Got 15 minutes and want to learn Git? - <AUTHOR> http://try.github.com/ An in-browser github tutorial powered by codeschool <comment><USER2> NOTE: This is not a rant, I'm just trying to give you a peek into my mind as I tried out this tutorial. I'm doing my best to describe my confusion.

I have no clue how to use Git, and I've been trying to wrap my head around it for a while. Unfortunately, this is yet another tutorial that is very frustrating even though it's designed to target noobs like myself.

So, I added octocat.txt to my staging area. Success! ... Wait. Why do I care? What did I do? Staging what, for what? Huh?

I committed some random text. Or something. And I typed "-m". So does "git commit -m 'something random'" actually do something? What did I commit to? Arrrggg. Why did I -m !?

Then there's this one: git commit -m 'Add all the octocat txt files'

So it understands plain English? Was that the random text? Is that just some sample text as part of the Tutorial or does that actually work on Git? Oh man, I'm now more confused than when I started.

...

Anyway, for some reason, everyone who tries to describe Git already has such a strong understanding of it and it's oddities, that they are, for some reason, unable to lay it out properly for a noob IMO. I cannot figure out how anyone figures out Git, I assume there was some serious hand holding, because I'm just not grasping it and I usually "get" this stuff rather quickly. Maybe that's the problem, Git isn't something you can just pick up quickly, maybe I need to buy a huge Git how-to book like the old days.

Sincerely, Frustrated in Programming Land.

<comment><USER3> I sympathize. What is really necessary are not tutorials on how to use Git--it isn't that hard, after all, for most of us--but more of a description of actual workflow. Not HOW you issue Git commands; but how to use Git.

It would be interesting to read articles about how a single programmer uses Git, how a small programming team, how a distributed team uses Git. Similar articles about how a team producing art, or text (not programmers) use Git.

There's plenty of Git command tutorials already; let's hear about how you actually use Git.

<comment><USER4> I completely agree. If it helps, I wrote up some visual tutorials about version control in general that many have found helpful:

[http://betterexplained.com/articles/intro-to-distributed- ver...](http://betterexplained.com/articles/intro-to-distributed-version- control-illustrated/)

The idea is to build a mental model about _what is possible_ vs. memorizing a bunch of specific commands. Once I wrapped my head around the concepts, the commands fell into place.

<comment><USER5> Looks good!

On my screen the text is light gray on white. Is that intentional?

<comment><USER4> Whoops! Thanks for the comment, the text should be a readable black on white (like this: [https://skitch.com/kalidazad/er7an/intro-to-distributed- vers...](https://skitch.com/kalidazad/er7an/intro-to-distributed-version- control-illustrated-betterexplained)).

Which browser were you using? (I just tried FF, Chrome, Safari) Thanks!

<comment><USER5> <https://skitch.com/gizzlon/efrsh/screen>

<comment><USER4> Thanks, really appreciate it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can we please stop pretending that Git is simple and easy to learn? If that were true then there wouldn't be "Learn how to use Git in <X> minutes!" posts every other day.

The fact of the matter is that Git is incredibly powerful but also complex and hard to learn. This isn't a bash on Git at all. It's ok! Sometimes complicated things are just that, complicated.

I believe we'll have better guides and tutorials if people stop treating Git like it's easier or more simple than it actually is.

<comment><USER7> I haven't read any books or longer tutorials on Git. I find it easy to use and if I run into trouble I just Google after help (which happens a few times a week). Throughout the day I mostly use 9 Git commands. Here are the top 9 commands I use:

        git checkout X
        git checkout -b new-branch
        git commit
        git add; git mv; git rm;
        git pull --rebase
        git rebase origin/master
        git push origin X

I have used this for a long time without running into huge amounts of trouble (and if I need to revert back to a specific or do anything special I can always consult Google). The bottom line is: For simple cases Git is really simple to use and to learn. You don't need to become a Git master to use Git.

The problem is that people introduce the powerful features of Git that only a few percentage of people will ever use.

<comment><USER6> Everything you just said is exactly why Git is not simple and can not be learned in 15 minutes. Just by operating from the command line you've already left the realm of "simple" in my opinion. Having to learn 9 commands is not simple. Having to hit Google for help multiple times per week is not simple.

I strongly, strongly disagree with your assertion that "for simple cases Git is really simple to use and to learn". I've watched many programmers, artists, and designers who have used source control struggle with Git from day 1. I'm sorry, it's just not simple and if it were this topic wouldn't come up over and over and over.

Again, I say none of this as a slight to Git. Complicated things are complicated. That's ok, but pretending they aren't isn't helpful.

<comment><USER8> > Just by operating from the command line you've already left the realm of > "simple" in my opinion.

Git is a tool for programmers. There's no excuse for a programmer to be uncomfortable with the command line.

<comment><USER9> I am a productive programmer and I am absolute uncomfortable with the command line. I can't count the times I have written

        svn commit -m "Finally fixed bug #123!"

...only to get some weird bizarro error because I should have used '' or escaped the !. This is usually when I am deeply focused on some programming language or bug #123.

Tower.app is the only reason I've ever touched git, and the line-by-line staging and committing is nothing I would ever bother to do with a CLI.

<comment><USER8> Well, suit yourself. It's just a tremendously useful skill to have. Makes it a bit less of a hassle to ssh into the odd server to check the logs, or dump a database, or use tools that don't have a GUI.

I mean, fundamentally, you're typing things to a computer and then the computer does what you typed. Why should that notion be uncomfortable to a _programmer_ of all people?

<comment><USER9> Oh, I _can_ use the terminal, I can also theoretically write PHP, and every vim user can theoretically use Eclipse. But that doesn't mean that any of us would be comfortable with it - we'd all be anxious and focused on the tool (instead of the problem at hand) not to break stuff left and right.

<comment><USER10> What kind of argument is that? How can you ever learn anything new with this attitude? If you never leave your comfort zone you will never make any progress. Just do it.

<comment><USER9> I have listed things that I _have_ tried out for months. I happen to really hate these particular three. Now I study other things that I find more worthy of human lifetime, some of them just as useful to a programmer.

Why can you not accept that someone could possibly hate working with a shell or git's CLI even after trying them out? I don't get it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It would be nice to get everything on one page. As it is, in my laptop I am scrolling up and down a lot to see the instructions, the terminal, and the local filesystem, which are laid out as three rows in one long column.

I did the tutorial mostly without looking at the filesystem so I could stop scrolling. But I know I missed a few helpful "extra" hints because they were below the fold next to the filesystem.

On the plus side, it piqued my interest. I've been meaning to get around to this.

</comment><comment><USER12> As someone new to git, I was dissapointed to see that:

        git add "*.txt"

added all of the .txt files from the current directory AND all of the .txt files contained within a subdirectory. I would have expected the same files to get added as those that would have shown up using:

        ls *.txt

For other new users: I've been told that this is an error in the tutorial. The tutorial forced the use of quotes but apparently they are not required and git _would_ have added only the files that show up with the ls command as indicated above.

EDIT: I'm wrong. Using quotation marks DOES make git fetch .txt files within subdirectories. As pointed out by cellularmitosis, git seems to do it's own "interesting" glob expansion.

<comment><USER13> Nice Find! I added it to my git-themed twitter account here: <https://twitter.com/#!/gitHater>

Let me explain what's happening.

What you are looking at is actually part-git, part unix-shell-y.

You did ls * .txt

Let's try something way crazy, type echo * .txt

What do you see? All of your txt files right? But that's just echo, not ls.

Ahh. Here's the clinch. When you do " * ", that's called either shell "expansion" or "globbing" depending on your shell. Basically, the shell says "ok, before I run your command, I'm going to look at it and see if I need to do anything on my end"

This is why you can do

       $ n=0
       $ echo $n

The shell hijacks your input, replacing "$n" with "0", then feeds it into echo

In your example, the shell has hijacked the star in "ls * .txt", replaced it with all of your txt files, say (a.txt, b.txt) and then ran ls.

That means that ls ACTUALLY got

       ls a.txt b.txt

And THAT's why it works with echo.

\</comment></comment><comment>---

So git add "* .txt" works differently, what gives?

Well, when you put things in double or single quotes you are telling the shell "hey, don't do your usual stuff here". The single quotes are more extreme. If we go back to our n=0 example we can try two more things:

       $ n=0
       $ echo $n
       $ echo "$n"
       $ echo '$n'

As you can see, the ' says "relax shell, I have this".

So when you do

        git add "* .txt"

you are actually passing the "* .txt" to git.

In most reasonable, sensible programs, the program will look for a file named "asterisk dot t x t" in this case.

But alas, our friends at git have decided to be tricky. The ' * ' syntax for git is similar to gitignore-like syntax ([http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/v1.7.10/giti...](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/v1.7.10/gitignore.html))

"Awesome", you exclaim! Not so fast. It's not the same.

So git add '!1' doesn't work. git add 'one/ * * ' doesn't work, only git add ' * ' seems to work.

Why is it so hard? Good question! I haven't any idea. But we can commiserate together ... you know, over twitter.

Have a good one!

</comment><comment><USER14> This tutorial is very pretty and does a great job of emulating the local Git experience using just a single interactive webpage. However, Github seems to be trying to introduce Git to a wider audience - namely non-developers.

From the blog post[1]:

"If you know of a developer, designer, or other knowledge worker that would benefit from using Git but that hasn't made the leap just yet, send them over to try.github.com when they have a spare 15 minutes."

As a developer, it would be nice to know how well this tutorial really works for non-developers. To me, it seems that the tutorial introduces way too many concepts and details in a very short time for a non-developer to understand.

For example, there are a lot of people that work daily with a computer but freeze completely when faced with the task of using a command-line interface. Yes, clicking on the command does write it in the console but you still have to know to press the return key to actually execute the command.

