Facebook Music announced with Spotify, Rdio, MOG, and more - <AUTHOR> http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/22/facebook-music-spotify-rdio-mog/

<comment><USER2> This a big win for all the partners, and a potential barrier for anyone who's not a fb partner. I doubt that the real-time media playback sync is going to be available to normal fb apps. It would be really difficult to compete with any media app, music or video, that has partner integration with fb.

<comment><USER3> I submitted this point as another thread (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3027328>) but one interesting detail is that in order to share music, users must choose the same backend provider. I.e., if I use MOG and you use Spotify, we don't get the social features. In practice this is likely to mean one vendor will prevail at the expense of the others -- so being an unpopular partner may not be much better than being a non-partner in a year's time...

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that's right unless we're thinking of different things. I just clicked a ticker story of a friend listening to a song on Rdio, and I clicked a link within that flyout to play the same song in Spotify (which I've been using).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has this sort of conglomeration been succeeding in technology? The big example is iTunes but Apple is such an outlier everywhere that I don't know whether it generalizes.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's funny- I remember everyone saying that Facebook was victorious over MySpace because it didn't allow people to customise their profiles and put irritating music players on them.

Now, Facebook has a customisable header (effectively) and integrated music playing. I'm not trying to suggest that the implementation is the same as MySpace's, but it's funny how these concepts come back around again in time.

<comment><USER7> They get the benefit of knowing what was cool and what wasn't, and more importantly, what _could have_ been cool if it had been done better. Putting one big photo up there is a nice design touch, letting people edit HTML and embed auto-play videos and spyware - not such a good customization feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks to tactfully aim to do what Beacon clumsily tried to do years ago: capture/publish as much user activity as automatically as possible. The timing is great, too: integration with these new streaming music sites might be the use case that really sells this to the public. As last.fm and turntable.fm have shown, music listening can be so naturally social that auto-publishing should be popular.

</comment><comment><USER9> Neat feature -- but I agree with one commenter on the site of the article -- why not just get together with you friends and listen to music at the same time? There's lots of live music out there, and most performances are under- attended :(

<comment><USER10> That's equivalent to asking why people don't just get together in person and talk about what they've been doing, rather than posting updates on facebook.

<comment><USER9> Great idea :D</comment></comment></comment>


The modern web makes me want to throw up (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://josephg.com/blog/the-modern-web/ <comment><USER2> I fail to see what this article brings to the conversation appart from an unpleasant metaphor.

<comment><USER3> Agree. I'm getting tired of everyone saying that everything in the 90's was super duper fast and now everything is sluggish with RAM-hoarding tendencies

<comment><USER4> The point of the article is web vs native.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see what the big issue with installing vs. not-installing is. When you start an app you copy code into RAM and then start executing it. What does it matter if the code is coming from your hard disk or from a webserver.

Secondly, of course the browser is like an operating system. It's a virtual machine abstracting away the underlying machine for security (a point the author completely forgot) and convenience reasons. And it's great at that.

What I personally dislike is the tooling available for modern web development. I neither particularly like the programming languages nor the frameworks and tools. Actually some of the setups I've seen do make me want to throw up a bit, too, that's why I am a happy native programmer (c++ and swift) most of the time!

<comment><USER6> >I don't see what the big issue with installing vs. not-installing is. When you start an app you copy code into RAM and then start executing it. What does it matter if the code is coming from your hard disk or from a webserver.

Persistence, and idempotency.

Code you run from your local hard drive will work as expected every time you run it.

Code grabbed from remote repository(website) might, and usually will, be updated/changed and it might break your workflow. It might not exist anymore.

<comment><USER7> And the simple fact that it is still there tomorrow morning even if the 'service' decides to shut down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Current web situation is understandable. First you add 1 thing then another and suddenly you have chrome eating all resources. Same goes for Windows.

I'd like to see some cutted version of html, smth like rss feed, so it will have very small amount of stuff it could do but be blazingly fast.

And I'd like all os producers create group that would make some framework for cross platform desktop gui, with separation of gui and logic.

<comment><USER9> > I'd like to see some cutted version of html

gopher!

<comment><USER10> Gopherspace / tildespace / sdf are fun little rabbit holes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The argument about people not wanting to install anything is a little puzzling. Is that actually true? I would assume that most people, even on phones install the majority of applications they need on day one of getting a new device.

Honestly I don't think people care how their applications are developed or installed (assuming it's sufficiently easy). Resource also isn't something people think about, until they don't have enough. I don't see an argument from the customer side for web applications or Electron apps. It's easier and quicker to develop, but that's a business/developer argument.

Application development, especially on Windows and Linux seems like a lost art at this point.

<comment><USER12> It's true for me at least. I try to avoid installing anything and look for a web based alternative first. If I can't find anything then I fall back to native. I'm looking forward to the day where web based OSes are a viable solution for my needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Agreed. We should just be allowed to run native apps. Yes, yes, I know that I can jailbreak my phone even today...

But store apps didn't solve the malware problem, it just handed large companies a near monopoly for software distribution. That is far worse than the threat of malware. That MS tried to release an OS where only store apps are allowed wasn't really due to security concerns. They wanted to push their ecosystem.

<comment><USER14> > But store apps didn't solve the malware problem

They do a lot better than just trusting .exes from the web.

<comment><USER15> Do they? App stores are literally just trusting executables from the web with extra steps.

Unless you're downloading the source code, reviewing it thoroughly and compiling it, you're blindly trusting _someone._

<comment><USER14> You are trusting a company in Apple or Android to review it as they have a reputation to protect with you.

It isn't perfect, but you are trusting someone you share a mutual interest with rather than a random stranger.

<comment><USER15> The random stranger has more to lose than the big corporation, though. Apple or Mozilla can weather a security breach or exploit because and suffer minimal loss, whereas the random stranger's entire reputation might be destroyed in a few bad forum posts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is a third big advantage to web apps over native apps - they're run in a hardened sandbox designed to safely execute untrusted code.

<comment><USER17> Native apps can be sandboxed much better e.g. with firejail.

The browser sandboxing model has a huge attack surface, as proven by the hundred vulnerabilities found.

<comment><USER16> The findings of vulnerabilities are a product of all the effort invested into testing the browser sandbox and hardening it.

In contrast, native app firewalls are only starting to get developed and are far less battle-tested than the browser sandbox. Heck, just look at one of the other threads on the current HN front-page for how weak native app firewalls can be: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23689364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23689364)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Author also forgets #3: instant availability of the user's data on each of his devices in the proper format.

As a user who has to work with several devices simultaneously (several laptops in my laboratory, each managing some equipment), I find it very critical to have my data immediately available between all the devices.

Also, how will it be possible for a 19 year old to become a billionaire unless they can build their stuff on top of the other frameworks?

</comment><comment><USER19> A friend of mine had the same emotion some 7 years ago and just switched jobs. He's now a system programmer mostly doing C++ and Go. No web.

And I quite like the modern web and I think none of his objections (or the author's), while true, are really that terrible.

And none of us are throwing up! Life hack!

</comment><comment><USER20> Modern web frameworks are also too complex. What I can achieve in Knockout.js in a few lines of code, and need many wrapped layers of complexity or libraries for in React and Angular.

It is almost that an attempt was made to hide complexity by adding more complexity.

</comment><comment><USER21> It should theoretically be possible to run native apps through WASM in the browser requiring no installation and have native speed, no? I'm sad to see this not being more popular among "regular" web apps.

</comment><comment><USER22> This article is attention seeking, unconstructive and makes want to throw up.

</comment><comment><USER23> Perhaps the "slowness" of web-based technologies like Electron et al is just the price we pay for truly universal cross-platform development?

Sure there are native options on each major platform that are faster, but they are generally not universally cross-platform. Web-tech may be slow in comparison, but it is _universal_.

The question though, is it a price worth paying?

Many other things have tried to be a universal cross-platform solution for apps but I don't think anything has come as close to web-based technologies (maybe only Java? And that is not exactly everyone's favourite tool for creating great cross-platform UIs and it is arguable if Java is even "native" anyway)

<comment><USER15> >Perhaps the "slowness" of web-based technologies like Electron et al is just the price we pay for truly universal cross-platform development?

No. That implies Electron is the best possible model by which "truly universal cross-platform development" could be achieved. We could do better, but we just don't bother trying because the web was already ubiquitous when Electron came along and web developers were already dime a dozen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> (2016)

<comment><USER25> Added above. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Too bad this article has virtually no substance as I'd really like to read something more than web apps suck, native is great- news flash, both have the potential to be implemented poorly, except one has the potential to be censored. I have a completely different opinion on this topic... I think single page reactive apps are incredible and will give native apps a run for their money if architected well, they follow open standards and do not require curation.

The criticisms with Chrome may be valid, but that's a completely different discussion... you can run Chromium to get a lighter experience and even Firefox has become much more light weight these days. Safari has done an incredible amount to reduce system resource usage and suspend tabs in the background. It's true that web apps are becoming more demanding of memory (for a few reasons), but so are native and desktop apps. The advantage of using something like React and Redux is undeniable.... it will increase the memory footprint, but you are also should be getting more responsiveness in the UI as a trade off.

