First autoscaling Node.js hosting - <AUTHOR> http://nodejs-cloud.com

<comment><USER2> I hate that you've created another domain for it. Pricing was too hard to find, and i needed to click on "See all our services" to get it, and it's on another domain :/

And then on the pricing page there is no node.js pricing or am i blind? :)

<comment><USER3> We will change that quickly. Thx for your feedback.

<comment><USER2> Kudos for being an European startup doing cloud paas. I like that !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks interesting, but the 'drops' pricing model makes it really hard to understand what it costs to run a server.

<comment><USER3> just mail email@example.com and we will help you to figure out

but FYI it's 50$ month for a small app...

<comment><USER5> For that price, how is nodejs-cloud differentiating themselves from the competition? Right now I can deploy a "small app" to nodejitsu for only $3/month...

<comment><USER3> In fact this price allow you to run your app "all the time" in your own VM with reasonable specs

<comment><USER5> I suppose I'm not really seeing the benefit here --don't nodejitsu, heroku, and others have the same "always on" policy?

I don't mean to rail against you or the service, but I am genuinely curious to see what I get for $50 a month (which AFAICT is more or less the same as nodejitsu and heroku). As MathewPhillips mentioned in my previous comment, it sounds like nodejs-cloud isn't targeting individual developers so much as it is pursuing small businesses and above.

<comment><USER3> In fact they often use a cold start system, like GAE. But it's true we target more some big industry... But I'm thinking changing some things about that :-) Feel free to test the service, we will share some dicount code with you to allow you to test it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> SLA: "4 hours of guaranteed fault repair time, and email support is included for now."

First time I've seen it stated this way (and not the traditional uptime percentage)

<comment><USER3> Currently We can do up to 99,9% with professional support option :-)

<comment><USER7> For 99,9% (around 45min downtime) per month $50 is cheap, what I have seen over the years from hosters with Cisco firmware problems, BGP problems, power failures, hurricanes etc. and many more and recovery times of 30min++.

<comment><USER3> In case of professional services we will reimburse customers if we fail to be 99,9% available. The pro-service will be available next month or the month after. We can do that because we use more than one datacenter and providers. We do this kind of service for several customer today</comment></comment></comment></comment>


£1984: does a cashless economy make for a surveillance state? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/sep/30/1984-does-a-cashless-economy-make-for-a-surveillance-state <comment><USER3> The last thing we need is even more information going to the ever more omniscient government.

After seeing the seemingly endless NSA, IRS, and other government abuses, how could this possibly seem a good idea? In fact, preventing a cashless economy is one of the best reasons to support Bitcoin and the next-gen more anonymous cryptocurrencies.

All that said, barter will always be the bottom-line alternative - <USER2> barter with precious metals.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, I think it makes for a surveillance state. People need the ability to use cash and coin in order to retain their freedom. A cashless economy implies that everything is done on cards and computers where accounts can be frozen or a power outage means that no one can buy food.</comment>


Vermont's Mormon megacity called off after preservationists sound the alarm - <AUTHOR> https://archpaper.com/2018/06/vermont-mormon-megacity-called-off-preservationists-sound-alarm/ <comment><USER2> I'm Mormon, live in Utah, and am fairly involved in Mormon culture. I've never heard of this project except via Hacker News. If an LDS builder has a plan to build a community, it doesn't mean he's trying to populate it with Mormons. He's even quoted as saying so in the OP.

This has nothing to do with Mormonism. Reporting trying to trace a connection is merely pandering to the fact that Mormons being weird makes for a more interesting article, and earned your click.

</comment><comment><USER3> This sort of thing happens when people try to build large amounts of housing in the US pretty much anywhere. It's a strategic ploy to drive up housing prices, enriching landlords and homeowners at the expense of renters and young people.

<comment><USER4> Uhhh, 'more homes' is absolutely the last thing any landlords want as it does the exact opposite of 'driving up home prices'. Especially given this is a new development, there's no erstwhile 'home prices' to drive up ...

<comment><USER5> The "city" would be carved out of four other cities mentioned in the article. Not only would these new developments compete with those existing areas, it would compete with any planned developments, or potential developments that opponents would prefer to build in the described "city" of only they could acquire the land.

Though, I think the grandparent comment meant that blocking new home construction is a ploy to increase home prices and harm renters and the young.

<comment><USER4> In absolute terms there would almost assuredly be more homes than less in that scenario - thereby putting downward pressure on housing costs, not upward. This is Economics.

Moreover - there is no real competition for land (specific plots and waterside aside). Even in Vermont's largest urban area (Burlington) you can literally go _one kilometre_ in any direction and find tons of open space, even you go a few more, it's empty.

Developers can go almost anywhere - if one spot taken, you can literally _walk_ in almost any direction and find suitable land.

Which is at least partly why places like Vermont have average home prices of $192K and California (mostly urban) has average home prices of nearly double that. [1][2]

In light of the basic economics here, the parent commenter has the onus to prove his more cynical position that this is 'all some kind of evil rent ploy'.

Because it's not, and if it were, it would be the dumbest ploy ever, because there's no surplus control or surplus capture. People can build next door to move outside of the supposed economic control.

[1] [https://www.zillow.com/vt/home-values/](https://www.zillow.com/vt/home- values/) [2] [https://www.sacbee.com/site- services/databases/article132559...](https://www.sacbee.com/site- services/databases/article13255952.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The charming village centers and idyllic surrounding farms and forests in > four historic towns," reads the Trust's statement, "would be permanently > altered by a development proposal calling for construction of a new planned > community in this rural part of Vermont."

Disgusting. The proposed development would be so much more ecologically friendly than spreading those same residents around sprawling "idyllic" "villages." Not to mention that I doubt many of those "idyllic" existing stuctures have modern levels of energy efficiency. I don't know why the Trust hates the environment so much.

<comment><USER7> With the 200 square foot apartments idea I'm really not sure this was going to go far....

<comment><USER8> Meekness is a positive trait in the LDS church.

I have met a fair number of fantastic people who were/are members of the Church but I saw how many folks struggled under its influence and expectations.

The worst aspect of Utah LDS culture is the social shunning if you leave the church.

<comment><USER9> Mitt Romney is very meek indeed.

Joseph Smith threatening 'I will be killed by angel with a flaming sword, if you don't do your duty and become my 15th wife', is also 'meek'.

As an ex-mormon, (I was 100% in 2 years ago, and believed everything, I also didn't know about Polyandry, Book of Abraham, Joseph's Polygamy (was told it started w/ BY and ended at 1890's), member since I was 14 (38 now), never missed a day of Seminary, but there's so many things they tell you, that's just not true or correct.

The CESLetter.com is a major eye-opener.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Baffling why Vermont's population is aging rapidly, given its "charming village centers and idyllic surrounding farms and forests in four historic towns." This is what young people crave. Millenials just can't get enough charm/farms.

<comment><USER11> Millennial here. More interested in unfettered wilderness, safe bike routes, and good places to eat than charm/farms.

<comment><USER10> I'm joking. this is clearly the agenda of retirees and busybodies trying to keep things just the way they are, to the detriment of young people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Because of course it's a good idea to chase off extremely low crime demographics. What a smart move! /ssssss

I'm sure this ain't breaking the hearts of most Mormons anyways. Utah will take them with open arms.

<comment><USER13> Mormons are decent people overall, but the church is still officially quite homophobic. I wouldn't really want 200,000 (or even a significant percentage of that) homophobic voters moving in next door to me. I like having civil rights.</comment></comment>


Facebook takes down thousands of posts, obscuring Russian disinformation - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/12/facebook-takes-down-data-and-thousands-of-posts-obscuring-reach-of-russian-disinformation <comment><USER2> The problem is that they are portraying things as if propaganda is something that only Russians or some "other" group uses, and that there is somehow an authority that knows what is the "real" truth, which we must count on to save us from the fake news -- by removing it.

In other words, they are trying to make censorship something that only happens to fake information. So by censoring something, they automatically can qualify it as false.

This is the main problem. Not Russia or some other country's propaganda. It is the domestic propaganda, and censorship, which is most harmful.

I know most people do not believe that their country (especially in the US) has propaganda, but unfortunately, there is quite a lot of propaganda in normal news outlets here.

Do some googling for things like 'Edward Bernays' or 'The Fourth Estate' before you dismiss this. Also, after your research, you may come to the conclusion that this has only happened at some distant point in the past, and has stopped in 'modern' times. Which would be a break from the entire history of civilization.. so just maybe its still going on, and you are in denial.

<comment><USER3> There is propaganda and there are lies. Russia lies. Lies the world and even more so, the russians. At some point the russians will wake up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mark Zuckerburg for whatever reason has always supported Russian disinformation in the past.

Saw this on reddit today...

