Morgan Stanley Hires Supertanker to Store Oil in Gulf  - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aIbVHft2R3SE&refer=home <comment><USER2> Morgan Stanley Said to Cancel Tanker for Oil Storage. [http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSia8gPt...](http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSia8gPtSK4g&refer=home)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's because there's contango in oil futures right now.

The spread between front month futures and november is something along the lines of $30 a barrel.

So you buy a front month future, take delivery, simmer, and sell a november future. If the profit from the futures arb is worth more than the opportunity cost (tanker rental), then it's a good play.

<comment><USER4> _$30 a gallon._

Barrel?

<comment><USER5> Welcome to Germany.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> i'm not sure why the article doesn't mention it, but one of the reasons this makes sense for MS is the rising "contango" in oil futures (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contango> and <http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=1214>)

essentially the market is betting that oil prices will rise in the coming months, which puts storage space at an obvious premium.

</comment><comment><USER4> _Morgan Stanley hired its tanker at $68,000 a day, the two brokers said. That works out at $1.02 a barrel a month, based on a 2 million-barrel cargo._

<comment><USER7> [http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/01/zany-profit-idea-of- da...](http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/01/zany-profit-idea-of-day.html)

      Friday, January 16, 2009
      Risk-Free Profit Idea of the Day
      Posted by Tyler Durden at 1:47 PM
      Buy: Barrels of Oil (we do not have a position in this "security" so we hope the SEC does not bust our front door in an hour for position peddling)

<comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=424877>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=426142>

<comment><USER7> Edit of the comment gave me a blank page at that time.

<comment><USER4> HN is sagging under the load of new users. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, it serves up blank pages. Also, since the edit limit is one hour, if one clicks the edit button at 59 minutes (i.e. right before it disappears), the response might be something like this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=440702>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it only me or I am not the only one worried about what can happen with such a big high-value sitting duck?

<comment><USER2> There are hundreds of tankers out there just like it. Plus, an attack on one would hurt nature more than anything else.

<comment><USER8> Prior to 2001 I would seek a financial justification for such attacks. Sadly, we can no longer count on such rational behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really? We gave these banks TARP money and they're out spending it on hoarding _oil_ so they can jack consumer prices later? Talk about sleazy.

<comment><USER10> Well, if you're a commodities trader, ideally you want to buy something then sell it quicker than it takes to ship it. Then it can physically be transported directly from the seller to the buyer. "Taking delivery", as it's called, is a nightmare for the typical commodities trader, who generally has _absolutely no idea_ what to do with it, and doesn't want to pay for warehousing out of his potential profit.

One tankerload of oil isn't going to be enough to move the market. I suspect what happened was they vastly overpaid for it and can't for whatever reason bear to just write it off.

<comment><USER4> _One tankerload of oil isn't going to be enough to move the market._

From the article:

 _Frontline Ltd., the world's biggest owner of supertankers, said Jan. 14 about 80 million barrels of crude oil are being stored in tankers, the most in 20 years. A purchaser could buy oil now, keep it for months at sea and fetch better prices by selling futures that are higher than the spot price._

The world uses about 86 million barrels of oil per day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> so are the ships crewed? they just sit at sea?

<comment><USER12> a job on this crew may qualify as one of those "what job can I do that allows me plenty of time to work on my startup?"

<comment><USER5> Do they have internet access?

<comment><USER12> of course they do, its a dream job. they have shuffleboard, a swimming pool, jogging track, helicopter pad for visits from the bankers that want to check on their hordes of oil...all the normal accouterments of a super tanker ;)

<comment><USER5> But --- do they have Ninjas to keep the pirates off-board?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Can Tim Cook fix what's rotten at Apple? - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/103393-can-tim-cook-fix-whats-rotten-at-apple

<comment><USER2> The big changes Tim Cook is going to make are adding flash to iOS and Blu-Ray to Mac? Are you kidding me? Maybe 3 years ago those would have been big, but both platforms are now getting along just fine without them.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a fairly content free article which makes some highly speculative claims and hand waves a lot. Skip.

<comment><USER4> Speculative claims based on poor fact checking. Some examples...

"Apple's new CEO is not like Steve Jobs. In fact, in many ways he is the polar opposite of the technology icon that he has replaced. Pundits and fans alike see this as a major problem for the future of Apple, something that was reflected in the stock market after the resignation of its titular head"

\- The day after Jobs stepped down the Dow was down 1.51%, the S&P was down 1.56% and Apple was only down .65%. A week later it was up 1.5% and a month later it was up nearly 8%.

"Where Jobs wanted solitude and a environment free of people making suggestions, Cook seems to be pushing the tiller in the opposite direction, opting instead for dialog when it comes to making decisions for the company."

\- Read any biography of Jobs, even the negative ones, and you'll see that isn't true. EVERYONE says the same thing "He was an ass who would scream at you and call you names but he expected and encouraged people to do the same to him"

"These small moves are certainly laudable, and indicate that Cook may indeed be a savvy businessman, but he has a hurdle to overcome as he is certainly not the "product guy" that Jobs was."

\- This completely ignores the huge role played by Ive and Schiller. I'm not saying Jobs didn't add a lot to the equation but, in his own words, Ive was his "design soul mate". Jobs gave his approval but it's Ive who has been designing Apple products for the last decade.

Also the author claims Steve Jobs came in and discontinued charitable giving programs that were already in place. I find that hard to believe and the reason has nothing to do with Jobs. Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy when Jobs came back and I can't see them spending money to match employee contributions when they barely had enough to keep the lights on.

So yeah, this guy has no idea what he's talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, that death spiral that Apple's in. Maybe Tim Cook can restore clone licenses, reintroduce floppy disk drives, and stud the next iPhone with dozens and dozens of buttons and knobs too. Maybe add an "Intel Inside" sticker on every new MacBook, now that Steve Jobs' ruinous reign is over.

</comment><comment><USER6> I simply can't see Flash on iOS devices and Blu-Ray on Macbooks.

</comment><comment><USER7> "While online media is exploding and Blu-ray sales are anemic, native support of Blu-ray burning and playback in OS X needs to happen."

yes, that's soooo obvious !

</comment><comment><USER8> Completely agree with plinkplonk and annon - this article is completely unfounded. The author never explains "what's rotten at Apple." Don't fix what's not broken.

</comment><comment><USER9> The mobile version of this article is terrible. The scrolling "jerks" to whatever page it thinks I should be on - very strange.

</comment><comment><USER10> Apple's rotten? Oh please. The headline is a linkbait troll. Take the speculations within with a lot of salt.</comment>


SOPA is "weaponized censorship" - <AUTHOR>

This IMO, far and above anything else, was the most important phrase in Anons release against SOPA.  I'm asking a serious question here:  How do we completely associate the term "weaponized censorship" with SOPA and bills like it.  This is the sound-bite that the average person needs to hear to start making the right connections about this bill.
I'm asking for advice and help in changing the dialog to make this the message that those of us against SOPA use to help other people understand.
* Edit: Link to anonymous release:
http://thenextweb.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/12/xtjag.png <comment><USER2> It needs to hit mainstream media, not just the ones who read hacker news, reddit. You need to be able to explain to your aunt (the one who still uses Windows XP) what this bill does and why they should care succinctly.

One of the best ways might be to call up journalists/news bureaus for the local papers/tv stations and discuss it with them and what impact the bill will have locally. Will it mean that a popular startup will close? Will it mean that people won't be able to read Reddit/Twitter/Facebook because their ips will be blocked? Will it mean that the cool startup that uses cloud hosting might end up shutting down if the cloud carrier is blocked? Tell them!

If you go to church ask the pastor if you could say a few words about the bill (same applies for other religions). Virtually nobody outside of the tech industry has heard of this bill.

