold lower case e and the top of the bold lower case t are thinning out precariously..

Times, on the other hand, does not look blurry:

[http://postimg.org/image/4cl9wjwql/](http://postimg.org/image/4cl9wjwql/)

Maybe my eyes need recalibration, but personally I find times much easier to read, mostly due to its crispness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ironically, the font family "Karla" on that blog makes the text quite difficult to read. ([http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Karla](http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Karla))

They might benefit from inspecting their own quotations more closely: "when it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful." (Frutiger)

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't agree with a lot of the explanations/guidelines this article gives.

An actually good article about guidelines for Typography: [The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard]([http://ia.net/blog/100e2r/](http://ia.net/blog/100e2r/))

<comment><USER5> I'll say this much. The article you linked to is much, much easier on the eyes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The New York Times ran a series of stories last year by Errol Morris that suggested that the use of certain fonts resulted in the reader being more likely to believe what was written. The articles reference other similar research; I found the whole thing fascinating.

Part One: [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/hear-all- ye-...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/hear-all-ye-people- hearken-o-earth/)

Part Two: [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/hear-all- ye-...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/hear-all-ye-people- hearken-o-earth-part-2/)

[EDIT: And of course, now that I dig into the article, I see that it references these Errol Morris articles, too.]

</comment><comment><USER7> I've personally seen proper typesetting with Baskerville or Computer Modern using TeX changing "needs more work" draft essays into an "Excellent" mark without content changes. More so, just using paragraph indentation instead of spacing was enough at times.

</comment><comment><USER8> Any article on typography that uses word shape as an actual model of word recognition instantly loses my attention. For better approaches, see [http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfonts/wordrecognition....](http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfonts/wordrecognition.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know if the laws that require tobacco companies, for instance, to place health warnings on cigarette boxes also specify the appearance of the label (e.g., font family or size). If not, this article seems to suggest that companies should seek out typography, such as comic sans, that would lessen the negative effects of such labels.

</comment><comment><USER10> How do dyslexic fonts like OpenDyslexic[0], Eulexia[1], and AlphaSymbolic[2] fit into all of this talk on normative typesetting ? And the internal rift of Open Source latent to this discussion, with fonts like Dyslexie[3] ?

The underlying question here is the need to expose and enhance accessibility around typefaces and metanotational typefaces. I believe that we should not design to our demographic, because how do we truly know? Rather we should make it possible for our demographic, whoever it is, to preferrentially set typefaces to their cognitive and aesthetic needs, to shape the stage of reception.

I say this primarily for the fact that many designs I do come across in websites, once I apply a font like OpenDyslexic using browser extensions, for instance, those designs fail, become distorted, elements shift about, become hidden or obscured, etc.

Adding to that: what about color? Contrast? Do certain fonts work better on inverted or otherwise?

I want to ask: What if that Higgs boson article had been set in OpenDyslexic? I run a similar experiment on my own blog[4], where I set a font tailored for dyslexics as the primary font (with hooks to change contrast and to set AlphaSymbolic in the "sticky footer"): I receive similarly negative responses.

Does our industry even have the conceptual layout to meaningfully ask these types of questions, and does it have the economic and aesthetic infrastructure to initiate and sincerely act upon whatever answers and strategies we decide upon?

[0]: [http://opendyslexic.org/](http://opendyslexic.org/)

[1]: [http://antijingoist.github.io/Eulexia/](http://antijingoist.github.io/Eulexia/)

[2]: [http://antijingoist.github.io/AlphaSymbolic/](http://antijingoist.github.io/AlphaSymbolic/)

[3]: [http://www.studiostudio.nl/](http://www.studiostudio.nl/)

[4]: [http://webjournal.nerdfiles.net/the-semantic- web/](http://webjournal.nerdfiles.net/the-semantic-web/)

<comment><USER11> All I can add is my partner is a dyslexia teacher and assessor, and we tested those fonts on a range of pupils when building her latest website. None aided our sample.

Dyslexia is a very broad definition, and I can imagine they could work for certain types of dyslexia but not others.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious to know the scope and concrete findings and anecdotal findings/reports of your tests.

What was the nature of the literature/content on the website? Longform? Marketing? Blurbs? Did you test for memory? Comprehension? Speed?

Aside from aiding, did the fonts hurt comprehension? Hurt readability?

<comment><USER11> There were no concrete findings - these were informal tests in a field where concrete findings are nigh-on impossible.

The website is a mix of marketing and longform, advertising dyslexia services. Often it's read by the parent of a dyslexic so there's two audiences to address. Of the dyslexics we tested with, all found the fonts hurt readability and they were seeing individual letters (instead of words) _more_ than they were with a standard font (Source Sans Pro). The parents we also tested found the 'Dyslexic' fonts very hard to read. So for our small sample of children it didn't help, and in this situation wasn't worth pursuing.

Most of these children IIRC find a coloured overlay is all they need to read acceptably; colour and contrast is another thing I'd have liked to test but there's only so much you can subject children (who aren't your own) to!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it possible to determine what proportion of browsers actually accept the specified fonts and colours into which designers pour so much time and thought?

'Ignore fonts specified by websites' is one of the quickest usability configurations, particularly for people with impaired vision.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure about the 'research' part of this article. That Twitter exploded when Higgs was announced in Comic Sans? So what? Its a hot button, and a flash-mob flaming on it is not much of a datapoint.

<comment><AUTHOR> This Case Study of Higgs simply proves why selecting an appropriate font is important. This is followed by data of experiments done by Errol Morris.

<comment><USER13> It proves nothing - Comic Sans is a hot-button, a singularity. If they had used Ariel instead of Courier, would Twitter have exploded? No? It had nothing to do with the effectiveness of the font, it was just a nerd thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exploded? No.

But that's what we've been trying to find with this article: How Typography affects users.

From the different researches cited in the articles (all backed with data), font selection did seem to make a difference. Maybe Little.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mt. Gox finds 200,000 BTC in their old wallet (Japanese) - <AUTHOR> http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=hr&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fheadlines.yahoo.co.jp%2Fhl%3Fa%3D20140321-00000038-yom-sci&act=url

<comment><USER2> The level of incompetence and lack of basic structure and organization at these bitcoin "banks" is just shocking.

The biggest hurdle to bitcoin will be finding real brick and mortar "banks" that can reassure people that they understand security beyond trivial platitudes.

Few were comfortable with retail banking until Deposit Insurance was created.

Bitcoin will need a similar thing. Except nobody can provide insurance to companies built in a couple months by one geek on php.

<comment><USER3> Banks pay out interest on deposits and lend money. Mtgox was an exchange, not a bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Little more dramatic than finding a $20 in an old pair of jeans...

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone could translate it please?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you monitor your services? - <AUTHOR>

I like http://www.cacti.net/, what else do people use? <comment><USER2> I used nagios (still do) but I found it frustrating and complecated to set up.

I started writing little one-off perl scripts that send an email for the alert.

However, managing and monitoring the email folders is tedious and taking up too much time.

</comment><comment><USER3> xymon/hobbit (<http://sourceforge.net/projects/hobbitmon>)

The name change was due to trademark issues (<http://www.hswn.dk/hobbiton/2008/11/msg00123.html>) ...not sure Gandalf would aprrove, but it keeps lawyers happy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nagios and Cacti.

</comment><comment><USER3> Used to use Big Brother.

</comment><comment><USER5> munin and pingdom.com</comment>


Comcast releases 'AFTR': Open Source IPv4 to IPv6 Routing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.comcast.com/2010/03/comcast-labs-and-isc-donate-ipv6-open-source-software-to-open-source-community.html

<comment><USER2> Good for them. I have very few kind words for Comcast, RCN, AT&T, and their ilk, but I have to say that this was a surprisingly forward-thinking decision on their part.

<comment><USER3> The only reason I'm still a Comcast customer is because I want to be in their IPv6 beta trials.

<comment><USER4> The only reason I'm still a Comcast customer is because there's no other broadband alternative in my area.

No, 128 kbps is not broadband. So, I'm stuck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really cool to see. IPv6 is the internet's "peak oil" problem, or a "long emergency" - most seem to think of the transition as a "maybe someday" nice to have, without realizing how few blocks remain in the IPv4 address space.

It's refreshing to see a major ISP take the initiative to prepare their networks, but also release software to help others route between IPv4 and IPv6 networks. Speaking of which, you can download it here: <https://www.isc.org/software/aftr>

That said...I'd prefer that most of the source weren't a 13,217-line file with rare, cryptic comments called "aftr.c" ;-).

PDF'd manpages: <http://u.phoreo.com/rh.pdf>

<comment><USER6> IPv6 is more like "solar power" in your analogy. We're going to run out of oil/IPv4 someday and have to replace it with something, but not necessarily IPv6.