I'm not saying people shouldn't learn Git, I'm just wondering what the target audience and purpose of this tutorial is.

[1] <https://github.com/blog/1183-try-git-in-your-browser>

<comment><USER15> It's hard to know how well it works for non-developers until we've had hundreds of non-developers going through the course. Which should hopefully be happening now.

I can't speak for GitHub (I'm from the Code School team that built this), but we were very cautious not to introduce too many concepts in that course (you can see below someone saying it's too basic, yes, that's the point), simply the absolute basics we thought people would need to know to understand Git. We also did our best to not introduce Unix concepts, which open another can of worms.

The point is that a very large amount of people working on and around the web today are terrified of the command line. There are plenty of tools that attempt to abstract away the Git command line interface, and our goal with Try Git was not to do that. To give people the real Git experience and try to ease them into it.

I'm sure we can improve it over time to ensure that fewer people "freeze" in front of a command line. You're right that we may need to be more explicit as to what people should do after entering a command, but we need to stay as consistent as possible with the actual command line.

Please feel free to give more feedback, I'll be going through everything that's posted here.

— Olivier Lacan

<comment><USER14> Hi Olivier, great to know you're actively improving the tutorial!

Now that I checked the tutorial again, there seems to be a "Press enter to submit commands" help text before the command prompt. If you just added that, great, since that would have been my first suggestion anyway :)

As a developer using Git daily I can only guess what the most problematic parts of this tutorial are for beginners. I hope you get a lot of good feedback and data from all the people visiting the site!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I really appreciate the new learning tools to become more adept at programming and the command line. However, I often find myself mindlessly re-typing the commands being thrown at me without really understanding what's going on, or why I'm being asked to do it.

I liked the approach of Ruby Monks where they give you a task and let you guess the syntax. If you got stuck you _then_ look at the solution.

I don't mean to make less of try git, or any other interactive tutorial. We live in a wonderful time where we are able to learn powerful tools without even installing them, so I almost feel bad about making this criticism. But I think current tools could be improved by removing some of the _wizardy_ feeling and allowing users to play around and trying to figure out stuff on their own.

<comment><USER15> This is a great point. But before you can make people work at understanding something, you have to make them realize that they have a stake in trying to learn.

I don't think everyone (and certainly not myself) was able to understand the value of Git at first glance and decide to invest time and effort into learning about its inner workings.

Normal Code School courses and Ruby Monk challenges are made for people who already have somewhat of a vested interested in learning. Something that pushes them to challenge themselves beyond a simple demo/interactive tutorial. People like that are (sadly) a limited subset, we're trying to broaden that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Something that often gets glossed over in explaining version control to a non- developer is, "WTF is happening with my files?"

The concept of a single folder containing multiple versions of your stuff is a big deal; the fact that you can't simply navigate to a branch as if it's a different folder--that you can't "see" all your files at once--is a non- trivial thing to punch through.

</comment><comment><USER18> This doesn't help you learn Git. It helps you learn the commands for Git if you're already familiar with version control.

I can kind of sort of use Git already but frankly I don't understand what half of the commands do nor do I understand the point of them.

Technically the only commands I would assume you need are:

\- Get repository \- Merge repository (with comment) \- Get history/comments

But Git has dozens of different things it can do that expand on the above and learning it all is time consuming and there is no one single place to do so (and no the documentation isn't a good place because it isn't a intuitive way to learn).

The biggest hurdle of using Git is that Git has its own vocabulary for things; and there is nothing "common sense" about that vocabulary. Even people who attempt to explain it assume you know another version control so use vocabulary from that.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does this straight up just not work for anyone? I am typing in commands and am getting no feedback. Just getting a new $ line.

<comment><USER20> I'm having the same problem. Other people are complaining about this in their support forums.

Doesn't speak too highly of Code School in general.

<comment><USER21> @tdonaghe - we have fixed all the lag issues (in less than 15m no less). So not sure 20 minutes of sub-optimal experience justifies your comment. Hope you stick around to learn more! :)

<comment><USER20> I take back my complaint. :)

I just finished the course.

Great job guys!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Runs a bit slow, but impressive nonetheless. I appreciate the simple but effective interface.

I love when sites do something like this in order to give potential users a quick taste of a language or technology. I already learned Git using the Pro Git book, but this would have come in handy as an introductory lesson.

This also reminds me the of the awesome tryruby.org

</comment><comment><USER23> As someone who has never used git I found this tutorial relatively acceptable. I was disappointed there was not a level 2!

</comment><comment><USER24> As someone without a trained programming background and never once used any version control (last time I programmed was for the ti-83 in middle school), Git at first was tough to pick up.

It wasn't until I went through Michael Hartl's Rails tutorial that I actually learned Github, master/branches, etc., and understood what are commits and pushes.

</comment><comment><USER25> A lot of these Git tutorials seem to walk you through a series of commands as if knowing the commands is knowing Git.

I think they should focus on scenarios instead. Short stories like: "Bob's code is working well but he wants to try something that might be completely misguided. He knows better than to mess with his working code....." Then at the end of the story a command is introduced. Also, some kind of indication of what Git is actually doing when you issue that command. When you tell Git to branch, what actually happens to the file system? When you say git status, what is it actually looking at?

And please, don't start a tutorial on Git without introducing the three area paradigm (working, staging/index, commit)

Here's a talk by Scott Chacon of GitHub. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDR433b0HJY>

It's over an hour long and very detailed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Git _isn't_ easy to learn. Not at all. You can't spend 15 minutes looking at a Git tutorial or playing a game which teaches you Git, close the page and exclaim "Excellent! I know Git now!" - you can however put it on your CV, and blag it in that new job you're applying for where you need to understand git.

Like most things in software development, learning by doing is the best option because most people don't have photographic memories, and having a reference is usually essential.

Luckily, we all have one huge reference available to us, for free (more or less), with a thriving community who are more than happy to help: The Internet.

This tool is, nonetheless, a good starting point.

</comment><comment><USER27> Very slick, but also very slow. Occasionally I have to run a command twice for it to register. Also, it's strange that git's output isn't colorized, considering the "Success!" messages are.

<comment><USER28> All the commands are implemented on the remote end (hence the latency), and some of them look like they are a limited node.js reimplementation (git is mostly the real deal, though the command list is whitelisted). I would be interested in a version that runs locally in JS/Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My use of Git is basically to have a dev branch where I commit randomly, like some sort of ftp/backup, and a master branch that I merge from dev if I have a release ready.

The other day I tried to merge only some files from a new "experimental" branch and failed hard. I then realized I had it all wrong about how to successfully commit and manage branches.

And felt so lame :) The sad part is that I am the only one trying to use a CVS at work.

TL;DR : I still need to learn Git, so thank you everyone trying to "teach" it.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is basically a glorified animation. On the commit stages, try adding a different message than theirs. When you get to the log stage, it shows their messages. :-(

</comment><comment><USER31> Nice idea but far too basic. I need a Masterclass Git page.

<comment><USER32> I guess it was intended to be basic. The idea behind it is that you take 15 minutes and do some basic things and if you like it then you can then learn more about it... I think it's a great starting point. It gives noobs like me a good interactive, hands-on start.

<comment><USER33> I think this kind of stuff always has focus on basic usage. Git has inumerous features and inumerous ways to do some of then. It's so much to put in this format. If you like it and need some more go and read <http://git- scm.com/book> ... I've learned a lot in this online book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really love the idea of sponsored courses/tutorials. This type of thing makes me more likely to use Git and GitHub more, and evangelize more.

I have a tough time wanting to pay for a course at a place like code school when I know if I go through the docs/tutorials I'll get it. It's not that I don't think the experience is better, or even (for a certain definition) worth the money. I feel like it is an unnecessary indulgence.

<comment><USER15> This is beginner-level content, which makes a lot of sense as a free resource. We're working on a Code School "Git Real" course for the end of July that will go much further than this and be at an intermediate level, just like most of the courses we offer through a subscription or individual purchase.

I suggest you check out the first level of that course when it comes out. I doubt you'll think it's an unnecessary indulgence. In the meantime our Node course is good example: <http://node.codeschool.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I seem to have great problems with this tutorial. And not that it actually does not help me with why and how I should use it in different scenarios (wich it doesn't), but my entire computer crashed for the first time. Got a major error, lots of blinking on the screen and the had to reboot several times. When I tried open it again, chrome crashed every single time. Not impressed.

</comment><comment><USER36> Nice, but I think it's far too few. Stuff that this tutorial could be handled with tar as well. I'm not sure if it would encourage to use git somebody who doesn't know much about version control. Somebody who know, probably don't need it because commands like "git log", "git add" and "git commit" are quite obvious for someone who used SVN or other version control system.

</comment><comment><USER37> I get an entirely blank page. JavaScript errors.

Win 7, Opera 12.

<comment><USER38> Pssst, Linux+Chromium.

<comment><USER27> Right, because a good way to fix errors on a web page is to change your operating system and browser.

I am curious which JavaScript errors you're seeing, though, skrebbel. I don't see anything amiss in the developer console on Safari 5.1.7.

<comment><USER39> As another Opera 12 + Win7 user, there are 2 errors. A ReferenceError (undefined variable pluginlist when trying to add "Java") and a TypeError (CourseApp.Views.ChallengeMenu is not a constructor).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The tutorial guides you through using some git commands, but it doesn't let you deviate. It encouraged me to make up commit messages, but when I look at the log it apparently ignored my messages and used some other ones. If it's not going to represent the actual experience using git, why bother? It serves only to confuse.

<comment><USER12> I agree. I kept trying to "ls" and observe what was going on between each command or examine the directory structure of /.git and so on. Only later did I realize that there was a filesystem explorer-like window below.

