Visa Systems Issues - <AUTHOR> http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/news/technological-systems-issue.html <comment><USER3> Does anyone else think that, all conspiracy theory aside, the information published is only partly true?

If it's a purely hw issue, say a piece of highly specialized hardware (hw crypto, piece of old mainframe, etc), it can take a very long time to source it (although a SPOF is surprising in such a critical infrastructure), but it does not take 100 people to work on it, 24/7\. It requires a dozen guys making angry phone calls every 2 hours to some suppliers...

If it really takes 100 people 24/7, mostly likely explanation to me is that it's software related and they have to rewrite a critical sw in record time. Causes:

-bugfix (which may be entirely unrelated to secrity)

-emergency migration from one hw vendor to another, for sourcing reason which entails rewrite of a part of the system.

<comment><USER4> "100 people to work on it, 24/7" sounds like manual data entry to me - <USER2> wants to bet against a loss of a db without usable backups available, and a bunch of people now hand entering hardcopy forms and data out of emails back into some critical database?

<comment><USER5> ... which means that somebody somewhere didn't have backups of some database server that died.

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing a backup _technically_ existed (to satisfy any requirements or boss's-orders to the "letter of the law"), but nobody bothered giving any thought to _restoring_ everything from that backup.

Of course, a backup that can't be restored (or nobody knows how to restore) is more or less equivalent to not having a backup, so this distinction probably doesn't matter.

// always remember to test your restore plan

<comment><USER4> Indeed - "usable" backups - they are ones you've tested restoring from (recently enough to be assured they still work on the latest version of your system).

I _hope_ they don't have someone saying "we had a backup - it was on a RAID set!".

It would surprise me less to discover the reported migration from Oracle on Windows to Oracle on Linux was still partly done, and they were taking solid reliable useable backups - of the old not-yet-decommissioned windows db servers...

(For the record, I've made both of those mistakes (and more) in my career... Fortunately neither represented weeks of 24x7 remedial work by 100s of people.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apparently last year's major failure was caused by their Oracle data warehouse going down hard:

[http://foia.state.gov/_docs/PIA/ConsularConsolidatedDatabase...](http://foia.state.gov/_docs/PIA/ConsularConsolidatedDatabase_CCD.pdf)

 _" The Consular Consolidated Database (CCD) is one of the largest Oracle based data warehouses in the world that holds current and archived data from the Consular Affairs (CA) domestic and post databases around the world. As of December 2009, it contains over 100 million visa cases and 75 million photographs, utilizing billions of rows of data, and has a current growth rate of approximately 35 thousand visa cases every day"_

Unclear what's gone wrong this time, but the mention of "biometrics" (like photographs) makes me suspect it's the same system.

<comment><USER7> A Visa application system doesn't strike me as an obvious candidate for a relational database. I would rather store all the information related to a visa application in a document store with a relational database only used as a sort of index. I wonder if lots of systems are not built using relational just out of habit. And then bump into these problems.

<comment><USER8> Why not? There should only be at most a few billion rows (since you can't have more visa applications than humans).

<comment><USER4> Never bumped into the "beautiful flexibility" of ERD databases - where the app devs assume all responsibility over things that database designers _really_ should be saying "Hell no!" to?

      +</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>+</comment><comment></comment><comment>+</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--+
      | asset_id   | asset_name | asset_data                     |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>+</comment><comment></comment><comment>+</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--+
      | 2147483646 | firstName  | Joseph                         |
      | 2147483647 | lastName   | Bloggs                         |
      |-2147483647 | phoneNumber| +1 415 555 1234                |
      |-2147483646 | email      | email@example.com             |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>+</comment><comment></comment><comment>+</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--+

(I think I still have brain damage from trying to get "too smart" with a Magento eCommerce site once...)

<comment><USER9> The flexibility typically comes from transactions and joins, something document store proponents typically shy away from. And yes, if you give stupid devs powerful tools they will shoot themselves.

<comment><USER8> It's not only flexibility, but also discipline and taking away choices (for bad modelling) that comes from following the relational normal forms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Was the State Department _still_ running the whole Oracle database cluster on a single hardware node since last year's issues? [http://fcw.com/Articles/2014/10/20/State-Department- database...](http://fcw.com/Articles/2014/10/20/State-Department-database- crash-1.aspx?Page=all&p=1)

<comment><USER11> 10g on Windows 2003, can't make this shit up.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This apparently started on June 10th, so down for _12 days_ and counting!

<comment><USER12> So they're saying _We 're terrible and we don't care that much_. Wow.

If this where a business, they'd be losing customers... but thankfully, they're a government apparatus that holds people over a barrel and doesn't have to provide enough decent service to offer enough visas to meet the demand, hence 12-30 million undocumented immigrants.

<comment><USER13> What is government but a bunch of provided services? We could replace it with well written software. No?

<comment><USER14> Technically, sure (assuming you also build the robot hardware) but we're quite far from having software that can negotiate treaties, figure out how to regulate water rights in California, etc...

<comment><USER13> Well of course I don't mean to completely replace the government.

But how about making it more lean? How about modernizing with the times? How about making it all much more transparent and accountable? Couldn't open source software do all of this?

We could start with systems that are used by smaller, poorer countries & grow from there.

A visa processing system might be a good start.

<comment><USER15> I completely agree with this. First, we need to make the lawmakers that such a system is necessary which is understandably, a bigger challenge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been trying to get marriage visa things completed since May. [http://nvc.state.gov/](http://nvc.state.gov/) The payment system was down for almost the entire month of May. After finally being able to get through step 2, I've been stopped constantly. The entire social security website was down one night this month. I currently need my tax transcripts from the IRS. The online system for printing them out is down indefinitely and even the form to request they be sent by mail was constantly throwing up a technical error has occurred message.

<comment><USER17> I know that pain. Took me and my wife almost 5 years, near $2,000 and three interviews to get her green card. And that was with her already being in the states when we met and got married.

Keep at it. The feeling when it's finally over is great.

<comment><USER10> These stories always fascinate me. At that point why even bother validating the grounds for the visa - anyone who would put up with a process like that deserves it!

I immigrated to Japan - a country often held up as an example of xenophobia and resistance to immigration, and it only took a week for my spouse visa paperwork to be examined and approved. The only cost was for translations of some paperwork from home ($40 at the embassy) and then $20 for the residence card once I was approved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra On slightly related note, USA doesn't support airport transfers without visa - which is taken for granted in the rest of the world. Which basically makes Latin America an island since most flights there are routed via USA, its gatekeeper.

</comment><comment><USER18> FBI site for background checks also has implementation issues:

[http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/identity-history-summary- ch...](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/identity-history-summary-checks)

So they can record all our conversations in real-time, but it takes 3-4 months to do a simple query of criminal records.

<comment><USER19> Different departments. The NSA and FBI don't talk to each other; NSA has all of the technological innovations for monitoring wide spreads of internet bandwidth.

<comment><USER20> "The NSA and FBI don't talk to each other"

You clearly have not read any of the Snowden docs.

[http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden- tally.htm](http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-tally.htm)

<comment><USER21> You're both wrong, in a way. They interact, but that doesn't mean they are cohesive in utilizing each other's technologies/competencies.

<comment><USER20> [http://cryptome.org/2015/06/cyber-spy- nyt-15-0604.pdf](http://cryptome.org/2015/06/cyber-spy-nyt-15-0604.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What's funny is they used to do this stuff with much much slower computer systems back in the 70s and 80s.

<comment><USER23> That was before it became a political imperative to drown the government in a bathtub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm waiting for an advanced parole visa (moved to the US in January) and can't get a visa in time to travel intentionally to my best friends wedding in the UK. Applied in Feb. Got told last week they need another 2 months to process it - I wonder if this is why?

<comment><USER25> Schedule a personal meeting at your closest USCIS (or whatever the immigration office is called these days) and explain it to the officer. They can give you a temporary "paper pass" you can use to travel until paperwork completes if they find your reason sufficient.

Best friend's wedding might not qualify as a good enough reason, but combined with the long delay it might - definitely worth your time talking to them.

I know someone who got this kind of pass to visit her sick father.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Took 14 months with Congressional intervention just to get my partner a immigrant visa -- which is presumably the easiest.