And please, when you see your family for the holidays, bring it up.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really awesome advice. Thanks. Living in the Bay Area sometimes means you're in an echo chamber. I hope that as people travel for the holidays they will take your advice and bring it up to friends and family that may not be exposed to this kind of information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you have a link for the Anon release? It would be easier for anyone reading this to understand what you're talking about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just added it to the posting. Thanks for pointing this out, but beyond the release itself, I feel like it's hard to make someone who's generally apathetic about news or politics understand why something like SOPA could be so damaging to the freedom of expression and information the Internet had engendered. There seems to be some sort of social/psychology need to tie things up in neat packaging to make it easy to consume, and "weaponized censorship" really galvanized me.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: in 2013, is it still worth learning RoR/Django? - <AUTHOR> Can one skip a generation and say learn backbone instead of jquery, or meteor instead of django? I wonder if knowing the older technology is still needed to appreciate the new one; The elders of 'server side rendering' frameworks are saying in talks that what they do is virtually obsolete, as more and more gets rendered on the client. But of course there's a large chunck of applications that still are better implemented with RoR/Django. Since we all have a limited time to learn... in 2013, is it still worth learning RoR/Django? <comment><USER2> Instead of using RoR or Django (or something really "opinionated"), try looking into Sinatra or Flask (or other small "micro-frameworks" and libraries) where you can mix-and-match your own libraries from different places. This will get you in the habit of weighing the pros and cons of using different packages and tools for different tasks, and it will also force you to learn how to chose the _best tool for the job_ yourself.

I think Rails and Django are great, but they offload a lot of design decisions to the community -- this is great when you want to write maintainable code with a diverse team, but not necessarily the optimal setup for gaining the most useful skills for the future. If you want to be ahead of the curve, try using smaller and more focused tools. Even though an individual piece of the puzzle may occasionally need to be replaced, you will at least know that you hand selected the best tool for your use case, and won't have to shoe-horn another approach on top of it.

<comment><USER3> Also note that recently web development is moving away from including front- end logic and templating in the server side code. Nowadays developers are focused on building front-end apps (with backbone/ember/etc) that interact with back-end APIs. If you want to move in this direction, Flask and Sinatra can provide all the functionality of Django/RoR without the overhead of all the templating junk you won't use. If you like the ORM of Django, try SqlAlchemy + Flask.

<comment><USER4> Backbone yes, Ember, likely not. Ember is so new and the core changes so often that it's unlikely that a large number of developers are using it.

<comment><USER5> Jeff Atwood's new product Discourse is heavily based on Ember, so that's at least one major user.

<comment><USER6> And it's also using rails for the sever side component

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This conversation seems to come up often. Server side templating is still really important and isn't going away too soon.

There's still so many problems to solve before server side templating can seriously be considered obsolete.

1\. Search engines still can't scrape javascript created content. Hacks like #! don't count.

2\. Grade A browsers still don't properly support pushState() and if they are supported in some cases it's a buggy experience.

3\. There's still a decent amount of people with JS turned off.

4\. Having the client do the heavy lifting of your web site is a bad idea because the experience cannot be controlled. Anyone without a decent computer is going to get a sluggish experience and mobile performance is still very questionable.

#3 is probably the least important thing but it will also depend on what your site is doing. If I'm selling a product that with global reach and I ignore #3 then I'm throwing away money basically because India and China are massive and they have pretty high %s of people without JS or very old browsers.

<comment><USER8> Regarding point #1:

Yes it can be done, but it slow down the process a lot.

<comment><USER7> Can you go into more details?

Making your web server respond back with server rendered templates if it detects a bot user-agent instead of serving back json normally isn't really what I would consider a solution.

It's a solution in the sense that you can satisfy both search engines and users but it requires the developer to code basically 1.5 web sites instead of 1 (it's not really double the work but it's certainly more work than just wiring up some routes that spit back json).

<comment><USER8> I cannot go into technical details because that is a solution I worked out for Nuuton. Though it is possible by using a helper bot. The crawler does not do the job itself, but gets the data passed to it by another bot.

I don't want to sound dickish, but I can't really give you much technical details. Sorry.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like it's not solved. Don't you think Google would be happily crawling javascript sites without the developer having to do anything special?

I don't know what Nuuton is but from the looks of the home page it seems to be some random no name search engine that isn't even released.

I wouldn't really call that solved, considering most end users are using Google, Bing or Yahoo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Backbone and jQuery do different jobs, they complement each other quite well.

For the next year you'd have a much better chance of getting a Django or RoR job than a Meteor job. Meteors still the new kid on the block so it's still in a process of picking up traction. Beyond the next year, who knows...anything could happen. As long as you understand the underlying principles of web development, picking up new technology should be trivial.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't care so much about the job market, but I want to know what would give me a wider range of apps I can put together quickly, given I invest X hrs to learn the technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The idea of skipping Rails and learning Backbone instead makes no sense unless you just wanted to be a front-end guy all along. You still need a backend. Whether you like Rails' style of backend or prefer something like Sinatra is up to you, but you need something on the backend, and Rails is still a very strong contender.

<comment><USER10> If you are doing a heavy front end, you should avoid something heavy on the backend like Rails. It will only get in the way. Something like Flask, Rack, Grape or Restify is a better option for the server-side component.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's not a zero sum game.

Also, there's a lot of hype about JS frameworks and client side rendering, but you still need an API and server side rendering (Twitter just figured this out after going back and forth). Both RoR/Django are good tools for writing REST APIs on, and for learning about web development in general.

</comment><comment><USER12> Both Rails and Django will be here for a long time, regardless of what the current fad of the day is.

</comment><comment><USER13> IMO this is the composition vs inheritence debate.

In the Python world, WSGI was really a break-through idea (a decade ago!) - parse the request up front and pass the text down a chain of functions each of which can modify the request / response.

That way the chain you build is the chain used.

Every python web server uses it behind the scenes, and then tries to make bits of it "easier" for you by hiding the underlying goodness.

Its usually a good trade off, but it kind of takes away the point.

So, I would say, (python) learn how to deploy your own WSGI app on gunicorn behind Nginx. And put security in using repoze.who.

Then you can choose to replace your app with Flask. Or django. Or ...

build up from the ground

</comment><comment><USER14>
      > learn backbone instead of jquery

Backbone relies on some sort of DOM library like jQuery to function. Regardless, for any library, it's important to learn the fundamentals before using them, such as DOM basics in JavaScript before even using jQuery.

To answer the original question, yes, it's important to learn server-side frameworks since there's still many things about them that client-side rendering can't do (better search engine optimization, progressive enhancement, accessibility).

</comment><comment><USER15> If you want to remain an applications developer, then yes ROR/Djano is worth learning.

If you want to learn to build critical system components in the back-end, you can skip RoR or Backbone, and learn stuff like machine learning, NLP, or building distributed systems.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone enummerate the apps that are 'as of today' better suited to RoR/Django?

The funny thing is that the django tutorial uses a poll app. This is an app that is ten million times easier to do, and more effective, in say meteor. But I'm sure other apps are not.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's still worth learning COBOL, so I'm going to have to say yes.

</comment><comment><USER17> Don't compare backbone and jQuery. That's like saying "I want to build a bike, do I need a frame or a wheel?" Learn both. They work together.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd go straight to javascript for webapps, but Ruby is my favorite way to write map-reduce jobs. It's really well suited for big data work.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd skip RoR/Django at this point.

<comment><USER6> I'd say if you want to be a front-end only dev you can skip it - you need to know some server side framework if you're going to be doing anything else</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Better startup tld, .co or .io? - <AUTHOR> I have both the .co and the .io of a domain -- which is better to launch a new b2b data tech start-up under?  And don't just say .com instead; I don't own it and someone has just been squatting on it since the mid 90's (not for sale, just a dead link & not responsive to emails to their whois email). <comment><USER2> For anything techie, given that choice, I'd go with the .io version. It resonates with techies because of the overlap with the acronym for Input/Output. And it seems to be somewhat trendy to use .io for tech oriented sites.

FWIW, my newest SaaS offering is using a .io domain as well, so I am "putting my money where my mouth is" on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Domain names don't really matter. You just need to be easy to find on Google search.

<comment><AUTHOR> You don't really believe this -- .com's obviously matter the most, but many good .coms are being squatted. If domain names (and extensions) didn't matter, then there wouldn't be such demand for some extensions and not others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would suggest going with .io as I've seen it used used online more often

</comment><comment><USER5> You named your company before you acquired an appropriate domain name?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't launched yet. And no, I have the .co and .io for a specific domain name, I'm just wondering what folks think seems better nowadays?</comment></comment>


VPN.sh are offering a VPN for £2/year. Yes, £2 yearly D: - <AUTHOR> https://www.vpn.sh/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=1&billingcycle=annually&promocode=12MONTHS_2

<comment><USER2> Actually it's £2/month: [http://up.frd.mn/8a552.png+](http://up.frd.mn/8a552.png+)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, follow the original link and click checkout upon the "Yearly" selection. It'll automatically add the promotion code on the next page, dropping the price down to £2/year :)</comment></comment>


Say goodbye to the MS-DOS command prompt - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/3147668/operating-systems/say-goodbye-to-the-ms-dos-command-prompt.html <comment><USER2> I have very mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, the Command Prompt in Windows has always been something of a second-class citizen, a poor imitation of the power user shells of the UNIX/Linux world. It was long overdue for an upgrade. PowerShell is, no doubt, more powerful, and for professional Windows sysadmins with the time and inclination to learn it, it's probably been the default for a long time.

