Microsoft offers ad-free Bing for the classroom to battle Google - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-offers-ad-free-bing-classroom-battle-google-102402977.html

<comment><USER3> " _Google in December announced a program to give its Chromebook computers to schools for $99 each._ "

That's an interesting use of "give."

Anyway, the idea of an ad free search engine hits right at the heart of Google's business. While I know many adults who are unconcerned about their own online privacy, many of them have serious concerns about their children's.

Google is entangled with Schmidt's creepy line.

<comment><USER4> I don't see how targeting children with an adfree product with the stated intention of turning them into lifetime Bing users (with ads) is improving on Google's creepiness.

<comment><USER5> I don't think Microsoft's main goal is to indoctrinate the youth (though that's a desirable aim for them, I'm sure).

Their goal is to "cut off the air supply" to Google… just like Google's goal with ChromeOS (and the $249 Chromebooks) is to cut off Microsoft/Apple's profits.

As consumers, sometimes we get a nice deal out of the infighting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was probably a pretty easy decision for Bing to make. Really, how much ad revenue are they missing by not showing adds to students at school:)

<comment><USER7> Actually I wonder why doesn't Microsoft do it for every one? No tracking, no ads just plain old good results. Google has been attacking Microsoft with its scorched earth strategy in many areas (google docs, chrome OS, etc.) And given that google is just a one trick pony, this might affect them more.

<comment><USER8> Attacking someone in many areas is a pretty neat trick for a one-trick pony to learn.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure if you are trolling but..

If you are seriously calling Microsoft a one trick pony please consider the wide variety of services, software and hardware that they provide.

\- developes Desktop, Tablet, phone and server OS's

\- develops Development tools

\- designs their own keyboards and mouse hardware

\- sells a video game console

\- runs one of the largest online email providers

\- runs a huge online gameing network

\- runs one of the largest SAAS/PAAS networks(Azure)

\- develops one of the most popular web servers

\- develops their own web sdk(asp.net)

\- runs a huge network of conferences

\- runs their own book publishing arm ....

I've got another 10 or so off the top of my head. Microsoft has many warts, but in no way can you call it a one trick pony.

<comment><USER8> No, I'm replying to someone who simultaneously called Google a one-trick pony and suggested that they're attacking Microsoft on many fronts, which seemed like an odd kind of thing for a one-trick pony to be able to do.

Don't know why you got the idea I was referring to Microsoft at all.

Edit: To clarify, and before I get another laundry list of achievements, I clearly don't think Google is one either.

<comment><USER9> I believe that user was referring to Google as a one trick pony in regards to their primary revenue stream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The (ahem) reputation that Bing's image search is starting to get is probably not going to help them with this initiative.

<comment><USER11> Can you elaborate? People are turning for Bing for image searches for "research" purposes since google disabled the disabling of the content filter in the US?

<comment><USER10> Apparently people find Bing to be wildly better than Google when searching for porn. It is beginning to get something of a reputation for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ah the McDonalds strategy, hook em in as kids keep em as customers when they're adults.

<comment><USER3> More relevant, this has long been Apple's strategy. One which has evolved from primary education onto college campuses by following the money - money in the form of student loans.

<comment><USER13> I don't know if that's what got people hooked though. I remember using Apples as a kid at school, hated them, used PC's up until college and Apple introduced the Mac Air, at which point I switched and haven't looked back.

I don't know if it's the McDonald's strategy either---kids love McDonalds, then grow out of them.

I'd say it's more like the tobacco industry's strategy. Most smokers I know got hooked as kids and couldn't quit after growing up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As part of the program, Microsoft will also offer free Surface tablets...

Because they can't sell them... this is just PR garbage.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not sure I understand this - if a school so desperately wants ad-free search, just deploy an adblock plugin to the school's browsers? It's a very strange thing to 'give away' as an incentive.

<comment><USER3> Microsoft is providing an institutional scaled solution to solve institutional scale problems. Students don't just search on school computers. They search from home, and often their school's website serves as an entry portal - eg. the student fires up the browser on their home computer with a link to a school or class web page. This provides a familiar starting point for continuing the lesson from home.

Why? Well that's a reasonably safe way for parents to allow computer use with less supervision. It's not quite a walled garden, but at least there's a shared interest among the adults.

In other words, Microsoft is helping school districts solve the problem of solving problems for parents - and without having to stipulate which browser people use at home or in the classroom - many mobile browsers do not allow plugins.

<comment><USER16> But does it matter _that much_...Most schools are using Win7 (or, sadly, Vista) at this point and I would wager most set IE as the default browser. As most educational networked software targets IE. Many of the 'secured' browser based exam companies base their model around IE. And most schools don't allow you to change the default browser (at least in a way that persists across logins)

<comment><USER3> At home, kids use iPads and Android phones, etc. Schools often provide a portal and children use that portal both out of habit and at the direction of their parents.

And as public institutions [under the US system] parents look to the schools both to provide proper resources for completing out of school assignments and are willing to assign blame for technological issues which are for practical matter beyond the school's control - i.e what comes across the student's browser while sitting at the kitchen table.

Outside the bubble, most people are not that tech savvy and the trend is toward passive use of browsing devices not managing plug-ins and maintaining browser side scripts. And outside the bubble, people use school websites as portals - the schools are setting them up that way.

Microsoft is marketing something simple - if you get advertizing you clicked on the wrong link. That can be explained to the principal, the teacher in the classroom, the student, their dad, and the president of the school board - <USER2> without much more than those literal words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I can't help but feel that this is typical of Microsoft's sales/PR team.

Generate a false problem: "You don't wan't ads on your search engine do you!?"

Claim to have a solution: "You can use Bing! We don't have ads for students!"

As a systems admin for a large school district, I'm very comfortable stating that what Microsoft and Apple offer to education is a joke compared to Google's offerings.

Not even comparable products.

<comment><USER18> I'm curious, what do you feel "Google's offerings" are when it comes to education?

I'm asking because besides search, and the ability to search effectively, which I think is a very necessary skill for a modern education, I've never considered Google as company with educational offerings.

<comment><USER17> Chromebooks solve 90% of the issues the average school district faces (How do I build collaborative works?(Docs/Drive) How do I ensure student files are protected? (Drive) How do I handle deployment? Imaging and servicing 3000-7000 windows computers requires a pretty substantial professional IT department in the business world - I've worked in several schools that handle that volume with teams ranging from 2 to 5.

So when Google comes along and says "Hey, for $199 here's a system that has an expected life of 2 years, minimal deployment overhead and integrated services that connect to your existing AD infrastructure"

It's a no brainer. Chromebooks will, without question, be dominant in schools everywhere in the next 2 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> On Yahoo news? Really?</comment>


Slime - <AUTHOR> http://wingolog.org/archives/2006/01/02/slime <comment><USER2> I assume you're posting this one because of the reddit article. I've probably had as many (or half as many -- anyway, on the big-O) reads of that article in the past day due to reddit as in the previous two years, <i>probably because of the reddit title</i>.

Yes, titlebaiting is a problem. But titlecrappiness is too, and I definitely have that, and you have propagated it ;-) The article is about slime, the emacs lisp mode, in a particular context -- a concept that is poorly conveyed by the title.

Mostly my fault, but marginally yours also for not having the decency to give it a more appropriate title ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the article. I liked it. I thought that everyone here knew what 'slime' stands for. Anyway, you can submit your post again appending some dummy query string to the url.</comment></comment>


Dressers keep killing kids. So IKEA is finally redesigning them - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90358552/dressers-keep-killing-kids-so-ikea-is-finally-redesigning-them <comment><USER2> This is a great thing to see. When we were kids, my brother crawled into a dresser drawer when we were playing around. His weight on the open drawer caused the dresser to fall forward, trapping him inside a partially closed drawer. I barely got out of the way before it fell on me. And, being a huge wooden dresser, my mother couldn't lift it herself to get him out.

If it had fallen differently we both could have died, and there was nothing wrong with the dresser itself. We were just dumb kids who liked climbing in things. It's one of my earliest vivid memories.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess not even parents screw them to the wall. The fixtures have always been included, and the manual warns owners to fix the furniture to the wall.

<comment><USER4> We tried with these Ikea models, but couldn't do it. Our apartment walls are very dense, and it's almost impossible to drive a screw through.

<comment><USER5> Did you try with power tools? You can drive screws through concrete... Maybe try again or ask someone for help?

<comment><USER6> You can drive screws through a pipe or cable, but I don't suggest doing so. When there is a will, there is a way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dfeojm-zlib Nice. About time. I think I've seen this feature in some filing cabinets.

When I was a kid, I had a heavy metal dresser that was prone to being top- heavy and falling over with just any second drawer barely out of place (the drawers were difficult to move).

</comment><comment><USER7> In these kind of cases they always seem to treat it as an accident and not prosecute the parents. I wonder if that is actually an effective strategy.

<comment><USER8> If protecting your kids from injury or death isn't sufficient incentive, I don't really think prosecution will make a difference.