America has been so obsessed with thinking of itself as the "best country in the world!(TM)" for so long, it has meanwhile regressed into a failed state.

<comment><USER27> American Exceptionalism, etc. bother me too (an American), but it seems a bit incongruous to call it a failed state while simultaneously relating the story of someone desiring to immigrate to it so badly that they'd wait 14 months and get Congress to intervene. If it's so failed, your partner can leave and I'm sure someone else will be happy to come.

<comment><USER26> Of course I am a hypocrite. My partner wants to visit the US; I would prefer to live elsewhere. But, sometimes compromise is needed in relationships.

'failed state' is certainly hyperbole here -- there are large elements of society which continue to function, despite the problems at the national government level. It would truly be a failed state if, for example, the national government's performance level were propagated to the whole society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > There is no evidence the problem is cyber-security related.

have they fixed their data-leak into archive.org yet? (LOL) [http://blog.valbonne- consulting.com/2015/05/20/misconfigurat...](http://blog.valbonne- consulting.com/2015/05/20/misconfiguration-of-state-gov-website-exposes-pdf- files/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Government holding biometric data is unsafe for citizens. There will always be problems, security of data and security of citizens.

<comment><USER30> Every visitor to the US is fingerprinted these days.

<comment><USER31> When did they start doing this?

I arrived two weeks ago, no finger print required.

<comment><USER32> [http://www.immihelp.com/visas/usvisit.html](http://www.immihelp.com/visas/usvisit.html)

If your canadian, probably not.

<comment><USER33> They probably already have you fingerprints.

<comment><USER32> No they do not. I've never been fingerprinted as a Canadian until I got a work visa for the USA. For many Canadians who visit the usa for tourism or similar will never have their fingerprints in a canadian or us database under current laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> US visa processing is back online (same link).

"The Bureau of Consular Affairs reports that the database responsible for handling biometric clearances has been rebuilt and is being tested. 39 posts, representing more than two-thirds of our normal capacity, are now online and issuing visas. We are working to restore full biometric data processing."

</comment><comment><USER35> Just to add to the conspiracy theory, wonder whether this is related: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/08/us-g7-summit- obama...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/08/us-g7-summit-obama- cyberattack-idUSKBN0OO1RA20150608)

</comment><comment><USER36> It is natural for issues for happen like this time to time. If it's not technology, something else. Australia's visa offices (DIBP) are on industrial action at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, what's the last time a Fortune 500 company's IT systems failed so hard they couldn't do anything for _two weeks_?

<comment><USER36> On a technical level, it's possible, on a practical level it's not. You can't get 100% uptime due to the unforeseen problems that will hit once in a while.

If the downtime was anticipated it can always be averted. Even a Fortune 500 can expect some downtime over a period large enough.

Take Sony earlier this year. The US government itself the year before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm glad that they're at least prioritizing H2A agricultural workers.

</comment><comment><USER38> Such a muppet show this entire situation there.

<comment><USER12> Statler and Waldorf are especially hilarious.

<comment><USER38> I wish others would also appreciate a little bit of humor on HN, but everything like that gets downvoted all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Makes me glad that I _accidentally_ put my RFID-enabled passport in the microwave, typed in 1 second and hit start.

<comment><USER36> It must fun be waiting in the non-RFID queue at immigration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> On 18 June 2015 the Lufthansa site looked like this %templateSomethingVar/somethingVar1% and lots of variables like that (not sure what template system were they using). Now it's okay.

But Polish airlines is down too (unrelated systems I guess)... but could this be something coordinated?

Ah... probably not :)

<comment><USER40> Lufty's site has always had bugs like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> HA-clustered microservices: 1

Dated megaliths: 0

(Edit: Sheesh, what's with all the downvotes? Hardware failures are a route- aroundable thing that should never cause downtime... as long as you don't adopt an outdated "here sits the one source of truth, and its name is [fat server manually configured]" psychology. HA clustering is at the point where it's a generic, drop-in thing for arbitrary services. If you fail to recognize the above, go do some learning.)</comment>


Firefox 4: 100 million downloads in 1 month - <AUTHOR> http://glow.mozilla.com/

<comment><USER2> Firefox 4 is a great success considering the difficulties, delays and stumbles between the 3.5 and the 4 release.

I used Minefield (and now Nightly) all through the FF4 development and really considered at one point the project has become victim of scope creep. Was worried about my favorite browser getting pushed into secondary choice for many by Chrome, but the entire Firefox team pulled back and did deliver an awesome release.

<comment><USER3> Seriously, I'm impressed by the recovery. I tried FF4 about halfway through their test releases, and I found it unusably bad (and I use a lot of beta and alpha software).

Now it's my favorite again. Great job, FF team!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It would be great if everyone on HN joined the Firefox and Chrome dev channels. I'm sure it would help with the aggressive release schedules.

<http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/channel/>

<http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel>

<comment><USER4> I've been using the Chrome dev channel as my primary home browser for the last few months (maybe even a year or so by now). It's quite stable; I've only encountered one or two significant problems in that entire time, and they've been resolved pretty quickly. It's pretty nice, I keep noticing small little new features and almost every time someone posts a link to some cutting edge demo, my browser already supports it.

<comment><USER5> Me too - if you are running Ubuntu, it's really easy to stay up to day with nightlies or dev releases via the respective ppa:s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I enjoyed the way those idiots* still using PowerPC got fooled into thinking FF4 would continue support for that ridiculous architecture because they ran the FF4 betas perfectly well.

[*] Yes, I am counting myself in this set.

<comment><USER7> Maybe you could compile it yourself?

<comment><USER6> That's probably going to have to be the way forward for me, I concur.

Edit; My mistake: Apparently there's TenFourFox, which I had missed. I'll stop my whining now..

(<http://www.floodgap.com:80/software/tenfourfox/>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any data available on the # of crashes in the last month? FF4 is great in every way except the huge memory footprint and the fresh bugs.

<comment><USER9> > FF4 is great in every way except the huge memory footprint and the fresh > bugs.

And the typography engine that does kerning so badly that it renders several letter combinations in normally clear fonts literally illegible at smaller sizes used by many web sites.

And the fact that they still haven't properly fixed Java applets.

And the terrible usability issues.

And worst of all, the fact that for all the cute gimmicks with tabs, it still runs everything in the same process, which is a fundamental robustness, security and performance problem that every other major browser fixed years ago.

I write browser-based code for a living, and IMNSHO Firefox 4 is without question the worst of the major browsers on any major OS today as far as technology goes. Such redeeming features as it does have come almost entirely from third party extensions.

<comment><USER4> > every other major browser fixed years ago

Chrome and IE are multi-process (though IE provides less protection as more tabs are included in the same process). I don't think that Webkit2, the multi- process Webkit that Safari will use, has been released yet. I believe it's intended to be released with Safari 6, whenever that happens. I don't believe that Opera is multi-process. So, out of the 5 major browsers, two are multi- process, one is in the process of being made multi-process, and two are not.

<comment><USER9> No offence to Opera, but I don't consider it a major browser when it has about 1-2% market share depending on who you ask.

I confess to being wrong about Safari, though, if you consider its 5-9% enough to count: I first saw details of WebKit2 about a year ago, and hadn't realised that it's not going in until Safari 6, which in turn isn't expected until OS X Lion some time this summer.

Nevertheless, I stand by my original point: IE, Firefox and Chrome between them represent by far the lion's share of the browser market, and IE and Chrome have both had a separate process model for some time now.

<comment><USER4> I consider IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera all as major browsers. Sure, Opera only has 1-2% global market share; but consider the fact that 1-2% global market share means somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million users (assuming estimates of 2 billion global internet users is correct). I consider that a fairly significant browser.

Also, there are markets in Europe where that percentage is much, much higher. And those European markets are generally a lot more relevant to me than China (and to an extent other Asian countries like South Korea), where a lot of the IE usage comes from. Due to the greater internationalization, cultural, and regulatory barriers in China, it's not a market that interests me all that much.

I generally consider the major browsers to be ones which have their own rendering engines (though Chrome and Safari share one, they both do significant development of that engine and each have their own JavaScript interpreters), actively attempt to be compatible with the entire public web, participate in the web standards process, introduce innovations to the web platform which are later adopted by other browsers, and have a significant number of worldwide users or users in major markets. IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera all meet those criteria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Definitely enjoying FF4. I'm still wondering how I ever did without the "Pin as App Tab" option.