On the other hand, there's a reason the traditional command prompt and batch files have lasted so long: for a lot of basic purposes, they work just fine, and many people know how to use them. Among those who _aren 't_ professional Windows sysadmins, I know very few people who seem to use Powershell at all, probably not helped by the fact that it has some of the worst documentation in computing history and is far from intuitive for anyone familiar with either the traditional Windows command prompt or something like bash.

I'm still not at all comfortable with the idea that with Windows 10 you'll essentially just wake up one morning and find something you've been using happily for literally decades isn't there any more and pressing the keyboard shortcut that got you want you wanted last night doesn't do so this morning. Regardless of whether this particular change can be turned off, at least for now, this still seems a very dangerous policy in general.

<comment><USER3> First of all, all that is happening is the default is swapping. You can still swap back if you really must.

Also, PowerShell runs .bat batch files just fine, for those that were wondering.

I don't think PowerShell has any worse documentation than bash: most commands support -? and/or -h just like they do everywhere else.

Or there might be extra help for a command in Get-Help, which is very similar to unix man (and aliased to it if you have the have the habit to just man commandname).

Don't know the command you want? Get-Command lists them and the you can Get- Help about it.

Beyond that there's definitely a learning curve to get used to the common verbs and some subtle syntax differences to bash, but that's not much different from learning the differences between bash and zsh or csh or emacs... On this front I can point you to a lot worse documentation than PowerShell's in the deeper, weirder *nix command shells.

Edit: Removed asterisk interpreted as emphasis.

<comment><USER2> _First of all, all that is happening is the default is swapping. You can still swap back if you really must._

Sure, but that's not really my point. No-one who is seeing the default swap had much if any say over whether the option to swap back would be provided, nor will many if any of those people have any say over whether and when the alternative will be deemed too much trouble to maintain and removed entirely.

I remember painfully well my first experience with Powershell, back when it was new. I thought I'd give it a try, so I opened a shell window and tried a few commands.

What happened next went something like the following. I'm actually reproducing this as I type this post, following roughly the same process using Powershell as installed on my Windows PC today, just to make sure I'm not talking complete rubbish here and it really is as bad as I remember...

        dir

OK, great, I still get a directory listing. I'm in my home directory and lots of the useful subdirectories are hidden by default. No problem:

        dir /a

What, why is that an error? Oh, this isn't really dir as I know it, and / is now a path separator, reversing two decades of Windows using \ for that purpose. OK, maybe it's more like bash then?

        dir --help

No, that's an error as well. OK, let's try something else:

        help

If you've ever tried that in Powershell, you'll be aware that it produces one of the most unhelpful help pages ever written. Even a simple section about what to read to learn about Powershell is full of jargon that no-one who didn't already know Powershell would necessarily understand.

What is a cmdlet? Is that like a batch file?

Where did all this stuff about properties and methods on objects come from? I'm trying to get a directory listing, not write a GUI in Java!

At least it finally tells me the magic syntax to get help on any given command: -?

        dir -?

Wait, what? I asked about dir, and it's telling me something about Get- ChildItem. Except it's not really, because all it tells me is some syntax for something I didn't ask about, with no indication of why it's relevant or what any of the options (I'm assuming) actually do. But after a screenful of more jargon I don't understand, it says something about how to get more information, so let's try that.

Oh, I still can't copy and paste like most UIs had since the 1990s. OK, back to typing out tedious commands full of variations on what I actually want to ask about the old-fashioned way:

        get-help Get-ChildItem -detailed

Oh, look! Several screens of further jargon, which apparently still don't support paging like any decent CLI since the 1990s either!

But at least it tells me that what I want is the -Force option. Maybe. Because even the brief description of that option manages to use jargon I don't know and refer me to yet more help pages. And why on earth would an option that is normally used to override confirmation prompts when doing something destructive apply to a dir command?

Somewhere around this point, if memory serves, I stopped, presumably fearing that I would lose the will to live if I carried on much longer.

But again, I wasn't particularly trying to make the point here that Powershell is a textbook example of how not to do UI design, though it is and I might have been. My real point was that taking a tool that has been useful for 20 years and replacing it literally overnight and without prompting with a radically different tool that is also demonstrably inferior in some ways is a really, really dumb idea.

<comment><USER3> It's not changing overnight. It's changing in preview builds to get feedback from power users who asked for immediate changes as they happen. That change might eventually make its way into the Creator's Update several months from now and power users will definitely be forewarned by then.

A learning curve does not make anything "demonstrably inferior" and a lot of the jargon you felt like outright ignoring can lead to rabbit holes where PowerShell really shines, if you let it.

For the most part you've got a transcript equivalent to a DOS user switching to unix and having a hard time figuring out that dir is now ls and ls has a bunch of weird flags and hidden files start with dots for some weird reason... It's not really a demonstration of "inferiority" but a travelogue of ignorance.

You complain about the help system of PowerShell, but when was the last time you even tried HELP.EXE for CMD help? If you want to talk about terrible documentation, there's a field day to be had in HELP.EXE. I remember trying to learn from DOS 5.x's HELP.EXE which was even worse back then.

I'm sorry you don't feel like learning something new, but PowerShell is better than CMD if you give it a chance and maybe not glossing over so much of the jargon?

«What is a cmdlet? Is that like a batch file?»

For the most part yes, a cmdlet is like a batch file but more powerful.

«Where did all this stuff about properties and methods on objects come from? I'm trying to get a directory listing, not write a GUI in Java!»

That's where the magic in PowerShell lies, that's the rabbit hole to follow if you want to start seeing what makes PowerShell special.

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry, but I think we're still talking at cross-purposes here.

It is a fact that Microsoft can and do roll out significant changes to Windows 10 literally overnight and without giving many users the option to decline them.

It is reasonable to assume from the fact that this discussion was relevant at all that Microsoft are at least considering doing that with this change, but even if they don't, the general point still stands.

Whether or not Powershell is more powerful than the command prompt once learned is still not the point. The point is that it is _different_ , and if this change goes ahead, something that worked yesterday in the same way as it had for literally decades will suddenly not work the same way tomorrow.

As a final note, you seem to have confused my description of my initial experience with the then-new Powershell something like a decade ago with my current situation, but again, that really isn't the point anyway. The point is that forcing such a change on users could create at best a good deal of confusion and frustration among existing users who _already know_ the current system they've been using for a long time. The comparison isn't between learning Powershell and learning cmd or bash, it's between learning Powershell and not having to do anything at all. The poor documentation and general clumsiness and verbosity of Powershell are merely rubbing salt in the wound at that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm really sad about this. I grew up with useless crappy windows games and messing around in the DOS prompt.

I love the fact that I'm still using it.

I know batch file programming is ridiculous, some of the most mental looking code I've written is part of that. But I get some masochistic pleasure from using it, I've automated tons of my work through it. Much cudos goes to Rob van der Woude's batch scripting site [1].

But finally, _finally_ they did some really nice updates to the DOS prompt in Windows 10 so that it fills the screen properly and line wraps correctly.

In the DOS prompt I've got:

\- SSH (natively compiled)

\- Pretty much all the linux command tools I want grep, cat, sed etc (thanks be to Git SCM and all it's precursors e.g. GOW)

\- Vim

\- Lovely consolatas mono font - which gives lovely crisp font rendering - better than any of the DOS 'replacements'

\- Rather lovely Solarized dark colours

\- GNU Readline [2] (hitting tab gets you a slash at the end of the directory, yay!)

\- Chocolatey package management

Seriously, the DOS prompt can be quite lovely to use [3]

I know Powershell is all shiny and new with added .net up it's arse, but I don't need it and it's not what I was typing in as I grew up. I even went about changing all my .bat files to .cmd files to be ultra modern this year.