But I'm curious why parents aren't anchoring these to the walls in the first place. I don't think it's malice. Ignorance? Too much trouble? Not handy enough to do it themselves? Believing the drawers won't fall over?

(I'm a parent and had IKEA furniture when our kids were young and I anchored it, but I'm handy and like to think responsible.)

<comment><USER9> My guess is that it intuitively seems "unnecessary" to their scale like it won't really tip over and it is for if you actually want it not touching the floor. Unfortunately that isn't the case.</comment></comment></comment>


Burton Malkiel Is Still an Indexing Fan, but a 'Smart Beta' Skeptic - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/burton-malkiel-is-still-an-indexing-fan-but-a-smart-beta-skeptic-1462759220 <comment><USER2> If you haven't read "A Random Walk Down Wall St" you definitely should. Few books actually put money in your retirement pocket. This one really does. Believe it or not...

Really sensible, conservative, well researched and argued stuff. If you disagree, you really want to know why as a sanity check on your idea.</comment>


Florida schools are getting 15 new homeless students per day - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/06/60minutes/main20038927.shtml

<comment><AUTHOR> Saw this on 60 Minutes last night - it's a "must watch".</comment>


Annus Horribilis: A look at what's left after the fire (1666) - <AUTHOR> https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/disaster/annus-horribilis <comment><USER2> This, of course, all came hot on the heels of the Great Plague of 1665. It was not a good year to be a Londoner.

Though they couldn't have known it, these two events were major catalysts in London's renaissance and evolution into a financial and industrial megacity.

There's something remarkably and utterably English, however, that when disaster struck, the first urge was to blame neither god, nor simple misfortune, but the French.</comment>


Brian Williams: Why Jon Stewart Is Good For News - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122375199&sc=fb&cc=fp <comment><USER2> In TFA, Brian Williams mentions Stewart's takedown of Cramer in an interview in which 'the odds were stacked against Jim Cramer'.

This brought to mind a brilliant attack on the now defunct political show "Crossfire", in which Liberals battled Conservatives. In a nutshell, Stewart was brought on as a guest after attacking Crossfire on The Daily Show. Although Stewart is the guest on the show, he takes the offensive and puts the Crossfire hosts at an instant disadvantage. Here's the link: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE>

<comment><USER3> The odds were stacked against the hosts. Cause you know, they are dumb and partisan hacks pretending to be fair under the disguise of a talk show. One of those idiots, Tucker Carlson, never bounced back and lost his job.

<comment><USER4> I guess I don't know what you mean by "never bounced back". Tucker Carlson hosted a show on MSNBC called "Tucker" for multiple years after Crossfire's cancellation, until around the end of 2008 iirc. I think if you get your _own_ TV show, and it runs for a few years, that's "bouncing back".

<comment><USER3> Both of his shows got cancelled. Hence, never bounced back. When you get demoted from a show host to a "panelist", that's not bouncing back. Its like Conan O' Brian doing stand-up gigs after leaving The Tonight Show.

<comment><USER4> Well, at some point that happens to everyone. I think he bounced back, but was dropped again. "bounce back" doesn't have to be permanent; it's not like Tucker never received momentum, it ran for almost three years, which is longer than a lot of shows on cable news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What more and more people have been discovering in the modern age of openness and availability is that much of what we once thought of as serious institutions (televised and written news, for example) are far more style than substance.

The Daily Show's critiques of modern journalism are so devastating because, despite being a fly by night fake news organization with comedy as their main goal, somehow they manage to put on a news show that is nearly as substantive as the competition, merely by accident. And that's due to the fact that in news these days there really isn't much _there_ there. Once you boil away all the high-gloss production values and the special access and the fame and the reputation you find out that at its core there is very little legitimate, original reporting work being done in the mainstream media. Which is understandable, because the big media companies learned long ago that hard journalism is difficult business, costly, and sometimes hard to sell to the viewing public. But the rate of return on glossy production values, infotainment, and pseudogravitas is through the roof.

But these tricks are approaching the limit of their shelf life. The big TV and print news organizations aren't attracting new, young viewers, their viewership has been getting old, and dwindling. They are rapidly approaching becoming inconsequential and that has as much to do with folks like Jon Stewart pulling up the stakes of their circus tent as it does with technology passing them by.

</comment><comment><USER6> One of the commenters makes an interesting point: is Jon Stewart doing what he does because he believes in journalistic integrity, or because he's an entertainer and this is just an act?

I hope for the former, I really do. Maybe I'm not cynical enough.

<comment><USER7> I suspect it began as the later, and the former crept in while they weren't paying attention. If you look at the early shows they didn't give anywhere near the time to current events and politics as recent ones do.

<comment><USER3> Whats the point of writing jokes when news organizations and politicians does it for?

I suspect the editors of the Daily Show has a pretty easy job. It shouldn't be that hard to find materials with the amount of farce available from news organizations and so called journalists.

TV news is a joke with partisan hacks caring more about supporting their team (left or right) as opposed to reporting the news.

Thankfully, I disconnected my cable about 1 year ago (right after the election).

Times are better spent reading books, if I care about any interesting TV shows I can watch it on hulu. Its amazing how muh free time you have when you don't have cable anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Brian Williams is bad for news.

Remember his coming out party? Hurricane Kartina? Remember when he said he didn't know how he would answer his daughters questions about why the government was so racist? I wonder what he ever figured out...</comment>


Ask HN: I want to learn Ruby  - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,<p>I want to learn Ruby, and after I gain some experience or find it interesting, I want to do Rails. What's the best way to learn Ruby? Kindly suggest some good books or manuals. <comment><USER2> The Well-Grounded Rubyist is an introduction that will take you through to a Ruby pro in no time. <http://www.manning.com/black2/>

The official Rails guides are rough but a good resource. <http://guides.rubyonrails.org/>

I wouldn't bother with the official Rails book.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can't go wrong by picking up a copy of "The Ruby Programming Language" and "Agile Web Development with Rails". Between those two books you should be a master in no time.

<comment><USER4> "The Ruby Programming Language" highly recommended. [http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Programming-Language-David- Flanag...](http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Programming-Language-David- Flanagan/dp/0596516177)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The "best way" depends on your current skills, really. Ordered by increasing levels of programming skill, I'd say you should start with one of the following:

1\. _Learn to Program_ by Chris Pine

2\. _Everyday Scripting with Ruby_ by Brian Marick

3\. _Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide_ by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt

An excellent book to build your skills and internalize the common Ruby idioms is _The Ruby Way_ by Hal Fulton.

As others have mentioned, _Agile Web Development with Rails_ is The Book to use for learning Rails.

Of the above, the only book I don't have in one form or another is Chris Pine's (because it is, frankly, well below my skill level). There's an online tutorial by the same name, by the same guy, that can perhaps serve as a substitute -- but the book is much more complete, so if that's suitable to your skill level, I recommend getting the book.

Best o' luck! Ruby is a lot of fun.

<comment><USER6> Chris Pine wrote a great book for non programmers to step into Ruby, it really is well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're already comfortable with another object oriented language then picking up ruby is pretty straight forward, but I'll tell you what worked the best for me. I started out reading some of the above mentioned books, but when it came to sitting down and programming I still felt a bit lost. So I simple started with writing tests for very very simple things. Like test_print_hello_ten_times to teach me how to create an array and loop over it. I basically test drove how to work with the basic building blocks of the language and literally in an hour or two I felt very comfortable working in ruby.

Now I come from a background of doing TDD in java, so your milage my vary, but this was a very natural and easy approach to learning the language.

<comment><USER5> Testing is one reason I think _Everyday Scripting with Ruby_ is such a great book: while it's for someone with a casual acquaintance with programming, it still manages to teach TDD with Ruby in a clear, helpful manner that actually helps the reader internalize it such that the knowledge doesn't just evaporate when the book is done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was in your exact situation a couple of months ago. I recently built my first app, by the guidance from this post.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679959></comment>


Take Instagram filters to the next level with Maxstagram - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mayanklahiri/maxstagram

<comment><USER2> This is neat. Cool work!

But :-) while your headline is justifiably front-page HN worthy, these are _not_ "instagram filters to the next level". Take a look at all the instagram clones, and their filters. The filters suck. They are usually not very nice, and make most photos look worse.

Now of course the people who dislike Instagram will disagree with me, but as a photographer myself, I can see that most of Instagram's filters are lovingly made, and they do something that most people can't match - and it's not for lack of trying to copy them!

In other words, you can't take a bunch of random transformations and hope to get anything remotely like the Instagram filters. These things take a great effort to make.

Again, no criticism intended of your work - more of your headline....

cheers!

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting idea! It would be neat if one were able to select a filter that's already been used (off an editor's pick or an image in the gallery) and apply that particular filter on their image of choice as well. Crowd-sourced selection of the best filters might produce nifty results.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, this would make this way cooler. Maybe someone could turn this into a web app where people vote on the best filters, and you can either make a random filter or choose from a selection of highly-voted filters. Could be very interesting.

edit: I see that this is already a webapp, but the additional functionality I described would still be cool.

<comment><USER5> Genetic algorithm for filter generation with a human fitness function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is cool, very cool.