I can argue this further, but it's unlikely that I'm going to convince someone still using a netbook that this isn't a problem. Moving some I've the processing to the client side has moved web development forward monumentally, the client can now do things like process dates and cache user data in the UI and not depend on massive server side resources to do that.

Poorly implemented web sites will always be a problem, but understand that is usually due to the inclusion of egregious tracking libraries and ads, both of which are more tightly controlled in app stores- this is something I would argue is the biggest problem on the web. Additionally, some web developers can get library happy and just include far more than are necessary. I never hear people complain about the initial app download process, but often times they are too large to do unless on WiFi. The web doesn't have this problem and will cache resources much more progressively.

Many people will call for a "no script" web, but the reality of that is horrifying. The last thing I want is to have to go through walled gardens for every kind of computing I want to do. Turning the web into a collection of glorified documents with hypertext puts far too much power in the hands of the curators and would open users up to far more vulnerabilities if everything needed an install.

</comment><comment><USER27> The problems with the modern web (over-complicated cookie consent, advertising/ad-blocker arms races) are not those the author describes (performance of native web apps). Functionality of most downloaded apps with good performance should be easily possible in a browser. If that's not the case, developers of those apps are not doing it well. Native apps allow them to continue this bloat without such a strong performance hit.

<comment><USER28> > Functionality of most downloaded apps with good performance should be easily > possible in a browser.

I don't understand how someone can make such a statement. Maybe I am more sensitive to subtle slowdowns but I rarely see web applications that can match the responsiveness and feel of native applications. And when I say native, I don't mean electrons apps. While there are some web apps that manage to squeeze out decent performance out of a browser but those are few and far between.

I don't know if you used computers in the 90's, but they felt really snappy. We lost that with modern OS's, but even those are much better than the glorified virtualised OSs that the browsers are.

<comment><USER29> Can you provide some examples of complex web apps you consider to be substantially slower than their native equivalents?

[Edit] I'll take the downvotes as evidence you can't.

For example, I use [https://app.diagrams.net/](https://app.diagrams.net/) for diagramming. I don't find it to be any slower than native equivalents like Visio.

I use [https://www.figma.com/](https://www.figma.com/) for UI design. I don't find it to be any slower than native equivalents like Sketch.

I use Google Docs for word processing. I don't find it to be any slower than native equivalents like Word.

<comment><USER28> Ok, I think there really is a difference in how people perceive slowdowns.

\- Google Docs is substantially slower than MS Word, especially when you have more content inside.

\- app.diagrams.net seems to be quite good with the few shapes I added

\- gmail is much slower for me than the native Mac email app

\- Slack is very slow compared to something like Telegram native on the mac, or even Zoom.

\- VS Code feels worse and worse with every release. They are adding more feature but I feel its less and less responsive.

\- Google Calendar is slower than the native Mac calendar app.

These are a few apps that I heavily use on a daily basis. I won't say the web apps can't get decent performance. But I think on average you get better performance on native, and if you put the same amount of effort in performance tuning, the results you get on native are unachievable on web apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The reason you can install instantly from the web and just pull in code with reckless abandon is because you are essentially running a sandboxed environment. Browsers are built to not trust.

The technical limitation is that you want the instant loading (which can't be secure as it doesn't allow for you to verify you actually want to run something nor does it let antivirus scan it) without the protective sandbox.

</comment><comment><USER30> I disagree, I really enjoy the tools we have today. gRPC microservices, containers, React (16.8+), on top of that we many languages to choose from and utilize. Building services at scale has never been easier.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wrote my latest project as a web app because it runs effortlessly on my PC and my iPad. And updating it cross device is instant.

Trading ram & cpu vs. my time spent building the thing is the right tradeoff for me.

</comment><comment><USER32> why an old and insipid article becomes popular on HN? a case of nobody reading past the headline

</comment><comment><USER33> Nah I'd rather web apps become faster and more efficient

I'm not going to download an app for everything

<comment><USER34> Isn't half the blog argument that this could be solved for native apps too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Nobody:

HN front page: The modern web makes me want to throw up

<comment><USER32> xD what a loss of time and money

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I upvoted this before reading because I already agreed!

<comment><USER37> I thought it was about SPA vs. Multipage application on which I would have agreed but using web technology instead of native on mobile app development is completely fine by me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's perfectly possible to write a performant app with the web. If the author thinks it isn't, the problem is their ignorance, not the web.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've recently being using the web version of sketchup having used the desktop version several years ago. I was not hopeful when starting but after a few hours I'm impressed. I've found the performance good and didn't notice any slowdown. It's the first webapp I've seen that I've though this might actually work.

<comment><USER39> considering that Google no longer owns it, it actually might be around for a while longer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I suspect people who write stuff like this never used the 90's web with 90's browsers on 90's computers.

It wasn't lightening fast. It was crashy and shit.

I mean, as a random example: tables wouldn't render progressively unless they had the number of columns and rows set in the table header. So the whole page had to load before the table could be seen.

And as someone who has shipped an app in React Native I'm 100% sure I'm never ever going to do that again. The principle is nice, the implementation is horrible.

Browser have lots of lines of code because they offer lots of features. Features are useful - we want general purpose computers because people want to do lots of things on them.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't know if people who lament having native applications for everything had a completely different approach than me or if their memory is very rose- tinted.

I used to have a folder of several dozen applications I'd move from PC to PC whenever I got a new machine. When I'd poke around my computer I'd find five utilities all doing the same thing like PDF conversion, which I did infrequently enough that I wouldn't remember it was there next time I needed it. I'd have to give full system privileges to an company I'd never heard of who'd built the only freeware tool to do xyz.

I understand not wanting to, say, do your emails or document processing in- browser. But these are problems which are still well-served by native applications. I think the fact that all those little utilities are now webapps is an absolute blessing.</comment>


Show HN: Create interactive people plots and family trees - <AUTHOR>

I am shortly to launch our new product - www.peopleplotr.com (web-based software for creating interactive people plots and family trees). Would love to hear what people think of the product. Bit of background: Used to run a boutique web dev agency (me and my wife and some freelancers). Decided to make the move into a product company in April last year when we launched www.tiki-toki.com (software for creating web-based timelines). PeoplePlotr is our second product. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://www.peopleplotr.com></comment>


White-Box Cryptography: Hiding Keys in Software (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.whiteboxcrypto.com/files/2012_misc.pdf

<comment><USER2> "Despite all the new constructions that have been presented, the security of white-box cryptography is very unclear. Almost all of the presented constructions have been shown insecure with academic cryptanalysis papers that have been published. Only a few constructions remain 'unbroken', but they are merely a minor tweak to existing constructions – hence the existing attacks will apply with little effort."

Actually, the security is quite clear. If your application is important and you have a motivated or funded attacker, white box cryptography isn't going to do much for you.

That seems to be the overall point of the paper. You can add a small delay or confuse those who are curious but not dedicated.

"These days, white-box cryptography is being used in real-world applications; mainly DRM applications. While academic attacks have been published, as far as we know, no attacks on commercial white-box implementations have been seen. Instead, attackers focus on other parts of the system and exploit the cryptographic functionality without attacking it."

This can also read "we do not know if they have been attacked or not". (It's not fair that not knowing implies assuming none have). In addition there's also other ways attackers circumvent the use of white-box-crypto without needing to break it - they are aware of these but don't address them in the paper.

 _Shrug_ Waiting for secure obfuscators to get small enough. Give it 25 years. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> If the attacker is assumed to have access to every byte of your software's code and data, how would it be possible to stop that attacker from breaking off part of that software's functionality and turning it into a library?

It seems like that is the goal for white box cryptography, and I am very skeptical about its feasibility.</comment>


Show HN: BattleBots Made by 5th to 8th Graders in Robotics Club - <AUTHOR> https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/codedigs/build-a-battlebot-controlled-with-a-ps2-controller-fbc033 <comment><USER2> My high school robotics team is working on something similar with Raspberry Pi's. There is not much documentation but you can check out the code here: [https://github.com/InspireRobotics/sumobots](https://github.com/InspireRobotics/sumobots)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome! You guys are using far superior materials :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty cool for teaching Arduino, but most fighting robot builders on a budget use HobbyKing/Turnigy remote control systems. These are purpose built for this kind of thing, quite reliable, and cheap, especially if you wait for a sale.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was able to get the PS2 controllers at a discount at $8 per controller. If you can link me to better and more affordable ones, I would love to see them. Keep in mind this was self-funded, so we had to make a lot of compromises to keep things somewhat affordable.

<comment><USER3> I use one similar to this: [https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobby-king-2-4ghz-4ch- tx-rx-v2-m...](https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobby-king-2-4ghz-4ch-tx- rx-v2-mode-2.html) . About $28 and includes a transmitter, joysticks, and the receiver. Most fighting robot builders using this setup don't need an Arduino, breadboard, sensor shield, any additional boards or configuration on the transmitter side, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing this. That would have cut down on costs for sure.

<comment><USER3> Stop by the Facebook Combat Robotics group to ask questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow what a terrible website. The GDPR advertising opt-out:

1) Renders at the top of the page when the page is loaded, then because this link contains an anchor scrolls you to that anchor, while the entire screen is greyed out

2) Your behavior is actively being tracked by default, every click, mouse move is sent to a third party.

3) The GDPR opt out process fails every time.