Actually IPv6 is probably more like "atomic fusion" - some utopian grand project that will fix everything but nobody quite knows how we're going to get it to work.

<comment><USER7> The idea that IPv4 will be replaced with something that isn't IPv6 is no longer credible. We need a solution in 2012, and nothing else is going to be ready by that time.

<comment><USER6> Well it wouldn't take much for something else to outpace the adoption rate of IPv6. I think something will come along that is backwards compatible with v4. We're already seeing things like carrier grade NAT that are just bandaids but we can live with bandaids for a long time...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I found this relevant NANOG37 (2006) presentation pretty interesting about Comcast's IP space problem: [http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog37/abstracts.php?pt=MzQ5J...](http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog37/abstracts.php?pt=MzQ5Jm5hbm9nMzc=&nm=nanog37) "Managing 100+ million IP addresses"

</comment><comment><USER9> On a related note, can I as a consumer do anything to help IPv6 along?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, you can sign up to be a Comcast IPv6 beta tester: <http://www.comcast6.net/volunteer.php>

<comment><USER4> I wonder what are the potential problems.

I've a Linux system as a NAT firewall in front of everything else. It's also running an email server and a couple websites (via a dynamic IP provider). Behind it there's a couple laptops, two desktops, game consoles, iPhones, etc.

I wonder what's going to stop working if I switch to IPv6 for my frontend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For a long time there was a resistance in the ipv6 crowd from doing something like this, due to the fact that it would make having an ipv4 only service an upside-only proposition (all ipv4 and ipv6 nodes can reach you) thus slowing down the adoption of ipv6.

Since ipv6 can't possibly be adapted slower than it is now _shrug_

</comment><comment><USER11>
      static char addrbuf[8][NI_MAXHOST]; /* XXX ugly thread-unsafe hack */

      /* XXX: assume this succeeds */
      inet_ntop(family, addr, cp, NI_MAXHOST);

<comment><USER12> At least they're honest about it. Calling them out because they were blunt in a comment just encourages them to be more subtle, not necessarily write better code.

And particularly in an open-source project, bluntness like that is helpful since it tells other contributors what needs to be replaced ASAP.</comment></comment>


No Intelligent Aliens Detected in Gliese 581 - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/space/no-intelligent-aliens-in-gleise-581-are-home-120602.html <comment><USER2> I now think there might be a decent chance we really are alone, after reading this interesting timeline of the far future: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future>

We've only got one sample to generalize from, so let's take a look at this history of life on Earth. Complex single cell life is about 2 billion years old. Multicellular life is about a billion years old. Complex animals are about half a billion years old.

In about 600 million years (assuming no intelligence intervenes) decreasing CO2 levels will make C3 photosynthesis impossible. Almost all plants will then die. That will be bad news for most animal life, too.

By 800 million years from now, C4 photosynthesis will no longer be possible, and all plants go, followed by free oxygen, and we lose all multicellular life.

If that's typical for planets that can bear life, there isn't a big window for intelligence to develop. From complex animals to the end of multicellular life is only about 1.3 billion years.

In that time, you'll have a few super volcanoes and asteroid impacts and irradiations from nearby supernovas and several trips of your solar system around its galactic orbit (each of which can have a period of exposure to the galactic bow shock, which some scientists think causes dangerous levels of cosmic rays)--plenty of opportunities for a major extinction event to shake things up. Note that humans barely made it--the Toba super volcano around 70k years ago is though to have reduced humanity to between 1k and 10k breeding pairs.

It seems quite possible that we got lucky, and developed intelligence much faster than would by typical, and that a species on a more normal pace to intelligence simply doesn't have time to evolve it before their planet becomes incapable of supporting multicellular life.

Of course, it is also possible that we were slow, and that elsewhere the first complex animals to evolve go on to develop intelligence, in which case the galaxy could easily be full of intelligent life.</comment>


Computer, Draw an Open Toilet Sitting in a Grassy Field - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/computer-draw-an-open-toilet-sitting-in-a-grassy-field <comment><AUTHOR> Paper is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10568265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10568265)</comment>


This Is What Fish Oil Supplements Actually Do - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43jnyp/this-is-what-fish-oil-supplements-actually-do <comment><USER2> A few years back, I had a job which required me to write up science-sounding short articles to support my employer's prescription-only supplements. I have a background in biochemistry, and an absurd desire to do a job the Right Way, so of course I looked at a lot of research before writing those articles. Some of what I wrote up was just essentially copy / social media nonsense, but some of it was also handouts for doctors and talking points for our reps.

It's been a few years, but I remember 1) hating the whole freaking industry, with it's unwillingness to fund good research, inability to conduct good research, and willingness to adopt bad research as gospel, and 2) thinking there could actually be something interesting to DHA.

So every now and then I consider doing fishoil supplements. But then I remember how absurdly unregulated OTC supplements are, and think about the issues with commercial fishing, and that's that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I stay away from fish oil due to concerns about pollutant bio-accumulation in fatty flesh. My research leads me to believe algae-based EPA/DHA supplements are much safer, as they're created in a clean, hermetically sealed environment. However, our bodies are perfectly capable of creating the long- chain variants from polyunsaturated fats, provided we avoid the standard Western diet of processed products, which unbalances the omega3-6 ratios and impedes their desaturation and elongation.

</comment><comment><USER4> My landlords son was crippled by arthritis in his teens. He was in a wheel chair. The doctors and physical therapists in New Zealand tried everything they could. In the end he could make his symptoms go away and come back depending on if he took fish oil supplements or not. He went on to sell fish oil supplements.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've tried taking fish oil a few times but the recommended doses seem to keep giving me nosebleeds. I've tried a few cycles and a few different brands to confirm, but like clockwork: I supplement fish oil in the morning, and I get a random nosebleed in the afternoon. When I stop, the nosebleeds stop.

I usually never get nosebleeds so it's a very odd correlation. I've since just started eating more fatty fish (salmon, mostly) to get my omega lipids up and that's working out fine, but I'm curious why I have such a bad reaction to capsule-form fish oil.</comment>


Mobile Has Replaced Desktop, and That's Scary - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@asksoliman/mobile-has-replaced-desktop-and-thats-scary-864bb8df2bce <comment><USER2> The small screen is a barrier, but it does not make content creation impossible - but turning the users into passive content consumers sure does. Blame the software, not the hardware - the arbitrary limits on mobile platforms scare me so much more.

We're getting walled into walled gardens so that we consume content in the most profitable way, and everything suffers as a result.

A phone can't become for the next billion what the personal computer was for the previous because mobile is a closed platform where you don't get to roam around and experiment.

The fact that companies are looking towards mobile not as a form factor, but a model for the future of personal computing is terrifying. Looking forward to not having superuser rights on a computer I bought for myself.</comment>


Startup Launch Websites – Wunderlist - <AUTHOR> https://www.wunderlist.com/list/127133662 <comment><USER2> Cool, created a Twitter list with this [https://twitter.com/ducu/lists/startup- launch](https://twitter.com/ducu/lists/startup-launch)</comment>


Ask HN: How to Get Karma? - <AUTHOR> Hello to everybody!
I am not sure but it looks like my account needs to have at least some karma in order my upvotes to be shown.
How to get karma? <comment><USER2> If you really care about internet points, try to find and submit one or two high quality blog posts or articles a day. If one takes off and hits the front page, you can net a hundred points or so.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Karma is a random meaningless number. What advantage can you see in having more/less karma?

<comment><AUTHOR> My post upvotes are not shown. I am not sure this is because of low karma or not.

<comment><USER3> Is that other peoples' upvotes on your posts? Or your upvotes on other peoples' posts?

If you upvote other peoples' posts, the only indication is that the little triangular up-arrow disappears. (You can only upvote once, so it vanishes.)

For your own posts, click on the 'threads' option in the orange bar at the top.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your valuable comments and submissions will build up karma when other users upvote them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I will try to make some valuable submissions

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It doesn't look like you've been participating actively in the community, so why would you, would anyone care about how much karma you have?

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, I've just tried to upvote some posts, but I don't see that my upvotes counts</comment></comment>


vNES FAQ - <AUTHOR> http://www.virtualnes.com/help/faq/web_tables.html

<comment><USER2> He makes a point of "[compressing] (to the highest point possible)" all his images but doesn't bother to gzip the actual html.

His site's layout is so trivial that it could be implemented in 4 divs, and they would render cross browser no problem, not to mention, easily styled so that the menu and content are inlined vertically when rendering on a small 80px phone screen.

Also, there is no indication whatsoever as to what is a link, this is just plain bad usability.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author pooh-poohs CSS, and pooh-poohs bulky sites, but the table-heavy pages on the site have many repeated, wasteful inline styling tags. Some trivial, cross-compatible CSS would streamline the site further (admittedly, down from almost never more than 40kB HTML, but streamlining is streamlining).