I think there'd be uproar in the Linux world if bash was 'put out to pasture' (reminds me of the horse in Animal Farm) as is happening to DOS.

      [1]: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/
      [2]: http://mridgers.github.io/clink/
      [3]: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7765571/images/screenshots/dos.png

<comment><USER5> Care to share what tools you installed all of that with? I think you can still do all of that in Powershell...

<comment><USER4> I'm sure you can do it all with Powershell, I just don't want to switch :)

But as for getting it all installed, it's pretty easy:

1\. Chocolatey [1]

2\. Git chocolatey package [2] (gives GNU tools, SSH - there is also a separate OpenSSH package from MS [6])

3\. Vim chocolatey package [3]

4\. Consolas font (just change the DOS window properties)

5\. Solarized colours [4]

6\. GNU Readline (clink) [5]

      [1]: https://chocolatey.org/install
      [2]: https://chocolatey.org/packages/git
      [3]: https://chocolatey.org/packages/vim
      [4]: https://github.com/neilpa/cmd-colors-solarized/
      [5]: http://mridgers.github.io/clink/
      [6]: https://chocolatey.org/packages/openssh

Edit: fixed formatting, added OpenSSH package link

<comment><USER5> Yeah I think I need to get on board with this Choco thing - I looked at it a few years back but its app support was poor at best!

<comment><USER4> I use it for pretty much everything - I forgot to say, even clink I mentioned above I installed via Chocolatey. You do occasionally have issues that the Chocolatey package isn't up to date, but it's mostly pretty good. Here's the list of packages I installed with it:

      7zip 16.02
      7zip.install 16.02
      autohotkey.portable 1.1.24.00
      chocolatey 0.9.10.3
      chocolatey-uninstall.extension 1.1.0
      chromium 54.0.2801.0
      clink 0.4.7
      DotNet3.5 3.5.20160716
      dropbox 5.4.24
      Emacs 126.96.36.19950611
      evince 18.104.22.168
      f.lux 3.10
      FBReader 0.12.10.1
      git 2.9.0
      git.install 2.9.0
      googledrive 1.29.2074.1528
      greenshot 18.104.22.168
      haskell-stack 1.1.2
      keepass 2.34
      keepass.install 2.34
      keepass-keepasshttp 126.96.36.199
      libreoffice 5.1.4
      LightTable 0.8.1
      mediamonkey 4.1.12
      meld 3.16.0
      mm-choco.extension 0.0.1
      MsSqlServer2012Express 11.00.3000.20140928
      nodejs 6.3.0
      nodejs.install 6.3.0
      nsis-unicode 2.46.5
      Octave 3.6.4
      openvpn 2.3.11
      paint.net 4.0.6
      pandoc 1.17.1
      poedit 1.8.7
      postgresql-9.3 220.127.116.11

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Except it is not the MS-DOS prompt (unless you actually ran command.com, via the NTVDM). It may look like a duck, quack like a duck (sort of), but it really was just another Win32 (albeit console) program.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. It's not DOS, it's another interface Windows. It tell you so on it's first line! Everything you run in it won't print "This program cannot be run in DOS mode." and exit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just find everything so convoluted in Powershell, don't get me wrong its much less painful than using cmd but compared to a bash shell I find myself tearing my hair out! I think things would be easier if I was a .NET coder but im not and I miss the basic simplicity of things like `where` from bash vs having to create an entire script to just find executables on the path!

<comment><USER8> I'm a .net coder, it's no better. I still use cygwin.

<comment><USER5> Check out the new Ubuntu Bash thing on Windows 10, its pretty impressive for most things and doesnt have the idiosyncrasies that Cygwin has :)

<comment><USER8> I have, I stick with cygwin because it has better interoperability with the rest of windows. Ubuntu bash is more like using a virtual machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thankfully FreeDOS and DOSBox exist, so all those hundreds of batch files each of us old DOS hands has lying around won't go to complete waste.</comment>


Finding More Than One Worm in the Apple - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2620662

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of Bertrand Meyer's article on the Ariane 501 failure:

[https://archive.eiffel.com/doc/manuals/technology/contract/a...](https://archive.eiffel.com/doc/manuals/technology/contract/ariane/)

In that it is not an honest attempt at an inquiry into a problem, it's the use of a problem as a public whetstone on which to grind one's favourite axe.

Mr Bland's axe is unit testing:

 _This duplication is the critical factor leading to the manifestation of the vulnerability, and it can be traced directly to a lack of unit testing discipline — because of the absence of the craftsmanship and design sense that testable code requires. Someone writing code with unit testing in mind would have ensured only one copy of the algorithm existed—not only because it 's theoretically more proper, but because it would have been easier to test._

Which is double nonsense. Firstly, because writing unit tests simply don't force you not to duplicate code like this. I spend day after day staring at a thoroughly unit-tested codebase which contains duplication like this, along with manifest other crimes. Secondly, because you don't need a unit test to force you not to duplicate code like this, you just need to be a competent, conscientious programmer.

Don't get me wrong, i am a huge fan of testing. This code should have had tests, without doubt. But please don't delude yourself into thinking that unit testing is going to lead to high-quality code. If you have sub-par programmers, or decent programmers in a sub-par culture, they will write low- quality code, whether they write unit tests for it or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> One interesting point is that "goto fail" in this case causes dead code. Shouldn't compilers warn about dead code?

There is -Wunreachable-code. GCC used to have it, but removed it. Clang has it, but does not enable it (you specifically need to request it). Apparentlly it causes too much noises to enable by default.

<comment><USER4> The C# compiler has this sort of warning on by default.

Unfortunately, it warns about lots of things which the "lazier" developers really can't be arsed to do (like documenting the public methods and classes in their APIs).

The result is that in a team where not everyone is vigilant, a bigger project is doomed to have a compiler output with 100s and 100s warnings about things left and right.

And the result is that almost everyone ignores the compiler warnings, even when it tells you about things which are legitimate errors.

In short: The noise is a feature but is treated like a bug. The result of that is buggy code. I'm not sure how or if such a thing can be fixed by technology alone. A major shift in culture is probably also needed.

<comment><USER5> > "it warns about lots of things ... like documenting the public methods and > classes in their APIs"

Only if you're switched on the Generate XML Documentation switch `/doc` (in which case I think it makes sense).

Most places I've worked have /warnaserror as a standard part of the build so that the build fails if there are any warnings (and they can be `#pragma nowarn`-ed out)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aside from the problems discussed in the article, don't define a C macro like this:

      #define FOOBAR  { foo(); bar(); }

but do it like that:

      #define FOOBAR  do { foo(); bar(); } while (0)

The latter is "C syntax safe", the former is not.

</comment><comment><USER7> Might be off topic here. But one thing I like about language like Go over C is that it enforces a strict syntax.

In Go, {} are not optional in a if statement so you will never have issue like this:

if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update( &hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0) goto fail; goto fail;

They will be easily caught

</comment><comment><USER8> I would guess that the acm could do better then showing me a 500 error + a full stack trace of a ServletException</comment>


Membarrier system call performance and the future of Userspace RCU on Linux - <AUTHOR> http://lttng.org/blog/2018/01/15/membarrier-system-call-performance-and-userspace-rcu/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr: apps are auto-linked to LTTng, which is a tracing framework. It contains calls to the membarrier syscall, which in some cases waits until every thread has context-switched at least once, which is kinda slow. New kernel option solves this.

<comment><USER3> In order to debug the slow-down issue they use the command `perf trace --duration 1 ./a.out' on where a.out is

      int main()
      {
      	return 0;
      }

and is built using `gcc -O2 -g -ldl -llttng-ust lttng-test.c'

Why is their tracing framework not able to trace itself? Is that a churlish question?

<comment><USER4> Lttng-ust is used primarily for static tracepoints. They needed a syscall level visibility, so strace / perf trace is a better tool.

<comment><USER3> I see. Thank you!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Millionaire charged after worker died digging nuke shelter - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2018/06/01/paranoid-millionaire-charged-in-death-of-worker-hired-to-dig-personal-nuke-shelter/ <comment> crooked-v > The network of tunnels was 20 feet deep and branched out 200 feet, WTOP > reported, citing charging documents. They had been powered by a "daisy > chain" of extension cords, which created the fire hazard.

...what?

Random seismically insecure tunnels are not a "shelter".

