NeDB, a pure Javascript database for Node.js and Node Webkit - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/louischatriot/nedb

<comment><USER2> As someone that has a JS background and is looking to get started with node, this is a welcome addition. I like the idea of being able to throw a require statement in and get up and running. Syntax for inserts and queries look straightforward too. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The syntax is the same as MongoDB's, so that developers used to MongoDB (most Node.js devs are) can get started on NeDB right away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The trend continues where all things eventually get implemented in Javascript. Waiting for JS.js

<comment><USER4> Indeed. In my mind much of the value of javascript is for rapid protoyping and for allowing those who enjoy JS (I do not [1]), to build medium performance tier applications.

What strikes me as odd is people wanting to write things that traditionally are written in C/C++ and more recently also in Go/Rust/Java/D in JS. The reason these arguably slower, in development speed, languages are used for things like DBs is that they are write once re-use thousands of times, and this use case warrants being slightly lower level and less rapid in development and gaining performance and I would _argue_ maintainability.

[1] Note: In case you are wondering why _I_ dislike JS: 1. JS's extensive use of spaghetti _cough_ I mean callbacks 2. Higher effort needed to use compute resources for a single task in a parallel fashion compared to other langs 3. I dislike dynamically typed languages (I belive they are harder to maintain) 4. Performance: [http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?te...](http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=v8&lang2=gcc&data=u64)

<comment><AUTHOR> The goal in this particular case is to have all your code in a single language for easy distribution. If you write and distribute a Node.js webapp or Node Webkit app (which I guess you don't since you don't like JS!), needing your users to also install whichever DB you use is a pain for them (esp. for desktop apps with Node Webkit, users may not be developers). That's the reason I built this.

<comment><USER4> First off, louischatriot kudos to you for building this. Building embedded DB's is fun and worthwhile. The fact I'm not a JS fan doesn't diminish that value to me.

While I understand that packaging motivation; it seems to me to be less relevant due to msi/rpm/deb packages. Those technologies make it pretty easy to package an application built with heterogeneous components.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

It's true that it's easy to package such applications for unix systems, but it's much harder on Windows. What makes Node Webkit great is the fact that it's cross-platform with very little pain, and in that case having the DB in the JS code makes packaging a breeze.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great idea and project. Questions: a) Is the database loosely coupled to query language implementation? b) In my biased opinion RethinkDB has a much better query language. Is there a way to implement RethinkDB's query semantics and how much work is involved? c) Underscore.js has a ton of collection manipulation functions. How easy is it to use it from within NeDB? d) How easy/difficult is it to run NeDB as a lightweight RESTful server, in its own Node process?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! To answer your questions:

a) and b) The database is loosely coupled with the query language implementation, so it could be possible to change the query semantics without breaking it. That said I have other priorities for now (some adaptation for Node Webkit, porting it to the browser).

c) NeDB queries return vanilla objects or array of objects , on which you can use all the underscore functions you want.

d) Depends what you want to do. If you want to write a REPL I think it shouldn't be too difficult, and it may be a good idea to do one. In the meantime, since the API is the same as MongoDB's, you can learn NeDB using MongoDB's REPL :)

<comment><USER5> Thank you. Can you elaborate your statement "you can learn NeDB using MongoDB's REPL"? Specifically steps to use MongoDB REPL connected to NeDB.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was referring to the fact that the syntax is the same so if you don't know the NeDB syntax you can play with the MongoDB REPL. Appart from this there is no connection between the two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Perfect timing. I spun up a project fairly recently using node-webkit and wanted this, exactly. Getting SQLite integrated wasn't particularly painful, but a document storage model is just what I had hoped for. Thanks for the contribution; looking forward to giving it a try!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I am finishing a small helper that will enable you to specify the location of the datafiles relative to the directory where Node webkit stores data. You should find it helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It might be interesting to persist snapshots to S3. It might be usable for small projects on Heroku/etc with ephemeral storage. It could be patched here (?) [1], but clearly there'd be a lot of issues with the long network call, how often to do it, how durable it really is, etc.

1: [https://github.com/louischatriot/nedb/blob/b1abd34384cefea16...](https://github.com/louischatriot/nedb/blob/b1abd34384cefea16e7cf86c7316f602d26d4e3d/lib/datastore.js#L368)

</comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of a beefed-up version of this similar project: [https://github.com/chjj/node-tiny](https://github.com/chjj/node-tiny)

</comment><comment><USER9> node-webkit seems to have a number of options for local storage: [https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/wiki/Save- persisten...](https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/wiki/Save-persistent- data-in-app)

Amongst those are a native SQL engine (sqlite) and a native NoSQL engine (levelDB, through the IndexedDB API)

It'd be useful to know what benefits NeDB brings over other existing storage mechanisms.

<comment><AUTHOR> I should stress this more in the README ... The key difference is that NeDB is a "real" (meaning with an actually powerful query and update language) database that is written in pure javascript. That's not the case for the other engines that need you (your users actually) to install a third-party DB or compile it. That makes prototyping, distribution and packaging much easier, and that was the main motivation (appart from fun) for this project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> From what I can make out, this won't work under cluster, right? You won't get new data written from one worker in another. It also has no locking so you can easily corrupt the database if you access it from multiple programs at once (or with cluster).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not supposed to work with cluster and using it with multiple programs that update/remove/insert docs will cause unexpected behaviour, although no data corruption since the datafile is append-only.

But if you need multiple programs to use your DB at once you need a more powerful solution such as MongoDB. The goal of NeDB is to bring DB features to desktop apps or low concurrency webapps, not replace Mongo and the like.

<comment><USER10> No I get that, I'm not saying it should support those things, just saying you should probably document it clearly. People don't like to lose data.

And append-only doesn't make you immune to corruption. There's still a possibility of two processes writing at the same time corrupting what gets written to the file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What does this have to do with node-webkit? My understanding is that nodejs is a subset of node-webkit, so by saying "this is for nodejs", you imply "this is for node-webkit".

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, but I want to stress Node Webkit because NW apps are probably one of the best usecases. Also, there is a bit of helper code specific to Node Webkit, so that you don't need to worry about where the data is stored.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> node.js used to see really slow GC cycles (>1s) at over ~5/600MB of heap usage, and bomb out fatally at 1GB. Is this still the case?

If it is, you should probably put a larger warning about dataset size than the line you currently have :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's better now, it handles as least 1.4GB in the heap. That said if you have a database with more than, say, 300MB of data, I think you need a more large-scale database.

As an aside, I'm considering enabling large datasets for NeDB as some users asked, but that would be a lot of work so I'll wait for more requests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice welcome addition to the node webkit landscape.

<comment><USER14> Agree. This just make writing simple apps that much easier. Great idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How do you pronounce "NeDB"?

<comment><AUTHOR> I may need to choose another name, you're not the first one to ask this :) I pronounce it letter-by-letter as it is an acronym for "Node Embedded DataBase"

<comment><USER16> My instinct was to pronounce it "knee dee bee", so I think there's definitely an ambiguity there. On the other hand, that didn't stop people from naming GIF, SQL, or nginx, so I don't see why it should stop you.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. "enn eee dee bee" (or "any dee bee") was mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Awesome! I've been looking for a project like this for a small app and have been exploring things like EJDB and UnqLite, among others. I'll definitely be checking this out. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great to hear :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How is this different from mongodb? Aside from being written in javascript and having a non-existent community around it?

<comment><USER19> It's different in that it's embedded in your application (like SQLite). It does not require a separate process or server running Mongodb. There are certainly appropriate use cases for this module, and since it has a Mongodb- like interface it can be swapped out for Mongo at any time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. I also made a small script that automatically transfers all your data from a NeDB to a MongoDB: [https://github.com/louischatriot/nedb-to- mongodb](https://github.com/louischatriot/nedb-to-mongodb)

You can use that once you've outgrown NeDB.</comment></comment></comment>


We Broke the Panama Papers Story. Our Next Mission: Donald Trump - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/24/panama-papers-media-investigation-next-donald-trump-hold-accountable <comment><USER2> How about they start adhering to the practices that made journalism a cornerstone of functioning democracies for so long? Such as reporting all the facts critically, and not approaching each story from the same, tired left- wing liberal agenda. (I say this as a left wing liberal). The guardian and most of the left leaning media was asleep when the DNC steamrolled HTC through. They were asleep to the possibility of a Trump candidacy and presidency, and fell into his trap by giving virtually unlimited media coverage; we may be in a post truth world but we are more certainly in a world in which there really is no such thing as bad publicity. They refused to pay attention to the facts of the Brexit polls. So I don't have much sympathy for their appeal.

<comment><USER3> That story was written by Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer and includes the phrase "our newspaper, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung". I read the SZ (on paper) and in my judgment the SZ does well on the points you mention.

But I bet you still don't have much sympathy for their appeal. It's always possible to find a fault.

<comment><USER4> Op seems to be right when even Wikipedia points out the liberal / left bias of the paper.

 _" The editorial stance of the newspaper is liberal and generally of centre- left,..."_ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCddeutsche_Zeitung](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCddeutsche_Zeitung)

<comment><USER5> "liberal" in this case is in the European sense of the word. What Americans would call libertarian.

<comment><USER6> Hello ginko I respectfully disagree with your statement. European Liberalism is not equivalent to American Libertarianism.

Granted there is some overlap, but the parts that do not overlap make all the difference.