Also, having them automatically adding files to the directory was kind of confusing. Sometimes I would type a command and something new would appear in the file system as a result of that command. Other times, I would type a command and something new would appear in the filesystem that I suppose was expected to be used for a subsequent step. It would have been nice if these things would have happened in isolation from each other. That way I could run the command, see what happened, and then perhaps click "next" to move onto a different scenario with a new set of files I could add to the repository.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Basic Git is easy. This intro is basic. Just be aware that it can get much more complicated and the answers to how to do it may or may not be readily available via Google.

This guide is like starting the "Couch to 5K" fitness program but knowing that, if you stick with it, eventually you will have to compete in a marathon.

</comment><comment><USER41> One bit of feedback: it's hard to notice that the Advice box has changed every time you advance a level. Can that be made more obvious? (here's what I'm talking about: <http://cl.ly/251P3i2t1k1p3C3U0D0u>)

</comment><comment><USER42> That page is broken. The try.github.com will redirect to <http://try.github.com/levels/1/challenges/1> but I got "We're sorry, but something went wrong. (500 Internal Server Error)"

</comment><comment><USER43> This was working nicely until about step 20, where everything sort of hung. I've deleted cookies, removed the repository, and tried to restart but I am now hung on step 1. (By "hung," I mean: I've issued the command but nothing ever comes back.)

</comment><comment><USER20> The tutorial seems broken for me.

I'm at the point where you do a git checkout clean_up and then nothing at all happens. You just get the prompt back. If I try git status same thing.

I've reloaded the page multiple times, but same problem.

Maybe Code School needs to work out a few more bugs?

</comment><comment><USER44> Nice tutorial.

However, it requires giving an app 'try-git' access to your private and public repositories... so afterwards, probably a good idea to edit your profile, click Applications, then remove the try_git app.

<comment><USER45> I stoped when it asked to create a repo on github. This is not required to lean git. Well tried ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Pff...this command line doesn't even know 'ls' :)

</comment><comment><USER47> Git: the cargo cult SCM. Too much unnecessary voodoo. Given the choice I'd take Mercurial any day.

</comment><comment><USER48> git: 'clone' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.

What? I don't know if this is allowed later and everything is sandboxed.

</comment><comment><USER49> Does not work with Opera.

</comment><comment><USER50> running too slow

</comment><comment><USER51> I just did this and it was cool. But, if you are a complete beginner to version control in general, it may not be simple to follow. It tries to explain a few things such as creating a branch, checking out etc. but for a complete beginner, this tutorial will be a little bit difficult. Kudos for web based interactive learning though!!

</comment><comment><USER52> no i dont have 15 minutes</comment>


Who is Iran's Ali Khameini? - <AUTHOR> http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139643/akbar-ganji/who-is-ali-khamenei

<comment><USER2> His name is misspelled in the thread title. It's "Khamenei" (and pronounced a bit liked "harmony").

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I get for not copy-pasting.</comment></comment>


Why Dropbox employees are goofing around on company time - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/24/5930927/why-dropbox-gives-its-employees-a-week-to-do-whatever-they-want

<comment><USER2> If the question doesn't already answer itself, the first pull quote kills any doubt: "Dropbox wants to keep its image as a Silicon Valley playground."

...and because they invited The Verge inside to write this fluff piece, you can be 100% sure they no longer are.</comment>


Minnie Driver: men like Matt Damon 'simply cannot understand what abuse is like' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/16/minnie-driver-matt-damon-men-cannot-understand-abuse <comment><AUTHOR> I think it's fair to summarize her direct quotes as -

1.) All sexual misconduct is as bad a rape.

2.) Men should not talk or have an opinion.

"It seems to me that he thinks that because he didn't rape somebody – so far as we know – that what he did do wasn't as bad."

"The time right now is for men just to listen and not have an opinion about it for once."</comment>


Enjoy a spam free inbox on your Android Phone - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thesimpleandroidguy.apps.messageclient

<comment><AUTHOR> Postman's Website <http://itsmrpostman.appspot.com></comment>


Simple user styles for popular websites - <AUTHOR> http://connors.github.com/simple-user-styles/

<comment><USER2> As a guy with a light-text-on-a-dark-background blog I've got to ask, is it really that bad? I've always thought that light on dark was easier on the eyes, not harder. This is especially true if you make the font size reasonable, which is something Daring Fireball isn't so great at.

Could those of you whose sight is starting to go comment on this?

<comment><USER3> Overall, the typography on your blog is pretty good. I'd definitely increase the contrast of the text though. Your measure is a little on the long side. A good guideline is to keep it under 80 characters. You're stretching it a bit at 90-ish characters, but you've got plenty of leading, so you can get away with it. If you reduced your measure a bit, you could reduce your leading a bit so your paragraphs would have a more natural density and better vertical rhythm.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_(typography)>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading>

Note: You'll notice that CSS line height is not the same as leading, but old habits die hard, and I'm used to referring to it as leading.

[http://blog.8thlight.com/chris-peak/2012/12/30/vertical- rhyt...](http://blog.8thlight.com/chris-peak/2012/12/30/vertical-rhythm.html)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this. It's some pretty insightful stuff.

I'm not in a place where I can make changes right away, but I'll trim back the measure and fiddle with the line height until I find something I'm comfortable with.

I'm not sure about the contrast though. Getting that one right is tough. My first attempt was a burn-your-retinas-out white that was so bright it almost hurt to read. Perhaps I've dialed it down too far.

<comment><USER4> Contrast needs a boost. #aaa and #ccc text are good for dark backgrounds, #999 is imho too dark.

<comment><USER5> Seconded; with #999, I it irritates my eyes in a normal office environment. I quickly changed it in the browser, and anything from #AAA to #CCC looked fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hacker News:

        * {
          font-size: 1em !important;
          line-height: 125% !important;
        }

        .subtext {
          font-size: 0.8em !important;
        }

        code {
          font-size: 1.2em !important;
        }

        body {
          width: 900px;
          margin-left: auto;
          margin-right: auto;
        }

<comment><USER7> A bit more extravagant, but this is what I use for a dark take on HN

<https://gist.github.com/brcooley/5045265>

<comment><USER8> Woh. A for effort, but poorly balanced.

<comment><USER7> Not entirely sure what you mean, but I'd love any ideas for improvement. I'm no designer, I just prefer the dark (backgrounds, that is).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What tool/extension is being used to apply the custom stylesheets?

<comment><USER10> I just tried Stylish add-on for Firefox. Works great except I can't seem to figure out a way to make custom styles work for only a specific page. Maybe I'm missing something but there doesn't seem to be a way.

For example if you have .margin-width CSS class defined it will work on any page that has .margin-width CSS class, not just desired page (like Facebook).

<comment><USER11> As bpierre said @-moz-document rule, which I just discovered has actually been unprefixed since Fx6.

Here's the MDN page detailing it and the various functions:

<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/@document>

<comment><USER12> So @document means you can bypass the addon and just use the user stylesheet to implement the same thing. Didn't know about @document.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The facebook one already seems broken... the chat thing is still there and even if I hide it manually my username and options buttons are dropped below the top bar, and are much closer to the center.

I must be doing something wrong because the techcrunch CSS has no effect... gonna start debugging... updates are coming

Well I don't seem to have an answer, techcrunch doesn't seem to be affect at all, even if I use some other styles from userstyles.org. Facebook still renders weird, so all in all I like the idea but it doesn't seem to be working for me.

if anyone has an idea what the issue might be I'd be much obliged (I'm using hnotify so I'll know as soon as you reply to me!) thanks

</comment><comment><USER14> Do bear in mind if you install these you're trusting that they'll be maintained. In my experience user styles take all of about 3 weeks before they end up as a half way house, neatening up an old version of site while also ballsing up new features and sections that get added.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone else find the disclaimer at the bottom odd? Any ideas why it was included?

<comment><USER16> Probably to head off inevitable complaints by people assuming that this is a criticism of those sites' designs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> ads are removed. seems like this is less about style and more about removing things we are annoyed by, no?

<comment><USER18> That doesn't appear to be the focus. Facebook and Twitter timeline ads will remain, obviously (does anyone actually click on the floating ads on the right of the FB UI), Daring Fireball retains it's very subtle image ad (but, who are we kidding, it's one big Apple ad anyway, amiright?).

It _would_ be ethical to include the ads though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Found it out. Eg. twitter.css over here is not a CSS but HTML file: <https://github.com/connors/twitter-user-style> Double click on it and use the CSS listed there with the Stylish Extension for Chrome found here: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish/fjnbnpbmke...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER20> Please someone make a Chrome extension to incorporate all these user styles!

I'm sure there would be a dozen of websites to add which need readability/usability facelift.

</comment><comment><USER21> Here's one I just did for Weather.com yesterday:

<https://twitter.com/nicksergeant/status/306514899402633216>

The code: <https://snipt.net/nick/make-weathercom-not-suck-so-much/>

</comment><comment><USER22> Awesome effort. Be careful, though, when you post screenshots of your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram feeds to the world to see -- don't forget that the people who you follow may see that as a breach of privacy. Very likely the things that we can see in those screenshots were never intended to be public.

</comment><comment><USER23> There's a large database of user styles for many websites here: <http://userstyles.org/>

There's also <http://userscripts.org/> which is the same but for JavaScript instead of CSS.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can finally read TechCrunch again!

</comment><comment><USER25> Awesome. I love the facebook style.