</comment><comment><USER7> cool but how do i pt it in my android native app?

</comment><comment><USER8> If I get it right, it just uses ImageMagic?

So why is this a HN? ;/

<comment><USER9> What's wrong with "just using ImageMagic"?

<comment><USER8> A simple comandline wrapper of ImageMagic isn't really news. But if enought people like it, it's ok. No news for me</comment></comment></comment>


GitHub was talking to Google but went with Microsoft instead - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/github-interest-from-google-and-others-revenue-about-300-million.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain <comment><USER3> Microsoft, love them or hate them, appear to have been turning over a new leaf for the past while. If trends are to be used as indicators, then it seems the trend is that more and more of Microsoft's projects are becoming more and more open, while it _feels_ like Google is becoming more closed.

Yes, Microsoft still has closed source programs (Windows), and yes, Google still has open source programs (Android, Tensorflow), but the general feeling I'm getting from Google is shrinking away from a commitment to open source on practical grounds.

I don't know if I'm ready to say that I have more respect for Microsoft than Google at this point, but I definitely have more respect for Microsoft than I ever have, and that's the direct result of their recent efforts to embrace the developer community at large.

<comment><USER4> Yeah. That generally how you fool people you are a good person. You do stuff that appears to be good hearted. Companies do that too. Just like politicians.

I can't understand why people today lack the ability to see a scam.

<comment><USER5> Companies don't have souls. They're not intrinsically good or bad, but they may act good or bad depending on the leadership team. When the leadership changes the company's behavior changes along with it.

Nadella's microsoft is not the same as Ballmer's and Gates's microsoft. In Gates' day windows licenses brought in the money, and linux and the web were the dominant threats to microsoft's revenue, completely explaining microsoft's behavior around 2000 that earned them their reputation.

Nadella's microsoft however is a cloud services company, with office 365 and azure bringing in an ever larger slice of the pie, and windows reduced to a single digit percentage of the revenue stream. Cloud services are built on open source. It makes complete financial sense for microsoft to be a strong open source backer now.

<comment><USER6> > Companies don't have souls

Careful there. There is no consensus that humans do have souls. _Personality_ might have been a better word to pick, since what you are describing better fits the idea of personality, but that is dangerous as well.

But regardless of the specific term we want that separates individuals from companies, there is no denying that companies are more then the sum of the individuals they are made of. Group psyche has been proven to prevail through replacement of every member. Though one should not jump to the opposite conclusion either—that companies's behavior remains static through a change in leadership.

<comment><USER7> > Careful there. There is no consensus that humans do have souls.

"Soul" doesn't have to mean "immortal ghost." Humans have souls tautologically; the word is one way of trying to get at something about our experience with ourselves and others. Personality doesn't quite cover it, psyche might be closer, but soul has the depth.

That said, I agree with the premise that human organizations can have a culture that starts to border if not overlap conceptually with "soul."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Out of the list of companies that the article says have expressed an interest in GitHub at one point or another - Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Atlassian and Tencent - I have to say that Microsoft seems the most best fit, especially given their existing work on integrating GitHub with GVFS:

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/microsoft-and- github...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/microsoft-and-github-team- up-to-take-git-virtual-file-system-to-macos-linux/)

<comment><USER9> I'd rather see GitHub grow and buy Docker etc.

<comment><USER10> Microsoft will probably buy Docker too.

<comment><USER11> I think it makes more sense for RedHat to buy Docker, but I wouldn't bet on that happening.

<comment><USER12> Why would anyone buy them when you can just hire away the talent and let it devolve into the moribund consulting agency they've turned it into?

If anything, the failing "Docker the company" probably helps sell their competing implementations of the various OCI specs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I feel it has been better that the more openly "bad" one of the two has acquired Github, because Google has this "don't be evil" face which is the fake one of its two faces, though many still just fall in for it, forgetting it's just another company with commercial interests.

<comment><USER14> They are quietly dropping that image: [https://gizmodo.com/google-removes- nearly-all-mentions-of-do...](https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all- mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393)

<comment><USER15> Bad summary and bad headline. It is not removed. From the very last line of the CoC:

> And remember… don't be evil, and if you see something that you think isn't > right – speak up!

[https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of- conduct.html](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html)

<comment><USER16> To be honest, when I read that I thought of James Damore and got a good laugh out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Makes sense. Google runs a mono-repo. Microsoft ran codeplex[2]. Microsoft wanted to be in Github's space but couldn't compete, so bought the space.

[1]: [https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204032-why-google- stor...](https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204032-why-google-stores- billions-of-lines-of-code-in-a-single-repository/fulltext)

[2]:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodePlex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodePlex)

<comment><USER18> They also have Visual Studio Profiles/Visual Studio Team Services, which appeared to be them trying to enter the space, but, bar people being forced to have a profile to use VS I doubt many are using the team or project features of that. Then there's one of their dev cash cows: Team Foundation Server, which I assume has been dying a slow death over the past few years due to git dominance in the source control space. I moved my team away from the shit show which is TFS for git (not github) several years back now.

So, I suspect this is shoring up their position, reducing the number of man ours needed in competing, and buying the best product on the market.

I wouldn't be surprised if github got more enterprise project management features, where it's a bit light right now, and perhaps more around management of super large projects. As well as tighter integration with Visual Studio (at the project management level, rather than just the source control level) - <USER2> phase out TFS over time.

<comment><USER19> > moved my team away from the shit show which is TFS for git (not github)

TFS also supports git repositories. Do you use TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control) and TFS interchangeably?

<comment><USER18> We left TFS altogether because it was just so terrible, I've lost count of the number of hours lost to that software. We use Gitlab for source control now, Team City for builds, and Target Process for project management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Dodged a bullet on that one.

<comment><USER21> I concur.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> All these comments that MS are going to read your private repos seem really out of place.

it makes zero sense for MS to look at private repos because the moment they are discovered everyone would move off the system.

they also run outlook.com and office online. if they got caught spying they'd lose all corporate customers

</comment><comment><USER23> I find it strange to live in a time when tech people trust MS more than Google, it could be because we think differently about the importance of information tracking, and this is coming from someone that for the past 15 years has used only private/incognito browsers (was a lot of fun back in when Flash was popular and had to manually remove its cookies directory after every session), doesn't have a facebook account, doesn't use social media. But here's something to think about, MS is in a position where they're making a lot of money from closed source software products where a good free open source equivalent would be a direct attack on that revenue stream, which means, there can be many potential conflicts of interest with owning something like GitHub. What do you think would happen in the following scenarios:

\- a researcher discovers a zero day security problem in Office/Windows/etc that affects almost all their products in the last 10 years, tells MS about it but doesn't wait for them to patch it for N months or whatever time they'd take so they push a working exploit/proof of concept on GitHub before the bug is patched. Will MS shut down the project/repository and/or sue the people behind it using IP/time information from their own logs?

\- MS pushes another Windows 10 update that increases tracking, people write programs to work around/disable that and post it on GitHub. MS is arguing that without tracking they cannot determine who is pirating their Windows so they sue the authors. Can they get access to the IPs/times of when the repository was interacted with without a court order? Can they shut down the project on GitHub before waiting for the lawsuit to reach a conclusion?

\- MS develops a new DirectX API that allows for many great things and some very hyped AAA games are already in the pipeline to be released to use it, but the catch is the new API requires Windows 11, a new version that costs money to upgrade to, previous Windows owners cannot use it. A Wine developer implements an emulation of the API on GitHub and releases a DLL build for Windows, suddenly all previous Windows users can play those games. What will MS do about that project?

I feel it's pretty easy to imagine lots of situations where there's a conflict of interest between being a neutral Git repository and being a software company so I can't say I'm very happy with MS purchasing it tho I agree with others that it could have been much worse too :)

<comment><USER24> Here's a today example: there are lots of Windows 10 de-bloaters [1] to remove awful features and telemetry disabling tools [2]. Will these stay up?

[1] [https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat- Windows-10](https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10) [2] [https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking](https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What I find interesting is that IBM and RedHat never entered the picture.

<comment><USER26> I don't think RedHat has enough money to buyout GH like M$ did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Thank goodness for that. If Google had picked up GitHub I would have had to start a migration strategy since their buyout strategy has included killing off the service in < 2 years.

</comment><comment><USER28> Google buys GitHub. 6 months later it launches a new different code hosting site that is tightly tied with Google services. 3 years later new site and GitHub both shut down.

<comment><USER29> Sad but true

"Why do I need a Google+ account to use GitHub?!?"

<comment><USER30> Well nowadays Skype is tied to a Microsoft account.

I look forward to the pull requests from Xbox Live users. Commit message: "You suck, you n00b loser. I f __*ed your mom. "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just three years ago Sourceforge got all the rage, and I do mean rage, and a lot of people were giving all the love to Github.

IMHO the cost of self hosting your projects has been too low for many years now to give control of your web presence to a third party.

<comment><USER32> The cost of self-hosting your projects remains gargantuan if you want to do a decent reliable job.