With regards to the overlap, both political philosophies support individual liberties and limited government. However European Liberalism usually encompasses the belief that government should act to alleviate poverty and other social problems whereas American Libertarianism usually focuses more on personal responsibility to alleviate poverty and other social problems.

What I mean by this is that, from an American Libertarianism point of view, one would tend to:

* Take responsibility to get themselves out of poverty and other social problems

* Reject the notion that they should be taxed (and therefore be involuntarily forced) to alleviate poverty and other social problems of others, and

* Reject welfare from the state because it was taken from others involuntarily.

Generally from an American Libertarianism point of view, should you wish to alleviate poverty and other social problems of others, it must be done voluntarily through charity because to do otherwise would be to trespass on personal freedom of others.

This is very different to European Liberalism which accepts the concept that everyone in society should be taxed to alleviate poverty and other social problems in society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why didn't they hold Obama accountable? Or the Bushes, maybe Hillary for Benghazi? I don't remember all of this hand-wringing and crying back then.

<comment><USER8> I believe the main topic here is how the journalists are being treated by Trump and his administration.

<comment><USER9> Like how he didn't invite them to lunch?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What exactly came out of the Panama Papers story?

All I recall is a lot of noise, and some shaming of second and third ranking individuals, if that.

Basically, some servants being put in their place. Not for them to do (half- assed with corner shops) what the owners do much better with first class service.

<comment><USER11> Iceland's PM stepped down and a while after there were new elections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > The highest level of collaboration – which is what these times require – > would be special joint projects. A possible first project could be to look > into his international business ties, and those of his billionaire cabinet, > to find all of their conflicts of interest.

> Donald Trump alone has his hands in hundreds of companies, so it is > impossible for one news outlet alone to investigate this properly. But it is > not impossible if there's a collaborative investigation.

> Another project could be to investigate his ties to Russia and his past with > Russia, which also is very promising, even if you don't believe a single > word of the Trump dossier Buzzfeed made public. Unknown conflicts of > interests in both fields can turn out to be a huge danger to the national > security of the US.

> Collaboration could even mean working with foreign news outlets in different > countries, whose reporters certainly might have more knowledge of Trump's > respective business partners than a US-based journalist.

this sounds more like a targeted smear campaign than journalism.

<comment><USER9> Isn't an investigation supposed to hold judgment until it completes?

It's clear that the whole point of this investigation is to find dirt on Trump, rather than investigate any one specific issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is the "no politics on HN" rule dead?

<comment><USER14> There never was such a rule.

I bet dang feels stupid for doing that experiment, it looks like the "hn is no-politics zone" meme will stay around for years.

<comment><USER15> It's a shame a bunch of pathological arseholes ruined it. It was a good idea.

You're wrong about "there never was such a rule" too.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463480)

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics

<comment><USER9> It wasn't a good idea. 'political' wasn't concretely defined, and so the ban just made it easier to flag any topic you don't like by way of a shifting definition of the word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Another project could be to investigate his ties to Russia and his past with Russia"

OK, I'm a big fan of investigative journalism but this just seems to be a red herring, kinda like the allegations that where made about Obama's Birth Certificate.

So what if he had dealings with Russia, or Putin? Some agencies have had 'secret' dealings with much shadier characters then Putin in the past(puppets such as Pinochet, Noriega, Saddam ...). This just seems like a waste of time, punching at a smoke screen.

</comment><comment><USER17> If there really is a disgust for his treatment of the press. I think the press could start by ignoring his twitter feed and "alternative fact" stories. His strategy is to make us distrust our information sources and the "media" is playing into it directly. It would be best for all involved if the press began reporting on facts and not comparing them to the rubbish he and his administration says. Especially when they are about things that are seemingly important to only Trump (inauguration turnout, who's a loser, etc.). At this point I would go as far as to say that any coverage of press conferences would be best to just provide direct full quotation with hyperlinks to other direct quotations or measurable facts from trustable sources that are contradictory. The only way to fight back is to take the higher ground. If he treats the press the way he does now, the best strategy is for the press core to END the press conference by ceasing questions and leaving. If all he's going to do is avoid, insult and lie then there's no news, he's been doing all of that since long before he ever thought of running for president.</comment>


Fossil leaves show high atmospheric carbon spurred ancient 'global greening' - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-08-fossil-high-atmospheric-carbon-spurred.html <comment><USER2> Wonder whether DNA was preserved, and actual plants could be grown from it?</comment>


Dharmesh at Business of Software: Don't Make Customers Happy - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/54126/Video-of-Dharmesh-Shah-at-Business-of-Software-2010-Conference.aspx <comment><USER2> And just so folks know I haven't gone completely crazy:

"Don't make customers happy, make happy customers".</comment>


The Lost City of Z (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/09/19/the-lost-city-of-z

<comment><USER2> A nice documentary here - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD_1p37iX5g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD_1p37iX5g)

</comment><comment><USER3> The meat is at the end, following the drama and jungle stories. Search for "Heckenberger" and continue reading to the end.

<comment><USER4> "His work has been hailed as proof that the rain forest once contained civilizations nearly as rich and complex as those of the Inca and the Maya and Europeans."

I did read it through to that point, but you were right. Still a tough sell, however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cobras in Amazonia? 0_o</comment>


Looking for Beta Testers - <AUTHOR> https://gabbr.net/ <comment><USER2> It seems interesting to try. I have placed my email there. Hope you can try it.</comment>


Priceless 15th century artwork restored with 'humanoid sheep face' - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ghent-altarpiece-adoration-mystic-lamb-restoration-conservation-art-a9295116.html <comment><AUTHOR> Zoolander</comment>


The Internet Goes to War - <AUTHOR> http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2010/12/the-internet-goes-to-war/

<comment><USER2> There has always been war on the internet, the media just recently decided to talk about it.</comment>


Visualizing Digg.com's Commenters - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/infographic-day-visualizing-comments-diggcom <comment><USER2> If I'm reading the charts correctly, the negative-rated comments have at least as many (and often more) replies than positive-rated comments.

I'll remember this next time someone asks how Glenn Beck is still on the air.</comment>


Psychological biases that affect software developers - windy-topology https://medium.com/@LifeTechPsych/13-psychological-biases-that-affect-software-developers-e7f0f123909a <comment> windy-topology My favorite is planning fallacy!</comment>


What would you do with the domain topthat.com - <AUTHOR> I own the domain topthat.com. I built a competition network on it but have struggled to get any real traction. So I decided to crowd source what to do next with it.<p>1. Build something new? And if so what. 2. Find an experienced "growth hacker" 3. Iterate the current idea by opening up the development and design to the world? 4. Anything I'm not thinking of. <comment><USER2> Hipster hat store. The mascot is Top T. Hat. The rest of it pretty much writes itself given that opening.

Enough people have made some success with online boutique clothing ordering that it's a viable thing if you have the right connections...

<comment><AUTHOR> I love it, but i know nothing about fashion. This would be a real learning curve. The irony of a programmer turning out a hipster fashion statement would be totally awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Something along the lines of America's Got Talent where people upload videos of a certain talent they have and they compete against other people doing similar things, allowing the crowd to determine who moves on in some type of contest/challenge model. You can just see somebody like Ryan Seacrest saying something like "Soooo, can YOU top that?!" Everybody loves to compete and win - get corporate sponsors to put up prizes depending on the number of views and votes the site gets. It's a site that has a legitimate possibility of going viral.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is what I tried to create but couldn't get people to use it. I do wonder what the problem is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Consult a fashion designer and design "T-hats" (like, T-shirts) and start selling them via your website, may be? ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> I work in the health IT space and think this /could/ be a platform to let people integrate their various wearable sensors such as Fitbits, Nike Fuelband, etc. and challenge each other to walk/exercise more. There are sites like this but there is definitely a market for it still.

Mark

<comment><AUTHOR> Now that is more along what I could do. Nike now has a programming interface for all things nike +

[http://developer.nike.com/](http://developer.nike.com/)

<comment><USER5> [http://validic.com/](http://validic.com/) has built an API for many different APIs such as Nike/Fitbit/BodyMedia/etc.

You might also want to look into HealthVault though I'll warn you it's not too developer friendly if you're more of a Python/Ruby dev rather than .NET/Microsoft dev

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll buy it. I own hundreds of domains, including [http://StartupJobs.com](http://StartupJobs.com)

Harry Joiner / 404.281.2025 / [http://EcommerceJobs.com](http://EcommerceJobs.com)

</comment><comment><USER7> Personally, I would auction it off or sell it privately, as it's a cool domain name but I don't have time for a new project right now. That's probably not the answer you're looking for, but it is an option.

<comment><AUTHOR> I always have time for a new project. Selling it is obviously an option but not one I would consider :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hat ranking site that takes ads. or some other site using hats, like finding the right hat for you based on your personality. could be gamified so the crowd could vote for the best hats based on certain criteria.

</comment><comment><USER9> 1) Make it an online hot dog eating contest site where ppl post videos of # of hotdogs they can eat in 10 mins.

2) Watch as ppl upload their videos of them eating 100+ dogs in 10 mins.

3) Get lawsuits from people getting sick or dying after 1 month.

4) ????

5) Profit!