[http://radiolemberg.com/ua-articles/ua- allarticles/weaponizi...](http://radiolemberg.com/ua-articles/ua- allarticles/weaponizing-facebook-for-russia-s-invasion-of-ukraine)

> At the same time Russian information warriors were posting voluminous fake > news, such as the infamous "crucified boy" false report that was first put > out by Russian propaganda TV on 12 July 2014. Using huge numbers of "sock > puppet" accounts, the Russians amplified fake news to put it at the top of > "most viewed right now" lists on social media and news aggregators. The > Russian troll army also worked in large numbers to suppress or ban pro- > Ukrainian accounts. En masse, they would report to Facebook any posting > critical of Russia's invasion of Ukraine as being either > "nudity/pornography" or "hate speech" against an identifiable group. It > turns out the category of the complaint didn't matter, as the algorithm used > by Facebook responded to the volume of complaints, not the substance of > them. Ukrainian accounts accurately reporting the war were punished with > banishment, and Russian accounts spreading fake news were rewarded with > prominence.

<comment><USER5> As much as your mother is supporting the American disinformation campaign by spawning you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Internet is not a library. It's not an archive. You have no guarantee of content's continued existence -- less so that with respect to old piles of newspaper in your garage.

This concerns me. Absent ensured storage _and access_ (that can't e.g. be retroactively 404-ed via robots.txt), our very history is at risk.

And with walled gardens like Facebook taking over more and more traffic, delivery, viewership... We may never know what happened. Even absent a deliberate, concerted plan to eliminate the evidence.

Such privacy is fine, for private, personal conversations. Is it, for a paid advertising campaign reaching millions?

</comment><comment><USER7> Title false, the posts and shares had already been taken down; but cached copies were still available, by error of omission, to its analysis tool. That part of the cache has now been removed.

Back when I was employed in a newspaper office, you were given mere seconds or maybe a couple of minutes to title articles; it wasn't expected that you read the whole article first, there wasn't time. Most staff were involved in the advertising department, news was the filler, the afterthought. Could be that hasn't changed much.

</comment><comment><USER8> They should publicly post all of these "Russian propaganda" items in a single place, so we can all see them.</comment>


How long is 127 hours - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/search?q=how+long+is+127+hours&oq=how+long+is+127+h&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 <comment><USER2> Interesting.

How do we classify the 127 hours is a movie or a time value?

Reminds me of the "Shirts without stripes"

[https://github.com/elsamuko/Shirt-without- Stripes](https://github.com/elsamuko/Shirt-without-Stripes)

Edit: Removing that space between 127 and hours somehow makes it work. "how long is 127hours"

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds right to me. The vast majority of people are expecting the movie rather than the time period, so of course Google would show the movie's length.</comment>


I fucked up Git so bad it turned into Guitar Hero - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/HenryHoffman/status/694184106440200192 <comment><AUTHOR> This one is probably the biggest one I've seen [https://hg.pidgin.im/pidgin/main/graph/c6f4dd89c208](https://hg.pidgin.im/pidgin/main/graph/c6f4dd89c208)

Seriously, how do they deal with this kind of mess? And, do projects like these consider it as a complexity?

<comment><USER2> I worked at a place that had a "merge instead of rebase" and "all code under review must be against top-of-master" and "code gets reviewed when we feel like it".</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What in wix/square space do dislike most? - <AUTHOR> If you have have built a website or tried to with Wix or Squarespace what did you find most annoying?
I've been working on a new product to build websites, and I'm going to start the second iteration of development. Your answer can help a lot.
I'm mostly interested in targeting the market for simple website builders for the non-tech-savvy. Hence the mention of these two services that I think own a large part of this market. <comment><USER2> The problem I have with it, and I would imagine a good percentage of people who frequent Hacker News, is that I know how to build websites, and Wix, Squarespace, etc. just slow me down more than speed me up. Some of this may be psychological. But I feel like no matter what was built, this would be the case.

For example, my son was required to use one of these builders to make a site for his English class over the weekend. He wanted to connect up a simple link in the homepage to an about me page. Simple, in a static website this would be an  with appropriate href and such. But with a site builder you had to know which box to go to. You had to have already made the about me page so that the site builder knew how to link up. Etc etc etc. A task that takes me 3 seconds took 10 minutes.

Additionally, as someone who works for companies for a living, I get calls from potential clients that say "I want my Squarespace to do X, Y, and Z, and Squarespace doesn't let me do it. Can you make it do it?" Well, no. I can build you a site that does that, but I can't make Squarespace do something it doesn't do.

These site builders aren't bad at all. Non-technical people use them successfully all of the time. But I am definitely not your target audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the insightful comment. I'm not sure you're not my target audience. In summary I gather you find the extremely rigid system of these builder inconvenient. I guess you had to consult the docs to figure our how to create that link for your son, and a good chunk of that 10 minutes was spent on this. Am I correct?

I'm thinking if my builder can make a software engineer build website quicker with a high level of abstraction that's exclusively mutual with others being able to do so. I've been researching intuitive interfaces, as my hypothesis is that the interface is the bottleneck. Thank you again for your comment, it is helpful!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Both are good if you want a quick start & temporary solution or as a landing page for your all. But in a long run it is better to have a custom website.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have heard this opinion from some other people as well. I'm wondering what are the particular needs that call for a custom website vs. staying with wix/squarespace or another similar service?

<comment><USER3> I would say custom design, branding, and also heard that wix/squarespace are ranked lower in terms of SEO.

<comment><AUTHOR> This definitely resonates with some people who have left such services and hired a web designer.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Off Canvas - <AUTHOR> http://jasonweaver.name/lab/offcanvas/ <comment><USER2> Is this better than responsive design techniques like <http://cssgrid.net/>?

Seems like this is over-simplified and falls down when you go from tablet to desktop.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the simplicity of this.</comment>


Where Are the Startups? Loss of Dynamism Is Impeding Growth - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/business/economy/start-ups-growth.html <comment><USER2> Hand wringing and pearl clutching.

If anyone were serious about this, they'd look into it, and probably decide that US laws that encourage larger and larger corporations, tying healthcare to a particular employer, no-compete agreements, and using "intellectual property" laws to grant ownership of ideas are almost certainly the problem.

Will any of those problems go away? Hell no. They make too much money right now, and grant too much pleasant power over employees right now.</comment>


AT&T cuts prices again - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/09/technology/mobile/att-price-cut/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

<comment><AUTHOR> With all these price cut talks, you would think we are getting some kind of bargain.

But I have 3 subsidized smartphones (2 galaxy s4, and iphone 5s) on my old AT&T 450 minute plan, and my bill is around $155/month (including fee & tax). For couple years, my bill was as low as $110/month, until we gradually grew out of $15/200mb data plan. Can you imagine paying $110/month for fully subsidized 3 smartphones?

AT&T rolls over unused voice minutes, so 450 minutes is more or less unlimited. I don't have text plan, and with free texting applications, I have no use for it.

But with forced bundling of unlimited voice and text, my bill would be $240/month.

AT&T must hate its customers with old plans.</comment>


Show HN: Realtime Web UI for Chrome Headless - <AUTHOR> https://deepstream.live/?hn <comment><AUTHOR> Invite you to criticise, give feedback and share bugs for this prototype realtime web interface for Chrome headless.

This multi-user function is just for the purpose of this demo. On my last post I noticed many people were colliding in the same session which was annoying. To let people have a proper try of this, I have now added more instances and sessions stickiness, hopefully 1 per person. If you collide with someone else's session, you could try opening a new incognito tab to rid the cookie and try to get your own instance.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for the feedback. switching it off.

<comment><USER2> For those of us that were away for 24 hours - any way to see what the hell it looks like/was capable of?

<comment><AUTHOR> Please be polite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks cool! Small UX note: I initially tried to enter a URL to go somewhere, but nothing happened when I pressed enter. Then I saw the "No open tabs" message, but it still took me some time to find the little button with the "+" sign.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I don't know how to improve that right now. I'll think about it. Maybe "new tab +" ? I know the flow you refer to doesn't really work, with the omnibox there but unavailable. I don't have an idea for making it better.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you identify potential in a software developer? - <AUTHOR> Is it possible to see if someone is going to be a great developer in the future? In sports it is possible so, I was just wondering if it is in the tech world.<p>What are signs to look out for? <comment><USER2> While there are all kinds of tests and ways to measure a developer's ability, most of these are outdated and were more appropriate 15 years ago prior to mass framework adoption - developers now just aren't going to spend a lot of time doing low level algorithms, because they don't need to.

But the best way that I've come across is to judge character traits. Intelligent people always have listening as a core component, where as less intelligent people will be very dismissive and constantly interrupt people. These are traits you can definitely sift out in interviews.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd say a common framework for understanding "greatness" is to categorize it as "good with the thing" and "good with the people who are good with the thing." It's unusual for a profitable project to be small enough for one person to accomplish. Normally you need a team. So the split between "officer" and "enlisted" or "executive" and "staff" is extremely common and people normally excel at one of them, not both.