> Authorities said Beckwitt blindfolded Khafra every day before he ventured > into the subterranean hideout because he did not want him to know where he > was working.

Did this guy have a delusion about being Bruce Wayne?</comment>


Choosing the right name for your app - <AUTHOR> http://www.1bytebeta.com/choosing-right-name-app/ <comment><USER2> There is a typo in the article:you misspell the company name as Fronstand.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks mate :)</comment></comment>


Saving the last samples of dying species - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1007400/the-botanists-last-stand-the-daring-work-of-saving-the-last-samples-of-dying-species/ <comment><USER2> I'm utterly surprised they're not trying to actively clone these plant species.

Might as well get usable DNA out of them now before they disappear to the ravages of time.

That's how we do it at the State citrus park here in SoCal.

<comment><USER3> We have gotten pretty good at getting DNA from dried samples (for example herbarium sheets).

Cloning doesn't always work. You might be able to get to a callus (undifferentiated mass of cells), but moving from that point to a something that looks like a plant, with roots and leaves and that can grow in soil requires a lot of trial and error. Also money; field botany gets almost no grant money. In fact, the NSF just recently decided to end dissertation improvement grants for most areas of field biology.

<comment><USER2> "We have gotten pretty good at getting DNA from dried samples (for example herbarium sheets)."

Best DNA comes from before about 500 years of age. After that, degradation is pretty bad, and while we can get an idea of what it once was, we cannot currently perfectly reproduce it.</comment></comment></comment>


Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings - <AUTHOR> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html

<comment><USER2> I'd be interested in hearing trends about text-ad blindness. I know I look at and click adwords ads (and adsense ads) a LOT less than I did when they first came available... Especially since Google sold out their ad relevancy and allowed wildcard purchases or unrelated purchases (like ebay showing up on virtually every search with a "find SearchQuery and More at Ebay!!1!!1!"

</comment><comment><USER3> _The more an ad looks like a native site component, the more users will look at it_

For all his wacky buildup about the ethics of disclosing such a fact this was a pretty sorry payoff. It is exactly what I would predict from the results of such a study. For something to be insidious enough to consider not telling the public about it I would expect it to at least be both born out by empirical evidence AND counter-intuitive.

</comment><comment><USER4> It seems like it ought to be easy to fool the user's unconscious processes that determine fixation while still making clear at a conscious level what is and is not an ad. For example, match the color scheme and typography of ads with the rest of the site, but clearly label them as "sponsored links". While it's possible that you might annoy users this way, it would be a real stretch to call it unethical.

</comment><comment><USER5> This information is pretty unsurprising. That said, I think Nielson is discounting to some degree the effect of good typography/page layout in this discussion.

Pages that are designed well will focus the attention of the audience on the content being delivered. Note that the users also aren't looking at other things that seem to be accessory, like the navigation panes. In the end, though, that's just another argument to try to blend ads into the content area of the site, ethical or not.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, the most impressive part of the article is the eye heat map.</comment>


What's missing from desktop Linux - <AUTHOR> http://tech.hasenj.org/post/976212208 <comment><USER2> As a Linux user I _wish_ what was missing from Linux was elegance. What's really missing is drivers. Or at least non-buggy ones. I, and I'm sure many other hackers and "normal" consumers, could live with a slight lack of elegance if sound, 3D graphics, and WiFi all consistently worked without hours of fiddling while reading wikis and obscure forum posts.

I quake in fear every time I approach a projector for a presentation because I know the chances of it Just Working with my Ubuntu laptop are slim to none. Few people are willing to tolerate a UX like that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I read this article and couldn't figure out what the author thinks is missing from desktop Linux except some vague idea of elegance.

<comment><USER4> I think the article was spot on. This vague idea of elegance you mention is the "magic" that Steve Jobs refers to.

To make that happen on the Linux desktop, a really talented developer with good design skills, have to start over from scratch. Leave the legacy toolkits.

He will have to be a dictator, uncompromising in the design vision. Good user experiences cannot come out of a committee, or the "open source development model". GNOME and KDE is great, I use them, but they sure do lack the "magic".

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You have to _buy_ all your OS X apps? Where is that coming from? The only paid app I have on my Mac is TextMate. Everything else is FOSS.

I have no idea what the OP is trying to say here.

<comment><USER6> I can't agree with you more. I have Logic Pro because I do a bit of audio work, but other than that it's all FOSS. (BTW, I use TextWrangler instead of TextMate. It's a reasonable free replacement although not as good.)

<comment><USER7> And it's not as though there's an open-source alternative to Logic (or Final Cut etc) anyway.

<comment><USER8> Audacity? (I'm not a musician but know musicians who use Linux)

<comment><USER7> Audacity (cool program though it is) is to Logic as Notepad is to Office. Which is to say, a tiny, tiny subset of the other's functionality.

Edit: I just checked up on Wikipedia. Audacity has made a good deal of progress since I last used it. It's still not Logic caliber, but my analogy is definitely an exaggeration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The best desktop linux is Android. Wait a few years. I can already hook my phone to a tv via HDMI.

It's just a few steps to full desktop love. It's got most of the features I need, now I just want a bigger screen.

<comment><USER10> > I can already hook my phone to a tv via HDMI. [...] now I just want a bigger > screen.

Bigger than your TV? What are you planning on doing?

<comment><USER11> I would presume he has in mind more pixels, regardless of area. see <http://xkcd.com/732/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is where you see that open-source doesn't really attract ux experts or designers. I also miss the final touch on my linux that would make it truly enjoyable experience.

<comment><USER6> I think you hit the nail on the head by saying that Linux doesn't attract UX guys. To ne feels like open source projects are always about getting good code that runs well and the user-interface is very secondary (if even that). Apple (and now Microsoft [finally]) have enough resources to throw around to invest in the user interface, where as open source projects tend to only have enough resourses to get the actual program running. Investing in a better GTK is less of a priority. Apple clearly makes one of their main priority. Even if the prgram sucks / buggy / whatever, they will make sure that it looks beautiful because it's important to the average customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, trying to make linux more like OSX or win (which is what xfce, KDE and GNOME do) is bounded to fail. I think there are qualities on linux that are both unique and elegant, for example tiling window managers. This is where most research in UX should go. Users of others OSs are not stupid, they long for enhanced productivity. If they see it in say a tiling WM, they may want it, and currently the only way to get it is in linux (more or less).

<comment><USER6> Um if I remember correctly, Windows 1.0 had a tiling window manager. In fact even now if you right click the taskbar you have the option of tiling windows.

<comment><USER14> That's not what "tiling window manager" means in this context. See for example <http://xmonad.org/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Running Ubuntu 10.04, I have a desktop that I feel is simple, elegant and beautiful. I used to envy my brother's nice looking desktop on his MacBook, but now when I look at it I think Ubuntu actually looks better.

Ubuntu runs smoothly, with simple but nice effects, clean windows and (since 10.04) some very nice themes. Perfect? No, but definitely in the same league as OS X.

<comment><USER16> I'd say all the things you mention – nice effects, clean windows and nice themes – are examples of where Ubuntu is beautiful. I agree that Ubuntu is quite beautiful, and it is getting better and better.

I'd say what is lacking most in Ubuntu is elegance, which I define as it having strong vision about how things should look and behave. On a Mac you can quite clearly see when an application does not fit, for example Google Earth and Firefox. I think this is in large part due to the elegance of the platform.

Ubuntu is also somewhat lacking in simplicity. I think in large due to their attempts to hide accidental complexity instead of working to fix it. This has gotten a lot better, but as an example, Ubuntu still spews files for applications all over the place instead of having them as an application bundle as on a Mac. Then you get desktop files to give you a single icon to click, but they hide the complexity instead of removing it.

Reading what I wrote I realize that there is quite a bit of overlap between simplicity and elegance. App bundles are both simpler and more elegant than spewing files for an application all over the place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It sounds like he's trying to solve the problem that desktop Linux, in its current state, is used almost exclusively by hackers, and not at all by 'normal people'.

While 'normal people' may desire a clean look and fancy animations, there is a more fundamental problem. Linux is not easy. It's not easy to set up, it's not easy to use, and it's not easy to maintain.