</comment><comment><USER10> Challenge the Guinness Book of Records by finding a way to make it easier to be measured for a feat and post the results

<comment><AUTHOR> I will have to think about this one more. I like the idea of disrupting the current status quo

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> try [http://sideprojectors.com](http://sideprojectors.com)

</comment><comment><USER12> ZZ Top fan site.</comment>


The 21 Bitcoin Computer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@21dotco/the-21-bitcoin-computer-1d28d652b57b <comment><USER3> It sounds like a marketer got a little too excited and decided to name their developer kit _The 21 Bitcoin Computer_ , not realizing the confusion they were about to create.

My understanding is that 21 has created a board that fits on top of a Raspberry Pi 2 to offer a miner, full bitcoin node, wallet, some fancy hardware acceleration, and several development tools for engineers who are new to bitcoin and want to experiment with building products on top of it.

It's only been an hour since all this news is coming out but so far I think they're completely missing their target audience by dumbing down their marketing material and selling preorders through Amazon.

<comment><USER4> I actually don't think a marketer touched this project at all.

If one did, they didn't do a great job defining the purpose of this device. They didn't talk - or if they did, they didn't listen - to potential customers about what pain point this could solve. They didn't define a positioning for this product. Etc.

Sell goods for BTC? What about Stripe / Braintree?

Buy goods w/ BTC? What about buying BTC on Coinbase?

Mine BTC? There are more economical ways.

<comment><USER5> The only real value of 21's product _is_ power efficient mining. I'm bewildered as to why they would focus on the buying or selling aspect.

<comment><USER6> Because this thing contains everything you need to operate in the Bitcoin economy at all levels - mining, purchasing, selling BtC - in a smart little easy to install package.

So I'm a small business owner in .. lets say, Morocco, or .. Laos, or Sao Paolo, and I want to stop using US$ to purchase stuff from China.

This makes it very, very easy to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I met a few people from 21 in Potrero Hill at a coffee stand. When one of them paid, I saw a bitcoin address and it struck up a conversation. I told them I was interested in new things (and bitcoin as well), and they told me that their startup is in stealth and they couldn't divulge any information about it, but could send me a test to see if I had the right skills to continue the process.

It was a multiple-choice test on HackerRank. It was all pretty simple stuff related to general linux/bash/html/sql knowledge tons of questions about bitcoin protocol. Having spent a few hack days in the past on it, i did extremely well and went on to interview with the CEO.

It started to get funny, the CEO would only interview a candidate at 10pm on a Thursday. "pretty busy during the daytime" they said.

Despite the red flag, I did it. We talked about bitcoin for about 40 minutes straight and why I was into it. I got the impression from them that they were onto something really huge, or that they think they are onto something really huge that is going to massively flop. At the end of the call, I asked for any hint into what the product I'm interviewing for does and was told it had to do with hardware.

I feel like I got off the call pretty bewildered.

Glad this cleared things up!

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a TERRIBLE idea in my opinion. Apart from the blatant marketing LIES (this will NOT get you free money, you will lose money on the electricity, even the promotional material admits this in the fine print) this only claims to do things that EVERY OTHER computer already does.

You can already use APIs in half a dozen programming languages to do every one of the things they mention in this blog post, and you can do them for less than 5 cents per hour on EC2 (which is $400/year [compared to $400 upfront + electricity], but if you're running it for a year straight you can get it cheaper at places other than EC2).

If this didn't have the magic buzzword of "Bitcoin" in the name and a smorgasbord of people cross-promoting it for reasons I don't pretend to understand, everyone would see that it's just an overpriced, under-powered computer.

<comment><USER9> "Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put _asterisks_ around it and it will get italicized."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER8> Huh. Never realized that was an official rule for comments as well as headlines.

<comment><USER9> pg hates all caps.

(Edit: that might have been too laconic, but I thought it would be amusing to make a comment with no capital letter. What I mean is that that's how the policy originated.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not sure I like the name, I came into this thread expecting to read about a computer built using 21 BTC worth of components.

<comment><USER11> It's a particular problem in titles that use title case.[1] What I mean is that in any such title, 21 Bitcoin Computer will read like 21 bitcoin computer. I would argue that due to the _extremely_ unusual name (Edit: see replies to this comment) our title should read "21 introduces 21 Bitcoin Computer" or "21 Bitcoin Computer from 21" or something.

 _[1] Though editors in all media are slowly moving away from title case, especially in newspapers (I mean as opposed to films and books) - the NYT and WSJ are both still on title case, but not the USA Today, Boston Globe, SF Chronicle, or, for that matter, FT.

HN is mixed: for example, out of the 30 articles currently on the front page, 22 are in title case, but 8 aren't. (There are no ambiguous ones currently, such as a single word or a single word and then only numbers or prepositions.)

Reddit has completely moved to sentence case.

EDIT: I missed one, "Netflix Lemur" is ambiguous. Here's my sample/dataset: [http://pastie.org/10436384*](http://pastie.org/10436384*)

<comment><USER10> The Bitcoin computer by 21, maybe. I hate to come into a thread about something cool that someone built just to complain about the name, but it just doesn't scan.

<comment><USER11> can you name any other companies (or projects) that literally match [0-9]+? No Googling :)

It would be as if "37 signals" had been called just "37". Oh, wait, they have no reason to be confusing :)

By the way I wasn't among the people complaining - I just think a title with some lowercase in it may be clearer. Maybe not though.

I was still wrong after reading the whole article and the whole article it links. The name of the company is 21 (supposedly) and the name of this computer is the Bitcoin Computer or maybe 21 Bitcoin Computer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _you can leave it plugged into the wall to provide a steady stream of > Bitcoin_

This seems dishonest. How much $USD worth of Bitcoin could you realistically produce in a day with a pocket-sized computer, net of the cost of electricity used to mine it?

<comment><USER13> Saw a calculation that estimated it at $0.25 / day at current hashrates.

<comment><USER14> It'll be even lower by the Nov. 16th release date, if they manage to ship on time.

If the past is any guide, that quarter a day will rapidly decay towards 0 as the global hashrate continues to grow.

<comment><USER15> > "that quarter a day will rapidly decay towards 0 as the global hashrate > continues to grow"

The hashrate increase has been quite slow during the last months [1]. We are far from the exponential-like increases during the bubbles.

[1] [https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty](https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty)

<comment><USER11> is this because some people (companies) are just not bothering to plug their rigs in?

(i.e. some hash power is just leaving the network despite existing as dedicated hardware good for nothing else.)

<comment><USER14> To some extent it's fallen off because we've reached (somewhat) of a plateau. Originally all mining was done using CPU resources, but the first big jump up in hashrate came as folks started to figure out GPU mining. As GPU mining grew more popular, the hard core geeks started looking at FPGAs and eventually we made it to full blown ASIC miners. The last big explosion of hashrate was driven by the bulk of miners adopting ASIC hardware of one flavor or another. Now that the majority of miners are on SHA256 ASICs the only gains to be made are by shrinking the die and increasing the transistor count but even those hard earned gains are going to be quickly diminished as ASIC hardware "catches up" to Moore's law.

As for hash power leaving the network, if you are mining as a business then you are 100% at the mercy of 1) how much you pay for electricity and 2) market price for coins. Given how many schemes exist for stealing either computing power or electricity I imagine the margins will converge on a negative number at a large enough scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just like most developments in the bitcoin world, I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out what this thing actually does and why I want it. Isn't the whole major selling point of Bitcoin that it _isn 't_ physical and is instead totally digital? What does a "bitcoin command line" even mean?

"With this pocket-sized device, if you are an entrepreneur or developer, you can now instantly buy or sell digital goods and services at the command line using Bitcoin." Isn't that already all possible with just bitcoin itself? Why would I buy this thing?

</comment><comment><USER17> 1) Take more VC money than you actually need to build a product [0]

2) Spend 80-90% of that to buy Bitcoin

3) Do things to drive adoption and popularize Bitcoin

4) Profit!

0 - [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/21e6](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/21e6)

<comment><USER18> Wrapping your software in a $400 dongle seems like a really roundabout way of driving Bitcoin adoption, but I suppose it will ensure that all the customers are true believers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> You know how mobile networks made lots of money by letting third parties charge things to people's cell phone bills? I think 21 is trying to build carrier billing for everything. If everyone has a hundred dollars a month of mining power plugged in, 21 can issue those people a credit line secured by the ability to charge arbitrary, limited amounts to their electricity bills.

<comment><USER12> Carrier billing worked because there were _zero_ alternatives back in the day and they could charge whatever they wanted. When App Stores became popular with free/low-cost apps, carrier billing died out.

In this case, there is an alternative to the 21 computer known as _money_.

<comment><USER19> Unless you're paying with bitcoins, you can't just teleport money. You need to transfer it via third parties. Credit cards do this and take a ~3% cut. If 21 can get its chips into every household, they can take a much smaller cut, especially since the chance that a customer won't pay their bill is lower. You'd have to unplug your mining chips to avoid a bill, which would instantly notify 21.

They can charge money to people's electricity bills and pay no fee. That is a competitive position.