<comment><USER11> What pages do you find most useful to pin as an app?

<comment><USER10> GMail, individual Google Docs, Twitter, HN, Documntation (JQuery, JavaScript, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's amazing. I'm surprised Asia hasn't even reached twenty million downloads, though.

<comment><USER13> Asia has a pretty Microsoft-centric tech culture.

India's probably got the most downloads because of the large IT industry there. There's a large population but most don't have access to computers. Compare that to China, where many more people have access to computers, but the Firefox 4 download rate is much lower.

Indonesia's the exception - Firefox has a share of something like 80%. No idea how that happened.

Japan's pretty tech savvy as well and has a high rate of technology penetration.

<comment><USER14> Asia _is_ pretty MSFT-centric, but I was a little surprised that on my trips to the Philippines, beginning in 2009, I began seeing a lot of Firefox installations, even Firefox-only, on a lot of boxen in the Internet cafes there. So it seems the tide is turning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Europe is having the lead -- that's pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER16> Still on 188.8.131.52 right here. No problems but the famous old memory leak.

</comment><comment><USER17> I love ff but hate ff4 for 1.removing the rss button from the address bar 2.my installation crashes several times a day due to: EXC_BAD_ACCESS / KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE 3.certain flash ads play out of order or appear in the wrong ad spot! I've never seen anything like this on another browser except ff4

im on mac osx snowleopard btw.

<comment><USER18> There's an add on to put the RSS button back. Check addons.mozilla.org.

Please file a bug about your crash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good for them, but FF4 crashes on me _every day_. Very annoying, especially compared to FF3 that never did that.

<comment><USER20> (I work at Mozilla)

Type about:crashes into the location bar, and see if they are all similar. Paste the URLs back here.

<comment><USER21> My ff4 also crashes "EVERYDAY", sometimes "EVERYMINUTE", I seriously consider to switch to Chrome, but I still use it even it always crashes. Here is my about:crashes:

bp-682ee891-e489-4faa-87d9-0e5d52110422 2011/4/23下午 01:34

bp-74dd05b3-8f58-4e07-ba9b-2bfa22110422 2011/4/23下午 01:34

bp-4bb769e8-4851-4433-9f85-b60a32110422 2011/4/23下午 12:52

bp-10707aa1-1636-4a81-8f69-058832110422 2011/4/23下午 12:44

bp-04edd56e-db3a-45c1-8cfe-5bdb82110422 2011/4/23上午 01:37

.......MANY MANY.....

bp-2d469003-dcb9-498e-9f67-b58f22110421 2011/4/22上午 12:53

bp-1ad3daca-bb71-494b-88b9-9fd972110421 2011/4/22上午 12:32

bp-c7701cfa-793b-4b36-b610-111402110421 2011/4/22上午 12:07

bp-bd445659-4a3b-4b46-b809-11f582110421 2011/4/22上午 12:01

bp-7d00ada1-6b01-4d15-8b91-dfc102110421 2011/4/21下午 11:44

bp-81e36a99-7007-43c7-8d9c-3c3192110421 2011/4/21下午 11:44

bp-83a6eb96-0221-450f-93c0-25b7b2110421 2011/4/21下午 11:00

bp-a92673b1-7a13-497f-b459-e9dd12110421 2011/4/21下午 11:00

bp-8d5367f2-132f-4d34-9f12-6de5c2110421 2011/4/21下午 10:29

xpcom_runtime_abort(###!!! ABORT: Main-thread-only object used off the main thread: file e:/builds/moz2_slave/rel-2.0-w32-bld/build/xpcom/base/nsCycleCollector.cpp, line 1195)

I really hope this problem would be fixed......

<comment><USER22> What extensions do you have installed?

<comment><USER21> Abobe Acrobat 10.0.1.434

Google Update 126.96.36.199

Java Deployment Toolkit 184.108.40.206

Java(TM) Platform SE 6 U24 220.127.116.11

Microsoft Office 2010 14.0.4730.1010

Microsoft Office 2010 14.0.4761.1000

Shockwave Flash 10.2.153.1

Silverlight Plug-In 4.0.60310.0

Windows Live Photo Gallery 15.4.3508.1109

Wolfram Mathematica 220.127.116.11471 (DISABLED)

mm... Should I disable all "Microsoft" related extensions to try? :)

<comment><USER23> That's probably a good idea. My guess is one of your extensions hasn't been properly updated for FF 4, but I'm not really sure.

Also use Plugin Check:

<http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/>

<comment><USER21> All my plugins are up to date.

I think this is the bug I encountered: [https://crash- stats.mozilla.com/report/list?range_value=2...](https://crash- stats.mozilla.com/report/list?range_value=2&range_unit=weeks&signature=mozalloc_abort%28char%20const%2A%20const%29%20%7C%20NS_DebugBreak_P%20%7C%20nsCycleCollectingAutoRefCnt%3A%3Adecr%28nsISupports%2A%29&version=Firefox%3A4.0)

The top 1 crash in Firefox crash stats...

<comment><USER23> If you believe that's it, do a thorough check of your system -- the associated bug report says it's due to malware interacting badly with Firefox.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for your help.

You give me a clue to deal with this problem!

I immediately found this [http://support.mozilla.com/zh- TW/questions/800955#answer-155...](http://support.mozilla.com/zh- TW/questions/800955#answer-155360)

And carefully checked all of my extensions. I found a Z extension hide itself in FF extensions list. Finally I deleted it.

I think this is a good way if FF can give users some clue to deal with crash problem. It might be a great help. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Still on chrome and playing with ff4. I do agree the recovery since the test releases is pretty amazing !

</comment><comment><USER25> It was a supprise when I turn out there is literally zero effort to migrate FF 3.5 to FF4

</comment><comment><USER26> I still don't understand why Mozilla keeps gloating about how many downloads Firefox 4 has gotten. When Chrome releases a major update, they don't pull off some huge PR stunt with a download counter. Not to mention Chrome users update to the latest version of Chrome much, much faster than Firefox users upgraded to Firefox 4.

It just feels like Mozilla is trying to be too much like Apple.

<comment><USER27> Mozilla has publicly said that they are shifting to a more chrome-like release model where the hits come faster.

<comment><USER26> Did they mention if users will still be shown a popup about updating then asked to restart their web browser after the update is complete or will they actually get it right like Google and not bother the user at all?

<comment><USER4> Google will bother the user eventually if they don't restart their browser for a while. And they show a little downwards pointing arrow when an update is available, but wait on the dialog until it's been a few days (maybe weeks?). But for most updates, they don't bother the user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'll give it a try again.

My DL of Firefox 4 gave me a very heavy piece of software eating way too much resources.

I switch to chrome and hope to get impress enough to come back to firefox.</comment>


Show HN: Neat, the Minimalist CSS Framework - <AUTHOR> https://neat.joeldare.com <comment><USER2> It must be show off your css day today. I was going to say, you might want to change your name to avoid confusion with the project from thoughtbot, but it looks like they're not maintaining that any longer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did a quick search but I didn't spend too much time on the name. Although it reads a little like a marketing peace, and I would love it if others used it, it's just a little personal project so that I don't keep reinventing the wheel on my own minimalist web projects.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What really happened with Andrew Wakefield? - <AUTHOR> Yesterday I went to watch a movie called The Pathological Optimist. It's Dr. Andrew Wakefield's side of the story about what happened with the 1998 paper he published that reported cases of the MMR vaccine leading to autism.
Some parents noticed that after giving their child the MMR vaccine the child developed autism. This came out in a paper and lead to over 100 failed attempts to replicate this study. Eventually Wakefield was accused of fraud, stripped his medical license in the UK, and the paper got retracted. A legal process went on and on until (iirc) 2010.
On one side scientists couldn't reproduce the study. On the other parents had a kid that was ok before the MMR and now has autism.
This seems to me like a very strange data point, and strange data are the most interesting data. Wakefield believes there is a link between the MMR and autism, but there isn't scientific data to support it. Except parents. As if some truth is revealed only to humans and can't be reproduced in the lab.
There is some speculation of a coverup from the pharmaceutical companies around the dangers of the MMR vaccine (e.g using placebos that contained aluminum, so the placebo behaved like the vaccine). And there are data that show an increase in autism since the MMR was introduced. But the main thing here isn't (so much) the coverup.
In short, why is this data point neglected? If true, it's increasing autism! Why did a scientist who tried to help, acted ethically and disclosed his data, ended up having his career end?
Fake news is one thing. But is this a new phenomenon where we should also worry about disclosing data that are hard to get?
*btw: Wakefield's recommendation isn't to end the vaccine, but to give each one separately, ideally one year apart. <comment><USER2> It does not take a significant amount of research to determine the above characterization of Wakefield's actions are, at best naively optimistic about either his competency, his ethics, or both.