Solid violations of GDPR, well done.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is published on the Arduino website. I will send your feedback to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> the cookie permission popup is impossible to close

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm a little jealous if I'm honest. I'm going to guess that the junior high I went to still doesn't have the resources for a club like this.

<comment><USER7> I started a First Team at our son's school. It was challenging. Raising the money to buy the kits and equipment was the easiest part despite our school board not having anything budgeted to it. Beyond myself, we could not get any of the other parents to commit any time to it. So we struggled and eventually collapsed. The other parents were treating it as a free afterschool program. 20 kids, 3 volunteers (1 parent, 2 teachers) and not a lot of time to teach FLL and programming concepts.

<comment><USER8> >> _Beyond myself, we could not get any of the other parents to commit any time to it._

Thank you for your efforts. I was thinking of starting a team myself in a couple of years when my children are older, and have seen other fledgling STEM programs struggle with the same issue.

Was the primary issue that parents didn't commit time at home working on the projects, or that the parents didn't commit enough time after-school? I've seen more struggles with the latter issue, and the only solution we are converging on is strictly limiting the number of participants to a more manageable size (e.g. 8-10 kids, starting with 1 grade).

<comment><USER7> As far as I know First isn't really a take home project thing. The kits were in the school computer lab. So it was strictly after school. At the end of the first year we decided that 10 students would be the limit (5 teams, 2 per) for the upcoming school year. Sadly, the afterschool teacher that was driving it transferred to another site. And, as a volunteer, I can only provide time and mentoring, not leadership.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who's looking for alpha users? - <AUTHOR> I was thinking about posting a Show HN for my latest project but I'm not sure it's quite ready for that.
If anyone else is also looking for some alpha users, post the project here.
My project is Podaero.com - small discussion groups for tech-minded people - if you want an invite code just email me with the contact in my HN profile - I'm hoping it will be a lot of fun and mutually beneficial for everyone involved. <comment><USER2> And sent! tech-minded people is not very narrow or niche. It's pretty saturated.

\- What are you doing different from HN?

\- What do you think current online communities including HN lacks?

\- What incentive structure do you think works best for promoting high quality contributions and train new users to follow along?

Plug - It's nothing concrete yet but I would like to answer people's request for an idea. Send me an email at email@example.com with some details regarding your background, field of interest, and motive. I will try to answer each and every request within reason.

small tip - remove (I am) from the title.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'll be a bit more specific on what the invite code is for on podaero.com - the invite code will get you access to a community with ~20 other people from HN (since I'm not giving open invites out anywhere else yet). The group requires activity every 30 days or you get automatically removed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, I got the spam too.</comment>


A Brief History of Philosophy in the East and West - <AUTHOR> http://expressiveegg.org/2017/01/27/history-philosophy/ <comment><USER2> I disagree with most of the comments. I believe the article has great merit, which lies in its conclusion, but most would never make it that far.

For those who'd like the condensed version:

"you are confronted with the one philosophical problem that no book or tradition or teaching can ever know or solve; being you, in your world."

What the article says is that philosophy is not very useful to an individual, which, having failed to gain any relevant insights from raw philosophy myself, I agree with.

However, I would argue that the application of raw philosophy in stories, like Crime and Punishment or The Stranger or Arrival or Romeo and Juliet, is what makes philosophy useful––being able to see it applied in a relatable character's existence, not unlike our own, with the requisite cause and effect chains. Ay, there's the rub.

I have gained great insights from stories that make excellent use of philosophy–through its application. It could be argued that great works of fiction follow from new developments in raw philosophy. Both fiction and philosophy play in the space of universal truths.

<comment><USER3> I also liked the article's critique of Western philosophy as being too analytical and divorced from real life. Apparently that wasn't always the case in the ancient world and philosophy had more practical application, which probably explains the revival of Stoicism lately as well.

A good starter book on the Stoics that also reinterprets the ancient lessons for the modern age:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0040JHNQG/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0040JHNQG/)

<comment><USER4> I've always thought that the revival of Stoicism is because 20th century philosophy messed with our heads to such an extent that we were left with an empty husk of our former selves, like ghosts floating in a meaningless world, and all we could do was laugh at ourselves to exhaustion lest we commit suicide.

Maybe I'm just talking about myself.

<comment><USER5> No, I think it's a reaction against the new-agey types that pick up stuff so often from Eastern philosophical and religious traditions. Basically it's new- agey stuff for people that would never be willing to conceive of themselves as anything like a new-agey person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is quite bad — I can barely understand a word of it and I have some background in Greek and German philosophy. I wouldn't take it as anything but a decent list of authors to look into in more detail.

We're talking about thousands of years worth of the thoughts of the smartest people who ever lived. The author's heart seems to be in the right place and they are occasionally poetic, but there is simply very little of substance you can say about this much stuff in such a short space.

</comment><comment><USER7> "One day people became rich enough to think outside the box for extended periods of time" that's my short and sweet history of philosophy :p

Seems like a nice article though!

</comment><comment><USER8> > If you can't read a generalisation without exploding in a rage of counter- > examples, stop reading now…!

What is the magic number of counter-examples at which we can safely reject the generalisation? The warning at the top could read more briefly: 'The following is clever, but wrong.'

<comment><USER9> Yeah, absolutely. I can't imagine anyone who has engaged with these philosophers at any length agreeing with what he's saying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I didn't really read the article and I didn't read too many of the comments here, but to sum up this one massive topic or two massive topics, depending on how you look at it is probably going to fail in such a small amount of space. I just want to say (and I brought this up the last time I commented on a philosophically-themed post on HN) that I highly recommend The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell as a good and thorough overview of Western philosophy. And while some may argue on his view point perhaps, I would find it difficult for anyone to struggle with his style of writing.

<comment><USER11> I'd suggest supplementing Russell's History. Russell is an engaging writer but he does have some pretty strong biases. Understand that Russell's history was written when he was short of time and money, having just been banned from lecturing at the City College of New York (on the grounds of morality).

Anthony Kenny's four volume history of philosophy is broader, though not without fault. The most authoritative history of Western philosophy is Frederick Copleston's nine volume series, but that might be a bit too much of a good thing for most people.

Do read Russell, but remember he has a whole sack of biases.

Berlin provides an excellent review of Russell's History: [https://culturalapparatus.wordpress.com/a-history-of- western...](https://culturalapparatus.wordpress.com/a-history-of-western- philosophy-reviewed-by-isaiah-berlin/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Look, I would never say that everyone has to formally study philosophy. But if you're going to talk about philosophy as if you've studied it... you really have to actually study philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER13> It appears to me, as someone who has only studied philosophy informally, that Epicurus and Epicureanism are an exception to his characterization of Western philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER14> imho this is the definitive guide to eastern vs western philosophy: [https://youtu.be/0N_RO-jL-90](https://youtu.be/0N_RO-jL-90)

</comment><comment><USER15> > If you can't read a generalisation without exploding in a rage of counter- > examples, stop reading now…!

If you can't write a generalization without exploding in a rage lacking examples, stop writing now...?</comment>


Why the Fed's Real-Time Payments Will Fail - <AUTHOR> Last Wednesday, the day the markets started to slide, there was a US Senate Banking hearing on crypto. If you didn't get a chance to see it I've included a link to the video below. [1]
About precisely 51 minutes in you'll hear Chris Van Hollen begin to discuss what he described as the Fed's desire to implement a "real-time" banking system because it could help people living "paycheck-to-paycheck". But that's wishful thinking no matter how well FinTech seems to work due to Shadow Banking, the dark underbelly of of the banking world which is so gross it the banking sector has tried to use MSM to change the name. Gross.
Anyway, I'm happy to report I just used crypto instead of a Chase wire transfer to move some of my greenbacks from the US and convert them into some pretty Rupiah cash money here in Bali, Indonesia and the results were surprising.
Here's what I did:
I put a limit order buy on GDAX and scooped up some BCH on a dip, sent it through two mobile burner wallets for less than a penny each, then put a limit sell at 1% above market on Indodax, then paid Rp30.000 (about $2) to withdraw the money straight to an Indonesian Bank.
And here's the result:
I saved a $40 Chase wire fee and about a week of waiting for SWIFT (that name though right?) to clear. I also ended up making about $11 dollars in the process from well-timed trades and had my money in a few hours.
So will FinTech help the Fed reach a real-time payment system so poor people can have more liquid access to their money as Dr. Roubini suggests in the video? I kindly doubt it...unless FinTech starts using Bitcoin.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFc0Um6WUU4 <comment><USER2> If you're just moving money, you need to hedge your gdax long with a leveraged short with a size that covers your BCH purchase. It's no good buying a dip if the dip keeps dipping before you found a buyer.