<comment><USER20> I can send money via various electronic fund transfer systems that do exist, not just through credit cards. There even exist standards, like SWIFT, to do this internationally. So yes, banks can transfer in a very similar way as bitcoin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> These two comments from the /r/Bitcoin thread [1] sum it up nicely:

"So it's an overpriced SHA256 ASIC attached to a Raspberry Pi? For $400?" [2]

"I'd rather just buy $399.99 worth of Bitcoin..." [3]

EDIT: Its first-listed "feature" on Amazon [4] seems disingenuous at best:

 _" Buy digital goods with the constant stream of bitcoin mined by a 21 Bitcoin Chip"_

especially since the makers themselves refute this in their FAQ [5]:

 _" Yes, you can indeed make a profit with the 21 Bitcoin Computer. However, you would do so not by directly selling bitcoin, but by selling digital goods _for_ bitcoin. That is, you are not going to get rich by immediately selling the bitcoin mined by the device for offline currency, but you can potentially do very well by selling digital goods and services to others for their bitcoin."_

In other words, there will hardly be a significant "constant stream of bitcoin mined" as the tech specs [6] make clear:

 _" the 21 Bitcoin Chip has an efficiency of approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and can calculate 50-125 Gigahashes per second"_

At the current difficulty, that would produce somewhere between 0.01289890 and 0.03224725 bitcoins per month [7]. Even if the difficulty remained constant, it would take many years to recoup the initial $400 investment.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_websit...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_website_has_just_been_updated_introducing/)

[2] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_websit...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_website_has_just_been_updated_introducing/cv9cuvx)

[3] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_websit...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_website_has_just_been_updated_introducing/cv9djoo)

[4] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C)

[5] [https://21.co/faq/#making-a-profit](https://21.co/faq/#making-a-profit)

[6] [https://21.co/faq/#technical- specifications](https://21.co/faq/#technical-specifications)

[7] [https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator](https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator)

<comment><USER14> "Can you make a profit with the 21 Bitcoin Computer after accounting for energy costs? Yes, you can indeed make a profit with the 21 Bitcoin Computer. However, you would do so not by directly selling bitcoin, but by selling digital goods for bitcoin."

These guys deserve an award for sleaziest PR spin.

<comment><USER22> "Can I get my money back for the 21 Bitcoin Computer after realizing what a mistake I've made? Yes, you can indeed get your money back with the 21 Bitcoin Computer. However, you would do so not by directly returning the machine, but by selling digital goods for bitcoin."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is fascinating. It doesn't look like it's designed for bitcoin miners. It looks like it's the start of a future where computing power is traded for digital goods and services.

</comment><comment><USER24> In case you haven't been following 21 Inc (formerly 21e6), this company has raised at least $121.1M: [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/21e6](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/21e6)

</comment><comment><USER25> > The 21 Bitcoin Chip means your 21 Bitcoin Computer has access to a > constantly replenished source of bitcoin.

> This means you can now write programs that connect to the Bitcoin network > just as easily as they connect to the Internet.

It sounds like the mining is intended to create a constant supply of bitcoins so you don't have to "top up" your wallet. Then the bitcoins are used to process things (putting information in the blockchain) and you're also selling access to run sandboxed code on your machine - presumably code which interacts with the blockchain.

They've phrased this terribly by saying you're selling "digital goods and services", overly broad and meaningless words.

</comment><comment><USER26> Question for the bitcoin enthusiasts out there - if stolen computing time is a reasonable component of the current hash power, why would market rate for mined coins ever be above the cost of electricity?

<comment><USER27> These days the extreme majority of hashing power comes from ASICs not from botnets.

<comment><USER14> A few edge cases to consider here:

1) ASIC hardware running on free, stolen or "creatively accounted" electricity. Maybe it's as mundane as a janitor with a bunch of hardware stashed in a closet, or an office complex that charges a flat rate for utilities. Maybe it's as exotic as a mining farm getting a cut rate on nearby power generation in a cold climate.

1) ASIC hardware, by it's very nature, requires some type of network connectivity-- either with other miners, a special dispatching machine or directly to the bitcoin network over TCP, one way or another it needs to know what the blockchain looks like at any given point in time. This means attack surface area. All it takes is one widely deployed bug and those machines you run are mining into someone else's account.

Both of these scenarios, along with countless others, make mining in any capacity a negative sum game.

<comment><USER28> It's clearly not a negative sum game as evidenced by the 6 years that miners have been mining. It's typically a very low-profit, high-stress business - <USER2> you can't argue with the numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The scrolljacking on [https://www.21.co/](https://www.21.co/) is so bad. Just let me scroll through your nice looking site!

</comment><comment><USER30> There is no chance in the world that you are even going to mine even a single block with this set up in a thousand years.

As a matter of fact even with a GPU rack it will take a hundred years or so given what you are up against by now.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXerV3f5jN8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXerV3f5jN8)

</comment><comment><USER31> The whole rant around 21's "bitcoin computer", reminds me of this: [https://youtu.be/ojtMtIyD6dM?t=40](https://youtu.be/ojtMtIyD6dM?t=40) \- the product barely went on pre-sale and look how much buzz (albeit negative) it already generated.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is that big thing on a top a heatsink?

<comment><USER33> According to the photos on Amazon it's a case. But there is a heatsink and a fan underneath: [http://ecx.images- amazon.com/images/I/91aUgUqFTIL._SL1500_.j...](http://ecx.images- amazon.com/images/I/91aUgUqFTIL._SL1500_.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> What a strange product. For the life of me I can't figure out who is this for.

</comment><comment><USER35> Does anyone have an approximate btc/kwh (and thus $) this generates? Why don't I just convert money into btc much more efficiently and store it in my wallet?

</comment><comment><USER36> The three most difficult questions with blockchain technology are "where is the blockchain data?", "where are the keys that represent my wallet?" and "how do I get my initial bitcoin?"

This product very succinctly answers both questions in a reliable way.

It looks like they've got some basic ability to write to the blockchain, and since this only costs a few thousand satoshis, the very small amounts of Bitcoin that this device mine will be useful.

It looks like they're hoping that further profits can be driven back to the address that wrote to the blockchain.

This is a really good idea but fully dependent on how hackable this is.

Like, do I get the full Bitcoin JSON-RPC interface?

This would let me use this device as a pretty reliable source of identification, using Bitcoin's public key infrastructure to sign and authenticate messages.

It would also let me write client software on behalf of the physical device that could read and write arbitrary messages to the Bitcoin blockchain, allowing for custom colored coins, but with keychain ownership contained only within the physical device, instead of on an external server or running on a laptop.

Do I have direct programmable access to the SHA-256 ASIC?

This would help with content-addressable distributions systems like IPFS.

It would be great if the device could expose an interface that was compatible with both Common Wallet and Common Blockchain.

Common Blockchain[1] is a protocol that aims to make an abstraction of queries against the blockchain, allowing devices like the 21 Bitcoin Computer, the Bitcoin Core software, and web services like Blockcypher to expose a single interface to client software and Blockchain meta-protocols like Open Assets, Blockcast [2] and Open Publish [3].

Likewise, Common Wallet is a protocol that aims to make an abstraction for wallets and key signing devices like the 21 Bitcoin Computer, Trezor, Mycellium, or Bitcoin Core, so all of these devices can sign custom transactions that were built by external libraries like Open Publish and to sign authentication messages for services like Bitstore [5].

There is a very big problem with interoperability between various Bitcoin wallets, protocols, and services, and there is really no reason for this to be the case if everyone were to expose the proper interfaces, which roughly model the Bitcoin JSON-RPC.

[1] [https://github.com/blockai/abstract-common- blockchain](https://github.com/blockai/abstract-common-blockchain)

[2] [https://github.com/blockai/blockcast](https://github.com/blockai/blockcast)

[3] [https://github.com/blockai/openpublish](https://github.com/blockai/openpublish)

[4] [https://github.com/blockai/abstract-common- wallet](https://github.com/blockai/abstract-common-wallet)

[5] [https://github.com/blockai/bitstore- client](https://github.com/blockai/bitstore-client)

</comment><comment> a-dub I suspect that this company will probably go down in history, but probably not for the reasons they think...

</comment><comment><USER37> Is the 'native' cli free?

<comment><USER37> Well it's 400 dollars,* I figure "the suite of pre-configured Bitcoin- dependent software" is what hikes up the price.

1 [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C?camp=1789&creati...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C?camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B014RD021C&linkCode=as2&linkId=K36ZRXOEXVD5LYXL&redirect=true&ref_=as_li_tl&tag=21inccorsit-20)

<comment><USER38> The low expected production run for a custom handware development kit would be what drives the price up.</comment></comment></comment>


Quippiuq – cryptoquip and cryptogram solver - <AUTHOR> http://www.quipqiup.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Found this site after reading a CNN article [1] about a NSA tweet [2] designed as a recruitment vehicle. Anyways, take the NSA tweet "tpfccdlfdtte pcaccplircdt dklpcfrp?qeiq lhpqlipqeodf gpwafopwprti izxndkiqpkii krirrifcapnc dxkdciqcafmd vkfpcadf." and plug that into quipqiup using the "find spaces" option. Just thought it was cool that there are automated tools to solve problems like this. The site also has a nice help page where you can provide clues.

[1] [http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/07/tech/social-media/nsa-coded- tw...](http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/07/tech/social-media/nsa-coded- tweet/index.html)

[2] [https://twitter.com/NSACareers/status/463321993878994945](https://twitter.com/NSACareers/status/463321993878994945)

</comment><comment><USER2> Is the source available? I'd be curious what his technique is. I wrote something similar a few years ago, based on pattern matching against a dictionary (which has obvious drawbacks but is very fast when it works).