The publicly available and extensively detailed [1] findings of the review board that rescinded his license show with little room for interpretation an impressive list of conflicts of interest, improper treatment of patients, poorly conducted research, and fraudulent activities.

Also extensively researched was the journalism efforts of Brian Deer [2], which uncovered an impressive level of data fraud. His work is worth reading, but in the interest of brevity I will quote the abbreviated synopsis found in Mr. Wakefield's wikipedia entry [3]:

The paper in The Lancet was a case series of 12 child patients; it reported a proposed "new syndrome" of enterocolitis and regressive autism and associated this with MMR as an "apparent precipitating event." But in fact:

1\. Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism;

2\. Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were "previously normal", five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns;

3\. Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination;

4\. In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results—noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations—were changed after a medical school "research review" to "non-specific colitis";

5\. The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations—all giving times to onset of problems in months—helped to create the appearance of a 14 day temporal link;

[1] [http://briandeer.com/solved/gmc-charge- sheet.pdf](http://briandeer.com/solved/gmc-charge-sheet.pdf)

[2] [http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full](http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield)</comment>


Develop Now with ClojureScript for React Native - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fikesfarm.com/posts/2015-07-19-develop-now-with-clojurescript-for-react-native.html <comment><USER2> I just want to say..... this is really, really beautiful stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :) This stuff is coming together fast now. Android should be available soon as well. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Love that workflow demo!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci4uviG8S0o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci4uviG8S0o)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Willing to answer questions.</comment>


Blot – blogging from a Dropbox folder - <AUTHOR> https://blot.im <comment><USER2> I am unsure why anyone would use this, since web space is cheap (there are less 20$ a year domain and hosting plans) and its pretty trivial to get a Flatfile blog running on PHP.

I personally prefer Yellow from datenstrom to run my blog. And it doesn't need a third party site to pull my blog either.

<comment><USER3> Saw one of your comments from about a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8257148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8257148)

Just want you to know that a project called Rainloop might be your answer.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I have found it since then and use it on my server for all my email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminded me of Calepin, was popular few years ago... [http://calepin.co/](http://calepin.co/)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, Calepin was one of the services which inspired Blot. Sad to hear it's shutting down:

[https://twitter.com/calepinapp/status/631518650051231744](https://twitter.com/calepinapp/status/631518650051231744)

<comment><USER4> Cool! Also, great work on Typeset! [https://github.com/davidmerfield/typeset](https://github.com/davidmerfield/typeset)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've done this sort of thing a few times for different clients who need to be able to put something out on the web quickly and easily. It's a useful technique. And if done right, in my experience, a lot easier to "lock down", and leaner than if you were depending on a full-fledged CMS system for the same sort of thing.

The one thing you have to warn people about, however, is that Dropbox (last I checked) does not scan files for viruses. There are of course ways to incorporate virus scan into the pipeline if it's not already being done by the user.

</comment><comment><USER7> There was also pretty well designed scriptogr.am in this space. But they are also shutting down in September.

So, good luck! it seems that you'll need some of it :)

EDIT: See also: [https://www.boxfolio.com/](https://www.boxfolio.com/) [https://pancake.io/](https://pancake.io/) [http://droppages.com/](http://droppages.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I have been reviewing blogging tools of late and had been coming up short on finding the solution that meets my requirements.

Blot looks very promising. Be sure to watch the entire video, there were many ah-ha moments.

* Manage files via dropbox * Makes a blog post out of images * Markdown plus some new tags for layout * Full access to templates (including RSS, sitemap, etc) * Use your own domain, and apparently SSL * The site creator has been very responsive via Twitter.

I am fine with $20 per year. Sure I could throw this on one of my own servers for $0, but it would take more much more than $20 of my time.

There are many nice features all over the place:

* URL's have a good SEO and can easily be shorted example.com/12/my-great-idea to example.com/12 * Private Draft preview with quick auto-reloads

</comment><comment><USER9> Seems great!

I'm a Jekyll user myself, but I can see this as a viable (and simpler) alternative.

</comment><comment><USER10> this is a fantastic idea, low friction start to personal blogging.

feature suggestion: please incorporate Jekyll into the publishing workflow.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks great, good luck!</comment>


Ask HN: Finding Users to Talk - <AUTHOR> I wanted to try an experiment for an app, do you have any difficulties finding user to talk and telling you sincerely what they think of your product/idea ? <comment><USER2> If you're showing them designs, sometimes it helps to lie and say that you weren't the one who made it, so other people don't feel bad about criticizing it.

You can post an anonymous survey on Reddit or specific Facebook groups, and have people leave their email if they are open to a follow-up interview.

If you already have a prototype, there are paid online services like UserTesting ([https://www.usertesting.com/](https://www.usertesting.com/)) where you can specify tasks for users to complete and get verbal feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea to act like it's not for you, I will try this ^^

Thinks for the link, I looked at usertesting but it seem for bigger company base on the price

<comment><USER3> I don't know if you meant this literally but I couldn't find any mention of price ( just the "contact for trial" language which usually translates as "a lot").

Did you find any explicit mention of pricing ?

<comment><AUTHOR> In the section "get pay to test", you can read users are being paid 10$ for each answer of an average of 20 min

<comment><USER3> Well spotted, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Go in with an open mind and say "please tell me everything you hate about this product" and if they're shy keep poking. Could this be better? Is this easy to do? Would you naturally think this sequence would happen?

Don't preface it as "feedback" preface it as, what don't you like about this?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the most underrated and promiscuous thing I've heard ! Thinks! I'm gonna try it

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> No just make sure you don't ask only friends or family. Sometimes they'll tell you want they want you to hear. Post on reddit, startup school etc. and people will give good feedback on the idea. If you can Google the problem and people come up asking for solutions to it that's usually a good sign.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thinks for your answer.

Basicaly I'm currently want to ask to more that friends or family for that reason.

They will probably respond on forum but how do I know they are potentiel users ? And how can I continue the conversation, having feedback for each release ?

<comment><USER5> Ask them for feedback or their email, or just float the idea past people in a post. If they readily want to join a waitlist or check it out usually people will comment. Then it's up to you to create enough of a good UI and product etc. that when you send them a link they actually want to use it. Otherwise rely solely on comments/feedback. Here's an example thread where I did this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/d0xp35/i_made_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/d0xp35/i_made_callstop_adblock_for_phone_calls_the_app/)

>> continuing conversation/building relationships

When they ask for a feature, build it immediately if it seems like something smart to build. They will think you are a god because people are used to crappy customer service where they don't even get a response for days. So instead of waiting days to respond, build the features in a few days and respond that you built the feature. Then ask them nicely for a review and you will get 5 stars.

> feedback for each release

Ping the people who you know are power users. Also email every single new signup and ask how they like it.

Happy to provide personal feedback on your idea here too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Think I'm gonna look at the reddit post. I tried to send personal email for each users in precedent idea but I didn't gt any response (approximatively 100-150 people). But I did get this users by facebook ads, probably the reason.