So a great coder will have different characteristics than a great manager of coders. The most obvious difference is probably that one has no potential for leading until they at least acknowledge the possibility of empathy being maybe a little bit important. If they aren't open to that, then they're in the "coder" category by default.

So, in that "coder" category, building on your sports analogy, technical experts first shake out unfairly based on natural talent and what resources (human, material, etc) they happen to have. After that it's all about hard work and creativity. If they coast on their random starting stats they go into the "won't be a great coder" category by default.</comment>


Rendering templates obsolete - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/3916350

<comment><USER3> I think there is some value here but I also think its too heavy handed - <USER2> bads I see are...

\- Performance - complex DOM structures will inevitably lead to many function calls. Some might argue that it is probably minor but there are going to be many many instances where a dom element is being reconstructed on every render where it could simply have been just a plain string.

\- Readability - perhaps its personal but I find the readability of what is essentially going to be an extremely long statement in JS to be inferior to well formatted XML/CSS

\- Error recovery / exception handling - seemingly if one of your elements/function calls goes bad your whole template is likely dead. Perhaps this could be seen as a feature.

\- Namespacing - to cover all of the features of HTML you'll likely have to have quite a few functions declared and there is potential for an inadvertent overwrite. ex. var VIDEO = function() { return "Ooops, I just killed my video elements"; } On top of it there is risk of not being backwards compatible with older created templates as the HTML spec progresses and new functions need to be added. The simple solution is to namespace all your HTML functions but this is another layer of stuff and detracts from the simplicity.

<comment><AUTHOR> These are definitely good concerns.

\- Performance: It's about half of Underscore.js on Webkit[1], so it's not so horrible, and has yet to be optimized at all (such as by using document fragments, etc.)

\- Readability: The JS statement here is only long to show a unified example. Since the inputs and outputs of each call are DOM nodes, everything is trivially composable, something not possible with XML/CSS.

\- Error recovery: Yes, having seen the error output of things like LESS, I see this as a feature.

\- Namespacing: Absolutely agree. I think this is best solved the way jQuery and other libraries do it: pollute by default, and then let the developer "opt out" using noConflict.

[1]: <http://jsperf.com/underscore-vs-domo/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like it. Saw a similar approach in Firebug's domplate. dom-o looks cleaner.

I really like the pitch to "Reduce the number of moving parts" at the cost of small learning curve.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's really interesting for HTML, as DOM manipulation in JS became essential. But I'm less convinced about putting CSS here (just as I won't do with any other templating system). What about media queries, browser or device specific stylesheets ? And readability, after all

Also, I suggest namespacing all of your functions and using with(YOUR_DOM- O_NAMESPACE) { your dom construction here }

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a maintainability nightmare.

</comment><comment><USER7> How do you use this when different people are responsible for the layout/design and the js?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can still preserve modularity by pulling styles and markup into their own JavaScript modules and requiring them as you would any other module.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who's Looking for a Co-Founder? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> An an auto forming GroupMe for people who have an association but might not know each other. No codes or invites, it just happens. iOS/Android mobile first.

Solves problems of current options and unlocks value. Maintains some privacy, keeps out random people.

Already have working version. Currently team of 2. Seeking person with strong programing skills that can create and enhance features. Starts out easy gets harder (but interesting) as it scales. Focus is turning logic in to code not making pretty screens. Looking for someone who buys in 100%, can commit to full time or with job, but zero other commitments, will dedicate every free moment to it. The goal is to create and updated version ready to delight thousands of concurrent users, in 1 month.

Why should you, highly skilled person join? Current founder is obsessed. large consumer market, the product creates and experience that delights, requires little user effort, few barriers to rapid adoption, but creates moat. It's awesome. I am in bay, cool if you are, don't have to be. msg with why interest, language/s experience making mobile products, email in profile. thanks for reading!

</comment><comment><USER3> BeWelcome.org isn't new, but is a community where people can stay in each others' houses for free.

It's like CouchSurfing, but with no membership fee. There's no obligation to host. I just joined BeWelcome in May, but the community is very active.

It's run by a non-profit "association" in France called BeVolunteer (same structure as Wikipedia/Wikimedia). I see potential to start other projects within BeVolunteer, say BeBook, BeChat, BeMail. The real-life and online community of BeWelcome would encourage me to build code that people actually want to use. The network effect of hospitality exchange is powerful, and the legal experience of BeVolunteer is reassuring. For now I'm just discussing this idea on the BeWelcome forums and here on HN, but I see precedent (Wikibooks, Wiktionary) if dynamic people want to get involved. There's no money in it, but there is great kindness, and well-connected members!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Strong coder with 10+ years experience on all parts of the stack. Former startup founder and worked at lots of tech companies big and small.

Email is in my profile, let's get in touch. I'm in the SF Bay Area.

</comment><comment><USER4> Co-conspirators, more like it!</comment>


Unix at 50: How the OS that powered smartphones started from failure - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/08/unix-at-50-it-starts-with-a-mainframe-a-gator-and-three-dedicated-researchers/ <comment><USER2> > The following year, the lab hired Ritchie, a Harvard grad whose father was a > Bell Labs alum, and Ken Thompson, a self-described army brat who, by his own > admission, spent at least a month actively dodging the Bell Labs recruiter > on the Cal-Berkeley campus</comment>


My payphone runs Linux now - <AUTHOR> https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/01/my-payphone-runs-linux-now/ <comment><USER2> Link is a testicle in an egg cup.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it's the hotlinking warning (presumably to avoid people stealing images). Until it's fixed, you can read the article by going to jwz.org/blog - which you should, since it's a great hack.</comment></comment>


Visual Representation of SQL Joins - <AUTHOR> http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/33052/Visual-Representation-of-SQL-Joins

<comment><AUTHOR> This article helped me when I was first learning SQL.</comment>


AI Is Here to Help You Write Emails People Will Actually Read - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/08/boomerang-using-ai-help-send-better-email/ <comment><USER2> Thanks, Borski! We're really excited about the new tools - it's been a ton of fun figuring out how to combine the machine learning algorithms to get them to spit out actionable advice, figuring out how to make them run fast in Gmail and Outlook, and figuring out how to scale this to 45 million people :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looking good! Can't wait to try.</comment>


Ask HN: Over Commitment as 2020 Resolution - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
   This year i am planning to over commit to side projects and learning ML without any entertainment (no netflix or any tech or political news sites) for a  year. Has anyone tried it. Thoughts and advice. <comment><USER2> An admirable goal. Depending on your current consumption, you could be setting yourself up for failure.

A more balanced resolution could be at least 1 hour dedicated to ML or side projects per day, no excuses. I did that for six months to learn to play the banjo. Also, I would make sure to set up a distraction free environment and 1x per week, set your weekly goals to stay on target (I.e don't go down a rabbit hole unless the rabbit hole is the goal)</comment>


Russ Cox: Go, Open Source, Community - <AUTHOR> http://blog.golang.org/open-source <comment><USER2> I agree that a code of conduct is a great idea but I'm really bummed to read that the Django CoC is going to be adopted by golang.

1\. The Django CoC uses very vague language on what it is forbidden and explicitly tells you that "this isn't an exhaustive list of things that you can't do" just to be extra vague in what constitutes unacceptable behaviour.

2\. It does not define what process will be used to address CoC violations, being ejected from an OS project for violating the CoC can be a serious thing with personal and professional ramifications but an accused is not given the right to face their accuser nor the right to an impartial jury (which would be hard to do anyway since the accusation could be something like "he's making me anxious")

3\. It overextends itself "violations of this code outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them" which means that not only you are under the scrutiny of the kangaroo court when you are posting on golang spaces but everywhere else: ycombinator, reddit, your personal blog, etc. Honestly I feel like just writing this criticism is painting a target on my forehead, talk about safe spaces.

I wouldn't be making this comment if CoCs hadn't already been used in bad faith to attempt to character assassinate OS contributors (for exmaple the Kubuntu debacle or this [1])

[1] [https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/](https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/)

<comment><USER3> There was a lengthy discussion on a CoC on the golang-nuts list it was concluded that (3) would should probably not be included for the time being.

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/golang-nuts/sy- YcVPADj...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/golang-nuts/sy- YcVPADjg/bcO6LAr29EIJ)

<comment><USER2> I've only read the first page and I already saw a problematic statement from A. Gerrand (which seems to be in charge of this CoC proposal).

User Peter Kleiweg raises this concern "Who gets to decide what is racist? And even whether or not racist is a bad thing?" and while I disagree with him on this particular issue the answer that Gerrand gives is very problematic:

"If it's speech that makes people feel unwelcome and discriminated against, then I personally believe that's a bad thing."

the problem with this is that, for example, an open display of support for gay marriage will make some catholics (for example) unwelcome and discriminated against. This isn't even theoretical, this is an argument that actually happens in the real world, just not in the bubble inhabited by Gerrand, apparently.

<comment><USER4> Where is Voltaire where you need him?

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

(And yes, I am aware he didn't say these exact words himself.)