<comment><USER31> The vast majority of projects do not require reliability above what can be simply and cheaply achieved. If/once your project gets to the point where reliability is a concern, that's the exact reason you wouldn't want to rely on a free/cheap 3rd party. The case in point is the one I referred to, GIMP had already seen SourceForge as an issue and had abandoned them over two years before the incident. And lots of other projects have taken on the task of hosting their own. However "gargantuan" the task may be, it's still usually a drop in the bucket compared to the overall project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In this case I prefer Microsoft than Google. They both spy on us, but Google has a much more complete profile of me.

<comment><USER34> Not to mention Google's habit of buying stuff, getting bored and canning it.

<comment><USER35> Or making 9 different versions of the same thing like they have done with messaging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> i just feel dirty logging into github now.

<comment><USER37> Why? Nothing about the service has changed.

<comment><USER36> indeed nothing has changed overnight. youre telling me it will stay that way?

the reason 'why' is that GH is no longer independent. there are thousands of comments on all the related posts here on hn for you to figure out why that might be significant..

<comment><USER37> You said you felt dirty now, in advance of anything actually happening. Why not wait for some sign that random internet FUD is actually happening?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Don't you guys think that GitHub was meant to give heads up about acquisition to its subscribers, at least to premium users? Yes this would give away the whole "secret" but if acquirer is some evil corp? Or a foreign entity? I feel like there is an important law missing regarding acquisition of companies who run premium plans.

<comment><USER39> Or even just "there are certain companies I don't trust enough to let them see what's in my private repos".

<comment><USER8> Well GitLab is hosted on Azure, so you're out of luck there if you're that paranoid.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to handle emails from customers? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an independent software developer. Most of the emails I get are feature requests. When I implement a new feature, I will search my email archive and contact everybody who asked for it (sometimes months after they contacted me).
Right now I use OmniOutliner to keep a list of requests, and manually add names of people who requested it.
Can you think of a more streamlined solution?
I've looked at issue trackers, but most of them are horrible to use and often require people to sign up on a website rather than just sending an email.
I've looked at CRMs, but they seem to be focused only on sales.
Is there a tool that will help me stay in contact with customers even when I'm not trying to sell them something? <comment><USER2> "Is there a tool that will help me stay in contact with customers even when I'm not trying to sell them something?"

For something email-based, that does not require your users to signup for something, and helps you manage feature and support requests, I can't recommend FogBugz highly enough.

That being said, I am sure you will still need to do some manual copying of email addresses to the primary ticket for a feature --- I don't think there is a tool out there that will do this for you without user sign-up (e.g. User Voice).

I've deployed FogBugz for a small IT firm with a large IT-phobic user base - and it works very well; and it comes with wikis, discussions groups, and other features.

Also, for a 1-2 developers, it's free.

</comment><comment><USER3> My team has been using Freshdesk for about a year and it is killer. By default, your user creates an account to view tickets and communicate, but it is also highly customizable- we've changed all the settings so the users experience is entirely via email (so they never have to create a Freshdesk account) but they get automatic replies to let them know that we've received their email and a ticket has been created. It's also free for up to 3 users which is a heck of a deal.

<comment><USER4> +1 for Freshdesk. Another indie developer here - works very well as support for my apps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I believe most issue trackers will allow you to create tickets through email, so a low-tech solution may be to simply forward tickets to the appropriate email address, possibly with a some specific meta-data attached

</comment><comment><USER6> I know a couple of software and hosting companies that use [http://osticket.com/](http://osticket.com/)</comment>


Show HN: Turn Your Website Visitors into Facebook Messenger Subscribers - <AUTHOR> https://www.revoice.me <comment><AUTHOR> Founder here,

Revoice converts your website visitors into Facebook Messenger subscribers. If you have a Newsletter, Blog or Youtube channel, Revoice will use that content, make it look good on messaging apps (FB Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Chrome) and deliver new issues, posts or videos to your subscribers. You can then save your subscribers on any CRM or export as a CSV file.

After install in 2 minutes you get:

* Use your current newsletter from Mailchimp, GetRevue or any other newsletter service. We will make it look good on messaging apps and deliver to your subcribers.

* Export your subscribers to Mailchimp, Sendgrid, Salesforce, Zapier etc...

* Export your subscribers as a CSV file.

* We're Hubspot Certified Partner, so Revoice integrates great with Hubspot.

* Integrate with Wordpress, Unbounce with a plugin or just paste a JS code on your page.

Would love to answer any questions, looking for Feedback, Feedback and more Feedback! Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Does it meet Facebook's terms of service? [1]

I don't ask because I care whether or not it does on some moral grounds. I ask because history is full of apps that circumvented platform structure and then were gone because they were deemed to have violated the platform's terms of service. Some of them were successful before they were gone, though most weren't.

The reason I ask is because an off-platform product with a dependency on Facebook is unlikely survive long/medium term. Long/medium term survival almost certainly will require an entirely off-platform solution. My advice is to build something minimal and quickly and make your users aware of it. Promote it as a feature, so that when Facebook shuts you down, you have a replacement in place.

Good luck.

[1]: Almost certainly, no. If there's a loop hole that you can argue, you'll be arguing it after being shut down. And Facebook can change the TOS anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've talked with people on Facebook and they encourage us to move forward with this and a subscription-based bot is part of their current use-cases. Of course, this can change in the future.

We do meet the FB terms of service as we're using their native button to subscribe and also everyone has to opt-in first.

Good point on the dependency on FB, it's actually a good and a bad thing. The good point is that your subscribers don't have to install new apps and they already have FB Messenger on their phone and probably are logged in inside chrome so the subscription is one-click and friction here is minimal.

Another point is that we do not rely on Facebook only as we also support Slack, Telegram Chrome, FF, Safari and others as a subscription platform so the user can choose which one suits best.

<comment><USER2> I agree that a dependency on Facebook is a mixed benefit/deficit. There's a lot of infrastructure there that means you don't have to build it. The other side is that you don't control the next layer down from your app, if it changes, your app breaks and you are the one losing customers not Facebook. That's one of the big long term problems with a platform dependency, the customers are Facebook's customers not yours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Been using it for 2 weeks now at some company blogs and feels quite effective. Our results vary depending on the landing page we put it, but always converts 20%+ more than the email subscription we had before.

About read rates, we are having a 50-60% open rate on the content we are pushing to the users, but we are connecting our newsletter directly to Messenger using revoice, without modifying titles or anything. I guess that if we tailor the messages, we will get the promised 80%.

</comment><comment><USER4> As organic reach keeps falling and falling this seems like a pretty clever product to utilize a native feature and get around paying Facebook to reach your own audience. Very neat.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been meaning to build this since messenger bots were made, nice work!</comment>


Join the largest online protest since SOPA to stop NSA spying - <AUTHOR> http://CallForFreedom.org/

<comment><USER3> I don't trust these people. They were prominent in the CISPA argument, pushing infographics with claims that didn't match the bill, asking for donations and email addresses.

Now here they are on this issue, with a prominent donate button, and asking for your email. The put the email request in the middle of a form asking for name and address. They need the later because they are writing Congress on your behalf. They do not need your email for that, and so putting the email in the middle of that form smacks of a trick to get you onto their mailing list.

<comment><USER4> If you want to help people organize and get together without being underhanded, you're more than welcome to set up your own organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For UK readers, here's two related petitions calling on Parliament to launch inquiries.

[http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959](http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959)

[http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51392](http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51392)

Please sign. And as always, email your MP.

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

<comment><USER6> Thanks for these links. Feeling a little impotent here in the UK, but happy now that I can voice my concerns.

<comment><USER7> Well, you have your GCHQ doing the exact same thing and actively co-operating with the NSA...

<comment><USER8> Doesn't mean he should consent with the NSA spying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Online Protest == Can't be bothered to actually do something meaningful to register my outrage.

Sorry, but change means getting off your fat ass.

<comment><USER10> Media is a sucker for anything social media, they would probably run a longer news segment on this online protest than they would chaos in the streets. Last workers riot where I live the media solely concentrated on how they were caught from facebook and other social media profiles, they hardly mentioned the reasons for the rioting.

<comment><USER11> And the media is the next best thing to an online petition surrounded by ads... ephemeral bullshit to hold attention while we show you commercials.

If they aren't afraid of you burning down their palace, they are not about to change.

Why do people in the US think that change comes from meaningless, one-click bullshit? In Egypt, the military says GTFO. In Syria, they can take up arms and say GTFO and have it not work. You didn't see arabs using twitter for the "retweet this if you want change." It was the get over to street a and b and mob.

Peaceful sit-ins on unused public land, out of the way of the entrenched interests is something to lampoon... nothing to be afraid of. You can't put a poster of Ghandi up on the wall and be taken seriously.

Peaceful resistance is standing in the way of the tank and letting the entrenched powers present themselves to the horror of the world. They will either turn popular sentiment strongly enough that they are taken away, changed, of they will stand down from stupidity.

It's like not forcing legislators to actually filibuster on their feet. Tweet- it-in resistance is worthless.

Stand up, step in, and cross the line if you mean it. Otherwise STFU and GTFO.