I think i'm gonna ask feedback for my idea on the week, I need to understand the problem better to match the right solution

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Read the book Mom Test. It is the standard reference for user or prospective surveys.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I heard about it, it will soon give it a try, are they talking about where to find user ?</comment></comment>


SSL is not about encryption - <AUTHOR> http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/01/ssl-is-not-about-encryption.html <comment><USER2> Ugg, why disable pinchzoom for mobile devices? No up vote from me.</comment>


A YC for Wales: Sir Terry Matthews' 'boot camp' for Welsh entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12793067

<comment><USER2> This doesn't sound like YC to me. For starters, they will have to be "successful graduates".</comment>


Dropbox is my publish button, too. (Nginx + Dropbox = easy publishing) - <AUTHOR> http://dl.inportb.com/dropbox/

<comment><USER2> I can be convinced otherwise, but this doesn't seem to be within the spirit of my free agreement with Dropbox. It's as if I took my host's invitation to "make myself at home" literally, and ate all his ice cream while he was at work.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.dropbox.com/help/45>

      We watch carefully for any fraudulent use of Dropbox public
      links and will suspend suspicious links when they are
      detected. Links that use up more than 10GB/day for Basic
      (free) accounts and 250GB/day for Pro (paid) accounts are
      automatically suspended.

Your host's freezer has usage limits that prevent you from eating all the ice cream. Be careful what you share on Dropbox and implement sane cache settings on your reverse proxy, and your usage should fall within the limits.</comment></comment>


What the fuck is my social media strategy? by Mike Phillips - <AUTHOR> http://whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com/

<comment><USER2> See also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1569341](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1569341)</comment>


Awe-Inspiring Pencil Tip Carvings By Dalton Ghetti - <AUTHOR> http://oddstufflab.com/art/pencil-tip-carvings/ Dalton Ghetti, 49 year old Brazilian lives in Connecticut, USA but promises to leave people all over the world amazed. Let me not play with words and baffle you all. Allow me to introduce you all to one ingenious artist who is well known as the 'pencil guy'. He got this name for the very good reason that he creatively plays with pencils. <comment><USER2> I'm curious about the equipment you'd use to display this in a museum: Is it magnified? Lightboxed? etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> nice article....</comment>


Andrew Chen: Your site will succeed or fail in the first 10 seconds - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/2007/06/your_site_will_.html <comment><USER2> Great stuff.</comment>


Debug UIWebView in your iOS app - <AUTHOR> http://www.idryman.org/blog/2012/06/17/debug-uiwebview-in-your-ios-app/ <comment><USER2> The real article you want is (as linked): [http://atnan.com/blog/2011/11/17/enabling-remote- debugging-v...](http://atnan.com/blog/2011/11/17/enabling-remote-debugging- via-private-apis-in-mobile-safari/)

This post is essentially just a compiler warning fix for the (much more interesting) one linked.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you absolutely need to debug something _on the device_ in iOS 5, I wrote this a few weeks ago: <https://github.com/brainlock/ios-remote-inspector>

I had a rendering bug that only happened on the device, not in the simulator.

This opens the web inspector locally, and exposes a proxy on port 55555 for you to access from your working machine.

Not really useful on iOS 6 anymore :-) but still, useful on iOS 5.

</comment><comment><USER4> Much easier just to use iWebInspector <http://www.iwebinspector.com/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Debugging? That's cool. Just don't submit a build with this code in it to Apple -- it will get rejected for using a private API (the underscore in _enableRemoteInspector is a dead giveaway).

<comment><AUTHOR> According to this post in stack overflow [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1773615/apple-and- private...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1773615/apple-and-private-apis) Apple can also detect `performSelctor:` that calls private APIs. Thus remember not to submit build with this code in it :)

<comment><USER6> So just infer the method name at runtime.

The static analyzer could alert a human of a dynamic performSelector call but they're still a myriad of ways to get around that as well. With just a tiny bit of obfuscation any human is simply going to dismiss analyzing the disassembly to figure out what's going on since performSelector is a valid API call. They can't remove you from being able to do things at runtime either or make only make static calls to objc_message.

Literally the only technical solution would be for them to run the app through some sort of dynamic analyze,r where it runs the code and figures out everything that's going on. There are obvious issues with such a system though even theoretically.

For example, let's say you have a variable x which has a value determined at runtime:

x = figureOutXBasedOnSomeRuntimeStuff()

if (x) { InferPrivateMethodNameAndPerform() } else { DoSomethingElse() }

The analyzer has to traverse all paths to actually know if a private method is being called but it can't just run the code once with x as true, and once with x as false. It's a dynamic environment so those actions may have radically different actions based on other variables or the user's preferences at runtime, etc. And if it simply runs the app then many code paths get missed. Maybe in the distant future the analyzer could actually play around with your app enough and possibly go through every code path that way. But by simply having it tied to a page on the Internet, you can just wait till its approved and then enable it.

So one obvious conclusion might be to have a human disassemble the app and figure out what's going on. But that's simply not economically feasible and even experienced security analysts can have a hard time figuring out what code is doing, even if you have the source code.

It's more likely overtime they will dull the sharp edges of objective c, especially for iOS. At which point the entire SDK will be structured in such a way as to not allow you to do things you aren't supposed to. But they can't prevent you from ripping llvm off of opensource.apple.com and compiling without the restrictions. In terms of a technical solution, it itself is not economically feasible. Definitely easier to just ban infringing people when they get caught, old fashioned way.

In summary it's more likely that they just don't care. Apple knows being on the app store is more valuable then using the minus button illegally (hah camera+). So they simply won't do anything about it, you can slip your app onto the app store taking full advantage of the private APIs with a bit of obfuscation and they'll most likely just let it through. They are smart enough to know realistically their efforts to enforce this rule is futile, so they probably just don't care and will simply ban you from the store (unless your app is making shit tons of money, then they'll just tell you to fix it).

I don't recommend it either but from a technical standpoint it's a very interesting puzzle of sorts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uh, shouldn't the class be `UIWebView`, not `NSClassFromString(@"WebView")`? (Specifically, the class name would be missing the UI prefix, and the string- class conversion is redundant.)

<comment><AUTHOR> The `_enableRemoteInspector` is a private method to the private class `WebView`. If you use `UIWebView` it will cause runtime exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '+[UIWebView _enableRemoteInspector]: unrecognized selector sent to class 0x6df1ec'

If Automatic reference counting (ARC) feature was enabled, the compiler would raise an error for the code `[NSClassFromString(@"WebView") _enableRemoteInspector];` : "No known class method for selector '_enableRemoteInspector.'"</comment></comment>


I Built a Botnet That Could Destroy Spotify with Fake Listens - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/i-built-a-botnet-that-could-destroy-spotify-with-fake-listens <comment><USER2> A lot of these fake X articles miss an important point: that advertisers do not pay for clicks/listens/impressions/"eyeballs"/"likes"/[insert obvious user action that you actually, in fact, do "pay" for] but for value delivered.

As an advertiser, I will first find a way to track orders and customers from a channel, then pay for that channel. My calculation is simple: the channel brings in X amounts of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and I pay Y for bringing in X. If X/Y is high enough to justify Y, I keep the channel. If not, I don't. In other words, if 9 out of 10 clicks from FaceBinGle are fake, but my CLV is $1,000 and acquiring that customer cost me $10, I'm going to keep buying those 10 clicks.

In fact, what happens is that an efficient advertising market will end up with an efficient price and channels end up having the same X/Y, whatever X is (can be CLV, can be Customer Acquisition Cost, can be Cost Per Order, can be Cost Per Visit, whatever the customer base is optimizing for).

Taking this to its logical conclusion, if the number of fake users does not affect the number or activity of real users, the only person who really pays for the fake listens is Spotify, because of the royalties paid to bands which have a fixed price per listen.

So as the average price per listen that Spotify can charge advertisers drops as listens become on aggregate less valuable and the CLV models adjust accordingly, Spotify is then incentivized to find a solution. Unless they've already baked the cost of just letting the scammers be into the economics of the platform. But "listen farms" should not, in and of themselves, scare away advertisers except for the very basic ones who have not yet come upon the principle of tracking ROI.

</comment><comment><USER3> >As much as I love the idea of having an army of robots working feverishly to bring me riches, my conscience prevents me from doing it.

I wish more people (like those involved in high frequency / algorithmic trading) would share such ethics.

<comment><USER4> What is unconscionable about algorithmic trading?</comment></comment>


Microsoft says : "Bing is now as good as Google" - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/microsoft-bing-v-google/

<comment><USER3> I don't believe that it is.

I feel like search queries can be divided broadly into two categories: general and specific. General queries are things like "what is python" or "java tutorial". These are subjects that are well known and have a lot of relevant information on the web. Specific queries are queries things that you and maybe a few hundred people in the world have ever encountered. Think: really esoteric programming erors.