<comment><USER5> Maybe the spirit of Voltaire's work is captured in this proverb, but Voltaire never actually said or wrote this anywhere.

Apparently it's a phrase from a biography of Voltaire by Evelyn Beatrice Hall.

<comment><USER4> See the last line of my comment then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > At the same time, Go's static typing avoids much of the repetition of > traditional statically typed languages

As a happy user of Go, I usually find myself writing slightly more code than C#. Maybe it's because of the lack of generics or maybe it's because that I have 10x more experience in C#. To me, it's interesting to read this.

<comment><USER7> I believe Russ is alluding to Go's type inference which Java / C++ / C# dont have.

<comment><USER8> Go has type inference but having to declare types everywhere hardly make a language more "verbose".

The problem with Java(lang) is the culture.

Instead of writing programs in a pragmatic way, Java devs feel the need to forcefully over architecture code bases, because there are afraid that a colleague looking at their code will not find it JEEish enough.

Obviously Go doesn't have the same culture since it doesn't force developers into writing classes everywhere. So it's easier to hack something quickly with a bunch of functions and variables, like in most dynamic languages.

<comment><USER9> > The problem with Java(lang) is the culture.

Maybe 8 years ago. Other than Oracle itself the language, the libraries and the culture has changed rather substantially over the last few years.

> Instead of writing programs in a pragmatic way, Java devs feel the need to > forcefully over architecture code bases, because there are afraid that a > colleague looking at their code will not find it JEEish enough.

Much of the over-design in older Java has to do with ancient methodologies of writing massive specs and having review committees. It has nothing to do with not being JEEish or whatever abuse of keywords you want to make.

> Obviously Go doesn't have the same culture...

Actually I'm starting to see many many Java programmers use golang because many Java programmers are system-like programmers (middleware or whatever its called these days). I guess their behaviors will magical change right?

> So it's easier to hack something quickly with a bunch of functions and > variables, like in most dynamic languages.

Well that is true but writing classes in Java is not exactly hard. If it helps you can think of the classes as modules or just files you put your code in. You don't have to write OOP in Java and some would argue most of Java is not OOP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does the political climate in CA demand that people ignore subtle nuances about inclusiveness?

Linus said, "...I've literally had developers who were working on things that I didn't really like, but I didn't shut down early enough. They worked on it for a long time; they felt that it was ready, they submitted it to me, and I said "no this was horrible" because at that point I had to make a decision. And at least in one of those cases I had some other friends basically email me later and saying "the guy is suicidal"." [http://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/395/how-do- i-d...](http://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/395/how-do-i-deal-with- enthusiastic-contributors-who-damage-more-than-they-help)

I think you imply a CoC, and Russ's style needs no improving. If you must adopt a CoC why don't you assume people will behave badly and provide a workaround instead of relying on virtue.

</comment><comment><USER11> Was pleasantly surprised to see the veritably (at times) acidic rsc championing a code of conduct. Definitely will be beneficial to the community. I haven't heard about any incident that has lead to a CoC being necessary, which is awesome.

<comment><USER12> It's interesting that you say that, from my little interaction at Gophercon with him, he was a very nice and genuine person. In the parent article, he also mentions:

       For example, I have learned that when I am pressed for
       time I tend to write fewer words, with the end result that
       my emails seem not just hurried but blunt, impatient, even
       dismissive. That's not how I feel, but it's how I can come
       across, and that impression can be enough to make people
       think twice about using or contributing to Go. I realized
       I was doing this when some Go contributors sent me private
       email to let me know. Now, when I am pressed for time, I
       pay extra attention to what I'm writing, and I often write
       more than I naturally would, to make sure I'm sending the
       message I intend.

which might relate to your point of view.

<comment><USER13> Perhaps we should question the proliferation of coaxing more and more in smilies and pleasantries, when all that is really needed is a straightforward, factual answer.

Smilies and pleasantries are fine, if they come up naturally. But why do people get slighted when someone replies to them with a straightforward – not rude, not crass, not sarcastic, just straightforward – answer?

I've caught myself getting slighted at people I know who reply to texts or messages in a direct way. Now that everyone uses smilies for personal communication, the direct to-the-point style feels cold and dismissive. But then I realize that they might be perfectly kind and pleasant people in reality. They just have a different text/message _style_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe Rob Pike can say something about this CoC thing. Don't really like the way Russ does things.

<comment><USER15> I'm sorry for that, but can you elaborate? If something I'm doing bothers people, I'd really like to know what it is so that I can try to address it. Thanks.

<comment><USER14> You did a great job improving the language.

For me, CoC is where programming meets politics. Whom gained benefit from their current position is likely to impose those rules to protect their now interest.

Pretty much there is a soul behind each language, Ricky Hicky for Clojure, Guido van Rossum for Python, Matz for Ruby, and Rob Pike for Go. Those people are not insecure, and I never felt them to be so aggressive.

<comment><USER15> FWIW, I'm sorry you see the code of conduct as an attempt to impose rules to protect "my" or "our" current position. It is very much an attempt to bring as many new people as possible into the Go community, not to exclude people.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for taking time to respond to my doubt. Would like to talk to you more.

<comment><USER15> Please feel free to mail me at email@example.com and we can continue the conversation in whatever medium works for you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Redis as the primary data store? - <AUTHOR> https://moot.it/blog/technology/redis-as-primary-datastore-wtf.html

<comment><USER2> WhyTf?</comment>


Close the Markets? Data and Psychology Say Maybe - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-16/data-and-psychology-may-argue-for-us-stock-market-closure <comment><USER2> As someone who only recently started investing, my confidence and faith in the markets has been shaken to the core. The only reason I haven't pulled all my investments out is that I'm not sure what would be a good re-entry point, and with each passing day I rue my decision not to sell yesterday.</comment>


The questions Facebook, Google, and Twitter told Congress they would answer later - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-03/congress-assigned-a-lot-of-homework-to-facebook-twitter-google <comment><AUTHOR> Original title: _Congress Assigned a Lot of Homework to Facebook, Twitter, Google_

Techmeme summary: _Bloomberg: A list of all the questions Facebook, Google, and Twitter told Congress they would answer later_</comment>


Eating a big breakfast may be linked to burning more calories during the day - <AUTHOR> https://www.insider.com/burn-more-calories-in-the-morning-by-eating-big-breakfast-2020-2 <comment><USER2> 16 subjects total (0 overweight).</comment>


I found and fixed a bug in PHP's standard library - <AUTHOR> https://www.miguelxpn.com/coding/php/opensource/2020/03/01/how-i-found-and-fixed-a-bug-in-php-std-lib.html <comment><USER2> Notably, the bugfix made PHP maintainers realize that the header handler had additional behaviors that they did not understand nor had a rationale for, so those behaviors were removed as well:

[https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/5201](https://github.com/php/php- src/pull/5201)

<comment><USER3> Feels like this could be a case where DRY could fix a bug in one place

<comment><USER4> DRY is a good principle, but sometimes I'd rather repeat myself a little bit than build more bug-prone scaffolding to avoid repetition—especially when the repetition isn't line-for-line identical. Just remember to always cite the repetition in comments.

<comment><USER5> I've never come across a bug due to application of DRY, but I have seen many bugs because of "harmless" duplication resulting in inconsistent code changes several months later.

Even aside from DRY, extracting a block of code to a function or method gives you an opportunity to name the block of code, which often significantly clarifies the intent of the code so, I've always tried to error on the side of overly DRY

<comment><USER6> I haven't seen bugs due to DRY, but I've _caused_ difficulty of adding new features and poor maintainability because of it.

When I first took over maintaining Red Moon, I was a very new dev and went a little DRY crazy. In particular, there's a state machine for the different filter states (running, paused, stopped, etc), that had a bunch of classes (one per state) that had a lot of overlap. I pulled some common behaviors out into a supertype that the classes with those behaviors now inherited from.

Except, it turns out some of those states ought to act differently (automatic pauses in secure apps should disable the overlay but not restore the backlight; manual pauses should do both), and now it's going to be extra work untangling the various states and pause logic. If I'd left the state machine (amongst other bits) as it was, this feature/bugfix would be implemented already. Also, the current state of things (pun intended) is a bit less readable, in my opinion.

<comment><USER5> I've never really understood this, because undoing DRY is relatively easy: you either copy the new function/class and rename it or you inline it in the mistaken case and adjust the code to match.

<comment><USER6> Easy, but it's still work. As a thought experiment: if it's so easy, would you be interested in doing it for me? (edit: Obviously not, but compare your internal resistance to if I'd asked you to do something trivial like fix a typo in the readme)

Here's the file I was referencing (only 100 lines!): [https://github.com/LibreShift/red- moon/blob/master/app/src/m...](https://github.com/LibreShift/red- moon/blob/master/app/src/main/java/com/jmstudios/redmoon/filter/Command.kt)

Here's the issue I've been putting off fixing because of it: [https://github.com/LibreShift/red- moon/issues/208](https://github.com/LibreShift/red-moon/issues/208)

The problem is that right now there is one PAUSE state, which is triggered by both manual pauses (brightness should be restored) and automatic pauses (in secure apps; brightness should not be restored). The problem wasn't exactly DRY, it's the misapplication: I merged bits that had identical code, but turned out not to have identical purpose.