Also worth noting that the liquidity on Indodax is poor. The 24h volume for BCH is only $97,437 so selling $2,000 worth of BCH will take an hour (on average) to fill and the more people that use this method to send money home the harder it will be to get filled above market. From the liquidity point of view you'll be better off using BTC as it has 12x the liquidity.</comment>


Plastic Roads Sound Like a Crazy Idea, Maybe Aren't - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/infrastructure/plastic-roads-sound-like-a-crazy-idea-maybe-arent

<comment><USER2> Paved roads are expensive. Cost per mile for a 12 foot wide country road,(O(64K000 ft __2), seems to be O($100000) including road preparation and asphalt (base plus top). Asphalt is O($1.50) /ft*2. Roads which need more preparation work (drainage is often a problem) might cost significantly more.</comment>


NookTouch Rooting - <AUTHOR> http://nookdevs.com/NookTouch_Rooting

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, if anyone does that, do a post (put link below, and I will post and link to it) or post a YouTube video (I will post and embed)! Everyone is very curious about what it can do. And if you can, try running the Kindle for Android program too. Thanks!</comment>


Beyond Bitcoin – Part II: Blockchain-based systems without mining [pdf] - grey-area http://eprint.iacr.org/2016/747.pdf <comment> TD-Linux This paper describes three alternatives to Bitcoin's proof-of-work: proof of blockchain storage, alternate proofs of work, and proof-of-stake. These ideas have come up many times in Bitcoin before.

1\. Proof of blockchain storage: This provides no security on its own but has been suggested many times to prevent SPV mining.

2\. Alternate proofs of work: the idea is to have "cheaper" proofs of work. One of the proofs of work is a "super-agent", which would basically make a federated system, not a distributed one. There are also arguments that cheaper proof of work will just mean proportionally more work is done: [http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow- cheapest/](http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/)

3\. Proof-of-stake: [https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf](https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> What I'd love to see (don't know if this has been explored to some extent yet) would be proof of work but for _useful_ work: think Folding@home or Einstein@home (BOINC stuff in general) in order to mine a blockchain.

It's very hard to do (if it is even possible) in a non-centralized way though. Who submits the work ? who validates it has been performed properly ? and so on.

<comment><USER2> This is Ethereum: "Mining" generates Ethers, but also runs code, potentially powering useful blockchain apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> The current PoW algorithm in ethereum is ethash and does _not_ perform useful work during coin generation, unless I'm mistaken. You _spend_ ether to fuel useful work.

Also, Ethereum (forked) aim to switch to PoS soon (ETC may not).

<comment><USER2> Of course you are right, coin generation is a waste. The part where ether is changing hands for useful work is at least somewhat "useful".

Best we can hope for is a future blockchain that emphasizes this kind of work more. A seti@home-coin or cure-cancer-coin is, as you suggested, hard to implement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The paper is badly written, and so I haven't invested the effort needed to clearly understand what they're proposing, but I see no indication that the authors understand the nature of the difficult problem solved by what we are coming to call Satoshi Consensus. Until they can give a clear description of the problem and why we struggled to solve it unsuccessfully for 15 years (to the point that most of us dismissed Bitcoin when it came out) I don't think it's worth listening to their proposals for solutions.

</comment><comment><USER4> On page 4 the paper states

"if we outline a scenario in which Bitcoin reaches the same value of the current global fiat money supply, supposing that the energy consumption of global Bitcoin would grow linearly with its value"

This supposition is highly unrealistic, since the scenario will likely play out over many decades, during which there will be many block reward halvings (once every 4 years), which will severely dampen the energy consumption.

Viewed differently, each halving allows the value of bitcoin to double while maintaining the same energy consumption. At least until the reward drops to a level comparable to the transaction fees...

<comment><USER5> Why do you believe that? The last couple of halvings appeared to have little effect on the global hashrate, and so had little effect on the energy consumption.

The vast majority of Bitcoin mining is done by professionals. I doubt many people buy thousands of dollars worth of hardware to mine simply for fun. Miners are looking to profit.

People will mine the coin up until the point at which it becomes unprofitable. The cost of mining is more or less the cost of electricity (you can amortise the cost of the mining hardware over time). It makes sense to mine when the value of a coin is higher than the cost of the power used in mining it. Electricity cost is proportional to energy consumption. Hence, Bitcoin's energy consumption is proportional to its value.

<comment><USER6> > Miners are looking to profit.

This is true in a sense, but a majority of the mining is done by Chinese pools which do sell at a loss to the electricity costs even there. The losses are acceptable because it is used as a way to get currency out of the country.

<comment><USER5> A majority, you say? Where's your evidence of this, or are you making stuff up?

Bitcoin is certainly one way to get money out of China, but there has never been a shortage of ways to do that:

[http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2016/03/Screen- Shot-2016-03...](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2016/03/Screen- Shot-2016-03-03-at-13.54.37.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can anyone provide a TLDR? All I can see in the conclusion is: "We expect to develop a prototype of a blockchain-based system with the raffle protocol in the near future.". So their alternative to reaching consensus is a raffle protocol? And in raffle protocol section I read "among a set of eligible agents" and "relying on a trusted "global clock" service". Seems quite centralized if you ask me.

<comment><USER8> Sounds like a hybrid pos with a centralized key giveaway

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you accept that for many uses of publicly verifiable data structures that centralization is actually OK (and actually often a good thing, as it matches well how most democratic societies function), then there are other simpler alternatives to proof-of-work that still give many of the same benefits.

See for examples the append-only logs used in Certificate Transparency ([https://www.certificate-transparency.org](https://www.certificate- transparency.org)), and a more generalized hosted form provided by Continusec ([https://www.continusec.com](https://www.continusec.com)) that builds on the same principles. (disclaimer: founder of Continusec)

<comment><USER10> The difference is that this data structure defines who's rich and who isn't (literally). There is a whole lot more incentive to tamper with such a data structure than basically any other data structure in existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> mining= energy proof of burn, a way to bootstrap value in a cryptocurrency, at least in bitcoin, see "commodity". "The steady addition of a constant of amount of new coins is analogous to gold miners expending resources to add gold to circulation" it's a feature.

This is regarding first 2 chapters where it compares it with fiat saying it could become 802.4% more costly, right comparison is with gold indeed like in [https://www.bitcoin.fr/public/divers/docs/Estimation_de_la_d...](https://www.bitcoin.fr/public/divers/docs/Estimation_de_la_durabilite_et_du_cout_du_reseau_Bitcoin.pdf)

Expect a tldr of chapter 5, will check here back tomorrow if there is any.

Actually I'm happy they are working on an actual prototype.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how this relates to ethereum's Casper proof of stake mechanism.

</comment><comment><USER13> Blows my mind how many banks are throwing money at this when they dont understand the least of the underlining technology just because they want their hands on a potential rival fiat digital currency.

<comment><USER14> No, what they want is a interbank ledger without the need of a clearing house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> TL;DR... see git</comment>


Visualisation of Machine Learning Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://mldemos.epfl.ch/

<comment><USER2> The install.sh and install_script.sh scripts are Mac-dependent. How would you compile this on Linux? Qmake?

edit: Yep. Clone the git repo, then run qmake, followed by make.

edit #2: Here is a patch I wrote to make the project compile under OpenCV 2.2, and Linux: <https://gist.github.com/999061>

<comment><USER3> Even after applying your patch I had a little trouble getting everything to link properly on x86_64 Fedora (14). I ended up manually tweaking my make files after running qmake.

Changed the LIBS line (in MLDemos/Makefile, _AlgorithmPlugins/<n>/Makefile.<n>, _IOPlugins/<n>/Makefile.<n>) to:

LIBS = $(SUBLIBS) -L/usr/lib64 -L/usr/local/lib -lhighgui -lcv -lcxcore -lQtGui -lQtCore -lpthread

I suspect there's an easier way, but this at least allowed me to build and everything seems to work properly.

<comment><USER2> I'm glad it built.

I think the issue we're all having stems from the structural redesign of opencv 2.2. Everything has been split up into smaller headers, and the functionality is similarly separated into different shared libraries. It's a more logical code structure, but it means that we need to have different makefile rules for pre-2.2 and 2.2+ code.

As far as -lhighgui -lcv -lcxcore is concerned, those libraries don't exist on my machine anymore. "highgui" is "/usr/lib/libopencv_highgui.so", and so on. That would explain why my 'fix' didn't work for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow. This could prove an invaluable tool for teaching. Great UI (love the way you can build the dataset with a paintbrush), top-quality visualization, wide choice of algorithms... Much better than R scripts if you want to show basic algorithms at work to a bunch of students. Many thanks

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's another one, a simple Applet that lets you apply various classification algorithms on 2D data: <http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~rani/LocBoost/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Thank you! This is very, very useful. Not only to beginners, but also to those of us who want to roughly compare the behavior of several algorithms. You can estimate things like sensitivity to parameters and quickly visualize exactly how they behave.

It's a very useful tool.

</comment><comment><USER7> Patch through a black and white video into this tool and watch how the algorithm tries to find patterns in a 2d reprsentation of a 3d space. Maybe it can predict where the table ends without full view of the table.