<comment><USER3> Simulated annealing works very well for this problem (and is both reliable and "debuggable" in that if it doesn't work you have good options for tweaking it until it does). Instead of using a dictionary of complete words you can score text by computing the log-likelihood of the ciphertext's sequence of n-tuples given a proposed key.

For n=1 this reduces to "e is most common, t is second most common..." except with the caveat that the simulated annealing algorithm is stochastic and will explore 'almost-perfect' decode tables as opposed to just the 'perfect' decode table (which might not actually be correct).

At n=2 or n=3 this strategy will chew up any substitution-cipher'd block you feed it (assuming a reasonably well-behaved plaintext).

EDIT: this was stochastically generated by a n=4 model, in case it helps you form a picture of how good they are at determining how "english-like" something is.

        % GAHLUABLEST ME BUCK NIGH GROUBLE ANY OLD A
        % WORRIES BEAUTIFFEEL AND AND WHY COME FOR SOON
        % I SEE IT DOWHEN WE PAY YEAR AT WHAH AND PULL YOU
        % COMING ALLOW NECTLY SCOW DOWN AFTS DUKE TOWARNT AND
        % SIXTEEN WA

It's good enough to be creepy, at least...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I put the example "inwhi chwor dboun darie saren t" from the page, selected patristocrat mode and it didn't solve it to be "in which word boundaries arent."</comment>


How Giving Up Refined Sugar Changed My Brain - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3050319/lessons-learned/how-giving-up-refined-sugar-changed-my-brain <comment><USER2> The fogginess that the author describes sounds like the 'keto-flu'. But if he was eating carbs from vegetables and fruits, he shouldn't have noticed this.

I also found this odd: "I missed the sugar and milk in my coffee " Wait, why were you eliminating milk? Sure it contains some sugars naturally, but they aren't "refined sugar" that the article is demonizing.

The mental clarity and focus he describes are very likely due to the increased quality of sleep. I have no explanation for why his sleep improved.

My own anecdote is that I ate a high fat, super-low carb diet for about a year, and one of the primary motivations was that one of my friends couldn't stop talking about the mental improvements (calmness, focus, short-term memory). Sadly, I experienced none of that. It makes me think that either it is placebo, or sugar/carbs really does affect _some_ people badly, but others not so much. I will say that I found loosing weight to be effortless when eating that way (in fact I had to go off it when I wanted to gain some weight).

Finally, I hate it when people point out things like "(a large Big Mac meal deal has 85 grams of sugar—236% of your daily allowance). That means if I were to escape refined sugar, I was going to have to spend more time at home cooking fresh foods than I was used to. " but then ignore the breakdown:

        Big Mac: 9g of sugar
        Medium Fries: 0g of sugar
        Large Coke-classic: 76g of sugar.

In other words, you don't need to cook more fresh foods, you could just get diet coke and double down on fries to get the calories you need without the sugar.

None of this is meant to say "No, we should all eat lots of sugar". I get that in the quantities that most people eat sugar, it's way too much. But I'm frustrated that we can't have an honest conversation about sugar and how it ought to be consumed. My personal opinion is that people should in general just stop drinking regular soda. If people did that, I suspect a fair amount of our sugar-consumption problems would just stop.

<comment><USER3> It really is different for everyone. I found that milk protein was actually the lynchpin of my diet troubles. But both our medical practice and food culture don't speak in terms of food sensitivity outside of "you swell up and die immediately". There are lots and lots of bad things that can happen that don't involve swelling up and dying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The average American currently eats 126 grams of sugar a day—though most don't realize it. Much of that amount comes from the refined sugars added to our foods during manufacturing."

"foods during manufacturing" \-- that's the problem -- foods manufactured, not grown.

<comment><USER5> Yup[0].

[0]: [http://freetheanimal.com/2015/08/fall-bloodletting- iron.html](http://freetheanimal.com/2015/08/fall-bloodletting-iron.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> To me, 12 lbs in 2 weeks sounds like not re-hydrating.

My guess is the volume of sodas, juices, and energy drinks wasn't replaced with an equivalent volume of water.</comment>


Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures (2001) - <AUTHOR> https://projecteuclid.org/download/pdf_1/euclid.ss/1009213726 <comment><USER2> This is wonderful. Thanks for posting this. As someone who took machine learning classes from both a computer science department and a statistics department I kind of always had in my mind what the author said in this article but I wasn't able to put it in words. Not to say anything against the statistics way to teach ML, I was much more comfortable in the class taught by a CS prof. I guess the CS way is much more amenable to beginners but others might have different experiences.</comment>


Poll: What Mode of Communication is Safe from Government Snooping? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2013/06/poll-what-mode-of-communication-is-safe-from-government-snooping <comment><USER2> <https://github.com/deaddrop/deaddropdocs/></comment>


Ask news.yc:  Should the gov't let the current crisis self-correct? - <AUTHOR>

Offhand, it seems to me that the current liquidity crisis is the result of government market interference (artificially cheap credit) and the attempt to fix it is based on creating more cheap money.  Shouldn't market forces be allowed to clean out and correct? <comment><USER2> > The unregulated market had a big part to play in causing the current sub- > prime mess in the first place.

And bailing them out will have what effect?

If you shield people from the consequences of doing dumb things, they'll keep doing them.

People who invested in subprime-mortgage-backed bonds SHOULD lose money.

Besides, they were going to keep the profit, so why shouldn't they take the loss?

</comment><comment><USER3> The unregulated market had a big part to play in causing the current sub-prime mess in the first place.

Check out the BBC's explanation of how the sub-prime lending model worked: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7073131.stm?src=rss>

In a nutshell, banks used to lend people money with their own assets. Because it was their own money, they made people jump through hoops to make sure they could pay. But in the new model, banks packaged up mortgages and sold them to investors as mortgage bonds. The investors had no idea about the ability of individual homebuyers to pony up for repayments, but they were making a good return. Now that the banks didn't stand to lose, they loosened the standards on their normal checks and balances so that unemployed hobos could buy $500k homes (since there were no regulatory requirements). Ahhh the free market at work.

(The reason why so many banks lost money was because they themselves were big investors in the mortgage bond market)

The free market does solve problems and self-correct, but it can also cause a bit of damage along the way. The point of common sense regulation and government intervention isn't to stifle the market, but to prod it in the right direction and minimise the pain. Economists call it smoothing out the business cycle. Granted the highs aren't so high, but neither are the lows.

<comment><USER4> Cheap credit was at the heart of the mortgage bubble. It fueled an unprecedented rise in housing prices. If housing prices rise at a historic rate for 5 years in a row, who cares about credit quality? Foreclose on a home and you own an asset worth 25% more than the mortgage you made! Don't lower your lending standards and you will make 0 loans in a competitive market where everybody else is giving mortgages away.

I worked with subprime mortgage companies. After the bubble started to pop everybody blamed it on stupidity and greed. These qualities were surely involved. What goes up, after all, must come down - but try to time the pop! In the end, the bubble was market-driven and the market was Fed-manipulated.

We had a soft recession in 2001 because of cheap credit. We get another recession in 2008 because of that same cheap credit. End of story.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I agree, though my point wasn't so much about the bubble than about the crash. The crash was precipitated by a critical mass of foreclosures, which was attributed mainly to sub-prime borrowers. A softer landing could have been achieved if there were stricter lending regulations, and the bubble wouldn't have been as high either.

I wanted to respond to the assertion by the poster that this was all a result of government interference. Yes, the government (via budget deficits) and the Fed (via monetary expansion) were meddling with the market, but the nature of the free market itself was a contributor. The market isn't perfect and neither are regulations, but it's not an all or nothing proposition... there needs to be balance.

<comment><USER4> The bubble was unprecedented. Hopefully, lenders remember that credit quality matters the next time the fed decides to dump 1% credit on us.

<comment><USER2> No, it wasn't unprecedented. In fact, this bubble was exactly like every other bubble.

EVERY bubble is driven by folks who say "it's different this time". They're wrong every time.

As they say "pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Keynes pretty much demonstrated that the feast/famine metaphor doesn't apply to economics.

imho, the real mess is going to happen when the American public realizes that social security is possibly the least insolvent government program, but that its ongoing surpluses have been handed out in tax cuts and war profiteering.

I'm still stunned Gore lost.

</comment><comment><USER6> What strikes me is the number of people who predicted this whole mess in the first place. Even during the bubble, there were people describing, almost to the minute, exactly what would happen. The market always has its share of chicken littles, but the detail with which some people predicted the crash makes me think they're a little more than that.

Rationally, it seems like it will scare institutional investors out of the market and into PE and VC funds, so it might be a better time than ever to run a startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know. I remember back in '06 listening to a business week podcast where they said "Wall Street has found a way to slice up bad debt and create grade A debt" and thinking,"how the hell is that mathematically possible?" Turns out it wasn't.

<comment><USER6> Lol. I had only a 700 credit rating at the time, had been self-employed for over 3 years, and was approved for a no-doc loan on a $300k condo with only 10% down. I actually could have afforded it, but there was no way for them to know that and no reason to assume it either.

That's when I realized something was wrong.

<comment><USER7> If you had been self-employed for three years, then you had properly found a way to make money by yourself (or you would have starved to death before) so what risk is there to lend you the money?

<comment><USER6> Well, you can scrape by on a lot less than the income required to pay that mortgage when you live in Ohio. And with no documentation and a less than stellar credit rating, plus little down, they were nuts to grant it to me.