And, for posterity, here's what it used to look like way back (DRYing was not the only change, I also split out notification stuff, so it's not a 1:1 length comparison): [https://github.com/LibreShift/red- moon/blob/11ae916955ff8c36...](https://github.com/LibreShift/red- moon/blob/11ae916955ff8c360eb568c3b5632673b50b58d0/app/src/main/java/com/jmstudios/redmoon/presenter/ScreenFilterPresenter.kt)

edit: and here's the original file, back mostly before I touched it at all: [https://github.com/LibreShift/red- moon/blob/ed2ec4fd1c68611d...](https://github.com/LibreShift/red- moon/blob/ed2ec4fd1c68611d851a55f3ade141e6738e394c/app/src/main/java/com/jmstudios/redmoon/presenter/ScreenFilterPresenter.java)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looking at lines 460-521 in the modified file ([https://github.com/miguelxpn/php- src/blob/f4b2089b642d504be3...](https://github.com/miguelxpn/php- src/blob/f4b2089b642d504be358b06bbae81fa688d8bf0e/ext/standard/http_fopen_wrapper.c#L460)), is there not a benefit to `break` out of the while loop in the nested if statements?

Otherwise, it looks like it will call strstr() one extra time, even though you may have already determined that the specific header is present.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch! That's indeed the case. Another commit was made where that piece of code was refactored into a function and it returns 1 in case the header is present so strstr isn't being called an extra time in the current code.

[1] [https://github.com/php/php- src/commit/3d9c02364db62a6d8e2794...](https://github.com/php/php- src/commit/3d9c02364db62a6d8e27947ffe47dbfaad644efe#diff-e0dff85f21e939e4e2a778bddb8a72d7)

<comment><USER7> Ah, much cleaner!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting bug, but even better it's nice to see encouragement of people to get involved in open source. The walk through of the process was great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah! Before I started contributing I always thought that I wasn't good enough to even try. When I started I noticed how welcoming the communities usually are and that motivated me to contribute me even more. Nowadays I try to motivate people whenever I can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9>
      while ((s = strstr(s, "host:"))) {
        if (s == t || *(s-1) == '\r' || *(s-1) == '\n' ||
            *(s-1) == '\t' || *(s-1) == ' ') {
          have_header |= HTTP_HEADER_HOST;
        }
        s++;
      }

This s++ could be s + sizeof "host:" \- 1.

Reason being: if you have just found "host:" at address s, you will not find another one at s+1, s+2, s+3, s+4 or s+4; "host:" supports no overlapped matches.

Actually since, we are really looking for "host:" preceded by whitespace, we can skip by just sizeof "host", (five bytes). Because if s points at "host:host:", the second "host:" is not of interest; it is not preceded by a whitespace character; we won't be setting the HTTP_HEADER_HOST bit for that one.

Also, once we set the HTTP_HEADER_HOST bit, we can break out of the loop; there is no value in continuing it. The point of the loop is not to have a false negative: not to stop on a false match on "host:" which doesn't meet the HTTP_HEADER_HOST conditions, and thereby fail to find the real one later in the string. If we find the real one, we are done.

By the way, this test shows how verbose of a language C is:

            *(s-1) == '\r' || *(s-1) == '\n' ||
            *(s-1) == '\t' || *(s-1) == ' '

If we could use Javascript, look how nice it would be:

            strchr("\r\n\t ", s[-1])

</comment><comment><USER10> Thanks for sharing it! Really interesting, and well done!

</comment><comment><USER11> I feel like this bug should be solved by using a proper parsing, instead of greedily looking for a field...

<comment><USER12> Headers are just text mixed with body and hard to figure out where they stop

<comment><USER13> Headers stop when you have 2 line endings consecutively[1], I don't see why it's hard.

[1] [https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec4.html#sec4....](https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec4.html#sec4.1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That ends suddenly.</comment>


We will revamp clunky websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/cebit-australia-turnbull-vows-revamp-for-online-government-services/story-e6frgakx-1227338616688

<comment><USER2> This is subscriber only.</comment>


Computer Networking: Principles, Protocols and Practice - <AUTHOR> http://cnp3book.info.ucl.ac.be/ <comment><USER2> I took the course at UCL that uses that textbook and started to work afterwards at one of the big networking vendors. This course (and textbook) was so helpful and covered everything I needed to know to get started. Highly recommended, and it is free.

</comment><comment><USER3> Which is the preferred version? There's a newer 2nd edition available there, but not many updates and lots of warnings about it being a draft.

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks really nice!

As an aside, is there a course where its not just details in text but some actual hands on mini-implementation work too? I like reading books but for programming I've found I internalize the material better by working through an actual project, even if its a toy project

<comment><USER5> A good way to internalize how everything works is to mess around with pcaps and Wireshark. Try using libpcap (or even just scapy) to decode protocols and see if you can match the Wireshark output, then move up to reconstructing streams and dealing with quirks like fragmentation, etc.

If you're looking for something more structured and/or in-depth, try implementing a basic userspace tcp/ip stack. We had a few projects related to this back in college that I unfortunately can't seem to find right now, but there are undoubtedly some solid resources out there (I recall seeing [http://www.saminiir.com/lets-code-tcp-ip-stack-1-ethernet- ar...](http://www.saminiir.com/lets-code-tcp-ip-stack-1-ethernet-arp/) on HN a while ago.)

If you wanted to get more experience on the enterprise networking side of things, instead of the software side, search around for training labs for Cisco certs like the CCNA exam. I remember seeing some virtual lab exercises that looked pretty interesting, though I never did any more than look them up so I can't vouch for any myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> it can be as a reference</comment>


Show HN: Coworkations – Find the remote working community that is right for you - <AUTHOR> https://coworkations.co <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN!

Coworkations lists coworking retreats worldwide – aiming to help digital nomads and remote workers differentiate between the various communities that now operate around the globe.

A coworkation can be many things, a lot of them combine coliving, coworking and activites, some do it whilst on a cruise ship or train , and some have particular themes such as entrepreneurship, sports or reconnecting with nature.

I created Coworkations because I want to help people find these groups, understand their offerings, and how they compare. I've been location independent for a year now and think these kinds of programs are a great way to jump into digital nomadism whilst surrounding yourself with the support of a community of like-minded people!

Explore the world without interrupting your career.

I welcome any and all feedback, suggestions and comments!

Many thanks!

Steve</comment>


Interview with Founder of Minds.com - <AUTHOR> https://interviews.slashdot.org/story/19/03/08/1817245/we-will-never-sell-out-or-compromise-our-principles-that-would-be-like-murder-the-slashdot-interview-with-ceo-and-founder-of-mindscom-social-network <comment><USER2> Since users get tokens for interactions with their content, I wonder if the content on sites like this will be worse. You have that incentive everywhere else (the positive feeling of likes, +1s, etc.), but here it's a kind of direct financial reward.

It almost seems like "gamifying" content causes it's quality to go down. HN hides upvote/downvote counts for comments, which seems to help.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an interesting _experiment_ on the future of user engagement and the effects of monetization.

I suspect that this will improve commenting (compared to other larger, non-HN, sites), as users interested in the reward system will put their best foot forward.

It would help commenting immensely if "downvotes" caused a reduction of accumulated rewards but could also lead to a kind of bland (play it safe) mentality.

From both a sociological and business model perspective... I find this fascinating. There's a $haring (is caring) aspect to this initial push and a hint of group ownership (like stock holders).</comment>


"Tap water as a service" has to be satire, right? - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/reefill-a-new-way-to-fill-your-bottle-on-the-go-water-environment/#/ <comment><USER2> I 100% agree with their concern over the pollution caused by bottled water.

But, shouldn't the solution be that tap water is drinkable as is -- it is already filtered to a level of potability in the US. We established public utilities and municipal departments to manage providing clean water because it is a public good and a human right.

Their idea (attaching additional filters to tap water) already exists all over the developing world (e.g. most middle class apartments from Delhi to Mexico City have water filters). The problem with filtering at that final step is every household solves their own potability problem instead of investing in a public solution.

People with money don't demand drinkable tap water from their governments when they can filter it themselves -- leaving the vast urban poor without access to clean water.

Thus, we need to demand our tap water is drinkable!

And in the US, it already is!!

Perhaps they are furthering a pernicious lie that tap water isn't drinkable while claiming to be part of an environmental solution?</comment>


Cause & Effect - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/07/cause-effect.html

<comment><USER2> Not saying a "virtuous circle" can't exist, they certainly do. However, it's good to keep in mind that a virtuous circle is by definition a feedback loop, and there are other kinds of feedback loops which aren't nearly so desirable.