<comment><USER12> Sometimes I feel like everyone else took a history class where the pages of the textbooks were filled with change brought about without violence being done unto someone.

It would seem Twitter and FB have figured out a way to monetize that.

<comment><USER13> Or maybe many people around you have actually read up on the success probability and found that nonviolent resistance works twice as well than violent resistance: [http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2008.33...](http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.7)

<comment><USER11> Not sure if you're seeing my statement as advocating non-violent, but confrontational methods... that was the intent. Non-violence without any depth of coverage is a tree falling in the woods with nobody there. You need visibility while being non-violent and catalyzing. You must be present and visible to embody the narrative that enables peoples' opinions to be matched with yours. Who takes the internet hate machine seriously?

If you are similar or the same in fundamental, value/moral terms, others are able to identify with you and see how your plight/demands and their aspirations for themselves are the same.

Online petitions are worthless. You need videos that tell the story - <USER2> Mitt Romney and his 47%. You need students getting pepper-sprayed. Overreach and douche-baggery strengthen resolve for the believers and give second- thought to anyone trying to reconcile their better selves with the crappier elements of their own side.

Non-violence means little if you are not causing people to deal with you. Nobody is called to account for an online petition or a peaceful protest covered lightly as a hippie revival.

You have to push the envelope and make it uncomfortable - something requiring answers.

<comment><USER14> If I win by provoking somebody else to hurt me, that's still violence. True non-violence means nobody gets hurt.

<comment><USER15> "True non-violence" also means nobody eats, ever.

Not even Ghandi's movement was non-violent by your definition.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I agree. Violence is basically unavoidable at some level. I prefer true non-violence as the solution to problems, which is why I have a problem with labeling Gandhi's version of violence as non-violence. I think it's better understood as extreme passive aggression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Please change the title: "stop NSA spying" is like "stop using condoms for having sexual relationships"

"Stop massive surveillance" , or "control NSA abuses" are probably better.

<comment><USER17> 'Stop suspicionless surveillance' is probably what you're looking for. In countries like Afghanistan with numerous independent terrorist factions, 'massive' surveillance is an inevitability.

<comment><USER18> I'd use the phrase "unwarranted", since there's both the plain-language meaning of unnecessary or unjustified, and the legal meaning of a warrant ("and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized").

<comment><USER19> or "unreasonable"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The only reason anything happened with SOPA is not because we somehow showed the government that the people didn't want it. It's because we threatened the business that supported it with lost profits. All of their lobbyists were the ones that decided that one. It's a bit more difficult to do that with the NSA. It's not like the federal government looks out the window and says, "what do the citizens want?" these days. It's more like, "what can we get away with?"

<comment><USER21> There's still a way around that. The NSA was able to do what they do by and large with the cooperation of very powerful businesses. Now it may not be as easy to do without some of these as opposed to, say ESPN, but it can be done if people are willing to accept certain sacrifices.

And we know most people won't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this for United Statians only, or can we (Europeans) sign it too to let the US government know that we're tired of their shit?

<comment><USER7> We should let our elected representatives in the EU know we're tired of this shit. It's almost certain that the signals intelligence agencies all around Europe have known about the deal for a long time and have been actively exchanging information with the NSA. Most agencies also have their own programs in place not at all unlike the NSA's, and probably with just as little parliamentary supervision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's all very nice, but what about the rest of the world?

<comment><USER5> I don't know, what about the rest of the world...?

It's in your hands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The Pirate Parties in Europe made this page: [http://antiprism.eu/](http://antiprism.eu/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Can't Britain revoke America's government until they figure this out?

<comment><USER7> Why would they? They knew about this (at least to some extent) and were/are actively cooperating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If EVERYONE ON THE PLANET signed it, they would carry on doing it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER26> They won't change, they'll just try to keep it more secret and deny everything... Pointless petition if you ask me, even though I think people should be fighting against it.

</comment><comment><USER27> How has Reddit "signed on"? Their userbase is one of the biggest on that list but they didn't change their homepage at all..

<comment><USER28> There was mention of the listed companies matching donations from the public towards television adverts against the suspicionless surveillance. Perhaps that's what they mean.

However, I agree that Reddit in particular could be doing more to spread the word.

People are calling this the 'largest online protest since..' but I'm not actually seeing much in the way of protest. I'm skeptical that those not interested in the subject are seeing anything.

<comment><USER29> Ads for it are plastered all over the site & they made a blog post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If only the president would be held accountable for his promises, we would not be having this discussion (PATRIOT Act).

</comment><comment><USER31> I suspect that the politicians in Congress are still of the same mind they were when they passed the Patriot Act, etc. to begin with: They want to be seen as _doing something_ so that when there is another attack, e.g., the Boston bomber, no political opponent can get votes screaming "soft on terrorism". The politicians are trying to cover their asses (CYA).

That situation hasn't changed.

For violating the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, the politicians are willing to do that to CYA.

Yes, the Patriot Act, etc. are likely unconstitutional, and voters can scream that to the politicians, but the politicians still just want to CYA against another Boston bomber or a charge of "soft on terrorism".

But the US founding fathers saw this situation: Someone with 'standing' brings a legal case, and eventually the case makes it to the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) which can accept the case and rule on the constitutionality of the laws. So, the politicians just took advantage of this solution and hit the ball, the hot potato Cthey didn't want to handle, across the street to the SCOTUS.

Standing? Maybe 120 million Verizon customers have standing. Maybe there is a huge class action suit on behalf of all US Internet users. And apparently Google has started a suit. So, maybe there are enough suits with standing.

Then if the SCOTUS strikes down the Patriot Act, etc., the politicians can blame the SCOTUS and still have their CYA.

Uh, politicians tend to be 'chicken hawks': Talk like a hawk (tough on terrorism), walk like a chicken (CYA).

"Peck a little. Talk a little. Peck a little. Talk a little. Peck, peck, peck, talk a little more." \-- extra credit for the source!

<comment><USER32> "But the US founding fathers saw this situation: Someone with 'standing' brings a legal case, and eventually the case makes it to the Supreme Court of the US"

Thomas Jefferson opposed the creation of the supreme court in Marbury vs. Madison. Madison was his secretary of state.

Here is his reasoning:

"You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves"

It's difficult to consider the counter-factual of the court not being created and common law having been continued, but it's useful to understand that there was opposition, and why, so that if you support it, you can use this knowledge to make it better.

In more modern times, partisanship does seem to be a problem, with many of the most important decisions are made 5-4 on party lines.

As you have brought up, another problem is that, contrarily, that it may be that the supreme court isn't actually not be powerful enough. If the U.S. is using the U.K. to spy on Americans, isn't that a blatant end-run around the constitution? But where can standing be, if legal opinions are based on secret courts, and gag orders are imposed on everything?

At the same time, it's not "Just the supreme court's" job to uphold the Constitution. Ultimately, it's the people's, and our most direct representatives are the House. They take an oath to uphold the responsibility, and they can't simply subcontract it, it doesn't work that way.

<comment><USER31> Thanks. I had not seen Jefferson's remarks. Bright guy. And now apparently to cover up the flaws of "honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps" the court is awash in pretense of impeccable objectivity, competence, and final authority!

If we take Jefferson seriously, then for the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, etc., the SCOTUS is not really a superior arbiter and not the last word but just one stop on the way to the voting citizens.

Sounds like time to revise the letter I have under draft, waiting for the SCOTUS to make their _unique_ contribution to the _constitutionality_ , quit deferring to and waiting on the SCOTUS, warm up my FAX modem, send to my Representative and two Senators, and tell them that the final arbiter here is the voting citizens, that I vote, and that my decision on the constitutionality of the Patriot Act and whatever else the NSA has been using and generally the means, direct or indirect through London or wherever, is "No" \-- not constitutional, and, thus, I expect them to correct the situation with legislation.

So, as a voting citizen, the attitude for me to take here is not to quibble over fine points of law or the precise wording of the First or Fourth Amendments but just to state, from my power and authority as one voting citizen, that this NSA, FBI, CIA, DHS, whatever Federal Government under the table, around the world backwards and into the back door, spying on my Internet usage, my USPS usage, my FedEx or UPS usage, my license plate locations, my favorite French or Italian wines, my cell phone tower usage, the items I buy at A&P, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, the items I charge on a credit card, my purchases at Amazon, who visits me, whom I visit, my Internet posts, my garbage items, what my kitty cats eat, etc. is unconstitutional and, besides, unacceptable as in torques me off, and I herewith demand that they pass laws that will shovel out the stalls of the NSA, FBI, etc. and stop that stuff where _stuff_ is not the only word I have in mind.

They can't "subcontract", send the ball, or hot potato, to the SCOTUS, and have to do some real work themselves -- find ways to protect the US within the Constitution.

"But where can standing be, if legal opinions are based on secret courts, and gag orders are imposed on everything?"