Luckily for me I didn't purchase the condo, as the housing market there took a nosedive, and I'd currently be unable to sell for less than I'd owe the bank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Basically what you are saying is that the people that took the risk should also take the hit, which seen from a moral standpoint is obviously right. The problem with this approach though is that the financial markets are notoriously non-transparent and full of feedback loops. This means that the blow will hit a lot of people that didn't take risks, but just happen to be in a bad spot, for instance a young family of blue collar workers that have just bought their first house. They have not had the potential upside, but they will get the downside.

This is why government intervenes, not to save the risk-takers.

</comment><comment><USER9> People have been looking the other way for too long. Many borrowers have been led to believe that lying on their loan applications is ok and brokers have been mis-stating the actual risk to the buyers of those loans.

It was fun while it lasted but the party's over.

I don't think the government should bail out anyone. What they should do is start regulating the entire industry better.

</comment><comment><USER4> The government can get involved to soften the blow, but it should be careful not to create ANOTHER bubble like it did in 2001.

<comment><AUTHOR> An astute individual during the dot-com bubble could have forseen the effect of the market crashing would lead to cheap money and hence a mortgage bubble. What does this latest bubble pop portend for the prescient investor?

<comment><USER9> If you're shrewd, you may be able to get a good deal on some property. Just stay away from places where there will be new construction when things turn around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the question is valid, but I really appreciate YHN because it is all hacker related news.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, me too. I hesitated to post it, but figured it may spark some interesting discussion.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I make my own chemicals?  - <AUTHOR>

I want to make a substance that prevents calluses.
I'm not fussed about how it works. Perhaps it will be a spray that hardens or softens the hand so dead skin won't build up, perhaps it will be a paste that hardens, literally protecting the skin. It doesn't really matter, I just need some advice about how to start experimenting.
Beeswax, rosin, and pine tar have promising properties, how would I combine them with something like collagen or a synthetic polymer to get close to what I want? I've never done this before, and it seems unintuitive; blending A with B doesn't necessarily give A+B.
Any advice on how these things are done? <comment><USER2> I would try shea butter and coco butter. There are instructions somewhere online of a good mixing ratio or you could just buy a commercial brand.

</comment><comment><USER3> I might be able to answer the question in a few hours when I get home.

<comment><AUTHOR> No rush, I'd love to hear!</comment></comment>


Microsoft to launch Windows 10x as web-first OS without local Win32 app support - <AUTHOR> https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-launch-windows-10x-web-first-os-without-legacy-win32-app-support <comment><USER2> Doomed.

It's literally RT all over again.

One notes that a lot of developers have legally moved to block GeForce Now from virtualising their software in the cloud without a license agreement. Will they do the same for Microsoft with Windows 10x?</comment>


Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot?CMP=share_btn_tw <comment><AUTHOR> I am going to reproduce a relevant comment (not mine) from a discussion of this article at macrobusiness [http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/04/weekend- links-16-17-...](http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/04/weekend- links-16-17-april-2016/#comment-2580002).

"Part of the reason for neoliberalisms success is the lie (which Monbiot has repeated) that Keynesianism was proved wrong during the stagflation period of the 70's and 80's. Keynesians like Tobin (who Samuelson called the greatest economist of his generation ie. better than Samuelson) were actually proved right. It the late 60's early 70's, before the oil shocks and fed easy money, they had already worked out an adjusted Phillips curve where inflation was a function of unemployment and lagged or entrenched inflation. Everything that happened from 1972 until today has vindicated this view. In the early 80's inflation was brought down from an entrenched high rate, only through a dramatic increase in unemployment. And once it was reduced it stayed there, even while unemployment stayed high. This vindicated Tobin, and contradicted Friedman, who said inflation should keep falling as long as unemployment remained high (it didn't). Likewise in the post 2008 world – Tobins Phillips curve has been spot on, high unemployment yet stable although very low inflation. Again Friedman proved wrong. Keynesianism didn't fail in the 70's and 80's. Economics failed, and has failed ever since. Unfortunately dimwitted journalists and liberal academics always need a black and white over simplified narrative of epoch changing events where one ideology replaces another. Keynesianism figured it out in 1933 and has been correct ever since."

<comment><USER2> Generally I agree with the Keynesians, but I'm skeptical that the explanation for the stagnation in median wages (employment has gone up and down, was down to 4% in the late 90's) we have observed for past several decades is due to Neoliberalism. There are a lot of drivers including massive technological change and the complex effects of a reduction in trade barriers that have all played a role.

Perhaps economics is failing, but I think it's not entirely because of a Neoliberal vs. Keynesian dichotomy, it's at least as much because the economy is shifting and we haven't come up with a good economic paradigm for coping with these rather important shifts.

That said, I think a more Keynesian approach to economics is well warranted. Largely they have had a much better approach to monetary policy in the recent crisis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Invoking a vague ideology as the root cause feels like a diversion in itself from the basic problem of rich people getting richer while the poor get poorer and more indebted. The obvious solutions, debt forgiveness and plain old money/land handouts are for some reason being resisted by the elite in favor of promoting some form of normativity, "this is the way things always were and should be" and leading us back to feudalism.

<comment><USER4> Modern progressives cite neo liberalism as the cause of the wealth divide you mention. The solution you advocate is specifically not neo liberial. I personally am most annoyed of the nasty habit of the government creating a regulatory institution, and that institution becoming legal anti entryist enforcement. e.g the FDA makes market penetration impossible because only the super corporations can afford the process. The medical industry is generally like this,

<comment><USER3> There really doesn't seem to be anything new about the divide. The only thing that seems new to me is the resistance to the solutions.

In any case it may all just be a matter of time. The current Greek tragedy that's playing out looks to be the bellweather of how it will be dealt with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> yes before neoliberalism the world was perfect and had no problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> well yes.

The years of Keyensian dominance in the post depression/post WW2 years were when the middle class was ascendent.

One of the core components of Neoliberal ideology is the primacy of the rights of capital above all others. If you have lots of capital, you can use your capital as a force to impose your will, and gain power over others.

For example, you want to breathe some air? Too bad. I own the air here. You must pay rent to me for the utility the air you are breathing delivers, as I own the rights to it.

This is where Neoliberals would like to take the world. Feudalism without heredity or Noblesse Oblige. Neofeudalism.</comment></comment>


Ten Things We Want in iPhone OS 4.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362330,00.asp

<comment><USER2> iPhone OS also goes into the iPad. And what is really needed are hyphenation tables that iBooks can use. I know they wouldn't list something a user can't see, but it affects what users _can_ see when they read.</comment>


Notable Medical Findings of 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-most-notable-medical-findings-of-2015 <comment><USER2> I'm glad this article calls out the CLL drug ibrutinib. You hear a lot of people say "why aren't we making progress in treating cancer?". Well we are, ibrutinib is a great example.

The clinical trial data I looked at a couple year ago is a little fuzzy, but basically if you had CLL and the 17p deletion, your chance of being alive after 2 years was ~25% (using the standard of care before ibrutinib). In the ibrutinib clinical trial, 95%+ of 17p CLL patients were still alive after 2 years.

A _massive_ jump forward in the treatment of cancer.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention CAR T-Cell for ALL. And anti-PD(L)1 for melanoma. Hemonc is truly innovating like no other field in medicine at the moment...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > we should rely on more than chance in such settings—for instance, by using > smartphones

What teaching CPR in mid and high school repetitively every year, even basic stuff in elementary?

I have been introduced to sports I knew I would hate, hated and still hate in phys ed, they tryed to teech me spelling, etc... It wouldn't add much to the curriculum to add CPR but could have a major impact.

<comment><USER5> CPR was a mandatory component of phys ed during my high school years, and the good news is that more and more places are making it mandatory:

[http://schoolcpr.com/about/states-where-cpr-training-is- mand...](http://schoolcpr.com/about/states-where-cpr-training-is-mandatory- for-high-school-graduation/)

<comment><USER4> This is great! I hope it spreads to other countries.

Was it just a one time thing before graduation? Or re-taught every year?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Y Combinator invite/rejection - <AUTHOR> Hello,<p>How do we know the status of our application for YC  ? Do they send out rejection mails or can we check it out their website ? <comment><USER2> Yes, they send out an email. 10pm PT, so around 14 hours remaining.

Come join the chat room for yc w2019 applicants while you wait : [https://www.hackerschat.net/](https://www.hackerschat.net/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello,

Joining the chat right away.

</comment></comment><comment> 100-xyz They send emails for rejects and interview invites.