In fact, taking a very dim view, one might say that "virtuous circle" in this context, and "tech bubble" are synonymous in denotation.

<comment><USER3> I've always called the negative feedback loops "vicious cycles"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing that I wonder about, is that there seem to be many posts on HN by VCs and angels about the "virtuous circle" in Silicon Valley, but far fewer by developers.

As I am a developer thinking of moving to the bay area, I can't help but wonder about this. I don't necessarily think this is a conspiracy, however. I can come up with mechanisms which would explain this.

It could be that devs are busy with projects, and that they are far likelier to post about projects or the technology they are most actively involved with than something as abstract as the virtuous circle. It could also be that devs who are most in touch with the virtuous circle get transformed into angels and VCs. Both of these make sense and speak positively of the community.

<comment><USER5> Where startups are located is much more important to a VC than it is to a developer. VCs want to be within a reasonable distance to all their portfolio and potential portfolio companies. Developers only need to be close to one company. At least that's my theory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cause and effect

Mind makes world;

World makes mind.

I am the master of the world

The world is my teacher.

When I and the world meet each other,

It lets me know the past and the future.

\---

Poem from Traveler <http://snasc.com/traveler/chapter04.htm>

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone have some good modern scifi recommendations? I've read some Stephenson and Gibson. Looking for more though.

<comment><USER4> John Scalzi is a good combination of action with some neat high-concept ideas thrown in to the bargain. Vernor Vinge can achieve this as well. I also rather like the Culture books by Iam M. Banks. (I recommend starting with Player of Games.)

<comment><USER8> Typo: should be "Iain M Banks"

I also enjoy his culture novels. His non-culture "Against a Dark Background" is also excellent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Star Trek alone can show you a bunch of things:

• Portable all-purpose touch-based computers = iPad

• High quality video calling = Skype

• Personal long range voice communicators = Cell phones

• Voice controlled smart computers = Siri?

• Universal text translation = WordLens?

• Universal voice translation = ?

• Long range stun guns = ?

• Impenetrable protective barriers = ?

• Long range high speed personnel transporters = ?

• High speed air & space shuttles = ?

• Portable general medical diagnostic tool = ?

The list goes on and on. Some of them are within our grasp.</comment>


Related to Covid-19? Rare Skin Condition (Inflammatory) Arising in Europe - <AUTHOR> https://time.com/5828506/rare-child-illness-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> The headline might be accidentally understating this, with its reference to "skin". The piece actually discusses a number of conditions, possibly triggered by or related to covid-19; for example, shock, blood pressure and heart problems are mentioned.

A piece in The Guardian on this subject was posted yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22997452](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22997452)</comment>


New ARM-powered chip aims for battery life measured in decades - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/new-arm-powered-chip-aims-for-battery-life-measured-in-decades/ <comment><USER2>
      The chip is so low power that it can be powered off energy
      capture from the body, as Andreas Eieland, Atmel's Director
      of Product Marketing for low-power products, demonstrated at
      CES earlier this year.

The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120v battery, and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with the Atmel SAM L21 32-bit ARM MCU, the machines had found... all the energy they would ever need.

<comment><USER3> That quote is so totally non-scientific. For movies to get basic physics so terribly wrong is very sloppy.

<comment><USER4> Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who isn't terribly bothered by sloppy science in movies. I prefer movies that are entertaining or thought- provoking, not factual.

Besides, the Matrix is about how our world is a simulation - who's to say how physics works in their "real" world?

<comment><USER3> If you want something to be 'thought provoking' then make it as close to reality as you can, that's good SF. The only thoughts this provokes in me is 'ouch'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It all started with this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbNnNF9JHFQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbNnNF9JHFQ)

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/03/unsung_heroes_of_tec...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/03/unsung_heroes_of_tech_arm_creators_sophie_wilson_and_steve_furber/)

ARM low power consumption was an accident caused by financial constrains. Small team with no money (Acorn was starting to go downhill at the time) forced Sophie Wilson/Steve Furber team to be clever with resources.

In 1987 hand routed ARM2 build with 30K transistors ran at 8MHz reaching 4 MIPS (of 32bit operations). Coincidentally Intels 386 build by an army of hundred engineers supplemented by state of the art emulation/validation/automation software (Mossim etc, &) and divided into large groups working on individual parts of the design achieved ... 4 MIPS at 33MHz using 275K 2x smaller transistors and >20x the power.

&[http://webee.technion.ac.il/people/kolodny/ftp/IntelCADPaper...](http://webee.technion.ac.il/people/kolodny/ftp/IntelCADPaperFinal2.pdf)

&software born from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_%26_Conway_revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_%26_Conway_revolution) and following Darpa programs

<comment><USER6> I don't think that is a fair comparison. The 386 was a true CISC design while the ARM2 was RISC. One of the major points of RISC was to reduce silicon complexity by using a less complex design (and shoving the complexity onto software).

Intel could have built an equal or better chip than the ARM2 but they were worrying about servicing the already established market for x86.

P.S. Is it even reasonable to compare MIPS between RISC and CISC designs? A RISC chip has to execute several instructions to do what can be done in one CISC instruction.

<comment> T-hawk Intel did in fact build a RISC chip contemporary with the 386/486: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i860](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i860)

It had great instruction throughput performance by the specs but lacked in real applications, thanks to the sufficiently smart compilers never coming to be.

<comment><USER7> The i860's theoretical throughput was achievable only in very special cases in tight floating point kernels. Most code couldn't possibly perform as well, no matter how smart the compiler.

Intel's sane RISC was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960), somewhat by accident.

<comment><USER8> And of course, by the time we got to the Pentium Pro - and more or less everything ever since - we ended up with a hybrid pipelined superscalar design which takes advantage of the legacy of support (and, compared to VLIW, tight instruction coding), but as part of the decode pipeline, translates that to RISC µops inside with microcode.

The Transmeta Crusoe was a particularly notable (if not particularly _successful_ ) case in point, which brought that layer a little more visibility than most, although in all honestly, was probably mostly well-known for having been Linus Torvalds' employer.

There never was a particularly bright line between RISC and CISC, and it's only gotten blurrier with the decades as the two paradigms stole good ideas from each other.

That's not to say there isn't the occasional throwback, sometimes for a good reason. I've got an adorable little slug of a 'transparent' microprocessor on my desk which I hope sees the light of day sometime (when it actually works, because I've bricked it - first time designer == _way_ too many errata! :P) because it's got some fun ideas for trust, like the host being able to directly read (and verify) all the software it's running.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think that this just killed the one of the triumph card of PIC micro- controllers.

Seriously, Microchip uC have now any interesting thing apart of a lot of embed I/O hardware inside ? ARM based uCs now are cheap, low powered and have far better IDEs and compilers...

<comment><USER10> The strongest selling point for PIC is always the quality of the I/O hardware and the attention to the low-volume market. The CPU core is just something that you need to deal with. ATMEL is always great presenting fabulous MCU than sometimes takes forever to reach the low-volume markets.

Lead time is always an important parameter to consider when choosing a new MCU for a low-volume project :-)

I used to start new projects looking on digikey website more than anything.

<comment><USER11> >> ATMEL is always great presenting fabulous MCU than sometimes takes forever to reach the low-volume markets.

But in the low-volume markets what wins is usually better software support, and with it's mbed-os(and other software frameworks availble for ARM mcu's), ARM is surely to win here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ah! But this chip only has a sub-uA sleep mode. So it will have the said decades battery life if it sleeps most of the time, which might be true in the cases of some kind of IoT application, but not if it's actually running often.

<comment><USER13> Meet marketing. I will personally buy pizza for one week to any marketing department that, when announcing a new product, publishes figures that are actually useful.

Oh look, we just launched a MCU with a power consumption _so low_ that you can keep it powered for twenty years. As long as you don't do anything with it. Of course, every other figure that would make this one useful (such as per-module current consumption, time to sleep) is missing.

It's _especially_ funny when everyone claims they have "the best" or "state of the art" consumption, but when you factor in everything else it turns out they're pretty much within the noise figure of the current state of affairs.

In my whole engineering career, I'm yet to see a press release or a market launch that isn't full of bullshit. Just hand me the bloody datasheet and give me a break, folks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Now we only need batteries that don't self-discharge within decades.

<comment><USER13> This is likely intended to be use with batteries that can recharge from very low-energy sources, e.g. energy captured from the body. It has very small energy consumption in sleep mode, so the battery can charge between wake cycles. 200 nA is, indeed, very low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> meanwhile the latest and greatest 2015 device is an all-day wristwatch the weight of a pack of cards [1] (for the smaller Apple watch [2]) that in Apple's own "watch test" tells time for up to 48 days before dying --- whoops, no, I meant 48 _hours_ [3] :

>Testing conducted by Apple in March 2015 using preproduction Apple Watch and software paired with an iPhone using preproduction software with 5 time checks (4 seconds each) per hour.