Apparently someone thought that that was a cute Catch 22, but I don't think it will wash. So, if the FBI shows up at my Web site server farm (when and if I get it built!), hands me a double secret, triple top secret, _national security letter_ (NSL), where the first rule of NSL is never to talk about NSL, I just say:

"I have not told anyone about your NSL; still, I've already consulted with my lawyer about any such thing, and he advised me to say that we will see you in open court. Have a nice day. I've got to get back to work. Oh, gee, it looks like my kitty cat has made a mess on your nice NSL -- here, you can have it back."

Maybe by the next 4th of July we will have this mess cleaned up.</comment></comment></comment>


After Jobs Dry Up, What Then? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/world/europe/after-jobs-dry-up-what-then.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> > "The challenges we face are big, but our politics are small," Mr. Cruddas > said. "We have stopped asking ourselves the important question Bobby Kennedy > asked. What makes life worthwhile?"

This is the real problem. I can't imagine any current politician giving a speech like the one quoted in the article. Politics today is not about "How do we make our country as good as possible?". Instead politicians only care about "How do I get my party to win and make the other party look bad?"

<comment><USER3> Rhetoric is tuned to the sensibilities of the time. We live in a much more cynical time with much lower public faith in government: [http://www.people- press.org/2014/11/13/public-trust-in-gover...](http://www.people- press.org/2014/11/13/public-trust-in-government) (75% versus about 20-25%). Which is ironic because we had more to be cynical about back then. After all, JFK was a rapist, and his FBI director was trying to get MLK to kill himself.

It's entirely a function of economics. When JFK gave speeches, the U.S. was on the top of a world in which all its competitors had bombed each other to pieces. When Obama gives a speech, it's in a world where U.S. blue collar jobs have fled to China and Mexico. Idealism just rings hollow under those circumstances.

<comment><USER4> _We live in a much more cynical time with much lower public faith in government_

It also just so happens that one of the main parties in the US has been working tirelessly for the last 40 years to make sure that faith in government is lowered. I believe it's their overarching strategy to get people to disconnect from politics, so they can rule the roost. What other reason for their party's popularity, when the party policies are not in the best interest of those voting for it?

<comment><USER5> The point Rayiner was making wasn't partisan. None of us can possibly be well served by recapitulating this endlessly tedious US political sharks/jets argument on HN.

<comment><USER4> I read your comment this way: what I wrote wasn't wrong, it's just not welcome here on HN. The problem with this: smart and/or good people have for too long taken themselves out of the fray and the result is a debased public discourse.

I was merely trying to point out the cause of one aspect of the original post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 'Jeremy Rifkin, author of "The Third Industrial Revolution," said a basic income would enable people to volunteer their time in areas like elder care, child care, culture and the environment.'

This seems like the most important sentence in the article. Raising children, caring for the elderly, editing Wikipedia, free software, &c. creates huge amounts of unremunerated value. If people were freed from economic drudge work, they would have free time not only for leisure, but that kind of valuable work as well.

Japan for example has a time-based currency to coordinate elder care, but that sort of thing will always be an issue of sharing volunteer labor. [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11657006](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11657006)

<comment><USER7> Cynical me. I don't see people who've never had to work, doing more than watching the latest Reality TV program and complaining about the quality of the free food. Doing those other things is all about cultural values, and nothing about free time.

<comment><USER8> Selection bias right there in "people who've never had to work"

What if you took people who have always had to work/chosen to work and give them resources to free up their time. Of course, you'd probably get a lot of bad things as well as good since sudden changes will always generate some churn and chaos short-term.

Think about this for yourself. If you didn't have to work, or only had to work 25-30 hours a week what would you do with the extra time?

Now apply that to every middle class individual. Sure some would spend the time in less productive or even harmful ways. But others would spend it even more wisely than you imagine yourself spending it.

<comment><USER7> Sure. But steady state, nobody's working. Us old guard will die off and leave just young'uns that never had to work. That was the idea I was getting at.

<comment><USER9> If you old people would stop working and retire, the young people would have work to do. What's that? you didn't save anything after the best financial boom time in history? You have to work until you're 80? Well, then stop complaining.

<comment><USER10> To be fair, a lot of market-based savings schemes were wiped out in 2008.

My in-laws, who diligently spent their entire lives working boring jobs in banks (as accountants and such, not wall street), who prepared for their retirement by paying off their modest $250,000 home (in Nashville, it's nicer than the dollar amount makes it seem), found themselves screwed when they went to retire, as their 401Ks were now worth fractions of what they'd expected.

So they're still working, extending their retirement in the hopes that their portfolios will recover, or that they can continue earning enough while they're healthy that they can offset it.

It literally never occurred to me until your comment that someone might resent them for trying to earn a living for themselves without burdening the rest of society.

<comment><USER11> I gotta wonder, what were they invested in? I just checked my records, and my investments went down about 35% in 2008, and have long since recovered. I'm not a particularly good investor or anything. How do they manage to have their investments drop to fractions, implying much greater than 50% loss, and still have not recovered in 2015?

Not trying to judge or anything, just wondering what the deal is, because from everything I've seen around me, that is far from typical.

<comment><USER12> In the case of my dad's 401k: The company's fund manager actively traded shares on the way down, repeatedly moving the balance from declining symbols to those that seemed more stable but were really just slightly behind the curve. ...Then did the same thing when things started recovering, trying to target the stocks that seemed to be going up the fastest. Quite literally decimated their retirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I actually like the basic income idea, though I hadn't arrived at it from an automation perspective.

If you're guaranteed money, you do away with the marginal effects of means- tested benefits. Basically, if you're a low income earner it can happen that you face a very high effective tax rate, in many countries. If you're guaranteed money, you don't have this marginal tax problem; you can sit on your ass or work for a bit of extra money. If you already make more, take it as a tax allowance.

This in turn means you do away with the means testing system. No more forms to fill out; no more mandatory courses that do nothing but line the pockets of the course provider. No more looking over people's shoulders to see if they're cheating. No more pressure on doctors to write iffy diagnoses.

There are of course issues with this system. For instance what do you do about immigration?

<comment><USER14> More importantly the math doesn't work out. Some people have way more costs because they're disabled, sick, have a large number of kids.

<comment><USER15> These two perspective are almost irreconcilable.

Those supporting the current system think that it triages need and allocates more to those with more needs. The basic income way of thinking doesn't consider this, everyone gets the same. Everyone getting the same is essential

I lean towards the latter, I think the benefits system is an expensive and ineffective way to triage needs. EG, rent allowance. If we could have a basic income set at a level above the median benefits for non workers, almost everyone would be better off, but not everyone.

Some people would be worse off, unless you take the highest possible benefits and use that as the basic income, but that's unaffordable.

The thing is, I think that the state is very far from meeting people's needs and assuming full responsibility for it. There are right now people who should be eligible or are eligible for some benefit, but aren't getting it. The State can help. It can minimize problems, but it can't solve them fully. I think charities, families and such also need to play a role. I think the idea that the state can make sure people's needs are met is just false. A lot of the triage mechanisms are about pretending that it is, not ensuring that it is.

But there are those without other help, that have no other way of supplementing income that have additional costs. These people will be worse off. Other people will be better off. I think the bigger win should inform the decision, but this is unlikely.

<comment><USER16> > These two perspective are almost irreconcilable.

Not really. There are many aspects of the current welfare state system, and there's no reason that some features couldn't be replaced with a UBI, while some situationally-tested features could be retained. The relative costs and effectiveness of various testing methods _aren 't_ all the same -- e.g., the adverse incentives of means-testing aren't present with, say, targeting aid based on medical diagnosis. One could replace _means-tested_ programs with UBI but not other targeted programs. UBI _can_ be conceived as replacing all targeted programs, but it doesn't have to be, and it especially doesn't have to do so all at once.

> If we could have a basic income set at a level above the median benefits for > non workers, almost everyone would be better off, but not everyone.

Whether that's true or not depends on how you _fund_ the UBI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wouldn't there always be new jobs? I mean, sure, technology has automated lots of things. But that's a good thing. We just need new kinds of jobs - ones that can't be automated. Who knows, perhaps in the future everybody can be an artist. Not sure a universal basic income would work from a mathematical point of view. Giving money to everybody would only increase the price of things.

<comment><USER18> > Wouldn't there always be new jobs?

There's no fundamental law of economics that demands there always be new jobs.

There have been in the past, each wave of disruption created new job categories, even new industrial sectors. But that just means there will be new jobs _until there aren 't new jobs_.

Science fiction authors have no trouble imagining scenarios where there are no new jobs for anyone. If that comes to pass, what then? Presumably the same economic forces that creates such a situation will also have allowed some small percentage of property owners to own the automation that makes everything. Depending on the details, this might not even be a Pyrrhic victory... why would they need your money anymore, if they had fleets of yacht-building automated shipyards and robots that kept the wine cellar stocked? If they can manage the transition from "we still need you to buy our products so I can live in luxury" to "the luxuries are produced in my automated factories directly"...

Then quite bluntly, you're fucked.

> Who knows, perhaps in the future everybody can be an artist

There is the cliche of the starving artist. Even today. And we live in a world which only supports less than 1% artists because that's the ceiling on that occupation. That is mostly the amount of art that the rich want in their lives.