<comment><AUTHOR> When do they typically send the invites ? I am in IST rn, hence the question :)

<comment><USER3> On the form it says by 10pm Pacific time.</comment></comment></comment>


How Drupal.org maintains geo-redundant remote backups - <AUTHOR> https://www.drupal.org/drupalorg/blog/how-drupalorg-maintains-geo-redundant-remote-backups-with-ease-thanks-to-rsyncnet <comment><AUTHOR> Some background - the Drupal org has been a customer of rsync.net _since 2006_.</comment>


Nature's 10 people who mattered this year - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-017-07763-y/index.html <comment><USER2> The "who to watch in 2018" section is also of interest.</comment>


Simple Neural Network in 22 lines J lang without library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ghosthamlet/ann.apl/blob/master/ann.ijs <comment><AUTHOR> The original Python implemation found at: [http://iamtrask.github.io/2015/07/12/basic-python- network/](http://iamtrask.github.io/2015/07/12/basic-python-network/)

X =: 4 3 $ 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1

Y =: 4 1 $ 0 0 1 1

w =: 3 1 $ 0.5069797399 0.5703818579 0.9265880619

e =: 2.718281828459045

iter =: ^:

dot =: +/ . *

T =: |:

output =: verb define

1 % 1 + e ^ 0 - X dot y

)

train =: verb define

l1 =: output y

l1_err =: Y - <USER3>

l1_delta =: l1_err * l1 * 1 - <USER3>

y + (T X) dot l1_delta

)

w =: (train iter 1000) w

l1 =: output w <USER3>
<comment><USER4> I compared the time it takes to run both scripts, with 10000000 iteration. 1m32s for the Python version and only 29s for the J's.

If an algorithm is parallelizable, does J use all cores of a CPU?

<comment><AUTHOR> it run fast may be as the optimized j interpreter: [http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Guides/AVX](http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Guides/AVX), and indeed J may use all cores of CPU in some situations, you can see: [http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/User:Devon_McCormick](http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/User:Devon_McCormick), [http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/NYCJUG/2010-03-09#Parallel- Pr...](http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/NYCJUG/2010-03-09#Parallel- Programming_Projects_on_the_J_Wiki) [http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/NYCJUG/2010-04-14/ExampleConv...](http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/NYCJUG/2010-04-14/ExampleConvertingJCodetoUseMultipleCores)</comment></comment></comment>


Flipboard is acquiring Zite from CNN - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/03/05/flipboard-is-acquiring-zite-from-cnn-forming-broad-ad-and-content-partnership-with-news-giant/ <comment><USER2> This is a real shame. Zite is fabulous and useful whereas flipboard is annoying. I long ago uninstalled flipboard because of the failed real world metaphor. I don't need my software apps trying to ape a dead technology of dead trees. Zite is fabulous, modern and highly usable.

I'm glad for the people involved if this is a good exit for them, but as a user I'm worried that flipboard will ruin things.

<comment><USER3> Looks like they are shutting Zite down: [http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/cnn-sells-zite-news- app...](http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/cnn-sells-zite-news-app-to- flipboard-for-60-mil-as-part-of-broader-partnership-1201125717/)

<comment><USER4> That just ruined my lunch. Seriously, Zite is awesome, only "recommender" that actually works for me. Prismatic, Flipboard, everything else I've tried--they all suck. Only Zite consistently gives me things I haven't seen that I'm actually interested in.

Welp, time to dust off my recommender algorithms and build something I suppose. If anyone's interested in joining, ping me.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, our plan is to integrate the Zite recommendation engine into Flipboard (and import your Zite data). I've love to have your feedback as we build it.

<comment><USER6> Can you try to at least leave Zite running before you finishing integrate zite algorithm into flipboard? What am I going to do in the meantime without Zite, sigh.

Flipboard is useless at its current state. Please explain this to your new boss. Really appreciate it.

<comment><USER5> Our every intention is to leave Zite running until we can build something at least as good at Flip. I know it's sad to lose a product you love (it's sadder to lose one you've built), but I'll try my hardest to make it up to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I posted this in another thread, but this is my statement on the acquisition: [http://blog.zite.com/2014/03/05/zite-is-flipping- out/](http://blog.zite.com/2014/03/05/zite-is-flipping-out/)

Happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER7> Zite has been my app of choice when I'm catching up on the news over breakfast. It sounds like Flipboard is going to integrate Zite's personalization algorithms into Flipboard, but I'm skeptical. Hoping for the best.

<comment><USER8> A mix of Zite's better personalization options and Flipboard's better design would be perfect.

<comment><USER7> It would be really cool if they could make it work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I installed Flipboard while looking for a replacement for the old Google Currents widget on my Nexus 7. Fb might be better for content, or not, but I still really miss the other widget. Swiping through headlines in Currents was almost fun, and I could preselect for content sources that would be available to read offline.

Ultimately, most of the content that's available is unremarkable, so I tend to be very critical of the overall experience of consuming it. Conversely, a source that makes even modest improvements in efficiency or presentation can instantly become part of my daily routine. The old Currents was far from perfect, but at least it felt like progress.

</comment><comment><USER6> I just hope flipboard does not mean to shutdown zite. Zite is part of my life now, while I haven't open flipboard more than once or twice a week.

After watched the movie "her", I had thought about zite would be the Samantha in my news consumption world, "who" has tuned up and evolved very much to my taste over years. I could careless about flipboard's fancy layout.

This is the worst news after greader shutdown, wtf. Unfortunately trap.it doesn't quite work out, seriously limited my choice.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm a huge fan of Zite and use it every single day as my morning paper, lunch reading and late evening reading. I've tried Flipboard in the past but it didn't hold a candle to my needs like Zite did/does. I'm hoping that this doesn't spell the end of the Zite experience.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am still using a HP Touchpad webOS tablet mostly because of some apps that I think are just great. Among them the webOS Zite client I think is the most polished client for that service in any platform. The Android client doesn't come near in usability. I just hope it keeps working...

<comment><USER12> My TouchPad is dual-boot and I think the webOS client was much better but most of the time I just run Zite on Android now.

Anyway, sad to see Zite go. It was so much better than Flipboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a heavy user for both apps, I should say I am glad this is happening.

Though Flipboard and Zite may seem similar to each other from the first sight, underneath I think they take very different approaches.

From a user's perspective, I believe Zite relies more on an algorithmic approach while Flipboard is more hand-tuned. As a result, Flipboard has better article quality, a result from a controlled list of resources. Zite certainly covers wider topic spectrum, but I am bothered all the time when it recommends me something like a newsletter announcement for a product update, which becomes worse when you subscribe to a rare topic.

A better personalized Flipboard, with more channels to choose from, is the best outcome of this acquire.But I will miss the old Zite now and then.

</comment><comment><USER14> Zite is a strong product, and I wish the team well. (Disclaimer: Mark Johnson is a friend, and deserves some time off.)

This is admittedly self-serving but appropriate for HN: If you're interested in an alternative, I quit my job at CBS yesterday to work on a new SF bay area startup that's aiming to provide personalized news with zero configuration. You can sign up to be notified of the beta at [http://recent.io/](http://recent.io/)

<comment><USER6> Bravo!

<comment><USER14> Thanks! It's exciting and kind of scary at the same time. Hope you like it (once it ships!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> in a past life I spent a lot of time concerned about how M&A would unfold in this space... This is interesting as we never had the sense Zite had particularly innovative tech, whereas Flipboard needed a 'horseman' to acquire them.

This may ultimately be more of a licensing/ partnership between CNN & Flipboard... In hindsight I wasted a lot of that time.

<comment><USER5> As Zite's CTO, it's interesting to see how the tech is perceived externally.

For whom did you work in a previous life, out of curiousity?

<comment><USER15> I was part of two failed attempts at personalizing news/ creating communities of topic expertise around news. Both ended in the many tens of thousands of users, and acqui-hire talks (not with either Zite or Flipboard).

My thought on the tech was it was consistently good, the product was simple and easy to use, and worked very well at aggregating subject based articles (I'm sure there was much more behind the scenes that would have scared us at the time)...

we were trying to do not only the smart aggregation, but create hooks into reading communities to encourage an atmosphere like HN - instead of mystical karma points, you would see _btrautsc; expert in X, knowledgable in Y, novice in Z_ and so forth. Like I said, it ultimately died a timely death.

Congratulations on the deal by the way!

<comment><USER5> Thanks btrautsc! The smart social reading experience sounds interesting even if it didn't work out.

<comment><USER15> quite welcome. and thank you, I'm in the bay area for the next few months, maybe we could connect sometime.

<comment><USER5> Sure. Email in profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone here think's the "Technology" stories in Zite are just HN's RSS feed?

<comment><USER5> It's not, but we trained the classifier+collaborative filter, and we're all HN readers, so it's not surprising it picks up HN stories consistently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hopefully they will fix this mess which is Zite on Android.</comment>


Show HN: iOS Notes Made Beautiful - <AUTHOR> http://getnoteapp.com/ We just released version 1 of our note app and Note is the first publicly available app we've released. <comment><AUTHOR> This is our first app for sale in the app store (we've built a few internal apps for companies that weren't available on the app store). If HN has any thoughts on the site, app, etc... we're all ears. Thanks.</comment>


Behind the Scenes of Facebook's Oculus Insight VR Tracking Technology - <AUTHOR> https://tech.fb.com/the-story-behind-oculus-insight-technology/ <comment> 1-6 It looks like they've went the reverse route by adding structured light IR emitters to spread into the surrounding environment from the main head unit (sorta like the Microsoft Kinect).

The older unit required 2-3 external B&W webcams to do whole room VR and it was sensing the position of the IR LEDs on the headset and controllers.</comment>


Flickr enhances support for its API - <AUTHOR> http://ostatic.com/158974-blog/flickr-introduces-code-flickr-delivers-apis-and-source-code

<comment><USER2> Linkjacked dupe. And here's the shameless plug ;-)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=165688></comment>


Eliminating the call stack to save RAM - <AUTHOR> http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1542452.1542461&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=55373008&CFTOKEN=13170500 <comment><USER2> This technique is as old as handwritten assembly and anyone who has done significant assembly coding has probably done it at some point whether they realize it or not.