<comment><USER17> If you like that.... There's a chrome extension that makes .com look more like their other properties: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/neue- face/pjjeeinb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/neue- face/pjjeeinbpdojncbefnojbibhiihpjoem?hl=en-US)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I created an Engadget style, in case someone is interested <https://github.com/mrpollo/engadget-user-style>

<comment><USER27> You need to add an "!important" attribute at least for the "display:none;" properties for them to work. Too lazy to make a pull request, sorry ;)

<comment><USER26> I guess it depends on what you are using to add the styles to the site, you can insert a style tag or you can do an extension, for chrome I used Stylebot, for both my styles work fine, if you are planning on adding the styles via link tag the css engine is going to parse them and add them to the bottom of the stack thus having less priority hence the need for the !important attribute on some rules that aren't specific enough.

<comment><USER27> Was using Stylish extension on Firefox. It does seem natural that custom user styles take precedence over "built-in" styles, but it seems like it's not always the case =/

<comment><USER26> Haven't heard of Stylish, I'll take a look, maybe its inserting a link tag to the html.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I can't say I'd use any of these but I must say that using the colorscheme of each site is brilliant. Good job!

</comment><comment><USER22> I imagine the custom styles would be hard to maintain on more rapidly-evolving products.

</comment><comment><USER29> Suprised Georgify didn't make the list for Hacker News</comment>


Scientists are trying to bottle solar energy and turn it into liquid fuel - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/scientists-are-trying-bottle-solar-energy-turn-it-liquid-fuel-ncna930676 <comment><AUTHOR> """ One important factor in the cost will be the fuel's efficiency, which currently is quite low. The prototype fuels respond only to the shortest wavelengths of sunlight, including ultraviolet and blue, which account for just 5 percent of the solar energy available. Moth-Poulsen says he's working to extend the fuel's sensitivity to include more of the spectrum. """</comment>


WHO: Aerosolized Particles Unlikely to Be Significant Source of Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/07/09/889526937/who-report-aerosols-not-likely-to-be-significant-source-of-covid-19-transmission <comment><USER2> This is, I assume, an answer to the open letter sent to the WHO last week. I took a look at the letter: it doesn't bring many data to the table unfortunately.

In fact, it advocates the precautionary principle. I can understand (but not agree with) that in a context of public safety, but those people do science, and the precautionary principle is not scientific.</comment>


Dgraph chose Badger over RocksDB - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dgraph.io/post/badger-over-rocksdb-in-dgraph/ <comment><USER2> Author of Badger here. Thanks for posting this!

We have built some pretty unique things into Badger, and this post talks about those features and how they're being used within Dgraph ([https://dgraph.io](https://dgraph.io)). And as we build more features into Dgraph, we'll try to offload them as much as possible into Badger in the future as well.

I'm around if people want to ask any questions about our journey with Badger, how it works, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does gc has a negative impact on the performance of Badger?

Does Badger support distributed storage natively?

<comment><USER2> When GC is run, it does lookups in the LSM tree. We first do a small number of lookups to sample the file -- if the sample indicates that the data can be GCed (based on the discard ratio), only then does the GC go over the entire file.

In addition, Badger limits the number of key-values per log file, by default to 1M (ValueLogMaxEntries), which was a sweet spot we found.

You can run GC during periods of low activity. We run it periodically in Dgraph and don't see any negative impact on performance. Again, because LSM tree is typically small and memory mapping does a good job of serving most lookups from RAM.

Badger is an embedded KV DB. All the distribution of data happens a layer above Badger. It does not support that natively. You could use either Etcd for that, or TiKV for that.</comment></comment>


Federal law enforcement agents to Chicago, Albuquerque - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-operation-legend-federal-authorities-american-cities-1.5659139 <comment><USER2> A "record rise in violence after the shooting death of a young boy" is wording that the reader should perhaps scrutinize more carefully, considering the justification for sending these federal agents has consisted mainly of graffiti and property damage: [https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/07/16/acting- secretary-wolf-co...](https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/07/16/acting-secretary- wolf-condemns-rampant-long-lasting-violence-portland)

</comment><comment><USER3> Donald is openly dehumanizing US citizens that have political views contrary to his own (and indeed, contrary to HIM).

But more than that, he is using Federal Officers to inflict violence on protestors. True, some protestors have been violent(mostly to property, but not entirely), but Federal agents are also using force on clearly peaceful protestors.

As a US citizen myself, I am speechless. How is this our reality?

But it doesn't go without my notice that this is EXACTLY the treatment that African Americans are protesting. And now, allies of the BLM movement are subject some of the same dehumanizing and violent treatment from law enforcement that we are protesting against, regardless of race.

<comment><USER4> > Donald is openly dehumanizing US citizens that have political views contrary > to his own

That's true, but somewhat beside the point. He's using the flimsiest pretext to do things in the most provocative way possible as a deliberate attempt to cause violent radicalization on both sides and provide pretext for further escalation and executive authoritarian action, and deliberately targeting locations that will assure that the resulting chaos and it's hoped-for adverse effects on election administration redounds to his electoral advantage and, failing that, that the chaos itself provides a pretext for his openly- telegraphed backup tactic of rejecting the election results.

<comment><USER5> I really hope you're wrong. But it's not a good sign that this is the best counter-argument I could find: I'm not sure that he's smart enough to do that, and I'm not sure that he thinks long-term enough to try.

But it would explain a lot if this administration were _deliberately_ trying to destabilize things, instead of just blundering...

<comment><USER4> > I'm not sure that he's smart enough to do that, and I'm not sure that he > thinks long-term enough to try

Individually, he may not be and he may not, but the people who work for him and recommend policy actions to him are and do, and while there seem to be frequent conflicts of goals between his close advisors (though that's been less visible since the last few shakeups, whether because it's not happening as much or because less is leaking), this is one where the factional interests are aligned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Out of curiosity, political aspect aside, who is going to foot the bill for this added effort, the Fed govt or it will be somehow forwarded to the city/state or subtracted from its Fed funding, like for some kind of mandatory service?

<comment><USER7> Maybe this is where USPS' money went

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meddling in local enforcement, despite push-back from state and local authorities? What could possible go wrong...

<comment><USER9> Considering that, at least in chicago, the police requested federal assistance, it seems like the pushback is more of a political game played by politicians than the reality on the ground.

<comment><USER10> The police _union_ requested this. To my knowledge, they don't have any authority whatsoever to call out state national guard or federal troops into a state. Would be as meaningless as me declaring my private property an independent nation state.

<comment><USER11> Yes, it was the union head in Chicago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon."

Sending them against the express will of the localities, however, is probably illegal.

<comment><USER5> Depends. If I understand correctly, sending them to protect federal property is legit, regardless of the will of the localities. Sending them to help enforce local laws, without the desire/permission of the locality, is not.</comment></comment>


DMD: Be your own bank and a creator of wealth - <AUTHOR> https://bit.diamonds/ <comment><USER2> What exchanges is this coin on?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://bittrex.com/](https://bittrex.com/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What happened to flutter? - <AUTHOR>

There is this awesome app at flutterapp.com, I have been using this since some time now, but there have been no updates to it since they were acquired by Google. I thought now there might be frequent releases and many more supported gestures, but nope nothing! Anyone knows what happened? <comment><USER2> This? ;-)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?f&v=BeLZCy- _m3s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?f&v=BeLZCy-_m3s)</comment>


Aaron Levie: Delivering Innovation for the Enterprise [video] - <AUTHOR> http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2606

<comment><USER2> I was in the crowd for this talk as a student. Three months later, I interviewed at Box. Haven't looked back since.</comment>


Salt Ponds of the San Francisco Bay - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/salt-ponds-san-francisco <comment><USER2> I've taken a few pictures of these salt ponds before. They change colors quite frequently and form really cool and unique patters. Best view of them is up in the air in a helicopter or plane.

[https://chrismccann.com/outside-facebook-hq](https://chrismccann.com/outside- facebook-hq) \- These are the salt ponds being reclaimed outside of the Facebook office.

[https://chrismccann.com/palette](https://chrismccann.com/palette) \- Here are the ones in Fremont, still being used for salt production.

<comment><USER3> I really enjoyed your portfolio.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Appreciate the kind words :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Back in the day I was an acoustic engineer and as part of an EIR (environment impact report) that is needed for the development of one of the salt marshes we had to go out on the salt pond levy's and setup sound level meters.

Two take aways from spending time out on the salt ponds.

1) They smell really really bad.

2) The soil is still very wet even in areas that look like solid ground. I nearly lost a shoe when my foot sank into this deep muck.

Moral of the story: better to view these ponds from afar.

<comment><USER5> > They smell really really bad.

I feel that's understating it. When I first moved to the bay area we drove by these multiple times. I assumed it HAD to be some sort of sewage treatment facility (after all where I used to live in Maryland had one near by and it smelled very similar).

They're really cool and interesting but yes I recommend viewing from afar or keeping the inside AC on when driving near it.

<comment><USER6> I've worked within spitting distance of these types of areas for 10 years now. I liked to joke that when I took the first job, they only hired during the winter, because if people knew what it smelled like in the summer, they'd never take the job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My father worked for Morton Salt in sales. I wrote term papers in school on the industry and thought I knew a lot about it but never knew about this at all.

FYI salt is mined under both Detroit and it's Canadian sister city of Windsor where Morton has their mine. My dad took many customers down in the mine. I always wanted to go but you had to be over sixteen.

Luck would have it shortly before my sixteenth birthday the companies insurer made them stop giving tours ;<).

[http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/detroit-salt- mine](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/detroit-salt-mine)

</comment><comment><USER8> Stanford Crew rows out of a facility right next to[0] some of these salt ponds. When I rowed there - 20 years ago - there were also huge piles of salt right next door; I think it was/is a staging area for Cargill. These piles were big enough to have bulldozers driving around on them.