Neat stuff, it is the beginning of machine notion of object permanence. Filling in the gaps and making educated guesses about what kind of function controls where a sequence originated from.</comment>


Why won't you replace my phone apple? or should I say... your bomb - <AUTHOR>

It's been two months with no resolution. After replacing the iPhone 4 battery turned into a bomb of deadly fumes.
My sister's iPhone's battery was swelling and not holding a charge. I figured I work at sprint, I've taken apart plenty of phones, it shouldn't take long- easy fix. I removed both of the screws at the bottom of the case and removed the rear cover.
After the rear cover was removed I went ahead and undid the screw that was holding the ribbon flush onto the logic board so that I could remove the battery. I went to pull on the tab and I noticed the right side of the battery pack bent. Next thing you know my room is flooded with Lithium Ion battery smoke, the phone is getting extremely hot in my hands, and sparks coming from the battery all at the same time. I dropped the phone to the ground and rushed to open the windows and door in the room at the same time yelling at my sister to get out of the room because the fumes are toxic. At this point I'm freaking out ( I've never had this happen to me before ), my sister is on the floor kneeling on the couch outside my door coughing her lungs up.
I contacted Apple shortly after that and got assigned email@example.com. They offered me a refurbished unit for 160.00 after 1-2 weeks of no updates or calls. It's been two months now and they've done nothing to fix the issue all I'm asking is for them to replace the unit.
Apple claims I voided the manufacturer warranty by opening the phone and attempting to replace the battery myself. Let me ask you a question? what would have been the outcome if I had not attempted to change the battery and it would have blew up in my sisters pocket at school or at work.
I've included pictures of the phone in my dropbox below. Oh yeah the bio-hazard bag is compliments of Apple :) so even though they claim I've voided my warranty and they can not replace the unit at no cost I want them to understand one thing YOUR DEVICE BLEW UP IN MY HAND.
I'm posting this here in hopes some one can help me with this situation I've left numerous voice and email messages for my case worker and I've gotten no response I'm assuming they've tossed the case.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2fwmnstfz71lrxy/uhARqE1lg7 <comment><USER2> To answer your rhetorical questions, they won't replace it because you took over the obligation for repair and maintenance the moment you decided to repair and maintain it by cracking it open.

Did you feel that the warranty would apply after you cracked it open and replaced the battery? You made an assertive action to void the warranty, and now you seem to be mad that Apple has agreed with your decision.

Surely you knew as that if the phone was swelled that the battery was damaged, and that Apple should cover the repair. Why would you even attempt this yourself, if the phone was covered under warranty?

The offer on the table seems pretty damn fair. Take it and learn your lesson.

Also, just out of wondering, in other pictures that I have seen of the iPhone4 and 4S, the back has different lettering than what is shown in your drop box images. There is a set of graphical symbols under the text, and the second line of text is longer than the first line. Is this an actual Apple iPhone?

<comment><AUTHOR> Understood, and yup it's and actual iPhone 4.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More photos added.</comment>


Government auction of wireless airwaves will shape the future of the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/04/13/the-government-just-wrapped-a-major-auction-thatll-shape-the-future-of-the-internet/ <comment><USER2> It's so upsetting to me that they don't make bands like this available for general public use. If we had clearly defined rules about interoperability we could reserve a band for essentially free low bandwidth cell phone usage, at least for text and basic data.

I've imagined that the towers could be open hardware that sell minutes on the fly for bitcoin transferred by the user.

But no, instead these corporations pay billions with the expectation that they'll recover that and much more from us who have no free option for mobile wireless.

It's really frustrating to me.

<comment><USER3> Actually a few years back there was this idea called "White Spaces" that was exactly that... If the TV airwaves were not in use in your area, you could use them for other purposes.

Here's what happened.

Out on the west coast, particularly in Los Angeles, there are no white spaces. In LA you can often get nearly 100 channels with just an indoor antenna. It is unlike any other TV market in the U.S.

Well because there were not white spaces there, they managed to delay the introduction of "White Space" hardware and also the spectrum database needed to support this service.

Then, of course, the cell phone companies came in to buy up a lot of spectrum. Because things are changing, the white space market got stunted. Now that the cell phone companies own the spectrum, there are no white spaces, or at least, much less of them than they used to be.

It's a generally forgotten story that the spectrum situation on the west coast is entirely different from the rest of the country because of the "ring of fire" topography that focuses settlement along the coast.

Out in the Northeast we find that the population is dispersed enough that there are not many transmitters near most sites, but that cities are close enough that there are not many transmitters near most cities. For instance, in Boston you have to worry about interference with Hartford and Portland, ME.

Don't get me started about 900 MHz, which is a non-starter because of the concentration of the electronics industry in Palo Alto, where 900 MHz is crammed with half-baked gadgets made by Stanford kids.

<comment><USER4> That's one part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that commercial deployment of white spaces and similar technology has been held to a pretty much impossible standard: [https://www.techworld.com.au/article/261483/google_page_whit...](https://www.techworld.com.au/article/261483/google_page_white_spaces_test_unfair).

The idea is to take advantage of unused spectrum without ever bothering incumbent users. In many cases that's simply impossible: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem).

The problem becomes much more tractable when you ditch the requirement to protect legacy transmitters and receivers in the same band. Dynamic spectrum access technology existing today could work pretty well if you gave it a big chunk of its own spectrum, and used those technologies to mediate contention among themselves.

When the FCC can get tens of billions of dollars auctioning spectrum, making the case for that becomes difficult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not "the internet". This is about _mobile_ and then only in the US. That is nowhere near the internet as an entity. And these lower frequencies have limits. There is only so much bandwidth they can now or ever carry. They cannot ever be the backbone for providing serious bandwidth to a large population (without lots of low-power towers but then you would use higher frequencies anyway.) Some people now without internet might in a decade be connected but this auction has no serious impact on the vast magority of users.

<comment><USER6> This is exactly how most people in rural areas connect to the internet /now/. The alternatives are dialup and satilite which are both worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Epstein went on to add that the auction did what it was supposed to do: Find a meeting point between supply and demand for an increasingly sought-after physical resource."

All it did was assign a monopoly to a company that must increase the screwing the customers get, to make back the money they just gave the government. Thus in effect, customers money in the future is being handed to the government today. Whoever can screw the customers the hardest can pay the government the most for the privilege of doing so.

Just like for profit prisons, this could work great, IF you included some metrics for the prisoners, or in this case, the customers. If the customers had some interest or say in this at all. Since the public/customers are the parties who matter in the sale of public properties, they should get more say than "well, just don't buy it."

Not buying it is getting to cast a vote after the polls have closed, and it doesn't really get counted when it needs to.

</comment><comment><USER8>
      The first channels to relocate will not do so for another
      18 months, according to the FCC. And TV stations that are
      changing channels or will go off the air will be expected
      to notify their viewers ahead of time with on-screen
      banners and other guides.

I thought digital over the air TV had some sort of channel-mapping that decoupled broadcast frequency from the programming channels the viewer sees, and the relationship between the two post-transition was just a historical artifact. (hence the decimal fraction broadcast channels and occasional need to convince your DTV/adapter to re-scan for metadata) Can't these moving stations just change their frequency and keep their numbers?

<comment><USER9> They'll keep their virtual channel, but viewers will need to do a new channel scan, so if you want to keep your viewers, you probably want to ask them to do it enough times that when the current frequency stops working they'll remember to do the scan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> >... an unprecedented opportunity to acquire enormous amounts of high-value, "beachfront" airwaves.

I don't think this is really considered true anymore. This auction only generated something like 80 MHz due to the low interest. T-mobile got the biggest chunk, but that is only enough to provide a total of a gigabit of downlink per cell site. Unfortunately 600 MHz frequencies tend to propagate over longer distances so it is harder to have a lot of closely spaces access points. The real value is in densely wooded rural areas where there are not a lot of subscribers. Few subscribers means little revenue.

The current hotness seems to be millimetre waves. That is where the interesting 5G development is happening. In the end there is simply not very much spectrum available below 1 GHz and they are not making any more of it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Spectrum auctioning is really bad policy.

Spectrum is like the road network. Why would we sell it to the highest bidder for them to sell it back to us?

Instead, spectrum should be public and free, like roads, for those that follow the usage rules.

<comment><USER12> Spectrum isn't free because it isn't free.

That isn't a tautology, it's a statement of fact: spectrum has a dollar value. In nature. In nature it's got a price. Because men will trade, or pay, or war for it.

Therefore, to allocate it efficiently, we should allow it to trade at that value. This is how that spectrum makes the most number of people happy.

That may sound like right-wing pablum, but it's a subject that has been well trod by great thinkers for a very, very long time. [1]

[1] Coase, to mention just one

<comment><USER13> Roads aren't free because they aren't free. That isn't a tautology, it's a statement of fact: Roads have a dollar value. In nature. In nature it's got a price. Because men will trade, or pay, or war for it. Therefore, to allocate it efficiently, we should allow it to trade at that value. This is how roads make the most number of people happy. That may sound like right-wing pablum, but it's a subject that has been well trod by great thinkers for a very, very long time. [1] [1] Coase, to mention just one

<comment><USER14> This is increasingly being done with congestion charges and time-dependent road or bridge tolls, but it still remains difficult, from a practical perspective, to maintain a continuous auction of road capacity.

Notably, wireless deployments differ from road use in that using a wireless spectrum assignment requires significant deployment time and capital investment, meaning when a frequency range is assigned it's reasonable to expect and allow a single entity to control that range for an extended period. With roads, on the other hand, a single use can be as short as a few minutes, meaning a similar auction would need to re-occur hundreds or thousands of times a day.

Further, if wireless spectrum ranges are not pre-assigned, it becomes quite difficult for multiple entities trying to use the same range to coordinate to avoid interference that would render the range useless to both. Roads, on the other hand, can be reasonably shared by multiple users without any coordination ahead of time.

Because of these practical difficulties, and the lack of an inherent need for usage assignments, most roads are not tolled or auctioned, and the result is heavy congestion in highly-sought-after routes at peak times.