Specialties rely on the idea that only a few do them. One specialty trades its goods and services for those produced by another.

If we all make art, then I could trade my art for yours. But neither of us can eat art.

<comment><USER19> I think you're assuming that art requires a market for buying and selling. Most people mostly make art because it's fun and personally fulfilling, not so much for rich folks to enjoy.

<comment><USER7> Isn't that circular? We all do that, because there's no money in it. If there were, many folks would do it for a living.

<comment><USER19> Not sure what you're getting at. Just pointing out that most art isn't for monetary profit, it's just people enjoying the process at home and with friends.

<comment><USER7> Folks HAVE to do it for fun, or not at all, because there's no money in it. Cause and effect were turned around.

<comment><USER19> Just pointing out that there are a variety of motivations--community, fun, attention, money, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting that the nyt is covering basic income. I wonder if it would be possible to institute basic income as a policy without significant social unrest. It seems unlikely to me that basic income would be accepted politically unless there was significant action first by disenfranchised workers.

<comment><USER21> I'm curious why you don't think that a basic income would accepted politically? If it were provided to everyone without regard to their other sources of income it would differ from other approaches like welfare. I realize that the money has to come from somewhere, so perhaps a transition to a consumption tax rather than income tax would work. Of course the basic income would need to be significant enough to offset the increased cost of consumption for basic needs.

<comment><USER22> Once people saw the cost of the program, I think it would cause a great deal of outrage. I've done the back-of-the-envelope math here on HN several times, so I don't really care to do it again, but essentially it would dwarf our current budget (which is already spending beyond income).

The cost is enormous. I believe if you taxed everyone whose net worth is over $1b at a 100% rate, you could pay for this program for just under 2 years.

And if you're talking about "everyone gets the same amount", remember that you have to collect it back, so you have the overhead of giving a person $1 just to collect it back again.

<comment><USER23> The key for this to be possible is a big reduction in the cost of living. Robots,automation and other tech , combined with the right regulations, could possible reduce cost of living by 80%-90%. Under those assumptions, won't basic income become possible ?

<comment><USER24> _reduce cost of living by 80%-90%_

Relatively speaking, our cost of living has already been reduced by 80-90% since the late 1800's. The problem is, wealth is relative, not absolute.

<comment><USER23> True, but given no other job, decent living conditions(but not being rich) plus lots of free time won't be such a bad deal for many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looking at the past won't help. Think of it this way. There's a list of productive things humans can do that machines can't. That list keeps getting shorter. Since computers got really cheap, it's become much shorter much faster. That's new. Previous technologies knocked off one skill. Computers knock off broad ranges of them.

A brief history of manufacturing technology:

Until the 20th century, the big economic problem was simply making enough stuff, and it took about 80% of the workforce to make all the stuff. During the 20th century, manufacturing technology got good, and by the 1950s, there was plenty of stuff in the developed world, but the quality was iffy and it still took about 40% of the workforce to make all the stuff. By the 1980s, the quality was a lot better, and there was a glut of high-quality stuff. Today, in the developed world, about 13% of the workforce makes all the stuff, and there are no significant shortages of any buyable thing. (Is it out of stock on Amazon? No.)

That's where we are.

We have no clue how to organize an economic system where a sizable fraction of the population has negative economic value. Welfare, the dole, and such have been tried - that leads to huge public housing projects warehousing useless people. Then we get riots because there are too many bored people. So that won't work.

That's the problem we face. Where do we go from here?

</comment><comment><USER26> Marshall Brain's "Manna" is an interesting take on humans becoming more robot- like with the oversight of efficiency and automation software.

[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

<comment><USER27> That's an interesting piece of writing, but just a quick SPOILER ALERT for anyone clicking the link for the first time: It isn't a story. It's just a device for painting a picture of one person's concept of a techno-utopia.

Libertarians often recommend Ayn Rand novels, because fiction is a useful medium for showcasing their utopian (or dystopian) ideals. However, at least Ayn Rand novels have intricate plots, and more or less fleshed-out characters.

"Manna" does not. The narrator, speaking to us from the near future, describes the endgame of technology advances within the capitalist order we now know. At the outset of the "story", the narrator is destitute in this order. He meets people from an isolated utopia, who have built a different order. A speaker from that group explains this alternative order to the narrator.

The end.

I still think that "Manna" is recommended reading, but I just want to give people proper expectations going into it. I was actually a bit angry the first time I finished it, because it was presented to me as something it wasn't. It is an essay presenting one possible alternative order for human civilization. While interesting in its own right, it isn't a real "story".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Play this through to its logical conclusions. If 50% of the jobs are eliminated through automation, who will buy things? You may still have a software engineering job creating new automation technology, but who will it be sold to?

If there is 60% unemployment, who will buy those machine picked strawberries, iPads, or the products in Google ads? If this keeps going, big companies like Apple and Google will be the biggest proponents of basic income. Their other option is to go bankrupt.

</comment><comment><USER29> The plan we discussed at SXSW was to establish some sort of hunger games style competition where the unemployed battle for a rich life in the capital far from their respective districts, but admittedly there is a lot of work to do between now and then.

</comment><comment><USER30> I like basic income in principle, but I just don't see how it wouldn't (1) discourage people from joining the workforce (2) the prices of goods and services will still adapt to reflect supply and demand unless we can also increase things like housing, access to education, and healthcare.

<comment><USER31> These issues have obviously been addressed by more knowledgeable people, but here is my understanding:

(1) people work out of pride, not necessity. if your only concern was sustenance you could live off of welfare or charity now. even with a basic income, people will still be motivated to work because they want to have nice things

(2) market forces will still apply. if you raise your prices because low income customers now have more money, I'll lower mine. barring cases of outright collusion, you'll see economic growth as opposed to rising prices

Basic Income is still a long way away, but it has been thought through. A practical implementation may or may not succeed, but it won't be because of fundamental flaws in the idea.

<comment><USER32> A few more points on top of these:

(1) The way jobs are valued would fundamentally change. Rather than higher wage work being the work that fewer people _can_ do, you would also see a rise in cost for jobs that people do not _want_ to do. Today you have your unskilled employees trapped between a rock and a hard place when you offer them a job as a burger flipper - work in wage servitude for us, or starve. The employer has a tremendous amount of sway during negotiations in an economy where employment is effectively mandated to survive.

Ask yourself - "why is McDonalds so cheap?" does it make any sense that having people working in depressing service jobs makes _cheap_ food? Wouldn't the optimization of food be automated delivery, minimizing the people involved? McDonalds can only exist as it does today because all its employees are forced to work for it.

(2) You would also see production shift. Economics goes where the money is - we have too little low income housing and too many McMansions because single family houses are profitable and reliable when sold and low income housing is unreliable and less profitable. If everyone had a minimum of income, there would be a tremendous amount of economic pressure to meet the demands of that crowd that has maximal economic consistency in revenue. So in the short term prices would be a mess, but in the long term the equilibrium state would be that there would be a huge market to provide as much of what the UBI unemployed class wants as possible within their budget for profit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The only thing one can do is let the market takes care of itself.

In my country(Brazil), unemployment rate is fairly low( ~5% )and the government loves to brag about it. Most of these jobs are 'artificial' in a way the government blocks innovation in order to 'retain jobs' and justify its economic intervention.

As a consequence, products and services are way more inefficient and expensive. At the same time, employees have wages that, from a Western standpoint, would be below poverty line.

For example, the government forbids customers to put gas on their vehicle. To do so, one needs an attendant who works 10h/day with $3/hour wages.

<comment><USER34> Which country is that?

<comment><USER33> Brazil

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income) FTW

</comment><comment><USER36> well, he's been in the ground a few years now. chances are, he's pretty dry already. I guess you can dig him up and donate his bones to science?

(didn't read the article)

</comment><comment><USER37> Because "Becoming Steve Jobs" was mentioned many time recently, when I saw 'Jobs' in the title, I thought "Is it another article about Steve Jobs and that book"?</comment>


Senate Democrats Seek Suspension of TSMC Deal - <AUTHOR> https://www.eetasia.com/us-senators-seek-suspension-of-tsmc-deal/ <comment><USER2> In my perfect world, governments wouldn't rip me off by spending my tax dollars on their favored industries.

But we live in the real world and China throws money to undermine US industry. Letting all of our knowledge of how to build actual things leave the country is a strategic blunder. Not just chips, but everything! And 3D printing hasn't enabled us to print whatever we need in an emergency. We need this knowledge for national defense.

So if we want to print a few billion dollars and hand it to Taiwan, whatever. Drop in the bucket compared to the $7 trillion printed this year. Democrats are making a mistake.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dammit - the TSMC fab would have a been an awesome boost for Phoenix...

Just when you think you got a lil good news, some politician gotta screw it up

<comment><USER4> > In a May 19 letter addressed to U.S Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and > Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the senators requested the two Trump > administration cabinet members to "cease any such negotiations or > discussions" until the relevant authorization and appropriations committees > have been briefed on plans, including any commitments the two departments > have made to funding, tax breaks, licenses, or other incentives.