A normal person can go into a store today, buy a computer with Windows on it, start it up, and be on their way. You can't do that with Linux. And if a normal person somehow discovers how to download and burn a disk image, once they get it on their machine, they will be presented with the inevitable task of getting everything to work. I have never installed a Linux distro that had functioning drivers for all of my hardware. I usually have to spend a few hours just configuring everything to work properly. It is ridiculous to expect that a nontechnical person is going to be able to do this.

</comment><comment><USER18> "if you're a consumer, you are, by definition, not a hacker."

Does this not make sense to anyone else?

<comment><USER19> It makes perfect sense. Consumers consume. Hackers create.

See also: iPad vs. Netbook. iPads are strictly for consuming other people's creations. Netbooks are open-ended.

<comment><USER20> Consumers are to Hackers =/= iPads are to Netbooks.

Hackers can still be consumers. In fact, I challenge you to find a single Hacker who doesn't also consume.

Consumers can be hackers. Hackers are consumers.

<comment><USER19> Hackers also read everything way too literally. A consumer is someone who _mostly_ consumes and _mostly_ doesn't create.

Everyone creates, be it an email to their friend, or a picture for their photo album. Everyone consumes, perhaps reading a book from time to time or watching a movie.

But some devices push you in one direction, and others push you in the other. Log into a Linux box with xmonad, emacs, and rxvt-unicode, and you have no choice but to create. That makes you a hacker.

Get an iPad, and with easily-available movie downloads and an infinite supply of blogs and no way to enter text efficiently, and you aren't going to be doing much creating. That makes you a consumer.

<comment><USER21> "Log into a Linux box with xmonad, emacs, and rxvt-unicode, and you have no choice but to create. That makes you a hacker." And, assuming you're the same beginner who doesn't know what to do with a Mac (the comparison was with a mac), stare at the display with no clue about how to start an app.

Log into a Mac, with iLife with Garage Band (what? Creation != programming), easily installable XCode and cheap, good graphic programs and you _can_ create whatever you want.

By forcing people to code you're not creating "hacker" nor "creators". You're replacing musicians, graphic artists, designers and other creatives with frustrated code monkeys.

"Get an iPad, and with easily-available movie downloads and an infinite supply of blogs and no way to enter text efficiently, and you aren't going to be doing much creating. That makes you a consumer." Also, with graphic software, many ways to relax, and a Mac or PC that you sync to.

And a system that gets out of your way so that you can do what you want, possibly something more interesting that 10kline .vimrc.

I'm going to go the other way - for most people Linux is counter-creative. Instead of either making that (possibly stupid) clip, they have to configure the damn thing and somehow get the network drivers and the touchpad work at the same time. Effectively, they are consuming forum posts. Instead of relaxing by consumption they get frustrated, the only skill that's really developed is hard-core toner replacement and desktop computer troubleshooting.

In contrast, MacOS (usually) gets out of their way, even brings some fun, creative software OOTB. And the iPad is all about relaxing and finding fun stuff. You know, _inspiration_.

Linux is good for people who actually know what they want to do with it. So is an Arduino, a guitar and a large block of marble.

<comment><USER19> Whoa there! My post was not some slight against non-programmers or Mac users.

To make help make my argument clear, I picked two extremes of creation and consumption -- you aren't going to be buying anything from iTMS on that Emacs machine, and you aren't going to be reprogramming your OS on the fly on your iPad. The idea was to show contrast.

I also wasn't making a value judgement.

(Also, nice description of Linux from 15 years ago. Do Macs have non- cooperative multitasking yet?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have to wonder if the Linux desktop would benefit from giving up the ghost that is X Windows. I don't think you'll ever have that elegance that you see on OS X and Windows 7 sitting on top of X Windows. I tried Ubuntu last year, well I'm still using it, and I had some of the same feelings described in this article. I was impressed with how far along the Linux desktop had come, but still sad that it just isn't quite as good as OS X or windows. I think some of that quirkiness comes from X Windows.

</comment><comment><USER23> What is missing from Linux:

* Auto-configuration that can avoid requiring the users to manually fix rough edges.

* Innovative or at-least consensus following UX designers.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's nothing "missing." Anything you want can be installed.

Other proprietary OS's provide you with a desktop environment that is more about fashion than usability.

Linux has choice. That's a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER25> _"it's effectively a locked, proprietary database"_

Nope. It's XML.

</comment><comment><USER26> Photoshop, Starcraft 2, I'd switch yesterday</comment>


Masochism in Rust Lang - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mgattozzi.dev/oxidizing-the-technical-interview/ <comment><AUTHOR> Once upon a time, C was the new language in town...</comment>


How should one scale a service business? - <AUTHOR> A lot of people say service businesses suck as its hard to scale but I have seen companies doing services and scaling it to nice big size. How do you scale a service company? <comment><USER2> To scale a service business, you need to offet a service that is in demand, easy to teach, and with good gross margins. You also need to be nice & generous to your employees, or they will simply leave and start their own competiting businesses.

What type of service businesses have you seen thay scale?</comment>


Israel: a country too far from Mike Arrington's house - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2008/04/15/israel-a-country-too-far-from-mike-arringtons-house/

<comment><USER2> In other news Scoble discovers that there's life outside Silicon Valley. So, there's a hot start-up scene in Tel Aviv, big deal. There have been hot startups coming out of Israel for a long time... ICQ anyone? CheckPoint?

I've personally been involved with a few who moved operations from Israel to SV (which is quite common). One recent interesting one is Dapper: <http://www.dapper.net/>

<comment><USER3> Incorrect. He discovered that other bloggers have been providing a false view of startup landscape.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love how he gives the headline then basically goes about explaining that it's just linkbait and not really accurate. Shameless.

</comment><comment><USER5> I lived just outside of Tel Aviv for a few years; it was an amazing place.

I was there just before this newfangled internet became a big deal, but just after a lot of high tech companies started moving to the area. There is a lot of technical talent in Israel, they have an incredible technical school- Technion.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just a plug, FYI -- anyone 18-26 and of vaguely Jewish descent can have a free trip to Israel via the Birthright organization. There is minimal religion and maximum Zionism. Also no time to check out the startup scene, but it's still a lot of fun.

Free means free, they cover airfare from NYC or LA and many meals. $250 deposit is required to reserve your spot. Email me if you have any questions.

<comment><USER7> I've had several friends go on this and everyone enjoyed it. From what I hear there was a lot of drinking and partying and not much of anything else (or at least that's all that the people I spoke with remembered).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> And the concentration of tech companies is so great in Israel that even Yahoo and Google share a building ([http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/2419149286_0dfc4bbab4_b....](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/2419149286_0dfc4bbab4_b.jpg)).

</comment><comment><USER9> I think my country produced more successful startups than any other country comparing its population (the whole country including the occupied territories has less people than NYC or London)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great point. This has always stuck out as an incredible demonstration of the failure of online tech journalism. I'm surprised that more have not written about this.</comment>


Selling Free Software - <AUTHOR> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

<comment><USER2> "Free software" is probably one of the worst terms they could have chosen, even if it's technically applicable. It is just far more common to think of "free" as "costs nothing". As a result, for decades, it seems any article on the subject must always have the same preamble reminding people what "free" really means.

There may be no term that is completely accurate (if there were, you wouldn't need the words of a license, I suppose). But these days, "GPL-compatible software" might be a reasonable replacement term; at least that doesn't imply anything about the cost.</comment>


Neuroscientists Debate a Simple Question: How the Brain Stores a Phone #? - <AUTHOR> https://www.wgbh.org/news/science-and-technology/2018/11/05/neuroscientists-debate-a-simple-question-how-does-the-brain-store-a-phone-number <comment><USER2> I worked at the phone company, US West -> Qwest -> Centurylink. I worked on putting a web front end on an ancient system (PREMIS) that maps address to phone number(s) that have been at that address, and vice versa. This was back in the mid-90s, so landlines. I haven't really been able to remember a phone number since then. I have to write them down, or something. Thank goodness for smart phones that make it easy to reuse a number that has called, and to store a number by human name.</comment>


This Is What Happens When Millions of People Suddenly Get the Internet - tuna-piano https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/fake-news-spreads-trump-around-the-world <comment> tuna-piano Many interesting tidbits in this longform article, including technical challenges with character adaption, Facebook's dominance, rumors and government anti-speech laws.