I think the facility may have moved a short distance since then; at the time there was also a truly enormous cylindrical "ship" docked right next door at a Lockheed Martin facility (since disappeared, it looks like). It looked like it could telescope to change its length; I don't know why.

They _also_ used to whisper in crew recruits' ears that we would shortly be moving to row on Crystal Springs Reservoir[1], which would be a very different experience. That ... never happened =)

[0] [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Stanford+Rowing+and+Sailin...](https://email@example.com,-122.2193088,4451m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x808fa2f7376d8e87:0x29660fa759d54139!8m2!3d37.5047587!4d-122.2179732)

[1] [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Crystal+Springs+Reservoir/...](https://email@example.com,-122.3612889,12090m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x808f7584f0a50c09:0xea1d14e19011e005!8m2!3d37.528!4d-122.365)

<comment><USER9> Your comment about the telescoping cylindrical ship intrigued me. I think it might have been the Hughes Mining Barge: [http://aviationintel.com/update- hughes-mining-barge-hmb-1-su...](http://aviationintel.com/update-hughes- mining-barge-hmb-1-survives-restored-glory/)

The barge is now in Alameda: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bay+Ship+%26+Yacht+Co.,+29...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bay+Ship+%26+Yacht+Co.,+2900+Main+St,+Alameda,+firstname.lastname@example.com,-122.291524,17z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x808f80eb83b73867:0xb86d15c77148f8c0?hl=en)

<comment><USER8> That's it!

We had been told it was used to nab the Soviet sub, but when I tried to verify that story when writing the above post I only saw pics of the Glomar Explorer, and figured we had been told a tall tale.

Glad to see some deeper research proved out the original story - thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Many years ago I worked on the computer models used when developing the restoration plan. Happy to answers any questions.

<comment><USER11> Cool! What was the motivation for the restoration project? Like, were the salt ponds causing some sort of environmental damage, or was the smell hurting property values, or something else?

<comment><USER12> There's a big push to restore the wetlands to something approaching their pre- industrial state, which were salt marshes housing many species and benefiting the ecology of the area.

<comment><USER13> But did they not make money any more? Why did cargill care?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As a middle class person without a property and kids just knowing we maintain salt ponds in an area where housing is in a world-record man-made critical shortage in a state where if fly over at night is mostly empty is beyond me. No houseboats (not many), no more foster city style land creation. Not much building up. Massive swaths of land that isnt a park, nor a preserve, nor "usable", but remains undeveloped. Poor public transit. I visit Japan quite often and wonder if San Fran had gotten firestormed into oblivion in 1945 we would be further along? Makes no sense to me to see Tokyo, starting from near nothing in 1945, holding 5 times as many people, having 525 subway stations, having so much more housing built up and infrastructure and a huge middle class (of course with demographics issues, but still) and to be here and watch basically the worst played game of Sim-City played out in real life. Billionaires club over here. I dont get why they like to live near muddy stinking salt mush while their baristas, kids teachers and man-servants need to rent tents in Gilroy to make it paycheck to paycheck.

</comment><comment><USER15> The Hidden Ecologies blog collects kite aerial photography of the salt ponds. [http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/hiddenecologies/](http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/hiddenecologies/)

More info about the project: [http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/hiddenecologies/?page_id=41](http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/hiddenecologies/?page_id=41)

</comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting to me because I grew up with these ponds and drive by some of them every workday. Sure would like more specifics: which ponds are being restored, which staying in production? Are some levies being removed, staying in place, being reconfigured? What's the schedule, year by year?

<comment><USER17> The west bay ones have mostly shut down. You can look at some drained ones by driving out Seaport Blvd, which is the bay end of Woodside Road. There are still some narrow gauge tracks and hopper cars lying around. The east bay ones south of the Dumbarton Bridge are still operating.

The process is simple. Seawater is let into a pond, and about half of it is allowed to evaporate. This doubles the salt concentration. That brine is moved to the next pond, which is half as big, and about half of the water is allowed to evaporate, which doubles the concentration again. The final pond is much smaller than the original, and there all the water in the now highly concentrated brine is allowed to evaporate, after which the salt is scraped up. The process takes huge land area and about five years, but little labor.

Different bacteria live at the different brine concentrations. That's why the colors vary.[1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=14276449&goto=item%3Fi...](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=14276449&goto=item%3Fid%3D14271144%2314276449)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't the Facebook HQ (former Sun Microsystems campus) located right next to the salt ponds?

<comment><USER2> Yes they are

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > While the salt ponds and their beautiful showing may not be there forever, > the project is on a 30-year plan, so there's still some time to enjoy this > fading ghost of San Francisco's industrial history.

Does this mean the smell will go away in 30 years from now?

<comment><USER20> Wetlands don't smell great either.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I figure the smell is the exposed contaminants of the Bay itself. Everywhere on the Bay where you have mud banks they smell terrible at low tide.

<comment><USER22> Mud doesn't have to be contaminated to smell bad, it just kinda does naturally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here is what it could look like when/if they do restore this area as marais salant: [https://goo.gl/maps/d5ATzvYyxs22](https://goo.gl/maps/d5ATzvYyxs22)

</comment><comment><USER24> You'll get a good glimpse taking the Capitol Corridor east from San Jose.

<comment><USER25> Or the ACE.

You'll also see what's left of the drawbridge ghost town if you're quick:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawbridge,_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawbridge,_California)

<comment><USER6> Alviso is a very unique area as well:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alviso,_San_Jose,_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alviso,_San_Jose,_California)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > their ever-changing pigments always stand out from the sky, and have served > as a visual marker for astronauts

Can someone verify it is possible to spot these ponds from a usual orbit?

</comment><comment><USER27> "Salt Ponds of San Francisco _Bay_ "

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I miscopied that. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I always wondered about those bright colored regular shapes when I landed at SFO. Glad I finally know what they are.</comment>


DeepMind expands to Canada with new research office in Edmonton, Alberta - <AUTHOR> https://deepmind.com/blog/deepmind-office-canada-edmonton/ <comment><USER2> It's neat to see mid-sized cities succeed in attracting and building talent. Having specialized centres like this takes some pressure off of the Valley and encourages different viewpoints and perhaps approaches that you might not get otherwise.</comment>


Harvard Business School Study Shows that Angel Investing is King - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidblerner.com/david_b_lerner/2010/04/harvard-business-school-study-shows-that-angel-investing-is-king.html In their recently published landmark study, Professors Josh Lerner and William Kerr were able to demonstrate that on the whole, angel-backed companies enjoy performance gains of 30-50% when compared to other non-funded startups.  Their paper is meticulously researched, invoking in one instance Hammurabi's Code itself to underscore the ancient provenance of individuals making equity investments in high-risk ventures. A great deal of the data analyzed was derived from the actual practices and outcomes of both the Tech Coast Angels (Southern California) and the CommonAngels (Boston). <comment><USER2> Their choice of success metrics is interesting. I think I would have chosen profitability or liquidity instead of survival, venture capital raised and web site traffic.

</comment><comment><USER3> causation vs. correlation</comment>


Ask HN: What database should I use, and how should I choose? - <AUTHOR> First off I am working on a web application and eventually a mobile application with the following requirements:
* I need something that will support offline storage at some point.
* There will be a lot of reading from the database
* There will be a lot of small writes to the database, but not many big writes
* I don't really want to lose data
* I would like to support real time interactions
* I would like it to be easily scalable and maintainable (possibly hosted/maintained by a third party) as I am working solo
I have experience with Mongodb (although possible loss of data is alarming) and a lot of experience with MySQL/Postgres.
I am looking into Couchdb/Pouchdb as that seems to fit my requirements, but I am concerned about speed. <comment><USER2> The first decision is SQL or NoSQL. There is one right answer, almost regardless of requirements: SQL. (My personal choice would be Postgres over MySQL.)

If you are lucky enough to get to the point of having scalability problems, and vertical scaling won't cut it, pick something else.

</comment><comment><USER3> You didn't list what framework, language, or environment. It absolutely is relevant as some databases more naturally "slot into" certain environments (e.g. MySQL and PHP, MS SQL and .Net).

I'd personally forget the database and instead look for a decent ORM. One you can develop against and then connect to different database solutions (e.g. offline and online databases). That way your choice (no matter how good or bad) can be changed later.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check this out,

[https://blog.cloudboost.io/which-database-should-you-use- for...](https://blog.cloudboost.io/which-database-should-you-use-for-your- app-2/)

</comment><comment><USER5> IMO, it depends on the type of data as well. But given your read and write description basically any of the databases you listed is capable if configured properly. If you have a lot of experience in the SQL side, you may want to stick there to minimize time to develop your MVP.

I use MongoDB for our core database, but we also have data in elasticsearch for text based queries and some reporting. I am right now contemplating introducing Postgres for the accounting side of our SaaS and to possibly serve some of our reporting requirements that we have found are truly highly relational.

So I don't think in today's environment that you need to say one database is the end all. However, I agree that picking one is the right choice for a new project and then adding/changing as you find the requirements that don't fit. We are micro-serviced based too so in some ways it makes it easier because we isolate which services interact with which databases, but I won't say it isn't without its own complications too.

<comment><USER6> I would agree withdavismwfl "So I don't think in today's environment that you need to say one database is the end all".

If your data is relational, that is what relational DBs are for - if you hdata is text search, that is what elastic search tools are for.

The key is to identify how the data will be used.

Good luck on the project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > I have experience with Mongodb (although possible loss of data is alarming) > and a lot of experience with MySQL/Postgres.

Use PostgreSQL then, because experience is key. Also: more time to work on the hard stuff.

> I would like to support real time interactions

What do you mean by that?