What I believe - and I don't have any hard facts to back it up past my own experience, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt - is that Bing excels in the first category but not the second.

The other day I was doing some schoolwork involving SSL, where I had to write a man in the middle proxy. I ran into this really bizarre error message: "valid not before not set." I had no idea what it meant, and since I was using a proxy SSL server for the assignment I ended up using bing to search for it - no results. Google has exactly 1 result for that phrase, but it's the one that you need to get back on track.

This happened often throughout the project. Bing gives pretty good results; I certainly don't wish to disparage the website. But whenever I started running into really esoteric or weird bugs, Google turned up the right page time and time again. Bing felt like it was taking a hazy guess at the right answer.

These are the specific queries, and this is where Google stays ahead. I've used Bing in the past for a month or two; I've also used duckduckgo. Both are very good. I certainly don't consider myself anything of a google fanboy, for that matter. But when it comes to specific queries, I still can't find a search engine that holds a candle to Google.

<comment><USER4> I've been trying duckduckgo for a month now and I'm definitely not getting as good results for my "esoteric programming errors" as I hoped I would. I'm also shocked at how much I used google image search, losing that has been a shock.

Now I switched away from Google due to privacy issues so Bing does nothing to improve that. I have a little more faith in Duckduckgo, but it is definitely lagging on features and relevance for me so I don't know how long it's going to be my default search.

<comment><USER5> What's great w/ DDG is if you want a google image search, you append !gi bing images !bi and !g for redirecting to Google !b for bing. !m for google maps. So basically you give a small guy a chance and it's decent enough. When it isn't the shortcut is great for the big boys.

And for programming, Duck Duck Go is the best because you append !so and it takes you to stackoverflow. Google values SO scrapers higher than SO.

That said, if you don't learn the shortcuts, you are missing out.

Also, after listening to a talk by Stoyan Stefanov (it's on IT Conversations) I realized that what makes Google so useful subconsciously is their subsecond response time. This is my biggest problem w/ ddg.

That said, I went to a meetup tonight by an Xoogler. He was mentioning that they have an internal query tool that will query a trillion records in a second. I wonder if Bing has the same...

<comment><USER6> _Google values SO scrapers higher than SO._

Wasn't this fixed years ago? I haven't seen SO scrapers in ages, and I get a lot of SO results from both my personal and work Google accounts. (I definitely blocked them from my personal account ages ago, but I've never blocked anything from my work account.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it just as good, actually.

There's always the point, though, that you can't be "just as good as" an entrenched player to win. You've got to change the entire nature of the playing field.

So long as MS doesn't do that, it's "lost" (for certain definitions of lost that include making hundreds of millions of dollars).

<comment><USER8> The article was about how the companies (and people) behind it go about developing search engine technology. It barely mentions market share.

There's probably interesting things to say about it if we can avoid the rut of the old familiar "which of /Google|Microsoft|Apple|Facebook/ will winner-take- all in the market battle with for /Search|Advertising|Desktop|Mobile|Social/" discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Everyone who says Bing is better or Google is better should try a blind test.

<http://blindsearch.fejus.com/>

<comment><USER10> That test only compares the result links. It's missing a significant chunk of the experience: autocomplete, instant results, highlighting, social results, best-guess results, calculator functions, etc. It would have been a decent blind test maybe ten years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've tried it numerous times, usually every time I read another report about it being as accurate as Google. I have never found that to be the case. I tried it again today and as usual, the results were much less than helpful (particularly when searching for computer problem solutions).

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe I'm doing something wrong but just based on submitting sitemaps to google and bing I'm going to have to disagree with this statement. Google has successfully indexed over 1.2 million pages that I've told it about. Bing fails every time trying to read the sitemap files (says they are empty?? the same ones google uses...) and has only indexed about 3,000 pages.

I'm going to just go out on a limb here and say this statement is false. They can't even index pages you tell it about.

(If you're curious my site is <http://socialblade.com/youtube> and the 1.2 million plus pages indexed are statistics on youtube channels)

<comment><USER13> _1.2 million plus pages indexed_

Oh, please. This site is a content farm. You've even have placeholder images saying "ADVERTISE HERE". Why should Bing - or Google - index this? What value does a search result to your site give to a user who most likely is searching for actual videos?

<comment><USER12> A content farm exists to take existing content and farm it out for people to find with no additional value. That's not at all what my site is. My site allows any youtube user to track their statistics and compare themselves with any other user on the site. Every user in the database (over 215k right now) gets updated at least once a day by querying youtube's api and ranks are updated, etc. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who use the site daily to track said data. Very different then a content farm that just tricks people serving up recycled videos. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been using bing quite a lot recently as google is sporadically blocked in China. Coincidentally I was remarking to myself this morning how incredibly poor the results are compared to google

Time for duckduckgo

<comment><USER13> The Chinese version is apparently in beta. Try with the version set to USA: <http://www.bing.com/?setmkt=en-us>

<comment><USER14> thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find the Bing photo of the day much more interesting than the Google Doodle. Its something so simple, but the results are so comparable at this point (commoditized?) that the photo vs doodle stands out for me. I do however still use Google for 2 kinds of searches: the exact odd page search (ie I know I have seen on blog x a story about SignalR etc) and "define:" queries to get definitions. Other than that though Bing or a direct wikipedia search suffices pretty damn well in almost all other cases.

</comment><comment><USER16> The claim in the title is not made in the article.

</comment><comment><USER17> My first acid test for search engines, other than a baseline performance speed, for 15 years has been simple: search for myself.

Whoever finds either the most up-to-date or most results about me in the first page of results, gets my (reluctant) vote as my default search engine.

This is not because of any particular vain reason but my name is esoteric enough to be almost unique and with time, despite my careful attempts, I have ended up leaving a significant Internet trail.

Fortunately, only one search engine always finds details about me: Google.

Bing shows ZERO results about me, after even 10 default pages!

However, I would still use Google over other search engines for one reason alone: _date-ranged searching_. This is very useful for many reasons.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd argue differently. At least according to CloudFlare, Google Bot crawls my site (<http://tshock.co/>) literally ten times more frequently than the second place leader, and that's Baidu.

To each their own.

</comment><comment><USER19> In other news, Pepsi says "Pepsi is now as good as Coke". </sarcasm>

First, why should you believe them? Second, even if they're right, why does it matter? "As good as" isn't a good enough reason to switch for most people.

</comment><comment><USER20> The problem with Bing is not that it is not as good as Google, but rather that it IS NOT Google. People who are used to Google's design and have a bag of trick that they associate with it will not switch over to Bing even if statistical evidence finds it's results to be more relevant for all searches. Google will stay good enough for most of it's users for years to come.

</comment><comment><USER21> 'freshness' may be as good as Google, but unfortunately 'relevance' is still way, way worse...

</comment><comment><USER22> "is now at leas on par with google"

I think this is the problem, by playing catchup, innovation has taken a back seat. Being on par with google is a subpar goal for a competitor.

It's somewhat similar to google plus trying to catch up to facebook.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hmm. I think I'll give it a try and replace my default search for a week or so and see how the results are. I imagine I go to Google more out of habit than quality. We shall see.

</comment><comment><USER24> I doubt the claims about being 'as good as', in this article, but It is a very well written and informative article about the internals of search engines.

</comment><comment><USER25> Bing? What's that? As good as? Seriously? That's the goal now? I'm not a Google fan but guess who I'm not a fan of.

<comment><USER26> "I'm not a Google fan but guess who I'm not a fan of."

Uhm.. Google?

Easiest. Quiz. Ever.

<comment><USER25> hehe ah ok good catch. Well no I meant Microsoft, what I was saying was that I'm not a huge fan of Google but I am somewhat of a fan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Well, I'm glad that Microsoft tells us that.

</comment><comment><USER28> The moment you publicly compare yourself to the dominant player in your field, you have lost.

<comment><USER29> Well, Apple ran those annoying Mac vs PC ads. And while the ads themselves may or may not have worked well, Apple has not _lost_ in the personal computer field. (Well, depending on how you define "lost" I guess. But I think they haven't lost by most definitions.)