What's interesting and new (and presented in this paper) is automating this concept in a _compiler_.

<comment><USER3> Not really. The flattening part is old hat in functional languages, though this particular formulation is restricted to the special case of "non- recursive" functions. I don't know about the particular optimizations they apply to the flattened code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He he. When I read 'jump' I tend to think of that "G-word" that people argue about so much.

Then I think of the old saw, "Rules are made to be broken."

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe we should pass parameters in registers... :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> How is this different then the concept of "inline" in C/C++?

<comment><USER7> from the 3rd line of the abstract: "Unlike inlining, flattening does not duplicate the bodies of functions that have multiple callsites. "

<comment><USER6> Thanks, sorry will read more carefully in the future.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why getting paid on the Internet is still so difficult? - <AUTHOR> I wanted to start selling on the Internet by myself. On my website, not on eBay, Amazon or Upwork. I know only HTML and a little bit of JavaScript. I can use some script from StackOverflow to do the job for me. I can install Google Analytics script and setup a simple static website with a domain.
Is there any easy and fast way for me to get paid? By easy I mean doable with my skills (no backend coding etc). By fast I mean I can start charging in less than 2 hours. <comment><USER2> Just create a PayPal button and put it on your site. One button per product. You can use cart mode an PayPal will handle giving the user a shopping cart so they can buy multiple products.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's wrong with shopify?

Also I'm sure you can do it with stripe very easily on your "own" site.

<comment><AUTHOR> In my experience, stripe and shopify are not that easy. To use stripe you need to go through the process of making an account and its verification. Sometimes it is taking days to set it up. Shopify is a slightly better solution. But still, this is a huge application with a lot of painful processes. I need something, that offers set up in minutes, but I haven't found any solution yet.</comment></comment>


Twitter launches Fabric mobile app for developers - <AUTHOR> https://fabric.io/blog/introducing-the-fabric-mobile-app <comment><USER2> FYI it's built using Swift and ReactiveCocoa. They put up all the dependencies licenses in Settings so I made a list of the packages they use [https://gist.github.com/ropiku/b259f35060a40eab1597](https://gist.github.com/ropiku/b259f35060a40eab1597).

<comment><USER3> it's the second time this week i hear about reactive cocoa.I'm starting to hate uikit with a passion, but what's so special about it ?

<comment><USER4> iOS engineer who worked on the Fabric app here :) I gave a talk about this topic at a Swift conference last year, if you wanna check that out! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ent6LJDIB3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ent6LJDIB3I)

<comment><USER5> Maybe you can answer who was the person that decided that your library was so special that you have to use a damn application to add it to a project, rather than use the same exact procedures to add a library that every other library uses? No, I don't want to use your application to add the library, and no, I don't want to have to go through the onboarding every single time I need to add it or update it.

<comment><USER3> i was really hesitant when i saw how fabric is supposed to be installed, using a mac app, but i've got to admit that it's a really pleasant experience so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In case anyone else was confused, Fabric is also the name of the CSS framework from Microsoft for developing Office 365 add-ins. [https://blogs.office.com/2015/08/31/introducing-office-ui- fa...](https://blogs.office.com/2015/08/31/introducing-office-ui-fabric-your- key-to-designing-add-ins-for-office/)

<comment><USER7> It's also the name of a Python devops tool [http://www.fabfile.org/](http://www.fabfile.org/)

<comment><USER8> It's also the name of a rad nightclub in London. [http://www.fabriclondon.com/](http://www.fabriclondon.com/)

<comment><USER9> It's also the name of a JavaScript HTML5 canvas library: [http://fabricjs.com/](http://fabricjs.com/)

<comment><USER10> It's also, most confusingly to me, the name of Facebook's datacenter design.

[http://www.techrepublic.com/article/facebook-fabric-an- innov...](http://www.techrepublic.com/article/facebook-fabric-an-innovative- network-topology-for-data-centers/)

<comment><USER11> It's also the name of a brand selling yarn and buttons and stuff.

[https://www.fabric.com/](https://www.fabric.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm an iOS Developer working on a project that uses Fabric ad I -absolutely- hate it. Maybe something is wrong with our integration, but I hate the fact that any run of the XCode build runs the Fabric Mac app and you HAVE to have it running, or else your XCode build fails. This doesn't help when your Fabric app crashes sometimes or isn't seen by Xcode for some reason, so every now and then my Chrome browser will just re-direct me to Fabric's website to download the SDK and I'll have about 20 tabs open before force quitting & relauncing the app. I like the idea of housing a lot of useful dev tools together, but hate having such a large overhead around it to do so.

<comment><USER13> Same. Is it that hard to just ship a library via CocoaPods? Google do it, Facebook does it. But nooo, Twitter is "speshul" and they just have to be able to drop multiple folders in the root of my project.

<comment><USER2> You can totally use CocoaPods to add and update Fabric [https://docs.fabric.io/ios/fabric/cocoapods.html](https://docs.fabric.io/ios/fabric/cocoapods.html). I'm not sure if this still requires the Fabric app but I didn't have issues with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I confess I never trust an animal until I can see its mouth; until I know what it eats, I can't be sure whether I'm dinner. So how does Twitter benefit from this? Is it just hoping that people will use their ad platform?

Given Twitter's fickleness toward developers in the past I'm especially wary.

<comment><USER15> There is an article from wired that talks about it here [http://www.wired.com/2014/10/twitter-fabric- sdk/](http://www.wired.com/2014/10/twitter-fabric-sdk/)

Getting your company ingrained into a larger part of the app market has huge benefits. Now if people aren't using the Twitter app, Twitter can track them and get data from them if they use an app that relies on Fabric.

The benefit is purely integrating themselves with larger and more diverse user bases.

<comment><USER14> Huh. That article says basically what I said: "The payoff for Twitter will come if it can get developers to embrace MoPub, its advertising product, because it gets a cut of any ad revenue."

In which case, I'd be kinda skeptical. If the other tools are mainly loss- leaders for advertising, then Twitter will be prone to limiting or canceling them when the internal politics change.

Which is exactly what they did with API access previously: they cost money to operate and weren't for the moment seen as directly beneficial, so what was previously going to be free forever was suddenly cut back.

<comment><USER16> I agree. Personally I think it's a great tool, run by a wrong company. If some other company--say Google, Microsoft, or even Amazon--acquired this I would trust it 100 times more. This is not just because of their history of betraying their own developer ecosystem but more importantly because Twitter has never known (and still doesn't know) what they want to be (which in turn was the cause of aforementioned betrayal). All that fluff on the Wired article is just a fluff. Yeah sure you collect more data and sell it to advertisers to make more money, but tomorrow they may find out that the model doesn't work so well and may ditch it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone currently use Fabric? And if so, have you moved on to integrate MoPub Twitter-ad-network functionality? I'm curious how adoption has gone.

<comment><USER18> Wondering the same, they've burned relations with devs pretty badly over the years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Twitter's mobile dev tools are fantastic. Love that they have this on iOS now.

<comment><USER20> :) thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Definitely a good start. I'm hoping they add Answers integration to the app quickly as that is one of the more impactful Fabric uses for us.

<comment><USER20> Hey! I am the PM on the Fabric app. Answers is a key part of our app and powers the top level charts, as well as our stability alerts. Would love to hear more about what other data from Answers would be the most helpful to you :)

<comment><USER21> Thanks for reaching out! I'm specifically looking for certain events. For example, I use Answers to send a custom event each time a user does XYZ within the app. I'd love to be able to see those charts and high level figures from the app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How does one get Audience Insights? The FAQ says: In order to protect the privacy of users, we only show this data when it exceeds a minimum size.

Does anyone know what the minimum size is?

[https://fabric.io/kits/android/answers](https://fabric.io/kits/android/answers)

</comment><comment><USER23> Not to be confused with...

Fabric - A platform for secure distributed computation and storage [https://www.cs.cornell.edu/andru/papers/fabric- sosp09.pdf](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/andru/papers/fabric-sosp09.pdf)

[https://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/fabric/](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/fabric/)

From the place that brought us practical, cutting-edge security like JIF, SIF, SWIFT, and CIVITAS. Link below gets you to most of that:

[https://www.cs.cornell.edu/jif/](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/jif/)

Then there's this Fabric which probably has different security properties. ;)

</comment><comment><USER24> I beta tested the mobile app, great tool for keeping an eye on stats/crahes. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for all your help :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For someone who doesn't do mobile development, what is this and how's Twitter involved?

<comment><USER26> Fabric is Twitter's mobile SDK and platform.

<comment><USER25> I thought Twitter banned external applications years ago. Or is this some SDK they use for their own mobile apps and have now shared with the developer community?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Still not sure what it does - provides monitoring, analytics, and a nice UI for cocoapods?

</comment><comment> trevor-e Doesn't seem like you can look at issues? There's an activity section that shows comments, and from there you can look at the related issue, but not view all of them.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is great. I don't have to frequently opened Fabric.io page to see the stats anymore.

</comment><comment><USER29> Follows the launch of the Flurry App last week: [http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/18/yahoos-flurry-unveils- rede...](http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/18/yahoos-flurry-unveils-redesign- launches-analytics-apps-and-apple-tv-sdk/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Is this for statistical debugging as well?

</comment><comment><USER31> Good to Know that. Thanks!</comment>