That said, I was jonesing for Zelda seriously less than 10 minutes ago, so he can do whatever he wants for so long as he makes getting my fix possible.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've felt that way many times. I use CSS but I don't like it. Tables are quick and dirty and sometimes quick and dirty is all that matters. Would you rather have this guy working on his website all day or making an NES emulator?

I believe the fellow that made this site (news.y) had something to say about CSS and Tables and which one wins in the RAD department.

<comment><USER5> CSS is almost always quicker, easier and more powerful than equivalent presentational markup.

The problem with tables is that Internet Explores does not support the "dislay:table" property, which is the CSS equivalent to table layout. So if you want a certain kind of grid-like layout _and_ you want to support Internet Explorer, you have to choose: 1) either emulate the layout using CSS constructs which were not designed for this purpose. 2) use tables

However this is not a shortcoming of CSS, it is a shortcoming of Internet Explorer. display:table has been part of the CSS standard for _10 years_.

I wrote an article <http://olav.dk/articles/tables.html> to describe the specific context where it makes sense to use tables rather than CSS. In all other cases, CSS is better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If by "best" you mean "most pointless" and if by "FAQ" you mean "uninformed rant".

There's no real substance, it adds nothing to the debate, uses unjustified hyperbole ("CSS is flawed"), doesn't show the added flexibility of CSS, overstates cross-browser CSS incompatably horribly and abuses half-truths to twist the argument (unless magically you think my low-resolution phone is going to love your table-based layout). CSS scales in big sites, reduces load times and lets you do many, many clever things you couldn't do in raw HTML and makes life easier, especially when combined with a CMS.

And that site is ugly and it's not because of tables. The site would look better without any graphics of styling at all. Hating Photoshop is not a good reason for having a site that's horrendously ugly.

But I do agree content is king. Just as well that he has something worthwhile that makes people look past the godawfully bad site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, by best I meant "Most Ridiculous". I thought it was hysterical, and took nothing from the site whatsoever except for a laugh. Jokes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _You wanna know what I use to make the graphics on this website? Microsoft Paint. Seriously. All of the graphics on this website were either made in Microsoft Paint_

no wonder it looks like so 1980s

<comment><USER8> The kid wasn't even around in the '80s:

<http://www.thatsanderskid.com/about.html>

Now that makes me feel old...

<comment><USER7> no offense but, ms paint or something similar was in the 80s though..

people with talent should use something that can help them show it off and spend less time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And get off my damn lawn!</comment>


Five years ago, Stack Overflow launched - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/09/five-years-ago-stack-overflow-launched-then-a-miracle-occurred/ <comment><USER2> StackOverflow took the place of news/dejanews for me. It's a first place to stop whenever I have trouble with just about any piece of software or writing software, usually the answer is right there on the first place in a fairly easy to digest form. Along with wikipedia and the Khan academy it is a fantastic resource.

Amazing it is only 5 years old, it feels like it has been around forever, I recall coming across it for the first time while still in Canada and thinking 'this is neat'. I never contributed which is really a miss on my part but I try to keep the number of accounts that I have to an absolute minimum and stackoverflow is plenty useful as it is today. I really should do some community service there one of these days, it is only fair.

Hard to imagine that even google could not rescue usenet (or rather, dejanews) from the spam and the trolls.

<comment><USER3> >> I never contributed which is really a miss on my part

I love StackOverflow. However, I think the worst part of Stack Overflow is how hard it is to contribute as a new member. You need to build up reputation points and they can be very hard to get. Questions get 'sniped', answers get deleted or buried, and very often when you help another new user out, they never return to the site to accept your answer. It's very frustrating to take the time to answer a question and not receive any feedback.

<comment><USER4> The best way "in" as a newcomer is to have some knowledge that no one else has. In my case my first good answer (although it took months to get any rep at all) was an obscure bit of paypal sandbox knowledge. I actually came across the knowledge first, and since the problem I had hadn't been solved via StackOverflow I searched SO for the same problem I had been having and updated the old question with my new found solution.

That has since earned me 50 rep. This along with a few other bits took me to the 200 threshold which then gives 100 rep across all stackexchange sites. (Enough to upvote/comment.)

But the fact that "newbies" can't contribute what in all honestly is largely going to be misinformation or "me too" answers is also part of the genius, it gives real answers breathing room and keeps spam out.

My question asking has been less successful. I've asked 2 questions, one of which had no response whatsoever, and the other had an answer which answered the question in the community's mind but because I had been slack with my terminology didn't answer the issue I was really having.

<comment><USER5> I don't get much rep for answers. I get it for asking the right questions. My rep still isn't fantastic (a few hundred), but it's good enough to give a bounty when I need it.

<comment><USER6> Try giving more general, more in-depth answers. Such answers, if correct, get dug up by search and keep bringing upvotes months, or even years, after having been written.

<comment><USER5> I don't get much rep for answers because usually someone else has already given a better answer than I'm able to give. I'm just saying you don't actually have to know anything to get rep. You can get it for asking good questions too. (But first search to check if someone else has already asked the same thing.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The only complaint I have about Stack Overflow is when you're looking for a library or toolchain and want to get a feel for some of the pros and cons of each of the tech currently being used. I understand the argument of why these questions are killed. But I also have to think that there is value in these conversations.

<comment><USER8> I share that feeling, but I also have to restrain it in the face of the fact that Stack Overflow doesn't seem like it's _about_ discussion, or at least not open-ended discussion. It's about getting expert answers to focused questions, not polling for data or asking opinions.

However, I really wish someone would build and maintain a "Stack Overflow" for open-ended discussion. It'd basically be a classic forum (in terms of content) but with a different layout.

<comment><USER9> This sounds like a clever comment about Discourse. [http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/02/discourse/](http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/02/discourse/).

<comment><USER8> Well, once again I've learned that someone is always thinking about what I'm thinking, and in this case, doing a much better job implementing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It basically killed experts-exchange, which I think was it's intention. Expert sexchange is still around, but irrelevant. Good riddance IMHO.

<comment><USER11> I'm sure this won't get me any love, but I worked at Experts-Exchange at one point, and it's not the horrible place SO and Jeff Atwood have painted it as.

Spammy marketing tactics? Sure. Is SO better? Absolutely. But in the process of building SO, Jeff and company have basically trashed EE's name, and after seeing EE from the inside I'm one of the rare few who don't think EE is evil incorporated.

<comment><USER10> When it first arrived on the scene it was much like quora is now and I loved that. But then they started trying to trick people into signing up, etc. It just went from awesome to _dagnabbit_ quickly. So when there was one place to find a bunch of other programmers that popped up, I jumped on it.

<comment><USER11> EE's business model was built in the early days of the internet, and before SO came around they had lots of paying customers. "Tricking people to sign up" was really just their attempt at monetizing content. It clearly did not pan out to be the best long-term strategy, but when you already have thousands of paying customers, it gets pretty difficult to "open up" to the general public vs. a company like SO which started open and monetized in other ways (Careers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Stackoverflow is so good.. anytime it's _not_ stackoverflow, I'm sooo disappointed. A feature that I miss on stackoverflow would be a way to still use it on "incorrect" questions. For instance, someone asks "What's the best Linux distribution?". Obviously, it will be flagged and closed because it will most likely create a debate rather than having a strong and unique "best" answer.

However, it would still be interesting to have another tab, say "Discussion", where people could shoot arguments and the best ones could still be upvoted. So, yes, there wouldn't be "one best answer", but it would still be fun to read the best answers.

<comment><USER13> Isn't this what Quora is? I notice a vast amount of sentiment on HN about how we need a "subjective place to discuss" and yet you already have it (quora).

My reaction is - you don't. What's becomes more helpful than reading discussions about what $FRAMEWORK1 is better than $FRAMEWORK2 (that inevitably are not supposed to end) is to stop discussing and build yourself.

<comment><USER14> Quora looks and sounds great, but it's gathered a lot of ill will with its tactics - which Stack Overflow pointedly does not use, and so, me (and probably others) would like a Quora site with Stack Overflow-like openness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> StackOverflow is the website that changed my life the most. It's second only to Google Search. Google Maps is third. Facebook and Twitter could die tomorrow for all I care.

<comment><USER16> For me, Twitter is actually very usual tool for keeping up to date on industry news, blog posts, articles etc, I use it ONLY for work and not for personal stuff. Using TweetDeck, I find it invaluable (and I never thought I would before I started using it) since it let's be keep a watch on specific hashtags.

<comment><USER17> Do you mind if I ask how you are able to use Twitter to keep on top of stuff? I only really have HN and Reddit to keep up with work related news. I've never been able to figure out how to use Twitter for anything useful. It's total gibberish to me.