<comment><USER30> Considering they've stopped running those ads since gaining a ton of traction in the PC industry over the past few years, I think those ads are probably supporting evidence of GP's claim (if anything), not a counter-example.

Edit: I went back and actually reread what GP said and realized I was wrong if interpreted literally, but I took it to mean something more like "you know you're currently losing when you compare yourself to the competition". But yeah, my bad, you're definitely right under the literal interpretation - <USER2> didn't lose and may actually win at the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> But not as famous as Google.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's pretty good, but I wish it was as pretty on the desktop as it is on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER33> "The company's Caffeine index spans 100 million gigabytes of data ... "

That's a painful number. I wonder what Facebook's image data store is up to these days.

</comment><comment><USER34> Microsoft says a lot of things that aren't true.

</comment><comment><USER35> AHAHAHAHHAHA AHAHAHHAHAHHAAHHA AHAHAHAHAHH breath AHAHHAHHAAHAH AHAHAHAHAH</comment>


How the "Earth's worst app" predicted the millennial vote in the 2016 Election - <AUTHOR> http://stories.whatsgoodly.com/index.php/2016/11/14/earths-worst-app-predicted-millennial-vote/?2 <comment><USER2> Doesn't seem like the worst app at all lol</comment>


Bill Gates Has Started a New Company, bgC3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/bill_gates_new_company.php

<comment><USER2> Ah, I see. Before they even have a public website, they made sure to trademark their logo.

edit: doh! Teaches me for trusting the story.

<comment><USER3> They do have a public website: <http://bgC3.com>

Admittedly, the only thing on there _is_ the logo.

<comment><USER4> Nice, 70% jpeg compression, 1997 html markup.

<comment><USER5> <http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9776/bgc3ya3.png>

Makes all the difference, doesn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill Why does the logo remind me of the Zune logo squished together?

</comment><comment><USER6> wonder if its a VC type fund, and if it'll fund non-.net stuff</comment>


A nude awakening — TSA and privacy - <AUTHOR> http://oudaily.com/news/2010/dec/06/column-nude-awakening-tsa-and-privacy/

<comment><USER2> i've been tracking articles on the TSA in my delicious links, and there have been a steady stream from colleges, almost all against the new policies.</comment>


Atom Packages Directory - <AUTHOR> http://atom-packages.directory <comment><USER2> Wow, that ecosystem grows fast.

There is often a quite negative response to Github's decision to base Atom on a HTML/Javascript/CSS stack, due to the performance hit.

But it seems that it attracted a lot of developers to work for the platform.</comment>


The delusion is thinking that SpaceX is going to lead the space frontier - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/24/9792854/neil-degrasse-tyson-interview-delusions-of-space-enthusiasts <comment><USER2> I feel like NDT had a word quotient for 'delusion', or does he always speak like that.

Not all dreams are delusions.

I particularly like how he started out saying he is horrible at predictions, and then continued to make predictions.

Where I think his specific comment regarding SpaceX MIGHT be flawed is that SpaceX isn't a company that is building a rocket to the moon. SpaceX is a company that puts things in space. It makes deliveries to the space station, launches satellites, etc.

It has the potential to get people to Mars and it's leader openly discusses that he wants to do that. But he hasn't laid out the step-by-step plan to get there. SpaceX, as far as I know, doesn't have a ship designed to go to Mars, they're still working on the near-space goals.

Apple didn't start in 1976 and start building an iPhone. They started with what was possible at the time, and continued building their technology, expertise and bank account so that when the time came, they were ready.

Of course, people will probably shout "that isn't true", but I suggest it is because we all likely knew that one day we would be carrying computers in our pockets, just like we 'know' that one day we won't be carry computers in our pockets and they will just be ubiquitous. Just like SpaceX doesn't have designs for a ship to Mars, they know that one day we'll go there, and they have that keenly in their sights as a long-term vision.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's probably not what you're thinking (technology leadership failure):

> _The delusion is thinking that SpaceX is going to lead the space frontier. > That's just not going to happen, and it's not going to happen for three > really good reasons: One, it is very expensive. Two, it is very dangerous to > do it first. Three, there is essentially no return on that investment that > you've put in for having done it first. So if you're going to bring in > investors or venture capitalists and say, "Hey, I have an idea, I want to > put the first humans on Mars." They'll ask, "How much will it cost?" You > say, "A lot." They'll ask, "Is it dangerous?" You'll say, "Yes, people will > probably die." They'll ask, "What's the return on investment?" and you'll > say "Probably nothing, initially." It's a five-minute meeting. Corporations > need business models, and they need to satisfy shareholders, public or > private._</comment>


Ask HN: My company is building an entry Amazon go, what sucks about checkout? - <AUTHOR> My company, forage.ai, is building a mobile solution for checkout.<p>I'd like to ask hacker news: Whats the worst part about checking out today and how do you solve that problem today? <comment><USER2> On the internet, or in person?

The former has to be playing the stupid dance of setting up an account, confirming my email, punching in my address, my city, my state, and then my zip code (which the prior two can be derived from!), digging out my credit card, punching it in, and then clicking buy. Way too many steps; I'll shop at Amazon even if it costs slightly more due to "click button, receive goods."

If you're referring to in-person, hoo doggy. The lines and the inefficiency. If your solution involves me interacting with a check-out clerk and my mobile phone, forget it; the person in front of me is trying to pay with a check and can't figure that out; I'm not going to hold up the line yet further instead of throwing a credit card at the attendant.

Does that answer your question?

<comment><AUTHOR> That does, thank you so much for the feedback</comment></comment>


NASA to announce new discoveries about ocean worlds - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/us/nasa-announcement-ocean-worlds-trnd/ <comment><USER2> > NASA will present new discoveries about the ocean worlds in our solar system

Perhaps "in our solar system" should be added to the title. That is a much different story than "ocean worlds" elsewhere.</comment>


Show HN: Worldbuilding Experiments with GPT-3 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/indentlabs/gpt-3-experiments <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all! I've been working to integrate GPT-3 into Notebook.ai for the past couple days and decided to publish this repo, which is effectively my notes on what prompts/settings work for generating various core pieces of fictional worldbuilding (characters, creatures, plants, governments, superpowers, etc). It's set up as a bunch of "experiments" so I can toy with different domains and prompt formats and each one generates outputs at 4 different temperatures (effectively, amounts of randomness/chaos/creativity).

In addition to creating new pages, I'm also experimenting with ways to expand on existing pages in the world with GPT-3 and the repo includes two different approaches: an "expander" which adds multiple unguided field/values (e.g. adding hair color/style to a character) and a "suggester" which takes a page and a field and suggests answers to that specific field (e.g. suggesting answers to a "Prejudices" field on a particular character).

The plan is to use GPT-3 to let users easily expand their world by using their existing notebook pages in the various prompt formats. Based on this testing, this should be a good way to generate these new worldbuilding pages (characters, creatures, etc) within the genre and style of the existing world and build off existing content (for example, creating characters that work in already-established towns, creating foods from existing creatures, etc).

Obviously, a proper demo needs a partially-created world to work with, but I think the repo does a good job demonstrating the exciting possibilities of this specific use-case with GPT-3.

</comment><comment><USER2> Broken link. Repo might be private.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, you were absolutely correct. Forgot it was even private in the first place. It's public now. Thanks!</comment></comment>


How a bedroom developer's 'ugly little game' became an App Store hit - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/04/luca-redwood

<comment><USER2> I love stories like this. Personally, it's very difficult for me to focus on one project and get it to the point where it's completely awesome and people love it. In the past year I've worked on <http://openhercules.com/> , <http://emailegg.com> , <http://omgsmackdown.com/> , <http://www.whoopsapp.com/> . I've also spent time working on a multiplayer game in common lisp and just this weekend I finished putting together my first desktop app. Perhaps the most successful site I've made is <http://happyjobsearch.com/> , followed by <http://visualmess.com> .

Which is all to say that while I spend a lot of time on side projects, I have a hard time getting from "this is good enough to show people" to "people love this and want to show other people." Saying no to all the ideas that are always bouncing around in my head so that I can focus on just one, like the guy in the article, always feels painful and risky. My internal dialogue goes, "What if this idea doesn't work out? I should just move on to the next one. That way I'm at least learning something new." What's more, when I initially release a site and it doesn't get any traction, my response is almost always to mentally run from it so that I don't have to experience the pain of disappointment.