> I would like it to be easily scalable and maintainable (possibly > hosted/maintained by a third party) as I am working solo

Nothing is easy to scale (across a network) if you do not want to lose data safety. So either pay someone to maintain such a beast (costly) or maintain it yourself (time-consuming, error-prone unless you are experienced).

I know there are ways to scale across a network using PostgreSQL but I suggest thinking about the scaling problem when it actually occurs. Or has it already?

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm the founder at CloudBoost.io and we've built a NoSQL database service that does everything which you've listed (except for Offline Sync which we're building now).

The idea is as a developer - You don't really have to care about about "Which database you should actually store your data in?" and this is why we have machine learning service that actually learns how you store and how you query your data and figures out the database where your data should naturally belong.

As a developer, You only care about storing your data and getting your data back, and that's what we enable you to do.

Let me know if this helps, and feel free to reach out to email@example.com if you need any more information / help.

<comment><USER9> OT, but there's a spelling error on your page here: [https://cloudboost.io/quickstart](https://cloudboost.io/quickstart)

s/CloudBost/CloudBoost/

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Without knowing the order of magnitude of the size of your data, its "shape" (is it a fixed layout, is it different per write?), as well as the perf requirements you mention (how many simultaneous reads and how much is being read each time, and what does "real time" mean to you) it's really hard to make a recommendation.

</comment><comment><USER11> On "how should I choose?", have you considered a decision matrix?

</comment><comment><USER12> If .NET, Entity Framework with any supported provider.

<comment><USER9> Any supported provider, as long as its MS SQL Server. The rest wasn't up to snuff last time I checked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> MySQL of course!

(I work on the MySQL team, happy to answer any questions)

<comment><USER14> "Please to provide solution"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Postgres for your website, SQLite for the mobile.

<comment><USER16> Right. And for a lot of reads consider running your server off of SSD based drives.</comment></comment>


Did Verisign Steal Axis Bank's Logo? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.archit.in/2011/09/did-verisign-steal-axis-banks-logo/ <comment><USER2> When your logo is 'A large triangle with two triangles 1/3rd the size of the larger one cut out' chances are that you will run in to others that have done the same thing, only slightly different.

</comment><comment><USER3> Were Axis Bank's logo-designers inspired by the Mitsubishi Motors logo? <http://www.cartype.com/pics/2859/full/mitsubishi_logo_5.jpg>

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha! Looks like Axis Bank really was inspired by Mitsubishi's logo and Verizon just copied Axis Bank's logo and made it symmetrical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> more to the point, why would you change a logo where brand recognition is part of the product! (i.e. I know customers on my site will recognise this icon as a trusted mark that it is secure)

<comment><USER5> Most people want to believe their brand is as special as Coke or Apple, but they usually aren't. Most people will not know what a Verisign logo on a web site means in terms of actual security measures, they'll only see it as a label saying "hey we claim to be secure!" And those who are familiar with Verisign will associate the logo with their misdeeds, and wonder why they should do business with a site that does business with such a company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I doubt it's a "rip off", and it's a bit disingenuous to immediately jump to that conclusion. These things happen.

The real test is wether Verisign revise/replace it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Every logo designer has played with diamonds and triangles at some point, creating variations of these same shapes.

</comment><comment><USER8> Did the blog this is posted on steal their design from Under Consideration?

Example: [http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/critter_...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/critter_type.php) (Pay attention to both the post content and the Before/After images)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you look closely, Verisign's logo is symmetrical and Axis Bank's is not.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think they used the same pixels, but just move them around.

</comment><comment><USER11> No.

</comment><comment><USER12> From the looks of it, no they didn't.

</comment><comment><USER13> Flagged as off-topic for HN.</comment>


Peacock spiders: scientist finds seven new species of 'fairly cute' creatures - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/30/peacock-spiders-scientist-finds-seven-new-species-of-fairly-cute-creatures <comment><USER2> Some of the displays are even better than seen in the video from the article. His youtube channel is highly recommended.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1shkhjIY_QiDdYfEYDqew](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1shkhjIY_QiDdYfEYDqew)</comment>


Joe Lieberman Called ZTE a National Security Threat. Now He's a Lobbyist for It - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-lieberman-called-chinese-telecom-giant-zte-a-national-security-threat-now-hes-a-lobbyist-for-it <comment><USER2>
      despite his registration, he wouldn't actually be lobbying for the firm. Rather, he hoped to "raise the level of trust in ZTE."

How is that "not lobbying"?</comment>


Case-study: JAM with Chrome - How we made the audio rock - <AUTHOR> http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/casestudies/jamwithchrome-audio/

<comment><USER2> Do visit the discussion here: <https://github.com/h5bp/lazyweb- requests/issues/82> (Its mentioned in the article, just giving it some extra attention)</comment>


Putin on NSA leak: Government surveillance shouldn't break law - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/putin-rt-visit-broadcasting-center-530/ <comment><USER2> I did always like his sense of humor.

<comment><USER3> witty and poignant, +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What does it say about USA when countries like Russia look like the "reasonable" ones?

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't trust (ex-)spooks, but it was worth reading just to see the ever-so- slight grin on Putin's face.</comment>


She Survived a Slave Ship, Civil War and the Depression: Her Name Was Redoshi - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/transatlantic-slave-trade-last-survivor.html <comment><USER2> The referenced film from 1938 (The Negro Farmer) is quite fascinating: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1ROfEGkrQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1ROfEGkrQ)

Apparently it was produced to help the government justify the expense of federal gov funds.

</comment><comment><USER3> Garbage paywall they fixed the Facebook paywall. Where do we go from here?</comment>


Ask HN: Why is Netflix oblivious to films broken by lack of forced subtitles? - <AUTHOR> I'll be honest, I'm a paying customer hoping someone here works at Netflix and thinks this is as ridiculous as I do. I've previously tried and failed with the old Twitter-rant technique.
Many Netflix films that are predominantly English have sections of some foreign language that would be a 'forced subtitle' (a feature intended exactly for this, when you're watching with lang X audio and no subtitles, but part of the dialogue is in lang Y due to content of the film) on a DVD release, but aren't on Netflix.
I'm watching 'Norman' at the moment, and I just sat through several minutes of Hebrew (while watching in English). 'English [CC]' subtitles have no affect, but if my French weren't so appalling I could have turned those on and followed along.
I've seen it so many times now, I just don't understand how this has not only been overlooked, but also isn't a widely complained about issue. <comment><USER2> I think I know what you're talking about, are they really called "forced subtitles"?

...because otherwise I'd rather suggest the term "necessary subtitles", and yes, I've encountered that phenomena a few times while watching online streams, not just on Netflix.

<comment><USER3> Hard Coded subtitles i think. Meaning its part of the stream and not injected into the container as a subtitle stream.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, that's not what I meant, I believe it's implemented as a separate subtitle stream with a flag set to indicate it's to be forced.

[https://www.jbistudios.com/blog/what-are-forced-subtitles- in...](https://www.jbistudios.com/blog/what-are-forced-subtitles-in-video- translation)

<comment><USER3> ok i get it now, I Think you can mux them in if you have something like the VLC, but the cart is before the horse, if its for your own viewing.

There was a place around where you can obtain subtitle tracks of all sorts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure what you mean? I'm annoyed that Netflix omits them, if I was using VLC yes it would be on me to add them if I wasn't watching from a DVD/BD (but at least I could!).

The film I was watching ('Norman') had whole scenes where the dialogue was exclusively Hebrew (I assume) on the primary (English) sound track, and even manually enabling English [CC] subs didn't help (I knew to try because I've seen it before).

The film was definitely not meant to be that way, and if I'd been watching on disc it wouldn't have been.

<comment><USER3> if you want to make a hobby out of it so others can enjoy your labours, there is a way to unpackage the stream contents with a subtitle stream, and then package it up again. there is/was a website that offers subtitle streams, and there is still subtitle editor/creators around so you can roll your own subtitles.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where's NM? - <AUTHOR>

New Mogul has been down for the past few days. I know prakash and nickb and a handful of others are frequent fliers between these two sites. Does anybody know what's going on? <comment><USER2> Nickb has gone away from the internet for long periods of time in the past. After a while people get concerned, then he turns up.

News.arc, particularly the older version that Newmogul is running, is known to crash periodically. So the most likely explanation is that Nickb is off the grid and no one has the password to restart the server.

I certainly hope that Nickb is ok, but right now I'm not concerned. I just wish he would have given someone server access.

<comment><USER3> _I just wish he would have given someone server access._

I second that. The community at NM was starting to become self-sustaining, it sucks that the server is down and no one can do anything about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This has to be the 10th link in 3 days asking the same thing. Wouldn't it be best just to register a domain and set up arc 3.1 there and move the community elsewhere and invite nickb as a user ? It seems a little irresponsible to not have a policy in place to deal with outages of an active community.

I host an IRC channel for some friends, they all have my cell, just in case.

Not being a nm user it doesn't really concern me, but I really think if you have had this in the past and you haven't done anything about it that you should make some move to avoid future repetition.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's between Texas and Arizona, just north of Old Mexico.

<comment><USER6> i laughed.</comment></comment>


Yuval Noah Harari Explains the Secret to Surviving the Coming Tech Dystopia - <AUTHOR> https://www.gq.com/story/yuval-noah-harari-tech-future-survival <comment><USER2> Sapiens was a great read, very thought-provoking, but the weakest part of it by far were the final chapters on technology and the near future. He kind of just dropped a few buzzwords, asked a lot of big questions and put a bow on it. Very disappointing after the eye-opening insights and wide-ranging arguments of the rest of the book.