<comment><USER18> Not the guy you asked, but it's all about who you follow. You can't use Twitter like Facebook (i.e. "friending" everyone you tangentially know) without getting a useless flood of information overload.

Twitter is literally only as good as who you follow. You know the types that deride twitter as "Morons posting what they had for lunch" or similar? The answer is "don't follow people who post moronic food-based tweets".

Treat it more like an RSS feed with incidental two-way communication and you'll have a grand time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Completely agree with all the "feels like it's been around forever" sentiment. I was surprised to read this post and be reminded that it's only been five years!

One of the things if feels like people have overlooked in the comments is the power of gamification. I know it's kind of a passe buzzword these days, but StackOverflow really innovated: reputation not just for questions but for everything, badges, bonuses for everything from editing your answers a lot to sticking around for a year. When I started contributing, I was surprised at how "hooked" it felt. I know I should feel a bit ambivalent about this, but it's a big part of the secret sauce that's made it a really effective community.

</comment><comment><USER20> As a new developer, stack overflow has been an invaluable resource. My boyfriend (who's been a developer for many years now) always tells me I don't know how nice I have it every time he sees me open stack overflow up to figure something out. "In my day... I had to walk to school in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways..." But although I don't know from personal experience how much harder things were pre- stack overflow - I can certainly appreciate it! It's taken a lot of the headache out of learning for me and is a great safety net when I'm unsure.

</comment><comment><USER21> A lot of people like to hate on Stack Overflow for closing questions and editing questions / answers, bit I really like it. It's much better than anything that came before.

<comment><USER22> I think the editing features are great. There are plenty of questions where the right answer changes as technology evolves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If we could just get stackoverflow results to push down w3schools results, life would be complete.

<comment><USER24> Or just get the w3c/whatwg results ranked higher...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Stackexchange is getting impressive.

[http://stackexchange.com/sites?view=grid](http://stackexchange.com/sites?view=grid)

<comment><USER26> [http://stackexchange.com/sites?view=list#traffic](http://stackexchange.com/sites?view=list#traffic)

I had the opposite reaction, that it has not grown outside of its original niche at all.

<comment><USER27> It's not likely to ever produce another massive category product hit like Stackoverflow. Such success requires very high levels of specialization and dedication (not to mention a category big enough to begin with; all of which are already dominated by very large competitors, eg cooking / recipes).

Why would cooking experts or financial pros be drawn to Stack Exchange? They won't be. They'll stick to sites dedicated to those things that possess a very narrow focus, where the quality of content is likely to be higher.

It was an interesting attempt on Stack's part to spread out, but who really thought the end result would be them taking over every category?

Just take a look at Personal Finance / Money. That's a huge category that is very lucrative. Yet they're getting a whopping 5 questions per day for a three year old site, and a mere 7,200 visits per day. Why? Because "money.stackexchange.com" can never be promoted properly as a brand, it can never carry any kind of reputation as a separate product. An average person isn't going to buy into the notion that that site possesses authority on personal financial matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Stackoverflow is my favorite example of how crappy I am at predicting things. When Joel announced it, I had 0 doubt that it will be a flop. I think 2 months later I visited it and it was completely clear to me that I was wrong. Rare case when I am super happy to be wrong. Happy Birthday!

</comment><comment><USER29> StackOverflow remains not only my #1 resource, but the resource I give to people when tutoring them. I encourage using it not only as a helper for bugs, but also for questions like "how best to do X". The sooner they use StackOverflow for their programming issues, the sooner they start understanding what they're doing.

What really helped me out when I was first starting doing web development was that no matter the question, people had the same problem as me -- usually VERBATIM. I can't stress how nice it is to copy and paste something into Google and get back the answer.

On a final note, I encourage everyone to try to give back a little into StackOverflow. I've been going for about 2 years and have around 4 thousand reputation built up, mostly on Rails questions. But at the same time, I'm starting to notice that there are a lot of rookie answers (although this might be a Rails-specific issue)... and this is coming from someone who's still in college and not a full time web dev yet. If you're good, answer a few questions.

</comment><comment><USER30> Stack overflow is great but I have mostly stopped trying to contribute to it because my questions or answers are often closed or whatever. Or some mod or someone just comes and insults me on the basis that they thought my question was stupid or not right somehow.

</comment><comment><USER31> Only five years, wow.

I remember at first I was confusing it with Experts-exchange and would avoid clicking to it from Google's results.

</comment><comment><USER32> Congratulations to SO!! In addition to being a great resource for developers worldwide, I think the most powerful impact that it has made can be summed up by the following in the post:

"An incredible number of people jumped at the chance to help a stranger"

This. The idea that you are able to help someone across the world in a matter of seconds is incredible. In case of SO, it applies to programming and technology but imagine if we had other SOs that did the same for poverty, hunger, education and world peace. Just a thought!!

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't like posting on SO because it doesn't matter how careful I am to word my questions I always get asked to "show your code". Even when I'm asking about general usage of an API or theory.

Usually I end up posting my code and these people disappear without answering my question.

People seem to be only interested in questions where they can spot missing semi colons and get some easy points.

<comment><USER34> I agree, a lot of the time your code would be too long and involved or too confidential to post.

So, what you need to do is boil your problem down to an essential few lines sufficient to make the bug happen or illustrate what you are trying to do. A lot of times, when you do that, you find your answer along the way.

Sometimes it can be difficult, however. E.g., you may have a race condition that shows up in your actual code but which you can't make happen in your short example. Then you just have to explain your question as best you can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I appreciate Stack Overflow even more when I think about it in terms of a broader trend.

A paper published earlier this year showed that online comments can affect Americans' perceptions of science. In fact, the comments posted on science articles can persuade readers more than the articles themselves. [0]

This got me thinking: every year more people are turning to the Internet for advice about serious subjects — medical advice, technical advice, a basic understanding of science. This fact, combined with the findings about the persuasiveness of comments, suggests that comments are tied to a growing ethical responsibility.

In other words, if you manage a website that deals with, say, health care, science or technology, you have an ethical obligation to a) recognize the potential harm that can result from misinformation in comments; b) take action to minimize that harm and facilitate a productive dialogue.

This brings me to Stack Overflow, which has a responsibility to offer accurate, useful feedback about programming. The stakes can be high, considering that a malicious or misinformed user could easily convince others to execute harmful code.

I think Stack Overflow is an excellent example of how sites can use rewards systems to encourage positive feedback and punish (i.e. downvote) those who disseminate misinformation or off-topic questions. The feedback as a whole seems very focused and accurate.

I hope other sites that offer serious advice will become more aware of their responsibility to solicit accurate comments. Now that we know comments can seriously affect readers' perceptions, it seems that an anything-goes comment form can be unethical. Stack Overflow may be a great role model in this respect.

[0][http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/40.summary](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/40.summary)

</comment><comment><USER36> I've got over 15k rep on SO and I've found more and more difficult to make an impact on there. Questions have either been asked or are answered instantly. All the time I'm getting answers and questions closed down and deleted as mods are gardening. I don't know what the answer is but its grown to the point where I find it too much effort too much.

Having said all that I'm just glad that its there. I remember coding without the internet (and I don't just mean a router failure) and that had its own challenges but SO has got me answers typically with in minutes and now instantly as the Q. base has grown. It's an amazing resource. If they can work out how people can contribute easily again it will be here for years to come.

</comment><comment><USER37> ... today, I can't imagined programming without it.

</comment><comment><USER38> Besides all the bad things and malicious behaviour of the big players (yes, all of them) the internet has brought to us, there're still sites that have changed the world to a better place. Especially StackOverflow has contributed largely to increase the equaly of opportunities. Due to the lack of basic education and access to hardware and the internet not yet everybody, but a massivly increased number of people can become great developers. At some point you need help from the experienced. Books and online documentation don't help anymore, that's where SO comes into play. It made me a 2-3 times better developer and kept my spirit up when I couldn't solve a problem by myself.

</comment><comment><USER39> Congratulations. I remember following the Joel/Jeff podcast and signing up to SO as soon as I could. Even before it started I had a feeling it would be a great place and I still think SO is one of the few places that got gamification right.

</comment><comment><USER40> I can't believe its only 5 years old, it feels like its been there for a long time.

SO has always helped me a great deal. I remember when I first started going to SO for answers, soon I had an urge to contribute back to the SO community, whatever little I could. I used to work with .net and SQL Server those days, and I used to have Linqpad open and ready right from the morning, looking for questions that I could answer. As soon as I found a question I can answer, I would verify it as quickly as possible and post it. I still remember how annoying it was to get the answer right and to realize someone posted a similar answer just seconds before I did. Good old days.