How do people deal with that?

<comment><USER3> Dev here. I never expected it to do well or sell at all. The way I looked at it is like this "I'll roll the dice, probably won't work out but I'll give it a shot"

I think in general you've just got to get it wrong. If you look at other games by EEG, you'll see "RollRover" - a terrible terrible little puzzle game that didnt even sell 50 copies, Why do we fall Mr Wayne?

Having said that, the biggest part was luck. right place/time etc

<comment><USER4> Congrats Luca, you have achieved the ultimate goal! If you don't mind me asking, whats next?

<comment><USER3> Updates with a bit more content ( challenges room / gamecenter ) and the android version

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had a tremendous amount of fun with 10000000. It worked as a fun little joke about upgrading EVERYTHING, it's got a zippy little feeling to play, and not a pixel onscreen in wasted.

And... even though once I beat it I wished there was another level, I found it refreshing that it simply ended and I got to watch the credits like an old NES game.

I knew nothing about the guy's story, so this was kind of heartwarming.

<comment><USER6> If you like this, you might like Dungeon Raid even more. Similar idea: puzzle match, dungeon-crawl theme. But much more addictive, and deeper.

EDIT: fixed the name

<comment><USER5> Yes, indeed I do love Dungeon Raid already and have poured countless hours into it. I almost have every class upgraded to level 10. If there was a sequel I would buy it tomorrow. 10000000 was a breath of fresh air. I'm a little sad DR hasn't come up with a sequel or at least some updated content. It's a good game with very deep strategy and surprisingly a lot of content in a way, but now that I'm mostly through it I'm wishing for more.

These games hit a certain sweet spot for me in that you play in short sessions but there's a long term progress you can work towards. That way even when I'm tired on the subway I can chug slowly forward and still feel like I'm making progess. Other times I can rejoice in playing with zenlike brilliance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Presumably this game took off because Eli Hodapp of TouchArcade covered it. But according to <http://toucharcade.com/2012/07/26/10000000-review/>, Hodapp discovered it via the TouchArcade app's Hot New Games list.

Does anyone know how games make it to that list?

</comment><comment><USER8> Ugly little game? Screw you, Wired.

It's retro, not ugly.

<comment><USER9> It's... Fairly ugly. Lots of "retro" games are beautiful. This one isn't.

<comment><USER10> And a lot of "beautiful" games are quite boring to play. Even if this game is "ugly", does it make it less fun to play? Personally, a game like this is inspiring because it means that it is possible to make a successful game without spending a lot of resources on graphics, and focusing more on gameplay.

<comment><USER11> That wasn't the debate. It was more that it's retro and ugly but being retro isn't what made it ugly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >"I haven't played any games at all in the last year. I worked on 10000000. That was the deal I made with my wife -- I would make the game but that was it, it was my project." Luca Redwood spent a year in monastic isolation with no free time distractions besides new prototypes of 1000000, getting a little better each time.

I really envy this kind of drive. My dream is to be that "bedroom programmer" making small games and it seems like there is simply no time.

<comment><USER13> There's time, you just have to figure out where else you're spending it.

Cut out any free overtime at work, cut out TV, cut out video games and books... and there's a lot of time.

I think it would have been a different story for the Luca Redwood if he had a toddler vs having a pregnant wife

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds like he had his fill of the game but couldn't bear to stop until it was finished.

 _"Some people said to me that they wanted to play more," Redwood told me. "It's great that they like the game but, you've finished. You're done."_

I bet he took the FREEDOM tag from a sticky note attached to his monitor.

</comment><comment><USER15> Congratulations to the developer! This is a great story to boost my resolve to finish writing my little game. I also used to work in finance and kept daydreaming about something like this. Some of my friends have published games on the app store but without much luck. Crossing fingers...

</comment><comment><USER16> I was just watching a gameplay review on Touch Arcade and, man, this game looks fun.

One more reason I need trade in my Android for an iPhone.

<http://toucharcade.com/2012/07/26/10000000-review/>

</comment><comment><USER17> What amazed me is that "Bejeweled" has become an entire genre, like "platformer". The original isn't just cloned, it becomes a foundation for larger games.

<comment><USER18> This happened with Doom, too. For a long time, every FPS that came out was called a "Doom clone"; there was no such thing as "FPS" as a genre.

It's fun to think of games that create genres and those that don't: the "Tetris" genre never really caught on like the "Doom" genre or the "Bejeweled" genre. Yes, yes, there's Dr. Mario and a host of other clones, but I get the feeling that FPS and Match 3 are gonna be around a long, long time.

<comment><USER19> Bejeweled is a Tetris clone in some ways. They're all "puzzle" games, check out how similar Bejeweled is to Tetris Attack or Meteos.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: VineRoulette - Vine Search and Full Screen Visualization - <AUTHOR> http://www.vineroulette.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Inspired by VinePeek I decided to work on this "Vine Twitter Wall" this weekend. Thanks to Danso on HN for the name suggestion. Hope you like the project - would love to get some feedback

</comment><comment><USER2> VineRoulette currently requires Silverlight. Why?

<comment><AUTHOR> The visualization is based on a previous project of mine which I adapted to Vine (previous project was built in Silverlight couple of years ago). I'm working on a HTML5 + tablet version, but that might still take a couple of weeks.</comment></comment>


Artists Build Secret Apt in the Mall, Prov RI - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2007/10/02/artist_gets_probation_for_building_secret_mall_apartment/ The Article: http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2007/...
 Pics and a video
http://www.trummerkind.com/mall/Living_in_the_Mall.html <comment><AUTHOR> Links to the project and pics: <http://www.trummerkind.com/mall/Living_in_the_Mall.html>

</comment><comment><USER2> Wow. That's an amazing project. I used to live in providence, I've been to this mall, and this has got to be the coolest thing that's ever been in it.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I have grown exponentially from having this opportunity and it has been a major and most valuable part of my life and imagination." --Artist

Do you think he's making a secret _in_ joke, that, even though his growth is exponential, it was in negative part of the abscissa, where the total growth is negligble?

</comment><comment><USER4> To this day, my favorite hacking tool is a brick.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good idea for saving money for your startup!</comment>


Facebook won't release Russia-linked ads despite call to do by US investigators - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-wont-release-russia-linked-ads-publicly-2017-10 <comment><USER2> I believe the issue here is "publicly" releasing the ads. FB just had a trending story yesterday about turning the ads over to investigators.

Bad title perhaps? Title from article: "Facebook refuses government request to publicly release Russia-linked election ads"</comment>


Which node.js apps have you made? - <AUTHOR>

I've been working on my free time with node.js quite heavily, but I really wanted to know how many of you have real projects with node.js that are already deployed and working.
Do node.js reach all your expectations?
Mine is www.parkuik.com, just a wiki-like parking finder with an upcoming cool android app :) <comment><USER2> I have a number of webservesr running on my host, each listening on 127.0.0.1 - this means I get security, as each webserver is running under its own UID.

Rather than using apache + mod_proxy to route incoming requests I wrote a HTTP reverse-proxy using node:

<http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/node-reverse-proxy/>

Otherwise I wrote a deamon which listens for UDP messages and inserts them into a redis set. This allows me to send messages like "User logged in", "User logged out", and display them in real-time for a dashboard. The following article was written to demonstrate the concept:

[http://www.debian- administration.org/article/682/Building_a_...](http://www.debian- administration.org/article/682/Building_a_simple_dashboard_with_redis_and_the_node.js_server).

</comment><comment><USER3> The real-time dashboard for W3Counter runs on node.js [1].

I also put together Bookmarkly [2] when I was learning Backbone.js; the server-side of it is node.js. The code's on github [3].

1: <http://www.w3counter.com/features/pro>

2: <http://bookmarkly.com>

3: <https://github.com/dangrossman/Bookmarkly></comment>


Java as a CESK machine - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/oo-cesk/

<comment><USER2> I'm curious how quickly someone will post a parser to run this interpreter, perhaps using javaparser (LGPL on the web <http://code.google.com/p/javaparser/> and in Maven: com.google.code.javaparser:javaparser:1.0.8).</comment>