This is as compared with simple mechanical wristwatches that are self-charging (through wrist movement) and can be worn _indefinitely_ , or have 72-100 hour power reserves from winding. [4] This is _mechanical_ power we're talking about.

So don't talk to me about decades until you can get more than 48 hours of battery life....from a watch.

1 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_52-card_deck](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_52-card_deck)

2 [https://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch-edition/18-karat- yel...](https://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch-edition/18-karat-yellow-gold- case-black-sport-band/)

3 [https://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html](https://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html)

4 [http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.php?250883-List-of- watches...](http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.php?250883-List-of-watches- with-3-7-days-Power-Reserve)

<comment><USER16> Sure, the Apple watch is fairly likely to be a ridiculous geegaw.

It's also going to do a lot more than the mechanical watches you are comparing it to.

If you just want to tell time, there is a wide market of solar watches:

[http://www.casio-intl.com/asia- mea/en/wat/standard/solar_pow...](http://www.casio-intl.com/asia- mea/en/wat/standard/solar_power/)

[http://www.seiko-cleanenergy.com/watches/solar/](http://www.seiko- cleanenergy.com/watches/solar/)

The Seiko tech runs for 6 months with no charging (left in total darkness).

<comment><USER17> I wonder what the actually numbers for these watches are. Energy received via the solar cell, energy consumption, battery capacity.

<comment><USER16> Some bookending it is as least possible. They imply that the draw is no more than 1/60th the input (1 minute of sun for 1 hour). The 3 hours for 6 months would be much lower, checking their documentation, it enters a low power mode that freezes the hands (it still keeps time, the hands are advanced when power becomes available).

The input is limited to something like 10 square cm (that's a bit more than 3 cm by 3cm, or a circle ~3.5 cm across). 1000 watts / square meter is usually used as peak sun, so the max input would be ~1 watt (but actual energy captured would probably be more like 1/10 of that).

3 Watt hours is a very respectable figure for a AA battery, so it clearly isn't storing that much power. After looking up that figure, 10% efficiency for the solar cell is probably high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If we're talking about low-power mcu, here's something that might interest the the hacker community:

A new API,to be released in april, that enables programming mcu's to very low power,easily(versus very high complexity of currently needed to achieve low power). It uses the mbed, which is of similar complexity to the arduino:

[http://community.arm.com/groups/internet-of- things/blog/2015...](http://community.arm.com/groups/internet-of- things/blog/2015/03/12/reducing-power-consumption-with-the-arm-mbed-low-power- apis-and-efm32-mcus)

</comment><comment><USER18> True to the Internet culture Atmel could not help it but had to Rickroll people at their booth. I like it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Would it be feasible to power this cheap of electromagnetic radiation?

[http://www.technologyreview.com/news/413744/wireless- power-h...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/413744/wireless-power- harvesting-for-cell-phones/)

<comment><USER11> This guys sell components that enable battery free operation(according to their claims) using rf energy:

[http://www.powercastco.com/](http://www.powercastco.com/)

BTW, rf energy is generally among the lowest energy harvesting sources, and in many cases environmental light, vibration(for example on a machine) ,and heat are much stronger energy harvesting sources, and most likely available at low cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326124](http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326124)

</comment><comment><USER21> It'll be an odd world if we ever reach the point where we throw hardware away before the battery runs out.

</comment><comment><USER22> Still waiting for clockless chips here...

<comment><USER23> Been done - on ARM instruction sets, no less.

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

<comment><USER24> Also on Forth instruction sets:

[http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/index.html#GA1...](http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/index.html#GA144)

<comment><USER25> Not trolling... is this still a going concern, shipping eval boards, etc? I saw this a couple of years ago, someone commented on HN, and then nothing. I liked the eval board specs and it seemed reasonably priced given the low volume (maybe a hard sell when STM is all but giving away kits).

<comment><USER24> I got my eval board one year ago. I'm sure if they had closed shop they'd have put a warning on their site, but you can always email them to make sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I see that it's 32-bit, is the year 2038 problem a significant concern for a device like this?

<comment><USER27> That is purely a software issue. Word size does not limit how big numbers computer can handle, it just implies how big numbers it can handle _efficiently_. Even lowly 8-bit computers/microcontrollers can do arbitrary precision/bignum math.

<comment><USER28> Depending on your definition of big.</comment></comment></comment>


What choices have to be made by whom to solve DDoS problem? - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/senator-prods-federal-agencies-on-iot-mess/ <comment><AUTHOR> I mean who other than regulators. That is, I think that this is the last opportunity before heavy handed regulation that possibly throws out the baby with the bath water.</comment>


Ask HN: How to develop a eCommerce website. - <AUTHOR>

We are planning to develop a eCommerce/ticketing website where people can book their movie tickets through online. Please guide me with steps, best practices, programming languages, resources. In India, there is no good webservice that collates information of all theatres. Thanks for your help. <comment><USER2>
      In India, there is no good webservice that collates information of all theatres.

Bookmyshow ( <http://in.bookmyshow.com/> ) is a very popular service for booking movie tickets online and it is very popular. Almost everyone in my friend circle knows about it. 536,191 users like it's facebook page. That can give you some idea. PVR Cinemas don't sell its tickets through 3rd party vendors. It sells through own website.

A quick google search also tells me about sites such as <http://movies.paymate.co.in/> , <http://www.ticketnew.com/> , <http://www.easymoviesindia.com/> and <http://www.kyazoonga.com/> who are selling movie tickets online in India.

It is always good to research properly before starting a new venture.

      How to develop such web application?

1\. You would need to learn web development using either(Python/Django, Ruby/Rails or PHP) with one database(mysql). There are other options like asp.net and java but these three are most popular. Along with that you need to know HTML,CSS, JavaScript and jQuery.

2\. You need to integrate it with an online payment processing service that let's you accept payments through credit cards, netbanking etc. Bookmyshow avails services of BillDesk (<http://www.billdesk.com/>)

3\. The hardest part, you need to integrate your web based booking system with booking system of each and every individual theaters(or provide them your own system for their on the spot booking) so that your web application gets real time information about available seats and present it to users for preferred seat selection.

</comment><comment><USER3> Your question is rather broad, and I know nothing of the theater system in India.

Depending on your budget, I would use Magento Commerece (<http://www.magentocommerce.com/>). I have used in the past and they have a large variety of extensions, some community driven and some commercially driven. It is written in PHP and uses the MVC pattern.

</comment><comment><USER4> Your question is too broad, so I'm going to give a broad answer.

I would use the Ruby language and Ruby on Rails framework and customize the Spree <http://spreecommerce.com/> E-Commerce software.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1886310></comment>


Ask HN: How's your eyesight? - <AUTHOR>

Ever since I first discovered computing I've had people tell me that all this staring at screens is going to destroy my eyesight. A quick search seems to indicate that this is actually controversial. Some say staring at screens for too long damages eyesight, while other sites say there is no harm done.
Whether it is the screens or not - my eyesight is pretty knackered.
Just wondered what other peoples experiences are.
Is there a "safe" way to stare at screens for 75% of your waking day? There are some people who claim that there are things you can do to fix your eyes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method) but these claims seem highly debated. Has anyone had any luck with them? <comment><USER3> I am 42 years old, and have been staring into screens for most of my waking hours since I was 11 years old (when I got my Commodore 64). I have a slight astigmatism in my left eye, easily corrected with eyeglasses. I wore 1 contact for a while, but that was too weird of a feeling having that in one eye.

Other than that I am 20/20.

I suppose I could maybe get a monocle for that astigmatic eye.

Now, having been programming for 31 years...a new question should be asked on HN: "How's your drinking problem?"

</comment><comment> T-A Mine has been bad (nearsighted) since childhood and getting steadily worse ever since. Both my parents were nearsighted too, so in my case genetics probably played a significant role. But in general, I don't think it can be a matter of genetics alone; the rise in myopia among the general population has been too fast for that. Here is what looks like a more plausible explanation: [http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia- boom-1.17120](http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. This does tie in with what Bates called Sunning ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method#Sunning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method#Sunning)). (The image there make me cringe.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My eyesight was pretty bad even before I started staring at screens. But mine is due to genetics, probably.

I got a Lasik(actually PRK) procedure a couple of years ago and I am glasses- free since then with the occasional dry eye.

From what I understood, anything that causes eye strain is not a good thing. But it's not only screens(reading, bad lighting...). So things like taking frequent breaks and making sure that your eyes are hydrated will benefit you. Anything else is highly controversial at this point in time.

</comment><comment><USER5> I thought I was losing mine thanks to computer work, but recently was diagnosed with keratoconus, which has a genetic link. In addition to being a contraindication for laser surgery, there's a distinct possibility of corneal rupture as it gets worse. It causes thinning of the cornea around the edges, leading to poor vision and astigmatism.

Interestingly, the only real treatment for it is something called collagen crosslinking, which is basically administration of UV light after the use of riboflavin on the cornea. This promotes crosslinking between collagen fibers making up the cornea, strengthening it and arresting the progression.