</comment><comment><USER41> My biggest pet peeve is the 'trigger happy mods' at Stackoverflow. They jump at the opportunity to lock a question. Often questions are well suited for SO & there's no better place to find a credible answer.

</comment><comment><USER42> StackOverflow is my stickiest website. I visit it everyday. Heck, I visit it several times a day.

I feel like this website will outlive Facebook and Twitter. It's such an indispensible tool in my life.

</comment><comment><USER43> Google should learn from the SO duplicate questions finder. I have often been surprised at how good it works. In contrast to that, Google doesn't have anything like this on Google Code bug trackers (most importantly for their own products) or its support forums. The amount of unnoticed duplicate Chrome bug reports is huge.

</comment><comment><USER44> Stack Overflow fills the void all the other ranking sites couldn't or didn't. They put the people and content first and grew an amazing network in a short amount of time. I'm even concatenating `stackoverflow` to the end of my searches sometimes when I know the format I want my answer in.

</comment><comment><USER45> It was around when I started coding. So it literally seems like forever to me.

I have definitely hated the attitudes of a lot of people over there and also the unusual closing of questions, but its inarguable that this site is probably one of the most important things on the internet for programmers.

</comment><comment><USER46> I've learned _so much_ from stack overflow. Thank you _so much_ for making this product.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm amazed that it's only 5 years old. In those years, it's redefined both how software development works and the terminology we use to describe it. Honestly, it's helped me to become a better developer in so, so many ways.

What were SO-coders doing 5 years ago?

</comment><comment><USER48> I managed to get around 2.5k rep, but since my higher-level questions don't get enough attention, I offer bounties - losing the rep. Even if I then answer my own question, the rep remains gone. This never makes sense to me.

I have issues with SO, but I use it almost daily.

<comment><USER49> I cannot remember giving a bounty that was actually worth it (in the low six figures of rep by now). Sometimes you have a question and no answer turns up in a few days. You put a bounty up and suddenly you get answers, but they're just grasping for straws, or the bounty in that case, by simply answering _anything_ that could be helpful. At least for my unanswered questions a bounty never turned up a good answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It does not matter, but i wish there was a mention of "ASP.NET" somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER51> Congrats SO; continue to rot in hell expert sexchange (expertsexhange.com)! ;)

</comment><comment><USER52> StackOverflow and the StackOverflow community shaved years off my quest to learn to develop software. I can't express enough how much I owe to the people who made SO and make SO thrive.

</comment><comment><USER53> Rise of SO and time span of its rising is really amazing!! It's going to be part of classic cs literature. already recruiters ask for SO reputation before hiring.

</comment><comment><USER54> >>In the history of the world, gamification has never gotten a single person do anything they didn't already basically like to do. \- Jay Hanlon

This sums up why we use internet.

<comment><USER55> That's not really true. Look at "grinding" in MMOs. I don't think people enjoy the process of grinding, just the end result (some virtual coins or whatever). It's really a Pavlovian brain hack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Stack Overflow has been an invaluable resource for me as I learned, and continue to learn, programming.

Congratulations on five years! (it feels like I've known you a lot longer)

</comment><comment><USER57> Beautiful - cheers for Stack Overflow.

</comment><comment><USER58> There's pre-so and post-so. The post-so world is much better for all developers.

</comment><comment><USER59> StackOverflow killed forums for me, as I believe for many others.

And I don't miss them. (Almost.)

</comment><comment><USER60> ..and thankfully we had the most amazing alternative to Experts-exchange.com

</comment><comment><USER61> It's nice idea "Helping Others"

</comment><comment><USER62> wow, it seems like StackOverflow has been there forever.

</comment><comment><USER63> Stackoverflow has been immensely useful for someone who is curious or stuck on coding related topics. I have asked close to 500 questions over the course of 3 years having checked it almost daily with some months of hiatus.

The amount of knowledge gained from questions alone is immense. I have answered about 20 questions but I found it a lot less attractive as I'd rather learn new things than recite from memory solutions.

The questions are growingly become more and more strict in terms of moderation and for new comers it's frustrating experience to have your questions closed because existing members like to taunt newbies. I don't see SO taking off anymore, rather finding on news.ycombinator means it has peaked. The very people that flock to SO are shunned for asking questions that are not clear. Rather than aid them, questions are closed. This leaves a very bad taste in a newbies mouth. The massive traffic is from the previous accumulation of users but again the overly zealous moderators have ruined the welcoming community image.

Long ago someone asked about intended meaning vs literal meaning in questions. This received massive amount of downvotes (existing gurus) but I saw this is something critical that SO founders have completely missed.

Remember in Pakistan, during the 1971 war with India. The civilians that have put Bhutto in power have become so alienated from socialist policies of the leader, failing to see that it's the people that put an individual in power. He was ousted by the CIA but it wouldn't have been possible without the general animosity and betrayal from the public.

<comment><USER64> >>> have your questions closed because existing members like to taunt newbies

I don't think anybody likes to taunt newbies. However, people that donate their time to SO want their time to be used efficiently, and usually fixing badly written question is not the most efficient use of one's expert knowledge and time. People want common investment - you invest in good question, they invest in good answer, everybody wins. Of course, newbies may not know what "good question" is, and experts may have seen so many bad questions over their tenure that their temper has been worn thin, thus sometimes misunderstandings happen. But I think approaching it with understanding that it is a common investment, and asker has to invest first to get their investment back with sizeable profit of a good answer may be helpful here.</comment></comment>


MeCoffee: a 220/120V Arduino-compatible 1kW controller - the-dude https://mecoffee.nl

<comment><AUTHOR> What's the point of backing the Kickstarter if you have a buy button in your homepage and as far as I can tell the reward is the same... except the kickstarter ships sept/oct??</comment>


Pip3 install videoflow – new Python library to do computer vision on video - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/videoflow/videoflow <comment><USER2> I don't know about you guys, but I find it really cool that pre-trained models will be part of open source software from now on.

<comment><USER3> Definitely. Last weekend, I had a simple project of locking my computer screen when I am away with the help of the webcam. I know this is trivial with current state-of-the-art pretrained neural net models, but I did give up.

I couldnt find an easy way to fetch pretrained models (from where? which one?), feed the webcam stream, and then do inference "is there a face in the image?".

It would probably be trivial for someone who knows CV libraries or tensorflow, but we really miss the good old time when 5 obvious lines of Python did the job.

Maybe a new Python standard library with an API for AI would be useful here.

<comment><USER2> I think you're onto something. A "pip install" for models. Perhaps "pip install" is sufficient and we just need to start using it.

<comment><USER3> Back in the days, when I started Python, I didn't use external libraries. It was all the included batteries and docs, and it was great to start.

I was thinking about a new high-level module in the standard, you would just (pseudo python code) :

      import ai.vision
      guesses = ai.vision.guess(open('myimage.png'))
      print(guesses)
      # ["cat","person","boat"]

Three lines, everything else is abstracted. You would have ai.vision and ai.text for a start, with some accessors to other state-of-the-art models (like ai.vision.imagenet if you know better what your are doing)

The underlying models would be shipped and updated with newer versions of Python.

<comment><USER2> Not exactly. The problem is that different models are tuned for different use cases. So I'd expect something like this:

       $ pip install pymodel-ResNet-1337

       #! /usr/bin/env python3
       import ai
       model = ai.loadModel("ResNet-1337",input=ai.input.Image,output=ai.output.Category)
       model.guess(open('myimage.png'))

Problems abound, for example, how would you resample/rescale the image.

I'd want, to start, a standard model format that can be serialized/deserialized into any language that can be (for example) pip installed and loaded. People seem to use HD5 but I don't think there is any sort of "standard".

So I'd expect the first incarnations of this idea to look like this:

       $ pip install tfmodel-ResNet-1377

or

       $ pip install kerasmodel-ResNet-1337

With some hooks for loading models:

       #!/usr/bin/env python3

       # whereas before you'd build a network, train it, and then use it, here you get the whole shebang in one go
       model = keras.loadInstalledModel("ResNet-1337")

Rest of it is up to the user, as usual

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I kinda like that the title is basically a call to action button in the form of how to get the product.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The repo is trending on Github today: [https://github.com/trending/python?since=daily](https://github.com/trending/python?since=daily)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've implemented something similar with Gstreamer for my own work. Gstreamer has some of the most disorganized documentation known to man, though, and if something doesn't work, you have to do elaborate googling first to figure out what's wrong (error messages aren't generally helpful) and then experiment with how to fix it. There are also 2 distinct incompatible versions of it in the wild: 0.10 and 1.0.

Needless to say, I strongly suspect very few researchers have enough dev chops to meaningfully use Gstreamer. When it does work, though, it's pretty great, and it offers reasonable integration with GTK and can be made to work with Cairo. I got it to the point where it works for what I need to do, but I wouldn't want to release the code on GitHub because it's relatively high maintenance.