While there are many things I want to hear about from Mr Harari, the future is not one of them.</comment>


CScout: The C Refactoring Browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.spinellis.gr/cscout/ <comment><AUTHOR> Excerpt:

"After the source code analysis CScout can

o perform accurate cross project identifier renames,

o process sophisticated queries on identifiers, files, and functions,

o locate unused or wrongly-scoped identifiers,

o identify header files that don't need to be included, and

o create call graphs spanning both C functions and function-like macros."</comment>


Zero Zero - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rafaelcorrales.com/2010/05/zero-zero.html

<comment><USER2> Similarly, in ancient Rome, when a triumphant general would parade through the city heralded as a god, right behind them on the float would be a slave whispering into their ear "Memento mori", "remember that you are mortal".

<comment><USER3> What are the chances of that story being told twice within 48 hours:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1311428>

<comment><USER4> Perhaps greater than you'd expect, if lsb had read the other post.

<comment><USER2> I hadn't read it, but that's interesting that Patton knew Roman history! (I have a master's in Latin and Greek.)

<comment><USER5> I would think any general would be versed in Roman history...

<comment><USER6> Especially one who believed he fought the Romans at Carthage.

<comment><USER7> Patton was Hannibal?

<comment><USER8> He believed that he had been reincarnated and died in battle a number of times and what have you. Not necessarily as a general, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "nil-nil" or "nil all" if you're in England ;-)

<comment><USER10> (None, None) if you're in Python. ;-)

<comment><USER7> (every #'null ..) if you're a lisper.

Fixed arguments are for block-structure weenies!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Eerily reminds me of something Ender would say to his army in Ender's Game (currently reading, for the first time, and only about 2/3 through).

To apply to startups: I know of at least one big company that has the "it's still day one" mantra.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's a difference between not being satisfied and a "step on their throat" mentality. I don't think enough people in the business world know the difference.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Contentment defines your peak."

</comment><comment><USER14> The "think 0-0" mentality is one of the oldest sports memes around :)

<comment><USER15> We called it the JV mentality, because no matter who we put into the varsity the JV always won.

Once you know how to pull hard, being in shape is just icing on the cake. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> was really hoping this post was about [http://www.myspace.com/zerozeronj/music/albums/a-m- gold-1316...](http://www.myspace.com/zerozeronj/music/albums/a-m- gold-13160361)

true zero is my fave</comment>


Using machine learning to predict the best distributors in the 2018 draft - <AUTHOR> http://dribbleanalytics.blogspot.com/2018/07/draft-class-distributors-ml.html?m=1 <comment><AUTHOR> Posted to r/NBA yesterday: [https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/8zanxy/oc_using_machin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/8zanxy/oc_using_machine_learning_to_predict_the_best/)</comment>


The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative makes its first investment - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-45b-initiative-makes-investment-andela-facebook/ <comment><USER3> If Facebook doesn't try to hire more black developers, this proves they're evil, because they must be racists. If they do try to hire more black developers, this also proves they're evil, because now they're exploiting black people to drive down labor costs. Likewise, if Zuckerberg doesn't donate to charity, he is evil because he's selfishly hoarding his wealth; if he does donate, he's evil because he's trying to exploit the underprivileged to enhance his own prestige.

"Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, a priest who heard the confessions of condemned witches, wrote in 1631 the Cautio Criminalis ('prudence in criminal cases') in which he bitingly described the decision tree for condemning accused witches. If the witch had led an evil and improper life, she was guilty; if she had led a good and proper life, this too was a proof, for witches dissemble and try to appear especially virtuous. After the woman was put in prison: if she was afraid, this proved her guilt; if she was not afraid, this proved her guilt, for witches characteristically pretend innocence and wear a bold front. Or on hearing of a denunciation of witchcraft against her, she might seek flight or remain; if she ran, that proved her guilt; if she remained, the devil had detained her so she could not get away."

<comment><USER4> > _they 're exploiting black people to drive down labor costs_

> _he 's evil because he's trying to exploit the underprivileged to enhance > his own prestige_

These are straw men. Serious people aren't criticizing him for things like this. Almost 100% of publicly-known charity is, to some extent, designed to enhance prestige.

As far as "exploiting" black people to drive down labor costs, it's not like they're Chinese factory workers ruining their health. They'd just be coding. There's some probable protectionist criticism related to hiring Africans instead of Americans, but that happens regardless of the wages that foreigners are being paid.

<comment><USER5> As of right now, the second highest top comment is the "exploiting black people" thing.

I think the parent did well in exposing how people seemingly want to make a witch out of Zuckerberg no matter what he does.

<comment><USER6> Sadly Zuckerberg himself seems to provide plenty of ammunition for those claims:

\- Aggressive disregard of privacy on FB

\- Using deception and dirty tactics to make the FB app run continuously on the background of your phone

\- Manipulating timeline results

\- Manipulating trending topics

\- Naming a for-profit arm of the company ".org"

\- Publicly attacking net neutrality activists by buying gigantic ads across India

\- Calling the Brazilian people to protest in front of the Congress

\- Whitewashing his personal for-profit investment company as a "initiative"

Regardless of whether he is or not bad or whatever, he appears extremely arrogant when you take in account some of the actions above, so it is quite understandable that people see him that way. Oh, and the movie.

PS: Some of the actions above are not personally his, but are from the company which he controls completely, so it is quite understandable that people attribute it to him.

<comment><USER4> I don't care much about Zuckerberg either way, but I'm interested in discussing some of these points in more detail.

> _Using deception and dirty tactics to make the FB app run continuously on > the background of your phone_

Can you provide a link that explains this in more detail?

> _Manipulating timeline results_

I actually see this as a feature. Somehow Facebook has kept time-on-site and MAU metrics very, very high, so the timeline must be working well for most people.

You can also configure it to a surprisingly granular degree.

> _Manipulating trending topics_

There was no anti-conservative bias, and any other manipulation could be construed as curation or editing. I hid trending topics with a CSS rule, but if I were using it, I would want it to be curated and edited. I see this as a potential feature if done right.

Anyway, no one is forced to get their news from trending topics.

> _Naming a for-profit arm of the company ".org"_

.org domains aren't required to be used for non-profits, and the Chan Zuckerberg initiative could certainly be considered a charity.

In the US, non-profit status is a tax designation and has no bearing on how beneficial an organization is. In fact, I'm glad that it's _not_ a non-profit, because it means the money comes from Zuckerberg and not from tax-payers.

> _Publicly attacking net neutrality activists by buying gigantic ads across > India_

Links? I know Facebook was heavily criticized for attempting to undermine net neutrality in India, but I've never seen anything about them attacking activists directly via ads.

(Not that it matters, but it's pretty ironic that an ad company would buy ads in the physical world...)

> _Calling the Brazilian people to protest in front of the Congress_

This is very reasonable and actually positive (even if it did directly involve his company). Are you for or against internet/communication freedom? The Brazilian people absolutely should have protested the WhatsApp ban, especially because the reasoning for it wasn't made public.

WhatsApp is one of the few apps with excellent encryption, as well.

> _Whitewashing his personal for-profit investment company as a "initiative"_

Again, for-profit vs. non-profit is a tax designation. The US is structured to allow people to profit from doing good things. Is there a reason people shouldn't benefit from their humanitarian efforts? Should all non-profit employees just be volunteers, in that case?

I can understand taking issue with capitalism and the idea that good deeds must be incentivized with money, but I can't understand taking issue with Zuckerberg operating within a system set up by others.

> _he appears extremely arrogant when you take in account some of the actions > above, so it is quite understandable that people see him that way_

Yeah, but so does Elon Musk a lot of the time, and people worship him. Off the top of my head, Paul Graham, Marc Andreessen, and Jeff Bezos also regularly come off as incredibly arrogant (more arrogant than Zuckerberg, in my view). I think that arrogance might be a pre-requisite for being wildly successful in the US startup world: you have to believe that you are special and will do something that 99% of others fail at.

> _Oh, and the movie._

Well, it was fiction...

<comment><USER6> I'm sorry, I don't think I made myself clear enough: I'm not accusing him of anything, just listing reasons WHY people would think that way.

You might disagree with the reasons and defend him endlessly, that still doesn't mean the reasons don't exist.

Some sources: [http://boingboing.net/2015/12/27/facebooks-fuddy-full- page-a...](http://boingboing.net/2015/12/27/facebooks-fuddy-full-page-a.html) [http://www.zdnet.com/article/insane-iphone-battery-drain- dis...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/insane-iphone-battery-drain-disable- facebook-apps-location-services/)

Also, we're not talking about the domain, we're talking about the name of the subsidiary: it's called "internet.org".

And non-profit isn't just about taxes. You can't take money out of a non- profit into your own pocket. Got it?

Oh, and people don't like when owners of foreign companies try to use them as fodder cannon to promote their own objectives, as in Brazil, no matter what's the upside.

And you don't see Elon Musk using FUD against activists, or doing any of the above.

About the movie, you're still not understanding my post. It doesn't matter if it was fiction or not, people still believe it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since the article is very light on real details or reporting, I'll post a bit from the original WSJ article.

Chan Zuckerberg is specifically leading a $24M _Series B_ Round in Andela.

Andela was founded in 2014 and has about 200 developers currently studying with them. There are about 50 mentors working to teach those developers full- time. It has rejected almost all of the applicants; about 40,000 people applied, which means only about 0.5% are actually accepted to study. Those who are accepted to study become "Andela fellows" and learn web and mobile development over four years.

According to Andela, they'd like to train 100,000 developers over the next ten years. They are hopeful they can do this with the African population, 60% of which consists of younger people under the age of 25, many of whom are unemployed or underemployed. Andela's clients pay "about half the annual salary for entry-level developers in major U.S. tech markets." With no specific numbers to go on, it's hard to estimate that. Maybe $50k - $60k? Apparently Microsoft is a client company.

It appears Andela will mostly use this cash infusion to expand into new African companies and scale up.