<comment><USER15> While I agree with the substance of your comment, let us be clear about the difference between deployment and usage.

Entities investing in roadway leases and toll roads align closer to wireless deployments, IMHO.

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-15-u.s.-h...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-15-u.s.-highways_x.htm)

Wouldn't driving on a road for a few minutes correlate closer to making a phone call or sending a text?

(I can't believe I am perpetuating this analogy :P)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Note that this is in the 600MHz band, in the US only, and will require new frontends and related changes in order for phones to take advantage of this spectrum.

I kinda doubt it will "shape the future of the Internet" though.

<comment><USER17> It's making way for 5G service on mobile devices... 4G dragged the internet from our desktops to our phones, forcing business models around the world to change. 5G is sure to have a major impact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There was also 12Mhz of unlicensed spectrum on the old uhf channel 37 guard bands being opened up as well [1]. It's less than the 24-30 MHz advocated for users of 802.11af though. So that's a plus for IoT I guess.

Overall this is a good thing. Reshaping the future of the Internet might be hyperbole though.

EDIT: I overlooked the byline, and it appears this article is from 2014. I'm not sure if this is the same bands discussed as those from the FCC Public Notice here [2].

[1] [http://www.telecompetitor.com/wheeler-sees-limited- unlicense...](http://www.telecompetitor.com/wheeler-sees-limited-unlicensed- spectrum-600-mhz-band/)

[2] [http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0413/DA-17-314A1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Germany has terrible internet access because the carriers there overpaid for the rights. The winner should be who can provide a good end service the cheapest, not who will provide the end service at the highest price.

<comment><USER19> The current system is a reverse-disincentive to screw the customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In the case of the current headline "Government" obviously means "US Government".

<comment><USER21> If it's obvious, then what purpose does your comment serve?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone know what the terms of the deal are WRT length of lease, or are these perpetual?

</comment><comment><USER23> Could we crowdsource the purchasing of some of this spectrum for collective use?

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder at what point it will be cheaper to build more cell towers than to buy more spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER25> I, for one, don't believe that the state has the moral authority to "auction" the airwaves.

What makes 600mhz constitutionally distinct from 400hz? If the answer is "nothing," then it seems that the state can auction the air surrounding my vocal chords, deciding which vibrations are ad are not permissible.

If free speech is to mean anything in the information age, it must apply across a broad, useful, reasonable spectrum just as much as the tiny slivers which happen to be visible or audible to human eyes and ears.

<comment><USER26> You'll find that HN has bipolar disorder when it comes to libertarian positions:

Upvotes for:

\+ Privacy, opposing mass-surveillance

\+ Opposing cronyism

Downvotes for:

\+ Free markets in education, healthcare, housing

\+ Opposing "common sense safety" regulations

You would think that such an intellectual crowd would have more tolerance and curiosity for new ideas. But you would be wrong.

<comment><USER27> That's not bipolar disorder; if it was an individual, it would just be having an ideology that doesn't neatly align for or against a particular common archetype.

In the case of HN, it's both not particularly accurate and, to the extent it is at all accurate, is a mixture of some people not aligning with popular archetypes and people that do align with both libertarian and anti-libertarian archetypes being present in significant numbers in the HN community.</comment></comment></comment>


Finding your way in vim: tags, cscope, grep and more - <AUTHOR> http://stolowski.blogspot.com/2011/07/finding-your-way-in-vim.html

<comment><USER2> > A word of caution first: there is no perfect symbol-based navigation for > programming languages such as C++ or Java in vim, as vim doesn't perform any > syntax analysis of the code.

At least for Python, Vim's OmniCompletion does a reasonable job of figuring out function names:

[http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/version7.html#new- omni...](http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/version7.html#new-omni- completion)

<comment><USER3> For C and C++, clang_complete gives pretty good completion.

<https://github.com/Rip-Rip/clang_complete>

<comment><USER4> I like where this is going, but it was a bit unstable for my taste last I tried it. I think it still relies on the file being syntactically correct, which may break your parsing sometimes and is still quite slow with template- heavy code (Boost mostly). Is it still the case?

I'd also like some more build system integration hooks (e.g. provide project- specific include dirs and CXXFLAGS on a per-file basis).

<comment><USER3> You can provide your own flags to the compiler, in the g:clang_user_options variable. It does still break in uncompilable code but I don't quite see how that's a problem. It forces you to be more disciplined. If you're finding it a bit slow, the help files do explain you how to set up precompiled headers with it. I haven't tried that though, so I can't comment on how much it helps. Personally, the only times a get annoyed with it are when I type 'catch (...', and it thinks I want it's help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe somebody could help me to figure out how to save files properly with vim.

I made a script that opens all the files I need. I call the script with: :source scriptname.

Only problem is that the script works only if I open vim with 'vim' and not with 'sudo vim' (by the way, why is that?).

But if I open with 'vim', then it give me problem when I try to save...

<comment><USER6> Hmm, if the script is just a series of open commands it's weird that you are having issues as root (no errors displayed?). With problems when you save you mean that you don't have the required permissions(e.g. files owned by root or other users)?

A useful alias if you need root permissions to save:

cmap w!! w !sudo tee % >/dev/null

<comment><USER7> That is a very, very clever little cmap. Added to my .vimrc, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> tags and cscope look excellent.

However, for the grepping and general file searching stuff, wouldn't that be better done from the shell? I generally have both vim (either MacVim, or shell-vim) running, as well as a the command line sitting in a window right next to it.

What's the advantage of doing the searching inside vs. outside vim?

<comment><USER9> If you search from inside vim, it will load the results into the quickfix list. This means that it jumps you to the first result, and `:cn` and `:cp` will take you to the next and previous results, respectively.

This is much easier than searching in a terminal, noting the first filename (which may be buried in some directory), opening it in vim, then jumping/scrolling down to the relevant line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Using cscope, ctags and grep with Vim's location list and quickfix list has been a huge productivity booster for me. I highly recommend experimenting with different key bindings to ease navigating with tags other search results (:cnext :cprev :lnext :lprev, etc).

</comment><comment><USER11> I find VIM so difficult to get my head around. Emacs seems to make more sense.. is there any point in trying to grok VIM?

<comment><USER12> Speaking as a longtime vim user, not if you already grok Emacs. The one really good reason I can think of is that vi is pretty much ubiquitous on *nix and might be better suited if you need a powerful editor which you can almost always expect to be there for you even over ssh.

<comment><USER13> I know this point has been beaten to death, but in that case you only need to know/grok vi, a significantly smaller subset of vim.

<comment><USER14> Granted.

Under vi(1), the ctags example in the article is a constructive activity.

In the case of cscope, one needs to drive a development session from cscope then drop into vi to make edits.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup, bakeoff.co - <AUTHOR> http://www.bakeoff.co/?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=click&utm_campaign=hackernews Hi HN. I've love some feedback on my new app BakeOff. Good and bad, everything helps.<p>www.bakeoff.co <comment><AUTHOR> This is my first submission, would love to know what HN thinks!</comment>


Ask HN: a father called me asking how to get a job for his son who has aspergers - <AUTHOR> I am a tech recruiter.  Today a father called me.  His son has aspergers.  His son is not very communicative but he's very good with programming apparently - I believe web development, flash, photoshop and dreamweaver.
The father wants to help his son get a job.  I am a father with a small boy and I understand the desire to help your son in any way you can - I'd do anything for my little boy.
But I didn't know what to say.  Is there any opportunities for kids with aspergers to get jobs in programming?  Given that the kid in question sounds quite uncommunicative it sounds like it would be quite a challenge.
I wanted to ask the HN community - what can this father do to help his son get a job? <comment><USER3> SAP recently announced that they have a recruitment drive for autistic programmers: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22621829](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22621829) \- I would contact Specialisterne, the agency named in the article that focuses on helping people with Aspergers find tech jobs - their USA site is here: [http://usa.specialisterne.com/](http://usa.specialisterne.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Recently I worked at a financial company with a small, struggling I.T. dept that was willing to hire anyone and everyone who said they could code. I recommended my cousin, a young comp sci college grad on the Autism spectrum, to work there and he got hired in. He's coming up on completing his first year there shortly.

Since he's now had some field experience in software development he gets calls from recruiters often. He's set for supporting himself for the rest of his life now :)

He didn't talk about autism with our boss or anyone at the company until after he was hired in. He had gone through tons of interviews and I gave him the best advice I could before the interview.

I guess the best advice I could offer is to say try, try, try again, and for the father - remember that being on the Autism spectrum isn't the same as having a disability, but rather just being a little different :)

<comment><USER5> Well said and seconded

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mr. Steward, Andrew,

As I understand and have observed Asperger's is a spectrum condition. Not knowing how close you are with father and/or son, it might be premature to assume he'd be ideal for a programming job (or any other technical vocation). Though, regardless of where the son might be on the spectrum, his family has experienced how different he can be. It is safe to assume that father is concerned for his son's well-being, and likely based on ample experiences.

I am mentioning this for two reasons. I would, first of all, identify and confirm the father's underlying concern. Why will he sleep better at night if his son has a job? I would not be surprised if any financial worries are dwarfed by, for example, the fear of seeing his son alone and isolated. The father might see the job as a possible solution mitigation to his real concern. Since not having a job is a problem, but a fixable problem -as opposed to Asperger's(*)- it might be the only solution he sees to help his son.