Interestingly I ended up with a similar layout: a set of frame producers (video file, webcam, sequence of jpegs), 2 video sinks (gtk and mp4), and the code to draw stuff in between (using PyCairo for vector and PIL for raster).

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you should release the code. It might be helpful in its own ways.

<comment><USER6> I hate how publishing on github makes people assume they have _any_ obligations to/for it. Just make an issue with the title "Use it as YOU see fit; I don't maintain this; if you pay I will probably look at your request" (the last is optional) .

The sheer existence of this helps. You don't pay for hosting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How is it different from CV2?

</comment><comment><USER8> Hey looks promising! I'm slowly adding vision to my robot project, and I've got a couple of stereo cameras I need to process.</comment>


Ask HN: How does Google and Facebook do friend recommendations? - <AUTHOR>

Today I was dismayed to see a notification on my partner's Android device, which read along the lines of: 'Do you know Joe Bloggs'.  Joe Bloggs being me.  I'm not sure just how Google has joined the dots.
My partner has a Nook HD with a Google play store account.  Mainly to download Google apps for Android, they also use the on board Chrome browser.  I have a Gmail account, but I have never sent mail to their Gmail account or the other way around (they don't use that account for regular mail).  My partners primary email account resides with another email provider, and is accessed through the on board Nook email client.
They have also installed the Google Keyboard and Facebook apps.  Though I don't use Facebook.  Neither of us have Android, Microsoft or iPhone smartphones. <comment><USER2> Can we instead have a discussion about recommendation "engines"? I've been interested in writing one for fun but I have no clue where to start in learning about them. Can someone point me in the right direction, maybe a Coursera/OCW course?

<comment><USER3> There is an old OReilly book (2006) which deals with this. I think it was called Programming Collective Intelligence

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596529321.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596529321.do)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I mistakingly signed up to Facebook with a work email in the past. And noticed many work acquaintances appearing in Facebook's: do you know lists. Which I can only attribute to other people sharing their email address contacts with Facebook, and Facebook holding onto that data.

<comment><AUTHOR> This shows that Facebook have already have you as an entity in other people's networks before you have even joined Facebook. I guess you can cement yourself within those networks by adding them as friends, or saying that you know them.

I guess they also watch to see who you look up, and from that see if there are any connections between those that you look up, those friends might appear as further recommendations.

It can be quite spooky sometimes. The interesting thing with that account is that I never friended anybody, so it's interesting to see who comes up in their list. Some appear quite random, but others I recognize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm always surprised when I see people say stuff like this. For me every recommendation on every social network was more in the line of 'SELECT user FROM users ORDER BY RAND()'.

I guess I'm doing something right.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would think, similar to Netflix or Spotify, that they would use machine learning algorithms (ensemble technique) to perform collaborative filtering.

</comment><comment><USER6> Where did you see the recommendation message? Facebook or Google Plus?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry I'm not that offay with Android. I think it was a system notification, a 'Google' one. I doubt it was a Facebook one. And my partner doesn't use Google+ actively as far as I know. They may have stalked me, I'm not privy to their surfing habits.

They don't really use their Google account for anything but Google play, but it could be tied into their Chrome browser/profile somehow.

A long shot could be that we both visited the same *.wordpress.com site today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Usually via graph, a "six degrees of separation" sort of thing, you don't have to directly contact each other, but it's enough to contact some of the same people to assume a connection. Also similar use patterns or geo locations (ip location or profile input indicating physical proximity) can be taken into account. I don't have intimate knowledge of their algorithms so I don't know about any other factors they might use.

I find it quite amusing that you're "dismayed" at a system working properly :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it would be a breach of privacy using geolocation data.

The reason I'm dismayed in this instance is that I can't work out how the connections are being drawn.

<comment><USER7> I'm just guessing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aught wrong with a guess, but that one could get quite creepy pretty quickly. Say you were at a small conference in a small building in the one room. And Google started to suggest those around you as friends - that could be quite useful - but equally it could blow someones cover.

Also you spot a large car with tinted windows nearby, and suddenly Google is suggesting that you might know a certain someone that maybe in that vehicle.

You might loose your privacy if you were living in a block of flats and this were the case.

Certainly an interesting idea as to whether they do use your geo-data.

Now I'm pretty sure that profile data such as where do you live, or publicly printed location data could be used. I.e. with Facebook, it's probably more likely to hook you up with people that are geographically close - but I'm speculating here too.

<comment><USER7> I was thinking about less granular grouping i.e city or state level.

<comment><AUTHOR> A good question in itself, would be where do you draw a line. At what radius would you feel comfortable?

I'm posting from foo to a bar forum. Will bar tolerate someone from foo?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook "official" outs uploader to journalist - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/a-facebook-source-leaked-shawn-brookss-name-whats-next.html <comment> m-p-3 From a privacy standpoint this is not okay, but from a transparency standpoint they should identify which administrator published something on a Facebook page in the future.

<comment><USER2> People who publish on social media are already very vulnerable to destoying their ability to distibute what they have to say. Their existence is fragile.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Advise on building a Rules engine - <AUTHOR>

I have a need to build an app (Ruby) that allows the user to select one or more patterns and in case those patterns are matched to proceed and complete a set of actions.
While doing my research I've discovered the new (to me) field of rules based systems and have spent some time reading about it and it seems exactly the kind of functionality I need.
The app will be integrated with different web services and would allow rules like these one:
When Highrise contact is added
and Zendesk ticket is created do add email to database
I had two ideas to build this. The first is to build some kind os DSL to be able to specify the rule conditions and build them on the fly with the user input.
The second one is to build some rule classes each one having a pattern/matcher and action methods. The pattern would evaluate the expression and return true or false and the action would be executed if the match is positive.
The rules will then need to be persisted and then evaluated periodically.
Can anyone shed some light on this design or point somewhere where I can get more information on this?
Thanks <comment><USER2> Why not use a Prolog backend to handle all of that? Starting to write your own DSL seems like a risky decision, especially if you're new to the field.

<comment><AUTHOR> Prolog do seems to fit exactly what I need. Do you have any good resources on getting started on Prolog and maybe how to best integrate the rest of the app?

<comment><USER2> I only learned Prolog in an academic context, so I unfortunately have little knowledge about the best way to integrate Prolog with a ruby/python/other app.

Concerning resources, this is a good start that will give you a good overview of how Prolog works: <http://www.learnprolognow.org/lpnpage.php?pageid=online>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Save a bunch of time and just use Drools.

<comment><AUTHOR> Drools seems to be the preferred solution in the Java world. I'll take a deeper look at it. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to learn about distributed systems when not possible at work? - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I work for a startup, and worked for many before, and all of them are with the monolithic, mid-sized code bases that do great just with a conventional stack (2 or 3 big servers and simple rerouting).
My question is: How do people learn about distributed systems if never given the chance in a professional setting? I am sure there is a book or two to go over, but would that give me the same skill-set that would allow me to convince a company asking for experience with distributed systems to hire me? <comment><USER2> It seems I'm a few weeks ahead of you on this same problem. What I did was just notice a discussion in a HN thread and reached out to the guy in the discussion who seemed the most knowledgeable: joke's on me, that guy's the CTO of hashicorp.

Anyway, I just asked him how I should go about in learning and he linked me to (presumably) his alma mater's course list for distributed systems: [https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/16wi/calend...](https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/16wi/calendar/lecturelist.html)

Moreover, he linked me some fundamentals: * Lamport Time * CAP Theorem * FLP Impossibility Theorem * Bimodal Multicast * Paxos

What I would advise doing with those fundamentals is going to google scholar and finding the original papers and adding them to your watch list. Then you can see wherever they're referenced, go through the list and pick out papers and read one a day (I advise no matter what, but that's not feasible for everyone--just keep reading!)

I can't say I'm a guru at all in this sphere, but this is how I'm approaching it. Hopefully you can take some of my advice and tailor it to best suit your needs and how you learn best. Beyond that, I'd say build, build, build: start out at your naive solution and improve over time. I've been working on a distributed key-value storage ([https://github.com/GrappigPanda/Olivia](https://github.com/GrappigPanda/Olivia)) and once you get deeper entrenched into a problem like this, a lot of the problems really make themselves apparent and you can learn exactly where your naive solution differs from more optimal solutions.

<comment><USER3> Interesting approach. I'd like to know some of the specific lessons learnt using the naive approach and things to look out for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got started by doing the online MIT labs linked here:

[http://nil.csail.mit.edu/6.824/2015/labs/lab-3.html](http://nil.csail.mit.edu/6.824/2015/labs/lab-3.html)

You write a MapReduce/Paxos implementation in Golang, and then their test suite tests your implementation. There are many tricky edge cases, so having an automated test suite is seriously helpful.