Do such deals normally require the approval of Congress?

<comment><USER5> No.

And despite the language here, they don't really have a way of stopping this from happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is clearly very related to efforts to take TSMC away from China.

Conjecture:

This new fab was announced the same day as restrictions on TSMC selling chips to Huawei, it's 2nd biggest customer.

Presumably behind closed door negotiations, TSMC made clear that if they were banned by us from selling chips to China, they'd just split the company into a "China branch" who breaks these US rules and a "USA branch" that follows US sanctions.

To preempt that, the US government offered a sweet deal to TSMC, to start a fab in the US with massive subsidies, _on condition_ they didn't move any more tech to China.

<comment><USER5> TSMC has been used by Taiwan as a strategic - only we can do this- car by the Taiwanese government for a while. China started a effort to create a advanced foundry independently. The USA has global foundries and Intel. This is another effort.

TSMC was already loosing their monopoly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> TSMC's chip fabrication tech is world leading, and is vital for thousands of other industries. Nearly every computing device has some of TSMC's parts in, and if TSMC tech was restricted, performance metrics would decrease across a lot of industries.

That's why both China and the US are offering TSMC sweetheart deals to _not_ sell tech to the other.

Whoever loses this battle will probably be left 3 years behind in CPU and GPU performance. Which in turn will make them dead in smartphones, laptops/desktops, cloud computing, scientific simulations, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> You really think China is going just sit back and allow Huawei to be cut off from any sort of leading edge IC manufacturing.

I would not be too surprised if TMSC helps to start up a fab with plausible deniability on the mainland catering solely for Chinese production.

<comment><USER5> China already has a multi tens of billions of dollar project to do that.</comment></comment>


All Excuses Aside, Apple's Major Problem Is Tim Cook - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysomaney/2015/11/15/all-excuses-aside-apples-major-problem-is-tim-cook/ <comment><USER2> That was one confusingly written article. Are all stock advice articles like that, or is just this one particularly bad?

> Yes ...

> Yes ...

> Yes ...

It really just seems like he's sowing fear about Apple without much substance and trying to blame Cook.

<comment><USER3> Sowing fear only if you are a share holder. He never said the company was losing relevance or its iphones weren't selling as hot candy necessarily. He just says the company was failing to impress Wall Street. Steve Jobs also didn't seem to care much for Wall Street but with Jobs it seems more of a result his "visionary" ways that clashed with Wall Street sometimes short sightedness. I can't say I am impressed with Tim Cook as a ceo.</comment></comment>


Mean-spirited Valleywag gossip on iminlikewithyou (interesting tidbit about YC interview) - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/tech/iminlikewithyou/iminlikewithyous-messy-breakup-320643.php

<comment><USER2> There is no way to delete your account on IILWY, so I emailed them and asked them to do it for me and they refused. It seems like they have some serious issues.

<comment><USER3> there's no way to delete your account on facebook either

<comment><USER4> Not true.

<comment><USER3> Yes it is.

You can temporarily suspend your account but facebook still keep all of your data and then when you reactivate your account, all of your information is still there from your past account.

The net result is you can never take out your information. The only difference is perception.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> internet drama about startups i barely remember - just what i like to read before i go to bed! (why did i click, then?)

</comment><comment><USER6> "...but there's a set of photos on Flickr called "Dan Albritton's Secret Project."

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/slavin_fpo/142487629/in/set-720...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/slavin_fpo/142487629/in/set-72057594128560671/)

Live action Mario. Anyone make anything of this?

</comment><comment><USER7> How is this mean-spirited?

Seems pretty even-handed, especially for the wag.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was an article investigating the premise that the founder was an asshole.

<comment><USER7> Maybe he is?

<comment><AUTHOR> Quite possibly, but I still think there is something vaguely mean spirited about it, truthfulness notwithstanding.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Python and Sat Solvers - <AUTHOR> https://rhettinger.github.io/einstein.html <comment><USER2> Interesting material. Thanks for sharing!

Maybe a dumb thought: is SAT solver good for verifying concurrent system design? (e.g. locks, distributed systems, etc.) Or are systems like TLA+ a must for these cases?

<comment><USER3> Sadly I don't think it's possible to represent an infinite trace as a SAT problem, so you can't check any liveness properties (will a good thing eventually happen) unless you use something more powerful. Promela/Spin and TLA+/TLC use model checkers, TLA+/TLAPS and B/Rodin use theorem provers, Electrum uses an SMT solver.

<comment><USER2> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Has Acquisition Deal with Nvidia - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/24824/Microsoft_Has_Acquisition_Deal_with_Nvidia

<comment><USER2> Not an acquisition deal as in "signing the contract this week" like with Skype but rather a deal for the opportunity to match an offer in the event that another company wants to acquire Nvidia.

From the article:

 _The deal gives Microsoft the exclusive right to match any offer for 30% or more of Nvidia's outstanding shares by a third-party." The agreement appears to be over 10 years old, dating back to the time of the contract for the GPU of the original X-Box._

<comment><USER3> So the "exclusive right" in this case is that Nvidia has to notify MS of any offers and their amount?

<comment><USER4> Yes and no. Microsoft's right is Nvidia must sell to Microsoft or nobody if Microsoft matches a competing bid for 30% or more of nVidia. A side effect of that is that nVidia has to inform Microsoft of any deals of that size.

This doesn't really do anything other than keep nVidia out of the hands of a competitor. It doesn't sound like this contract really helps if Microsoft wanted to buy nVidia without other buyers involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a sign of how vulnerable Microsoft is feeling. If Nvidia were purchased by Apple (or even HP, say) then Microsoft might suddenly find itself trying to compete in the mobile market without access to a credible hardware stack.

<comment><USER6> Not at all. The article says the agreement is over 10 years old, and to me seems to have been a smart move on Microsoft's part.

Basically, they recognized that they were very reliant on NVidia's technology, and while buying from NVidia is cheaper than making it themselves, they mitigated risk of losing that option by giving them the chance to pony up to keep any other company, competitor or not, from changing things.

<comment><USER7> Would be clever if they could fight off the PS4 using this sort of angle. Too bad that the video hardware industry would collapse to just AMD though.</comment></comment></comment>


Interview with JanSport Founder Skip Yowell - <AUTHOR> https://www.thebrownbuffalo.com/blogs/news/skip-yowell-jansport-co-founder <comment><AUTHOR> They pivoted from making outdoor gear to focusing on your high school and college backpack:

"You know, you guys ought to start selling in college bookstores." And as we started to do that, at the time I told Murray, "You know, I think potentially this bookbag daypack business of ours could be much bigger than our outdoor business." And obviously down the road that's what happened.</comment>


Cmm_of_wasm: From WebAssembly to Native Code via the OCaml Back End - <AUTHOR> http://simonjf.com/2018/08/27/cmm-of-wasm.html <comment><USER2> So we could hypothetically convert nginx to WASM with wasmer, then convert it back to native code with cmm_of_wasm? We've come full circle.

<comment><USER3> As an adjacent dead comment points out, you'd use Emscripten to "convert nginx to WASM" (i.e. "compile"). Wasmer is a runtime.

But there are actually use cases to what you're talking about. Essentially instead of nginx -> LLVM -> machine code you're replacing it with nginx -> WASM -> cmm_of_wasm -> machine code. There are tons of LLVM opts already, but if there weren't, it might be reasonable to use WASM as IR and using cmm_of_wasm's opts to make it faster than a naive C compiler (but of course none of the popular compilers are naive anyways). Also, of course this won't work today because cmm_of_wasm doesn't rebuild the syscalls from emscripten- compiled-WASM (yet). But if you're writing your own language today, ignoring system interaction for a sec, targeting WASM even for native might not be a bad idea as backends are coming w/ optimizations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> what is it about OCaml that makes it popular as a first stage in implementing new languages and/or compilers?

also...

> and eventually we hope to hook into OCaml's excellent garbage collector

isnt WASM gc-free? why would the output need explicit GC interaction?

<comment><USER5> WASM currently does not have a GC but that's precisely why one is needed. Languages that target WASM need to implement their own GC but there's already a proposal to integrate a GC implementation into WASM[1].

[1]: [https://github.com/WebAssembly/gc/blob/master/proposals/gc/O...](https://github.com/WebAssembly/gc/blob/master/proposals/gc/Overview.md)</comment></comment>


Show HN: I have to share this, this is so much fun :D - <AUTHOR> http://pichatter.com/pichats/13

<comment><USER2> False self-endorsements don't work when you're submission history is visible, fyi.

<comment><AUTHOR> there is nothing to hide, pal, i just like it.</comment></comment>


Alpha (A translation of Genesis 1) - <AUTHOR> http://llamasandmystegosaurus.blogspot.com/2017/05/alpha.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> Previously posted

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14405404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14405404)

A neat thing: the author used machine learning to help find appropriate synonyms. And also created this related tool:

[http://184.108.40.206:8080/rhyme](http://18.104.22.168:8080/rhyme)

</comment><comment><USER3> very cool</comment>