Not all those diagnosed with Asperger's find a niche in technical work. One of my close friends became a photographer. He was diagnosed at an early age and has had a therapist helping him make sense of the world. Regardless, the main message is that photography is his thing, it is something he enjoys, can keep him busy and pays the bills. The fact that the photographer is exempt from several social rules and expectations surely benefits.

Though not immediately useful, perhaps it gives you some ideas.

All the best, Frank.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not sure if the translation is OK, but in Norway there are a few companies tailored for people with aspergers. [http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=no&sl=no&tl=en&u=ht...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=no&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tu.no%2Fjobb%2F2012%2F11%2F26%2Fi- dette-firmaet-har-alle-ansatte-aspergers) This seems right in the ballpark. The first company restores old images in photoshop. The second does various forms of programming/computer related tasks.

I'd try hooking his dad up with any of these firms, to find out how they can use the same means wherever in the world they are located.

Edit: This sentence is way off:

> Just off the old control tower on the dock, in a masonry bit beyond the old > departure hall, sitting IT consultants to Cracow.

Should be along the lines of

> Close to the old control tower at Fornebu (...) sits IT consultants for > Unicus.

e.g., the second company name is Unicus. First one is Pixellus.

</comment><comment><USER5> OK - actual concrete advice.

Open source, text only communication, provide guidance and support and discussion around rejection and trolling.

Find an area the son is interested in, and has a little experience with - perhaps gaming, perhaps collecting.

Identify some OSS projects, in the area, plus identify something the son wants (may be harder this last one)

build the project locally. Try to automate the build. Contribute back the automation and docs. Slowly change the project to do something else. contribute that back.

Rinse and repeat - if its possible think in terms of a year or more.

More advice on OSS projects get the father to post here (or contact me / others directly)

as for text only communication - stick to email - it is asynchronous and gives time to prepare.

And trolling and rejection - sorry thats going to be par for the course - <USER2> suggest the main criteria for OSS prjects is not the tech, its the community.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are recruitment agencies which only take individuals with autism on their books, and try to find them roles which suit their particular skills profile. A quick Google should turn up some useful results, but be careful to not be taken for a ride.

Tech is a good industry for those on the autistic spectrum, as it values protracted periods of focus and analysis; but as with any job, communication is really important – perhaps especially so in tech. It will be important to find an employer who is prepared to take him on as an individual and work with him to minimise his difficulties and build on his strengths.

</comment><comment><USER9> He could try contacting Specialisterne. I don't know if they are operating in the USA yet but if not, they could probably offer advice on where else to look.

[http://usa.specialisterne.com/contact- midwest/](http://usa.specialisterne.com/contact-midwest/)

</comment><comment><USER10> The problem is that a big part of a web developer's job is communication. You need to take business (or loose) requirements and turn it into an application that works.

It's going to be very difficult for him.

<comment><USER11> It will be difficult for him to build an app that can communicate with its intended audience as well, which is one of the most important factors. There's no revenue without it</comment></comment>


Every Year on August 5th, the Curiosity Rover Sings a Lonely Birthday Song - <AUTHOR> https://curiosity.com/memes/every-year-the-curiosity-rover-sings-a-lonely-birthday-song-curiosity/?shrink=1&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=meme&utm_campaign=20160805fbk00CRSTcuriositybday#meme-nasa-happy-birthday-curiosity-nasa-goddard <comment><USER2> At first I felt sad. Thinking of how Curiosity feels all alone in Mars. Slowly moving towards its objective day after day. However, Curiosity is not alone. Many people are rooting for her. Singing happy birthday and celebrating achievements. It has shown that machines carry the hearts of their creators. That makes me feel happy. Continue onwards Curiosity. Here is to another wonderful year of adventure and discovery!

<comment><USER3> Here's two versions of the XKCD comic for Spirit with a happy ending appended;

[https://imgur.com/VbKV9DF](https://imgur.com/VbKV9DF) [https://i.imgur.com/VZvj5S7.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/VZvj5S7.jpg)

<comment><USER2> Thank you for posting. Those are lovely and worth of being displayed on the walls of my lab. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It amazes me that Disney/Pixar haven't considered doing an animated film about the NASA rover program, they have so much 'personality'.

<comment><USER5> Wall-E basically got that done

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They say it was "born" on Mars on August 5th. Shouldn't we celebrate its birthday every 687 days? Since Mars year = 687 earth days.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm waiting for them to be sued for copyright infringement

<comment><USER8> Not played in the US? So no issue

<comment><USER9> copyright applies everywhere on Earth.

So, still not an issue.

<comment><USER10> Actually no it doesn't. Copyright is a legal concept enforced by laws of various countries and different countries have different laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can almost feel the "bored scientist" moment behind this idea :)

<comment><USER12> NASA wins best demo ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I didn't know this. And my birthday is august 5th. From now on I'll tip a glass for my roving robotic friend.

</comment><comment> ezequiel-garzon "Curiosity, a huge accomplishment in interstellar exploration"

I feel a deep sense of wonder with all these achievements, but isn't this description a wild stretch? Necessary first steps, for sure, but...

<comment><USER14> I agree. This hyperbolic phrase would likely not have survived a persnickety editor, who might've replaced "interstellar" with "interplanetary".

Source: I am a persnickety editor.

<comment><USER15> More media organizations desperately need good editors. It gets very distracting to find obvious errors even in science journalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wouldn't the very low atmospheric pressure prevent any sound from being transported? So it vibrates the birthday tune, but only via seismic waves, not sound. Nice touch anyway :)

<comment><USER17> [http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/04/11023933-how-w...](http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/04/11023933-how- would-you-sound-on-mars?lite)

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2006/06/mars-no-one-can- hear-...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2006/06/mars-no-one-can-hear-you- scream)

It'll make a sound, but it won't go far.

Also, the thought of Curiosity singing alone on Mars makes me sad now.

<comment><AUTHOR> A good rover would keep going. A good rover like they wanted.

Did I do a good job? Do I get to come home?... Guys?......

[https://xkcd.com/695/](https://xkcd.com/695/)

<comment><USER3> Happy versions here; [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12239358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12239358)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Now, wouldn't it be more appropriate to align the job with the marsian year? But I assume that wouldn't work as well as PR.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm quite sure it doesn't sound like that on Mars, though. Think about how different dolphins sound because their music is sent through water instead of normal earth air.

</comment><comment><USER20> That's really poignant.

<comment><USER21> Allow me to wax philosophical for a moment.

My wife is very emotion driven. She legitimately cried about the philae shutdown, and had to rectify how she "looked at" the shutdown to not feel sad about it, but I feel like my sysadmin background helps in this.

These tools, as much as we attach emotion to them, are tools, extensions of the will of those who made them. A sysadmin will NEVER win in the long run. Our best success is averting failure yet another day; yet another day. Similarly an engineer will never build a tool that lasts forever. But each year is another accomplishment, another triumph of their competence against the increasingly likely probability that "everything is on fire."

So less than poignancy, I see it as a trumpet call, a triumph procession. Each year is another year of spitting in the face of every absurd hardware bug, quantum event, cosmic ray, and meteor that'd love nothing more than to ruin some scientist's day. These missions to which we assign so much personality do not "die", so much as "manage to persist against all odds", and it keeps me in constant awe of the people who set out and succeed, even a little, at these endevours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder what the cost of this was, given the famous degree of rigor displayed by NASA in the development and testing of their control software.

<comment><USER19> (not a downvoter) Since it is mostly about transfering bits and wasting some time on the equipment it is not a big cost at all. Saving 0.0001% in the next travel to mars and they probably have covered the next 10 billion birhtdays.</comment></comment>


Writing a StarCraft Bot in F# - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chrsmith/archive/2010/03/18/writing-a-starcraft-bot-in-f.aspx

<comment><USER2> I don't use Visual Studio or any of the .Net languages, but F# strikes me as pretty cool. For those who are using it, how does it compare to the experience of coding in ocaml? I'm guessing that the Visual Studio tooling and libraries add something compelling?

<comment><USER3> Yes, you get the Intellisense, debugging, analysis tools, etc from Visual Studio (which are quite nice). More importantly, you get the ability to use any existing .net assembly, including .net itself (kind of like some of the JVM-based functional languages get access to Java).

<comment><USER2> Thanks, it looks like it might be a nice way to learn an ML dialect, once I have time to dig into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're interested in learning more, Ben Webber did a talk on the AIIDE 2010 StarCraft competition at SHDH36 that is worth watching: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbjsL5E1Idw>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm currently reading Chris Smith's (author of this post) book 'Programming F#' (the iPhone app version). I highly recommend it if you are interested in F#.