Could we kill this story or change the URL to the much better WSJ article? I don't understand why this is on the front page. The article has almost no detail or substance. As it stands, it's just flamebait that's getting the usual "Zuckerberg is evil" vitriol. I've never seen a messageboard triggered more easily than HN is when his name or company is brought up.

I'd also like to propose to the HN community that we be a bit more accepting of paywall URLs, because the difference between this CNET, ad-ridden article and the WSJ article (and the possible discussion opportunity around each) is huge.

</comment><comment><USER8> Apparently obligatory: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is not a non-profit. It's a family office that wraps itself in a cloak of philanthropy. It's not a charity, it's a for-profit business.

Maybe at some point it will grow a 501c3 arm but thus far it has not.

</comment><comment><USER9> When did VC became philantropy?

</comment><comment><USER10> "What inspires me is teaching African refugees how to program javascript"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0)

</comment><comment><USER11> Is Andela a 501c3 company? Trying to understand the motivations for these foundations to give money away Andela is a for profit company

<comment><USER12> The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is also a for profit company.

<comment><USER13> I thought you were joking, but apparently I haven't been following this. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is an LLC with no association to any 501c3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The publication reports that the Initiative is leading a $24 million funding round for the New York-based start up, in which GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, is also involved."

So, what's the difference between it and other VC companies, besides being controlled by a single person?

</comment><comment><USER14> It's sad that if some attempt to do good, often it's not good enough, but if they do nothing, it's okay.

It's unlikely I ever agree with how other people try to do good, but I am grateful that they try.

Go some go good; today!

<comment><USER15> _> Go some go good; today!_

I do: I pay my taxes instead of trying to avoid them like Facebook does.

<comment><USER16> You don't use any of the deductions or credits you qualify for? How noble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Zuck's initiative tries to expand the labor pool to reduce Zuck's costs. He's a good guy, but having self serving investments is not what those initiatives are for.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ah yes. The world really needs more & more developers. This will solve all our problems.

Especially if the problems you have is maintaining your grip over people's digital lives.

<comment><USER19> This is incorrect. 99% of code is useless and should never have been written.

<comment><USER15> I think codecamper was being sarcastic :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Things that make you go hmmm

</comment><comment><USER21> Let them eat code.

</comment><comment><USER12> I suppose I can't help but admire the chutzpah of cloaking a tax deductible scheme to drive down your labor costs as a noble quest to "advance human potential".

Now where did I put my black and red flags...

<comment><USER22> Whether you believe he is doing a good thing because it's a good thing, or just because he wants to be _seen doing_ a good thing, it doesn't change the fact that the good thing is being done.

Tax deductibility does indeed incentivise charitable giving, possibly for selfish reasons. But the person on the recieving end of education/healthcare/whatever, doesn't really care do they? The effect is what's important, not the motivation.

<comment><USER12> I don't believe that he is making this investment for either of those reasons. I believe he is making it because developing additional pools of low-cost contract labor is in the long term excellent for his business. Additionally, Andela will capture some of the delta between the cost of African and the cost of Indian or American developers, some of which will in turn be returned to the Initiative to finance future forays into making the world safe for oligopoly.

I am sure that some localized Good Things will occur as a byproduct of this arbitrage, but let's not pretend for a second that "advancing human potential" and "promoting equality" are actually the metrics by which the success of this enterprise is being judged.

<comment><USER23> > low-cost contract labor

Phrases like that ring to me to describe a two class of people: a "low cost" tier, and a "normal cost" tier. To me this has obvious racist overtones as "low-cost" is often followed by [nationality]. If someone is willing to work harder, she should get the job, but somehow if that same person is willing to work as hard for less money, she is unworthy? Sure the company benefits from a spread between what a person makes and what they contribute, but they do so already. Eventually if that spread becomes too large, other companies will exploit this arbitrage and start new businesses and bid up the employees compensation. You are free to do so as well assuming you live in a free capitalist society.

<comment><USER24> They're willing to work for less because in their local economy, the pay is actually good to great.

This destabilizes the local economy, creating gentrified districts or entire cities(See: SF) where only the privileged laborers for a foreign economy can afford to live. It will also lead to a sharp increase in luxury good prices due to new demand, driving the bar for middle-class living out of reach for local workers. The skilled workers hired by the foreign economy become a brain drain - the government has invested resources into their education, but no one in the local economy can afford them, thus they'll never create goods for it to improve local technology levels.

Helping people is hard.

<comment><USER23> > This destabilizes the local economy, creating gentrified districts or entire > cities(See: SF)

So paying people more and giving them jobs destabilizes the local economy because these people now have money and spend more on housing and other items? And if they're paid less, they're being exploited?

> The skilled workers hired by the foreign economy become a brain drain - <USER2> > government has invested resources into their education, but no one in the > local economy can afford them, thus they'll never create goods for it to > improve local technology levels.

Doesn't the government prefer rich denizens and a higher tax base? Isn't this how education is funded and higher salaries and tax base partially the point of investing in education?

> but no one in the local economy can afford them, thus they'll never create > goods for it to improve local technology levels.

Aren't digital good mostly global in nature? Don't poor countries benefit from Facebook/Google/Apple/etc?

<comment><USER24> > So paying people more and giving them jobs destabilizes the local economy > because these people now have money and spend more on housing and other > items? And if they're paid less, they're being exploited?

You're not paying all people more, just some of them. The rest get to enjoy rising prices for good housing and luxuries that they won't be able to afford with their local pay.

> Doesn't the government prefer rich denizens and a higher tax base? Isn't > this how education is funded and higher salaries and tax base partially the > point of investing in education?

Unless you're planning to turn all Nigerians and Kenyans into software developers, this isn't really the case. Just higher taxes may pay for the education the government invested in you, but the investment is made with a hope that you would do more than break even. Without skilled technological leaders driving progress forward(because they're busy driving someone else's progress forward), you'll stagnate, which means the costs of global goods gets worse for your population,

> Aren't digital good mostly global in nature? Don't poor countries benefit > from Facebook/Google/Apple/etc?

Yes - which is why most poor countries can't afford them.

<comment><USER23> > You're not paying all people more, just some of them. The rest get to enjoy > rising prices for good housing and luxuries that they won't be able to > afford with their local pay.

Correct, gains are never distributed equally. This has been tried and failed. You can keep everyone poor or allow some to accumulate wealth.

In regards to modern technology not benefiting poor countries, please note that more people in Africa have a mobile phone than access to electricity [0]. Across the seven countries surveyed, roughly two-thirds or more say they own a cell phone. Ownership is especially high in South Africa and Nigeria, where about nine-in-ten have a cell phone [1]. I think you're understating the positive impact western technology is having on transforming the lives of poor Africans.

[0] [http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/tech/mobile/africa-mobile- opin...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/tech/mobile/africa-mobile-opinion/)

[1] [http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/04/15/cell-phones-in-africa- co...](http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/04/15/cell-phones-in-africa- communication-lifeline/)

<comment><USER25> More people have access to mobile phones than running water, basic drainage or paves roads. Mobile phone penetration in Africa now stands at 93% [1]

I would however question the extent this is driven by Western innovation though. I would argue that this driven primarily through the ability of the Chinese to make technology for a significantly lower cost.

[1] [http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/19/africa/africa- afrobaromete...](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/19/africa/africa- afrobarometer-infrastructure-report/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Open-sourced blueprints for civilization (TED video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters that has been imagining and creating the Global Village Construction Set, an open source, low-cost, high performance technological platform. These DIY- fabricated industrial machines can be used to build a sustainable civilization with modern comforts. The GVCS lowers the barriers to entry into farming, building, and manufacturing. It is a life-size lego-like set of modular tools that can create entire economies._

<http://openfarmtech.org.nyud.net/wiki/Main_Page>

This is amazing.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite YouTube channel for developers (2018 Version) - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> PGConf US: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsJkVvxwoM7R9oRbzvUhbPQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsJkVvxwoM7R9oRbzvUhbPQ)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Previous version : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12702651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12702651)</comment>


What's the Biggest Rails App? It Doesn't Matter - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/whats_the_biggest_rails_app.php <comment><USER2> They're just reblogging the real article, which is more interesting: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=200947></comment>


Wiggle it Fiercely - <AUTHOR> http://www.staggeringbeauty.com/

<comment><USER2> Are you fucking kidding me? This thing actually sent a shock through my body that reached my toes. 3 Minutes later and I'm still feeling unnatural, with an elevated heart rate and a VERY agitated mind. If you were in the same room as me I'd probably shove you pretty damn hard for exposing me to this.

This thing is a fucking health risk.

</comment><comment><USER3> SEIZURE RISK!!!

That's horrible. I had to look away asap before that thing fried my eyeballs. That warning is tiny. It totally needs to be an alert box.

</comment><comment><USER4> Er, anyone care to say what the link points to...?

[Given the comments so far, I'm certainly not going to look! oO;]

<comment><USER5> it's a page displaying an elongated black thing with a face, which tracks the position of your mouse cursor. Wiggling the mouse cursor causes it to wave, much like wiggling one end of a rope. Wiggling above a certain fierceness threshold causes music to play and a psychedelic color scheme to flash. You're not missing much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's amazing to think that, even after all this time, the Internet can still shock the shit out of us.

</comment><comment><USER7> that warning at the bottom left needs to be bigger</comment>


Online fantasy cricket game built wuth django - <AUTHOR> http://freepl.herokuapp.com/ <comment><USER2> I have to give you my email and other stuff first before even having a glimpse of what I am in for ? Nope, not happening .

PS I can see your error stack trace when I deny google authentication

</comment><comment><USER3> Closed as soon as I saw a log in with fb/g as first step</comment>