"Nobody asks, they don't care about the email," he said, explaining that most don't know that creating an email address is free, and easy. "No one is using that. They have Facebook."</comment>


Government shutdown spotlights 78% of US workers live paycheck to paycheck - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/shutdown-highlights-that-4-in-5-us-workers-live-paycheck-to-paycheck.html <comment><USER2> Sure, a lot of people just waste money on stuff they outright don't need like the top 3 video games every quarter, a VR rig or two, vices like smoking (tobacco or marijuana), drinking, travel etc. But... when 20% have the bulk of the wealth the rest of us often have to unless we want to live 9 deep in a shoebox of an apartment, hot-bunking 3 beds.

Being human beings we have emotion, we like to occasionally enjoy our miserable existences. Sure, one can survive with minimal electricity, sleeping on the floor, eating rice and beans, going nowhere but to work and the grocery but that isn't life. People WILL spend some money on recreation/entertainment/luxury because it has very real positive mental effects.

People, especially on this forum, quickly forget that the federal minimum wave is $7.25 and that the median HOUSEHOLD income is around 59k.

Public transportation isn't a viable option for many people and used cars often come with unexpected problems that can easily cost hundreds of dollars while newer vehicles cost considerably more.

Not everyone has the time to spend cooking from scratch 1 meal a day let alone 3 and while people will be quick to shout 'meal prep!' that requires considerable freezer/refrigerator space. I can only meal prep about 2 days of food due to the ridiculously small freezer/refrigerator in my apartment that I am not allowed to replace for one I purchase. Sure, people could still save a ton by buying chicken, rice and beans and just using an instant pot to quickly cook their dinner and next day's lunch while they do something else but food is something people enjoy and life isn't about being miserable so people can get rather liberal with their food related spending.

While many have health insurance, it is often not that great. I've fairly decent insurance and if I go to the optometrist/doctor/dentist for even routine things I'm out 20-40$ a visit assuming no tests/cleanings/prescriptions and if you get sick chances are your PCP isn't going to get you in in a timely fashion so you're out another extra 20-40$ for going to an urgent care provider.

Hey you want internet at home? Be ready to cough up 60-120$

Live somewhere that doesn't have a fairly tolerable climate year-round? Expect expensive electric bills in the summer when it is 80-90F with 75%+ humidity. Expect expensive electric/gas bills in the winter when it's below freezing (and even here in Central Indiana we can see -1F down to -17F/-18C down to -27C).

Want to go to a globo-gym? 30-40$ a month, at least. Want to do CrossFit or belong to a barbell club/powerlifting/olypmic lifting gym? 100-250$ a month.

Want to see a movie? 10-20$ Want to rent one? 4-8$

Toss in consumables, on occasional book or video game, new computer/laptop/console/phone ever 2-5 years and you're talking hundreds to thousands of dollars, new clothes and shoes occasionally.

Lucky enough to have a 401k? Even luckier and actually get a match? Many people are lucky if they can even afford the 2-5% required to get a full match. Want to try and save 10, 20, 30% of your gross income in your retirement account? You're likely going to have to sacrifice pretty hard elsewhere.

Now, liquid savings... do you have any money left over for that? Yeah? Probably not a lot each pay period.

Hey cool, you managed to save up 3 weeks take home! Awesome! You're winning. Shit, wait, oh no, no, oh come on man I just replaced my battery in my car a week ago and now one of my ball joints failed/someone smashed my window/someone slashed my tire(s)/my alternator went/I broke a bone/I have a new cavity/hours at work got cut/the kid has a non-cosmetic need for braces or corrective oral surgery/damn I got a $300 ticket for going 10 over the limit while other people regularly do 20 over/I got an interview at an office but I don't own any business casual clothes and everyone says I should wear a suit so there goes $150 to men's warehouse/etc.

And don't get me started on college. Want to go to college? 20-250k in debt please depending on what level of degree(s). Got 1 kid, got 2 kids? If you want a (worthless) Associates from a community college (IUPUI) you are coughing up $275 a credit hour + $300 in admin fees a semester + whatever a parking pass costs + textbooks.

\-----

 _Since HN is throttling me for 'posting too fast' since my comment has been downvoted... _shakes head* I'm going to reply to matt22's comment below this post since I've typed it out and am not going to sit here with the reply waiting 2-90+ minutes (in my experience) to post the comment*:

> Exciting food other than what is needed to survive

I read this as "people have no rights to enjoy their lives, gruel is perfectly acceptable for basic survival"

>

"The average advertised package for stand-alone internet service in America is around $50 per month during the initial promotional offer and about $60 per month" I gave a very generous range because utilities can be considerably more expensive in rural areas, rural areas compromise the majority of the United States by are. [https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/how-much- should-...](https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/how-much-should-i-be- paying-for-high-speed-internet-resource/)

>Set the house to 68 in winter, 72 in summer. Dress accordingly.

First you show bias by saying 'house' not 'home' or' residence. 68F in winter can still be quite costly if it's below freezing out, especially if it is windy and 72F in the summer can actually be pretty damn expensive if it's in the 90's. As far as 68 in the winter, yesterday my apartment management sent a text and email out to all residents reminding us to have our thermostats at at LEAST 72F to avoid pipes freezing with the winds and below-freezing temps that came in last night, I've seen other places recommend as low as 70F and I've had pipes on exterior walls freeze at a previous address with the thermostat set to 74F (which sucked because I'm miserable at 74F, too hot to sleep).

>Exercise at home doing body weight exercises

Again I read this as "people don't deserve recreation, they can do calisthenics for basic fitness" your next three statements read similar "if you aren't making big bucks, you get to sit at home in the dark twiddling your thumbs"

>How often are these other tragedies occurring? More than once per year? Maybe you should considering moving away from a place where people are smashing windows or slashing tires/doing things to break bones?

When you have lower income you often live in higher crime areas, drive older vehicles, can afford preventative maintenance less, have poorer nutrition which results in increased illnesses and even nutritional deficiencies that can lead to more broken bones, lower income folks also often have higher rates of blue-collar work which exponentially increases your risk of being injured on the job.

Now I don't know your history, your current income, if your net worth is even negative but your replies come off as hostile and like someone that truly just doesn't know what it's like to not have a well-paying job. Go talk to people outside of your circles, go see how people actually live, go ask them what life has been like.

<comment><USER3> First of all I'll say it's one thing to say "Live Frugally" and another to actually do it. We provide almost no education about how to do it in schools and social pressures and advertising train us to never do it. Also health issues, insulin resistance from garbage food, and depression make it 10 times harder.

It is possible to live happy and cheaply on voluntary expenses:

* Free Books, Internet and Movies: Library

* Free Exercise: Parks, Outdoor Running,

* Cheap Entertainment: Library, Walks, Public Beaches, Cycling, Board Games

However these things are usually like 10% of your income. It's like focusing on the dog pooping on your lawn while an elephant smashes your house.

Things that make you broke in the US no matter what:

* RENT RENT RENT RENT RENT

* Electricity Costs (You literally have no choice since most modern homes will rot if you don't condition them.)

* Water and garbage (Even if you don't use a drop and never touch a paper towel you still pay at least $40 for sewer and base fees)

* Transportation (Public transportation is iffy even if it's available. Late trains are a great way to lose your job.)

* Medical bills (Even if you are lucky enough to have insurance)</comment></comment>


What to Expect at Coding Bootcamp if You are Already a Developer - <AUTHOR> http://danielleleong.com/blog/2015/11/14/what-to-expect-from-coding-bootcamp-dev-accelerators.html <comment><USER2> > _We do algorithms every day at 9am (9am!) on whiteboards in groups. It's a > pain in the ass, but they're necessary for job interviews. What's kind of > amazing is that an algorithm that used to take me hours /days last year now > takes me 15 minutes._

What does that mean, "do" algorithms, I wonder. Design algorithms based on requirements which describe the inputs and outputs? Implement existing algorithms from a description? Check the correctness of algorithms? Some of all of the above?

If it's the same algorithm as last year, why would it be amazing that it takes 15 minutes to do it (whatever that entails)? If you had to basically reinvent insertion sort the first time and now you can just regurgitate it from memory, of course it's faster.

<comment><USER3> You are being pedantic. The author obviously meant "algorithms that you might be asked to do on a whiteboard during a tech interview at Google, FB, ect"

<comment><USER2> I honestly don't know what exactly that means. (Given your nickname, it must be obvious to you, of course).

Is it like, _" write down the entire A-star search algorithm in pseudo-code from memory"_?