Looks like since last year they've switched from Paxos to Raft (pretty great idea, the Paxos papers are terrible), here's the latest URL:

[https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/index.html](https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/index.html)

I would guess that any company doing distsys work would be impressed by you having a Raft or Paxos implementation on GitHub, enough to get an interview etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would suggest looking at Rancher [http://rancher.com/](http://rancher.com/) \- It's a great way to learn distributed container orchestration.

I was in the same boat; I started getting interested in distributed systems about 5 years ago but I never had the opportunity to play with those cool tools while at work so in my own time I built an open source project with a focus on scalability: [http://socketcluster.io/](http://socketcluster.io/)

More recently, I've been implementing open source stacks to run and auto-scale on Docker + Kubernetes (using Rancher) and it's been pretty mind-blowing. I highly recommend playing around with those technologies - I don't have any doubt that this is where the software industry is all heading.

Already, I noticed some Kubernetes-related job postings coming up on various online job portals and they tend to pay REALLY well so it looks like a good area to work towards.

I think also it's important to read stuff online about CAP theorem and also various popular algorithms for building distributed systems like Pub/Sub, Message Queues, Raft (consensus), data sharding (e.g. consistent hashing) and others... I think if you start with those, you will stumble upon new material as you go along and you can gradually build up your knowledge.

I think playing around with the advanced networking features offered by IaaS platforms like Amazon EC2 is also a good way to put your theories (and code) to the test.

</comment><comment><USER6> This starts in two weeks. I'm taking it too!

[https://www.edx.org/course/reliable-distributed- algorithms-p...](https://www.edx.org/course/reliable-distributed-algorithms- part-1-kthx-id2203-1x)

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's a complete tutorial--from concepts to step-by-step command-line scripting. Eg, you provision EC2 instances, deploy a Hadoop cluster, and build a simple data processing pipeline on the cluster.

this is intended primarily for data scientists; two mid-level devs in my shop worked through it, and said it was solid.

[https://blog.insightdatascience.com/introducing-pegasus- one-...](https://blog.insightdatascience.com/introducing-pegasus-one-does-not- simply-pip-install-hadoop-423f1d521d29#.p5ockru3s)</comment>


Pennsylvania County's Election Day Nightmare Underscores Voting Machine Concerns - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/us/politics/pennsylvania-voting-machines.html <comment><USER2> The machines had a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) which represents best practice, but the failures still undermined voter's confidence in the correctness of the outcome. Note that there has been no post-mortem explaining what went wrong.</comment>


Ask HN: Health insurance for California freelancers? - <AUTHOR>

Thanks to the ACA, my cheap catastrophic-coverage-only health plan is going away, and I need to replace it.
On the California exchange, the cheapest alternative costs nearly twice as much per month as my current plan, and will cost way more out-of-pocket (over $6000, instead of $0) if I end up in a hospital. It also has a sky-high deductible. In practice, I'll be paying twice as much money for (1) continuing to pay for basic care out-of-pocket, and (2) I'll still be on the hook for a hefty chunk of change if something bad happens. This feels like a pretty raw deal.
I looked on the web sites of some major insurance companies, and they don't seem to offer any non-exchange plans starting in 2014.
Has anyone here come up with a reasonable workaround, or is everyone planning to just suck it up and pay? A "California Hackers" group health plan, perhaps? I would be interested in hearing the price options of such a thing, if anyone has set it up. <comment><USER2> Fellow California freelancer. I'm also get raked over the coals on insurance cost. Previously, my wife and I had great coverage (for us) for ~$220/month. After looking at our options on the California exchange, our costs are going to jump to $4-650/month, depending on the plan.

I haven't found any work arounds yet. But being a freelancer in California, you already know we are hit pretty hard by the tax man. This is unfortunately not unexpected.

The good news is that while costs have jumped, it only takes 3-5 hours per month to cover insurance costs rather than 1-2.

However, if you're not happy with the extra costs, you could try getting a hassle free job as a remote employee and use their insurance policy to come out ahead.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pay the fine (tax, redefined by SCOTUS) and if you need urgent care go to the emergency room. Declare bankruptcy if it is too much otherwise pay the fees yourself. That is my plan of action. It is easier for me since I don't have a family.

<comment><AUTHOR> Careful. Right now, under the ACA, insurance companies must sell you coverage no matter what. If the rules change, they may use your gap in coverage as an excuse not to sell you insurance in the future.

<comment><USER3> If you are making decisions on "if the rules change", that is a very hard game to predict. I'm making the decision on what is the law now. Impossible to predict how it will change if it ever will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> have you tried: [http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=9410...](http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=94102)

</comment><comment><USER5> As I understand it, Obama has Executive Ordered a delay in the necessity for your catastrophic plan to go away -- you should call them and see if it can be extended.

It's possible that they can't, and it's also possible that the state of California wouldn't allow them to even if they would (rumor is California was opting out of the delay).

Aside from that, I don't know that there are any great alternatives. The highest-risk gamble is to change your withholdings so that you won't get a refund, and then just take the penalty, which the IRS won't be able to collect as they're only authorized to take it from payouts -- no payouts = no penalty (though if you ever _do_ qualify for a return, it would certainly be withheld then.

The lowest risk alternative is obviously to sign up for ACA, and just really, really hope that you don't need to engage it for services.

Lastly, if it's a serious concern (and it probably ought to be), you could look at getting a job that offers health care as a benefit.

<comment><USER6> The "delay" isn't going to help anyone quickly.

First it's merely a promise to not prosecute companies for offering soon to be illegal insurance. That provides no protection from civil liabilities, the insurance polices will still be illegal and that has consequences, see a former Federal prosecutor of some note on this subject: [http://www.nationalreview.com/article/364117/lawlessness- fix...](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/364117/lawlessness-fix-andrew-c- mccarthy/page/0/1)).

Second, as noted in bmelton's second paragraph, the state insurance commission has to approve the plan. Not only is this sort of thing horrible for Obamacare's economics---there's a reason you're subsidizing others, particularly those 50-64---if they were to allow this anyway, given the best of will by all parties concerned, its highly unlikely they can turn on a dime and get this done in 25 calendar days minus processing time to avoid a lapse in coverage.

Among other things, the insurance company can't afford to offer you _exactly_ the same terms, costs have gone up at least a bit. So the company has to figure out terms that'll likely result in a profit, and the commission has to determine if it's appropriate.

Per Obama's promise not to prosecute, the company also has to have someone smart sit down and detail in every respect how this plan is deems deficient compared to the Obamacare floor. That's more than a tiny amount of work, with potentially severe liability for getting it wrong.

But, yeah, call them and ask them if they're trying to renew your plan and if they think there's any chance they'll be able to do it in time.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: T-shirt gift idea for a friendly sysadmin? - <AUTHOR> I'm leaving a company where the nicest sysadmin works. I'm thinking of giving him a tshirt as gift for all the time he helped me.<p>Any ideas? His qualities are being humble, friendly, and he knows too much about linux and drones :D <comment><USER2> Generally speaking, you can't go wrong with gift cards. Amazon, ThinkGeek, whatever. Or, y'know, a nice thank-you card. "Hey, you're awesome, thank you for everything you've done for me."

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems to me that Think Geek has some good ones, e.g. a "bow before me, for I am root." Or he might enjoy some of the "O'Really Associates" tee shirts.

</comment><comment><USER4> How about this? "we believe in god, rest we authenticate"

</comment><comment><USER5> Humble you say? "The sysadmin giveth and the sysadmin taketh away."

</comment><comment><USER6> Custom printed: #1 sudo

The joke is it's a bash comment.

<comment><USER7> [http://store-xkcd-com.myshopify.com/products/sudo](http://store-xkcd- com.myshopify.com/products/sudo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> sudo make me a sandwich ?</comment>


Ask HN: Best books/blogs on Business strategy you have read? - <AUTHOR> Recently I read two articles, https://www.gwern.net/Complement and https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ and Learned the idea of "COMMODITIZE YOUR COMPLEMENT". This was really fascinating and a leaves me with a thought what other strategies buissness applies to capture the market. Are there any books/blogs where I can read more stuff like these? <comment><USER2> Blue ocean strategy, zero to one, business strategy canvas. The YC blog, they like to do things a la Peter Thiel too. The 22 inmutable laws of marketing is not strategy but it's a good complement to zero to one, as Thiel doesn't deepen a lot about how to retain part of the value in a market with marketing.</comment>


Rupert to Internet: It's War - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2009/11/michael-wolff-200911?printable=true <comment><USER3> Murdoch's strategy isn't to profit off online news at all - it's to cultivate an industry-wide strategy that makes online news completely unprofitable. If people are forced to pay for online news, they're more likely to switch back to print.