<comment><USER5> As he's now working for Google (<http://achrissmith.blogspot.com/2010/05/one- month-in.html>) I wonder if he's still involved with F# (Google employees not being able to use Windows and all).

update: To answer my own question, I asked him, and he responded: <http://twitter.com/aChrisSmith/status/21929022794>

I love the internet.</comment></comment>


2022 Chevy Corvette C8 will have nearly 1,000hp - <AUTHOR> https://carbuzz.com/news/will-the-c8-chevrolet-corvette-have-nearly-1-000-hp <comment><USER2> How much will it cost?</comment>


Ask HN: How to calculate a company's value? - <AUTHOR> I want to define value in a very specific way: the amount of money (converted to dollars adjusted for inflation) that was put into the stock over the lifetime of the company.
More money going in than coming out tends to drive the price of a stock higher.
The MARKET CAP of the stock is simply the spot share price of the stock multiplied by the amount of shares. But this should be wildly larger than the value of the company as I defined it. If people start selling the stock, the price will drop and with it the Market Cap. The amount of money the whole company will fetch before being "liquidated" is probably far closer to my definition of "value" than the Market Cap is. In fact, I would say that the two would roughly be equal, a lot of the time, as those who have tried to corner a market have found out.
I would define the value of the company mathematically as the integral of the money velocity in "real dollars" (adjusted for inflation) going into the stock. It can be really any set of assets, doesn't have to be equity. It can be a commodity for example.
It seems to me that this would be an extremely useful measure of "desirability" of something vs something else. But how to calculate it? Where do I get the historical data when the thing is trading across multiple exchanges and OTC markets, and had private investment rounds too? <comment><USER2> Public market transactions don't change the number at all, because every transaction has a buyer and a seller and the money in is the same as money out (except for a few basis points to the brokers and exchange).

The only thing that moves the number is when the company itself sells stock. So you can add up all the private funding rounds and secondary offerings to get the number you want. Crunchbase has it for most companies including public ones. For example, "Tesla has raised a total of $14.5B in funding over 29 rounds" [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tesla- motors#section...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tesla- motors#section-funding-rounds)

<comment><AUTHOR> Why, if people first buy at price X, then sell at Y>X now people bought in at Y, so the number goes up. That one transaction increased it by Y-X. Where am I wrong?

Aha I see. I guess what I want is to sum up all the Y-X where the person "bought in at X and sold at Y". How do I get that info?

If we had 100% gold reserves for every bank then you could just count the reserve of gold at the bank to know how much that bank was in demand vs others.

Similarly we do this when businesses accept consumer cash - however much cash is in the business account represents how much in demand its products are. It is the integral of the money velocity into the business from its inception.

I want that but for a stock.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another way to visualize it is the volume of air that has gone into a balloon (from one or more openings / gateways)</comment>


Dust bowl conditions of 1930s US now more than twice as likely to reoccur - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/18/us-dust-bowl-conditions-likely-to-reoccur-great-plains <comment><AUTHOR> > Such conditions could be expected to occur naturally only rarely – about > once a century.

> They are now at least two and a half times more likely to occur, with a > frequency probability of about once in 40 years

> If global temperatures rise by more than 2C (a rise of 3.6F) above pre- > industrial levels, such heatwaves will become one-in-20-year events in the > region</comment>


Marissa Mayer is no role model for female empowerment - <AUTHOR> http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/marissa-mayer-is-no-role-model-for-female-empowerment.premium-1.506785

<comment><USER2> Paywall. Regardless of how interesting the article might be, it's not publicly accessible.</comment>


Ask HN: How good are 200 or 250 usd/hour rate developer compared to lower tier? - <AUTHOR> hi, my hourly rate is around 25-30 USD/hour. I really want to increase it, but due to competition on freelancing sites(Upwork),i was not successful. I have completed most of my projects with satisfactory remarks from clients. I really want to know how much difference is there between me and highly paid developers, What makes them better than me(may be negotiation!!)? p.s. : I am a fullstack web developer and a hobbyist mobile app/game maker. ( I don't want to share my Upwork profile) <comment><USER2> The most important part of getting paid more is asking for more.

Tomorrow, your hourly rate is $60. Doesn't matter whether it is. The next time you talk to someone, that's your rate.

Then when you're hired, you deliver. If they're happy with your work, you must've been worth at least that much.

Why does a SaaS cost $500 bucks? Why not just $50 or $5? The things we do are immaterial. You can deliver $200k worth of value off of a 6cents/hour aws instance. Why is my code writing worth $200/hour? Why is it worth anything? Sure, markets. But in order for there to be a market, someone has to create one. If you never ask for more money, nobody is going to give you more money.

What I'm saying is, if you do good work, you may as will ask for $60. There's really no difference. You're either a good engineer or a bad one. If you're a bad one, you really shouldn't be making any money at all. If you're a good one, there's no reasons you should only be making $30.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Can I use my fiverr profile show my work?

<comment><USER2> If you want to be taken seriously as an engineer, you better never mention your fiverr profile again.

But yea, you can if you want. But I won't provide code audits for free, if that's what you're getting at.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for making a good point.

<comment><USER2> if you want to showcase your work, do it on github.

dont ask me how. i dont use github. but thats where people showcase their work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've found $15-$50hr has little difference on these type of sites so for me I tend to stay at the lower end if I have basic jobs to be done.

$100+ people that can value-add and deliver with attention to detail. That said at these rates I flip to local people (AU) so this might just be the better environment.

I tried to use toptal once but after being sent a bunch of emails in the weeks after I signed up to the website, when I sent the job specs they never got back...

And I've stopped using Upwork as I find the rating system useless in helping you find decent contractors.

I feel as other have said is you need to be able to deliver projects. I've often heard hourly rate jobs are about lead gen. I know myself I'll give people some simple jobs to test out quality when I'm in the market for new contracts and those that pass the cut get offered projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing your view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They aren't on upwork, for one thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will now try word of mouth marketing, and expanding my connections on linkedin.

<comment><USER5> Get involved in a technical community in a higher paying country, then leverage that to get work. This is how I meet the best foreign developers I've worked with, and they already share a common interest with me, making me much more reassured that they are somewhat knowledgeable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the idea, how may i find them(Reddit,IRC or Quora)?

<comment><AUTHOR> sure, I have an active profile on github.

<comment><USER5> Good, find an active project and contribute some minor things, then see if anyone needs something built using that project and do consulting work for them. I believe you can put money directly on the prepaid card Upwork gives out, while paying 4% or 5% instead of Upwork's fees, I'd use that for payment on small jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Stop selling yourself by the hour. Take a punt on some projects and try delivering functionality for a price. Gain confidence at this and slowly build up your client list.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is the great suggestion, I will put efforts in this direction. Biggest obstacle on upwork is that they(clients) want much more customization on the same initially quoted price. They keep on adding small details and big back- end work. If i add extra usd on the work, they threaten to cancel the job(more like black mail!!!). They don't obey the milestone payment and think of you as slave!!!

<comment><USER5> Software development is hard, and finding out what the client actually needs is half the battle & part of the job before doing anything significant on Upwork or just as a consultant.

Often, I find businesses don't understand what they need to operate more efficiently, but when you show it to them, or bring them a mostly formed plan, they are much more likely to get what they need you to build. It all comes down to understanding what the client actually needs, not the lies they unknowingly tell you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have the similar views. Here is my fiverr profile <<<REMOVED>>>>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> English or <insert relevant language> skills for one, along with not working on Upwork. Having paid a few grand on Upwork, I doubt I will ever use it again.

Based on your post, I would highly recommend practicing capitalization & grammar further, I have worked with many devs outside upwork who learned english as a second language who have mastered this, and have taught many foreign exchange students good grammar.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for the suggestion. I have edited the question. I have made this post in hurry so I did not pay attention in the grammar.(you are right,English is my 2nd language.)

<comment><USER5> Looks the same to me, still could use editing.

For example: _Thank_ you for the suggestion _,_ I have edited the question. I made this post in hurry so I did not pay attention _to_ the grammar. ( _You_ are right, English is my 2nd language.)

Your english needs some work, but you are not in a bad place. Start sentences off with a capital letter, and avoid fragmented sentences. Additionally, you are using certain words unnecessarily which breaks the flow of the sentence (have for example), and on your main post some words should be reversed. I would also encourage you to always put a space between each word and after a comma (,), let me know if you need any help!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pinning out the small details.

<comment><USER5> The small details go a long way :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Double your rate, have a strong Github profile and start writing professionally whenever you communicate to clients.

Writing professionally means no grammar, spelling or punctuation mistakes, and re-writing your emails a few times for clarity before sending them. Including here and in chat.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Added to the checklist!! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Top tier developers usually have a very hard to find skill. And working on site jumps wages quite a bit.</comment>


Imec-Backed Fund Raises $131M for Hardware Startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333717 <comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I'm glad to see hardware start-ups getting a focus. For those that don't know, IMEC are probably the largest silicon chip research foundry in the EU (covering both electronic and photonic chips). Anyone know of any other EU hardware-specific funds emerging?</comment>


Hardened Yes - <AUTHOR> http://www.hardenedyes.org/

<comment><USER2> The code uses `puts`. I'm not sure how much more ironic it could be.</comment>


Ask HN: Share your personal website - <AUTHOR> I'm curious to look at some cool examples of programmer's personal websites. <comment><USER2> My pride and joy, which is also my fascination and obsession with improving and making life better in the workplace. Apparently, I am not alone.

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

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Mine is [http://rayalez.com](http://rayalez.com)

I'm still working on it, it sure could be better, so I'm looking for some inspiration here =)

</comment><comment><USER3> Mine is [https://jjude.com](https://jjude.com). I keep design to minimal level.</comment>