<comment><USER3> I live in a bubble in San Francisco and post on HN, so when talking to people I usually assume (perhaps incorrectly), that they are all software engineers between the ages of 18-25 currently in the job market, interviewing at all the same hip 5 companies, so I apologize :P .

In software engineer, when applying for jobs at tech companies, you are universally asked to program solutions to algorithms problems on a whiteboard that follow a very specific formula. If you ever interview for a software position, you will get these exact kinds of questions.

Such questions are usually things like:

"Given a N sorted lists of numbers, join the lists into a single sorted list efficiently"

"Implement a Stack which has push, pop, and minimum operations in O(1)"

"Traverse a Tree and print out each item in level by level order" ect

They are all very formulaic and similar. In the last 3 years I've done about 100 algorithms interviews, and 9 out of 10 times it is a question I've been asked before.

You can find other examples at Glassdoor, hacker rank, or project Euler.

[http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Interview- Question...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Interview- Questions-E9079.htm?filter.jobTitleFTS=software+engineer)

[https://projecteuler.net/](https://projecteuler.net/)

<comment><USER4> Did you get hired?

<comment><USER3> I've received about a dozen job offers in the last 3 years. TBH, I don't even consider myself better than an average programmer. I've just practiced interview questions a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's really worrying to read that these bootcamps hire instructors who have no experience and whose only relevant education is a different session of the same bootcamp.

<comment><USER6> At the "bootcamp" where I studied, the primary instructor was a very senior ex-Twitter engineer who had built their internal code class.

<comment><USER5> Clearly, your experience was not universal.

<comment><USER6> People who go to four year schools don't universally have the same experience either. That's the problem with talking about "these bootcamps" or "these universities" or "these" anything.

<comment><USER5> That's a fair point. But as someone who hasn't been to a bootcamp, I find it impossible to tell the difference between good ones and bad ones, as they aren't accredited or anything like that.

Edit: for tone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > functions are always referred to as "he"

I've been programming for a while and I'm pretty sure I've never heard someone gender a function

<comment><USER8> Likely an Indian instructor. Using "he" is commonly said for "it" in Hindi, because there is no actual word for "it", it's inferred by context.

Not 100% sure. But otherwise, I also have never heard of a gendered program component.

<comment><USER9> During my physics undergrad, several of my lecturers were German speaking and would refer to algebraic objects as "this guy". e.g. "We take the derivative of this guy and we get blah". Any language which is gendered would probably have this issue when translated to English.

<comment><USER10> I don't think that's all too uncommon for native English speakers. While pairing, I pretty regularly refer to chunks of code as "this guy" or "that guy".

Maybe they picked it up from someone while learning English and it stuck with them.

<comment><USER9> This is true, I definitely anthropomorphise my code, but it's usually to abuse it when it doesn't do what I want.

e.g. "What the f'ing hell are you doing, function, you're not supposed to do that!"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Become a 10x Engineer - <AUTHOR> https://blog.codegiant.io/how-to-become-a-10x-engineer-492fa3f57101 <comment><USER2> In my experience, the people who get described as "10x engineers" are really "engineers who are just as talented as many of their peers, but are also socially likable or quirky in a way that people find amusing". Perception is everything.</comment>


AR Lens Sessions Last 75 Seconds on Average - <AUTHOR> https://arinsider.co/2019/12/02/ar-lens-sessions-last-75-seconds-on-average/ <comment><USER2> Yep, just enough time to open it, with for it to load, look around, see it is useless and close it.</comment>


Finally - list of all cloud/hosting costs in one place. - <AUTHOR> http://serverbear.com/

<comment><USER2> One of the co-founders here, there's a lot of stuff we're working on but would love to hear any other feedback anyone has (of if you have any questions!)</comment>


Cringely talks about Video Decoding/Encoding Hardware in all new Macs - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070308_001806.html <comment><USER2> No. Apple has no motivation to support existing video distribution models. Why would they build a DVR? You can get TV and movies from iTS at good quality and reasonable cost sans ads. Apple doesn't just want to own the decoder unit, they want to own the much more profitable distribution service.

<comment><USER3> But that'd be like creating an iPod/iTunes that doesn't let you rip your own CDs. People want a DVR just like they wanted a really nice player for their existing music collection. Ya gotta soft sell the distribution service.

Apple wants you to buy things from the iTunes store, but nobody would agree to that level of lock-in (i hope!)</comment></comment>


Be your own VPN provider with OpenBSD (v2) - <AUTHOR> https://networkfilter.blogspot.com/2017/04/be-your-own-vpn-provider-with-openbsd-v2.html <comment><USER2> Does anyone know if there is a UFW equivalent for BSD? Dealing with PF configuration is a nightmare.

<comment><USER3> The example given is overly complicated and would end up being at least as verbose with other frameworks, even when using something like ufw. You can create a safe and secure IKEv1 IPSec VPN host by adding a single line to the default /etc/pf.conf file,

      pass out on egress from 192.168.1.0/24 to any nat-to egress

a few lines in /etc/ipsec.conf,

      #
      # OS X 10.10 only supports SHA1 and group modp1024 :(
      #
      ike passive esp tunnel proto udp \
        from $ext_ip to any \
        main auth hmac-sha1 enc aes group modp1024 \
        quick auth hmac-sha1 enc aes group modp1024 \
        psk $ext_psk

and edit or modify /etc/sysctl.conf to enable the relevant kernel features,

      net.inet.ip.forwarding=1
      net.inet.gre.allow=1
      net.pipex.enable=1

You'll need to edit 1 or 2 lines in /etc/npppd/npppd.conf if you want to change the DHCP subnet pool or DNS server (OpenBSD's default unbound is perfectly acceptable), and add or edit a couple of lines in /etc/npppd/npppd- users to set a VPN user name and password. Of course you'll need to enable the relevant services. /etc/rc.conf.local on one of my boxes looks like:

      ipsec=YES
      isakmpd_flags=-K
      npppd_flags=
      ntpd_flags=-s
      unbound_flags=

Using certificate authentication for IKE auth is just as simple, although as always X.509 certificate creation can be confusing for the uninitiated.

Setting up IKEv2 + IPSec on OpenBSD (iked instead of isakmpd) is even easier because it takes npppd out of the equation entirely. Instead of editing ipsec.conf, npppd.conf, or npppd-users, just put something like this into /etc/iked.conf

      user "foo" "my secret"
      ikev2 "roaming" passive esp \
        from 0.0.0.0/0 to 192.168.1.128/25 local egress peer any \
        ikesa auth hmac-sha2-512 enc aes-128 prf hmac-sha2-512 group modp2048 \
        childsa enc aes-128-gcm group modp2048 \
        srcid my.host.name \
        eap "mschap-v2" \
        config address 192.168.1.128/25 \
        config name-server 192.168.1.1

In the above I would just create a loopback device (/etc/hostname.lo1) with the address 192.168.1.1 and add "interface: 192.168.1.1" to /var/unbound/etc/unbound.conf.</comment></comment>


Mapping caves using gunshots - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028156.000-gunshot-echoes-used-to-map-caves-interior.html

<comment><AUTHOR> A brief but interesting discussion of the article can be found here:

[http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/06/12/new-cave-mapping- tec...](http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/06/12/new-cave-mapping-technique- uses-gunshots-as-impulse-functions/)

Note Mark's comment in particular.</comment>


Nowcasting and forecasting the potential spread of the 2019-nCoV outbreak - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30260-9/fulltext <comment><USER2> The key finding in that paper is downright scary:

 _Given that 2019-nCoV is no longer contained within Wuhan, other major Chinese cities are probably sustaining localised outbreaks. Large cities overseas with close transport links to China could also become outbreak epicentres, unless substantial public health interventions at both the population and personal levels are implemented immediately. Independent self- sustaining outbreaks in major cities globally could become inevitable because of substantial exportation of presymptomatic cases and in the absence of large-scale public health interventions. Preparedness plans and mitigation interventions should be readied for quick deployment globally._

Essentially, they find a pandemic is at least somewhat likely and everyone should be preparing for that outcome.</comment>


Vaping lung disease symptoms: Here's what the CDC says to watch out for - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90398754/vaping-lung-disease-symptoms-cdc-says-watch-out-for-these <comment><USER2> Weight Loss?! Vaping THC normally would give you the munchies...</comment>