The problem with this strategy is, of course, that while News Corporation can certainly strongarm lesser corps into following their actions lock-step, it's notoriously harder to convince a ragtag band of hacker journalists with a wifi card, laptop and camcorder as their biggest overheads to follow suite - they've less to lose, and less for Murdoch to threaten. And even if you do, there's a few thousand others you have to coerce as well.

Murdoch's playing a rigged game of whac-a-mole.

<comment><USER4> _"The problem with this strategy is, of course, that while News Corporation can certainly strongarm lesser corps into following their actions lock-step, it's notoriously harder to convince a ragtag band of hacker journalists with a wifi card, laptop and camcorder as their biggest overheads to follow suite - they've less to lose, and less for Murdoch to threaten."_

The _"rag-tag band of hacker journalists"_ is a silly bit of romanticized fiction. Even if a few "rag-tag" journalists exist, and even if they manage to produce hard news in some semi-legitimate form, they've got to feed their families, too. Real reporters have full-time jobs. They can't do it for free.

One of my biggest pet peeves with the technology industry is that highly paid programmers -- intellectual property professionals! -- act as though content is just some sort of data stream that springs fully formed from the earth's core. They seem to believe that they're entitled free access to this content, and that the "dinosaur" industry of "old media" is doomed to failure because of the overwhelming success of their brilliant new business insights (namely: people like getting stuff for free). In order to believe this myth, however, you need to completely disregard the fact that the rotting corpse of the "old media" is the fuel that keeps the new media going.

Someday soon we're going to reach the end-game: ad-blocking will become ubiquitous in browsers, and this long, strange nightmare of "free" content and "zero marginal costs" will have to yield to the simple reality that content costs money to produce. We've got to stop investing in the childish notion that we can all become bazillionaires by aggregating other people's hard work with a comment thread.

<comment><USER5> > _We've got to stop investing in the childish notion that we can all become > bazillionaires by aggregating other people's hard work with a comment > thread._

I can't count the number of times that mainstream media has done this same thing. There are plenty of examples of Wikipedia circular references (i.e. Journalist reads unsubstantiated comment on a Wikipedia page, Published comment as truth (without citing Wikipedia, though sometimes _with_ citation), Wikipedia cites the new article as proof of the original comment). What about those articles that are basically a reprinting of some corporate press release, which are passed off as journalism?

<comment><USER4> Do these things happen? Yes, of course.

Do these things happen so frequently that you can use them to argue that journalism is merely an aggregator of content? I think you've got an uphill battle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> n-named """It is not, what's more, merely that Murdoch objects to people reading his news for free online; it's that he objects to—or seems truly puzzled by—what newspapers have become online. You get a dreadful harrumph when you talk to Murdoch about user-created content, or even simple linking to other sites. He doesn't get it. He doesn't buy it. He doesn't want it.

Every conversation I've had with him about the new news, about the fundamental change in how people get their news—that users go through Google to find their news rather than to a specific paper—earned me a walleyed stare."""

Is this some sort of joke?

</comment><comment><USER6> The newspaper industry has gotten itself into an interesting predicament.

The reason nobody wants to pay for news online is that they are used to it being free, and that it is so easy to go to a competing newssite if one starts charging. But history shows that people are willing to pay for news - <USER2> have done so for many years via subscriptions and newsstand sales. If all online newssources cost money I'm certain millions would start paying, I know I would. But if only a few started charging I would simply switch to a competing free source. If NY times started charging money I would switch to NY Post.

It's classical game theory - if everyone agrees to charge the industry will be much better off, but if there are a few defectors they will get all the eyeballs and marketshare.

I wrote about it some time ago [http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2009/03/online- news-and-prisoner...](http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2009/03/online-news-and- prisoners-dilemma.html)

<comment><USER5> If Murdoch wants to charge for the content, then they better remove barriers to consuming their content once I have paid:

      1. PDF version of the newspaper (maybe?)
      2. *FULL* article text in RSS feed body
      3. Little to no advertising.

Emphasis on the second point. Obviously I would have to authenticate to gain access, but the whole point of the 'teaser' text in RSS feeds is to drive you back to the side for ad impressions. If I'm already a paying customer, then I shouldn't need to be 'driven' back to the site if I don't want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's easy to charge for high-quality national news. In America, there are basically three sources of this: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. If all three start charging for news that can only be found in those publications, they'll be fine. Cable news websites don't currently offer the same quality of news as those three do, and function more as of a competitor to USA Today.

Local news is where things get more complicated. Local newspapers have plenty of competition from TV station websites that suck, but probably don't suck enough to make people want to pay for news. Most papers have already stripped themselves so thin that they don't offer much more than aggregated bloggers and press releases could. In-depth journalism has been relegated to the alt- weeklies. I think there are several ways local newspapers could make more money online, but they seem more interested in laying off people to cut costs than figuring out how they're going to survive.

</comment><comment><USER8> Murdoch has always taken the reverse approach to how people like us do things; instead of innovate hammer them till you win.

There might be logic in that approach; he's certainly done ok with it so far...

It will be interesting to see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER9> The elephant in the room is that the quality of 99% of journalism is so low that no one in their right mind would pay for it. Murdoch is a major purveyor of this rubbish.

Will I pay for warmed over wire service I can get in the original elsewhere? No. Would I pay for well researched investigative reporting? Maybe. But Murdoch would be changing his whole approach if he actually engaged in that.

Do some real reporting, and make us care.

</comment><comment><USER10> The death of the daily newspaper doesn't have to mean the death of the printed newspaper. I quit the subscription to all my daily newspapers a while back, not because I thought they where bad, but because I simply didn't have time to read them every day and all that I really got out of it was huge piles of paper I had to carry to the recycling bin every week. I do however still subscribe to several weekly and monthly magazines and regularly buy the weekend edition of my favourite newspapers since on the weekend I have time to read. For day to day news I use the newspaper web sites, but when I have time to read long well researched articles I want to do it on paper and sitting in my favourite chair.

So that is the direction I think the newspapers should be taking. Stop trying to put out a paper every day, settle for one to three times a week. Keep your website updated with day to day happenings and time sensitive news and use your print media to write longer, more researched articles.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been suspicious of Murdoch's motivations in the past (vis a vis the particular bias of Fox News) but this for-pay initiative seems like a testable proposition.

If Murdoch can decide, one day, to charge for "news," and if this sentiment is echoed all over, and if it turns into implementation, then it will serve as yet another example of consolidated, command-and-control media. It's one thing to enable an "echo chamber" where dozens of media voices repeat what the others are saying, but changing the business structure of the medium itself will be another thing entirely.

Like some other commenters here, I would like to believe that the sheer numbers involved in the amateur news-generating population would cause Murdoch's strategy to be impossible... and yet, I've witnessed other "impossible" things seemingly happen according to Murdoch's will.

<comment><USER12> I think this article ultimately give devastating critique of that kind of thinking: _... the news business, supported for a hundred years by advertising, whose core skill has been selling advertising, believes it must right away, this second, re-create itself with a new business model where advertising is just the cream on top and where it's the consumer who pays the true cost of newsgathering._

<comment><USER11> I definitely agree - and really, I want my statement to be falsified, since it will be so much worse for it to be confirmed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Print newspapers are the buggy whip industry of the 21st century. Look at the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

"Rupert Murdoch is going to battle against the Internet, bent on making readers actually pay for online newspaper journalism…" People were not willing to pay for their product printed on paper when it came loaded with tons of money saving coupons, I doubt very many people will take out a credit card and pay for it online on a regular basis.

I think the news industry has more than a content delivery mechanism problem here. I certainly won't be buying any shares of their stock based on this new business model proposed by Mr. Murdoch, lol.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hmmm... should I read NPR, BBC, the Guardian for free or should I pay Rupert for the NY Post and Glenn Beck? Gee, that's a toughie....

</comment><comment><USER15> >> It seems that Murdoch has, in a fit of pique, made certain pronouncements which may have to be _humored_ by the people who work for him

I think 'humored' above should be 'honored'. What do you guys think?

<comment><USER12> No, the usage above is correct

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My money's still on internet

</comment><comment><USER17> Lovely - it'll be nice to see this dick get clobbered.</comment>


A peek behind the curtain at GCHQ - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36477790 <comment><USER2> What an obvious attempt to pretend that "GCHQ is opening up and becoming more transparent" as the Investigatory Powers Bill passes, greatly expanding the agency's surveillance power with as little oversight as ever.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an app on Mac or PC that can help me focus - <AUTHOR> I am looking for an app that will let me select programs that I want to use, and then prompt me when I switch programs during my focus time <comment><USER2> Keyboard Maestro?</comment>