What's interesting about that is the recent research about the prevalence of myopia in children and young adults and its connection to lack of exposure to sunlight. It seems like the computer isn't itself to blame, but time on the computer probably contributes to time NOT spent outdoors, where the sun's UV light would naturally do the same as the procedure above.

(This is hardly scientific, just my musings on the subject.)

[Edit: The research i'm referring to is not Bates' research on the subject. I can't find the link on it at the moment but as I recall it was a study in China of chinese schoolchildren that played more outdoors vs indoors, or something to that effect.]

</comment><comment><USER6> I have pretty bad floaters in my eyes, and redshift or Flux is essential, and so is inverting browser colors. I can't recommend highly enough an addon for Chromium called hacker vision which inverts everything perfectly. Combine with a dark GTK theme or custom Windows Classic theme (impossible or nearly impossible to do in Windows 8, afaik, shame on Microsoft) and you can eliminate most of the horrible light-bulb white screens. Even if I had perfectly clear vision I'd still use inverted colors due to the decrease in eye strain.

Eye floaters can be awful and I'd have a hell of a time using a computer without these things. Unfortunately the only real option to cure them is getting a vitrectomy in which the vitreous jelly is sucked out of your eye with a 3-port vitrector (which consists of one cutter/sucker, one saline injector, and a light for the surgeon) and having the eye replace it naturally by secreting fluid in its place. Not very fun.

I don't think they were caused by computer usage even though I'm on the computer almost all day. No real problems with visual acuity.

<comment><USER7> Strange, I find the exact opposite. I have to use Stylish to redesign any website that uses a dark theme _precisely_ because of eye strain caused by reading high contrast backgrounds. White on black emphasizes this more than white on black when reading lines of text. [0]

[0] [http://www.ironicsans.com/owmyeyes/](http://www.ironicsans.com/owmyeyes/)

<comment><USER6> Ideally more software would have an option to use either a light or dark theme or customizable colors. Dark themes make eye floaters much, much more manageable, which is my main visual problem and a common complaint from heavy computer users. Can't speak for anyone else but that's my experience. It's also important to have good ambient light levels as well, which can affect things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hrm, I have eyesight issues. They are worse when I use a computer for a length of time. Retina display improves it.

I have 2 astigmatisms. My left eye is worse than my right. I'm not sure if computers can change the shape of the eyeball but that is what the problem is.

When light enters my eye, because of irregular shaped eyeballs, the light that reflects onto the retina is out of sync. It's easier to see things closer to me because details are more prominent, so the misalignment doesn't have much of an effect. It's not a problem of lens focus.

The reason computers make it worse and retina display helps is because the lack of definition adds to the lack of definition caused by the misalignment, causing terrible headaches and a sore dull ache (the latter does not improve with glasses).

On top of that, the usual dry eyes are a problem. There's a spray that's come out in the UK which is handy since it mitigates the aim issue somewhat, though I have sprayed my forehead whyen being careless.

</comment><comment><USER9> My eyesight is pretty bad too. I don't believe the computers are a direct culprit, but they might be indirectly and partially responsible. Staring to the screen usually causes nothing more than eye strain, which may indeed result in vision problems, but those are reversible - sufficient rest, frequent brakes, some exercises, and it should be back to normal. However, as it turns out, I have a rare genetic condition which makes my eyes unusually weak and incapable of repairing damage. The combination of staring at the screen combined with horrible air conditioners in the office caused my eyes to dry out and burn like hell, which in turn caused massive death of cells that couldn't repair themselves due to the above deficiency, damaging my eyesight. Hope that clarifies things a bit.

</comment><comment><USER10> One of the things you can do is get a pair of yellow tinted glasses. Gundar makes a specific one for gamers but I prefer the ones from Oakley. They make staring at computer screens for long periods of time easier.

Another thing to be aware of is symptoms of diabetes. Are you are sitting in a chair in front of a computer for hours a day, years on end? Do you eat sugary or stachy foods, coke or energy drinks for instance? Do you not get exercise? Have you gained a lot of weight? Do you have a lot stress in your life (startups)? Depending on your body type this type of environment can lead to diabetes. One of the symptoms of that is blurred vision.

* Updated for wording/grammar.

</comment><comment><USER11> In about 2007-8 I learned that my eyesight was almost bad enough for me to not be able to legally drive without glasses. I started saving for laser eye surgery and got LASIK a year or so later. It was one of the best investments I've made. I stepped outside a few hours later and looked at the trees - <USER2> could see every leaf. It was like seeing the world in HD. Now, years later, my eyesight is degrading again (to be expected). It's still better than it was, but I can tell that it's not as great as it was right after surgery. Thinking about investigating further LASIK correction options.

</comment><comment><USER12> I read a article that had dug into this and found out that lack of light (sun) was the cause of bad eyesight in kids in asia.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/4140371/Spen...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/4140371/Spending- time-in-sun-can-prevent-children-becoming-short-sighted.html)

So have a brightly lit room and get outside during the day, that should minimize your risk.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've asked my eye doctor a bunch of questions (happens to be my ex- girlfriend's aunt) According to her, eye sight is pretty much genetics. Some people have great vision, some people, not so much.

I started starring at a screen in 92 but I was fitted for glasses in 91. I've worn contacts since 98 and 99.99% of the time and my vision has stayed a pretty consistent -3, -3.25 (in contact lenses) since.

Some stuff I've learned (about contacts):

If you get contacts that last 2 weeks - use new ones in 2 weeks - It sucks - Accuview (the brand I use) are pretty expensive (something like $300-400 for a year supply) but old contacts definitely cause eye strain. I generally change mine every 3-4 weeks.

Focus on something in the distance every once in a while. A benefit of being a smoker (if there is such a thing) is every couple hours I... go out for a smoke. Nice 5-10 minute break from starring at the screen.

If you don't have plans after work and go home and get back to work on freelance or a side project, or whatever - switch to glasses - glasses allow the eyes to breath and help rehydrate them.

Drink water! Eyes need water like the rest of the body.

Try something like Gunnar Optics maybe? [http://www.gunnars.com/](http://www.gunnars.com/) I have a pair and wear them (with contacts) when my eyes are really tired. They help and according to the eye doctor, anything that can reduce eye strain is good.

Change your contact solution. I was using Renu solution for a long time then switched to bausch and lomb biotrue and my eyes have felt fresher since.

Wear sunglasses! With a UV filter preferably, but anything helps. People give me shit cause I wear sunglasses when it's cloudy but when it's cloudy is actually worse then when it's sunny. The clouds trap UV rays and that kind of weather can be more harmful to your eyes (and skin) then when it's sunny out.

If they continue to bother you, have your doctor re-test your eyes or put you in a different contact / lens brand. People are so quick to goto a medical doctor for problems, but often neglect going to an eye doctor or dentist. Sucks - most insurances don't cover eye or dental, but it is important to get those things checked out.

</comment><comment><USER14> My anecdotal experience is that eyesight is mostly genetic. As a developer and before that avid gamer, I've stared at screens and tiny text far more than the average person, yet my eyesight remains perfect (mid 30's). My wife, as a counter-example, works in healthcare, not a screen person at work or home, but her eyesight has always been poor. Heck, my brother is a developer too, no glasses or contacts.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have been using computers for long periods daily for the last 20 years. It's only been in the last few years that I've noticed a real difference. I've found that the problem has been caused by staring at a small iphone screen. Reading tiny text for a while then switching back to looking around is really difficult.

I've stopped using my phone for extended browsing and have noticed a reduction in eye strain.

</comment><comment><USER16> Staring at a screen does not impact your eyesight negatively. However it contributes to an eye "tiredness" (non native english speaker here, sorry), but that's all. This is from a friend of mine who is orthoptist.

I also know by changing glasses recently that they have some technology they put in the lens to reduce this tiredness. At least they sell it, I have no idea if it's a real thing.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've used computers most of my life. Other than my eyes being very sensitive (applying eyeshadow causes me to tear up), my vision is better than 20/20\. Honestly, computers have done way more damage to my posture than my eyesight.

</comment><comment><USER18> There is a thing you can do, get Lasik/Lasek. It is a bit hardcore for sure to have someone poking knives and lasers at your eyes, but it was completely painless and one of the best decisions I've ever made.

</comment><comment><USER19> Mines pretty knackered too and it's definetly due to staring at screens in the night in dark. I'd love to know if there are methods to improve eyesight or eye health.

<comment><USER20> There is this tool : [http://jonls.dk/redshift/](http://jonls.dk/redshift/) that adjusts the color temperature of your screen at night so it feels less aggressive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nearly 40, staring at screens since I was 7 (a fleet of Apple II machines in 2nd grade). Vision is still better than average. 20/15

Why? Genetics probably.

</comment><comment><USER22> My eyesight has always been excellent and still is at age 34. I spent lots of time in front of computer screens at work and at home.</comment>