IMDB Top 100K Movies – Analysis in Depth, Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://bugra.github.io/work/notes/2014-02-23/imdb-top-100-movies-analysis-in-depth-part-2 <comment><USER3> When did IMDB go online? This seems like one of those things where nostalgia factor is pretty big. If people were rating those movies from a few decades ago at the time they were in theaters then these graphs might look pretty flat.

That or it is becoming increasingly harder to entertain people with new ideas as they watch more and more movies. People could be getting desensitized to entertainment.

<comment><USER4> IMDB is practically the oldest thing on the web. The site launched in 1993 but it imported the archives of relevant usenet (rec.arts.movies) and mail archives going back to the 80s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Impressive work! I have questions/ideas:

Is there any way to extract movie ratings vs time from your data-set? I've subjectively noticed a few patterns in movie ratings, and would love to see quantitative confirmation.

1\. Rating quality tends to spike at or shortly after a film's release, but then drops off gradually as the glow of the PR campaign wears off, or perhaps because people who go to see movies in their opening week are more predisposed to like them (e.g. fanboys, etc.). I usually expect a film that has just been released to be similar in quality to a film that's been on home video for a while with a rating half a point or more lower. (I am ashamed to admit that I watch enough movies that I can usually peg it's IMDB rating to within a quarter of a point independently from how much I personally enjoyed the film. )

2\. Rating quality for older films tends to be held back by poor quality home video releases and often improves significantly, but gradually, after quality transfers are released. e.g. I distinctly remember seeing Zulu several years ago and thinking, "Gee, that film was way better than the IMDb rating!". Back then, it was in the high 6 range. Now it's up to 7.8!

I suspect IMDB does not keep track of times associated with votes, or at least does not provide that data publicly, so the best you could do would be to crawl IMDb periodically. It shouldn't take more than a year's worth of data to see if point #1 holds up. #2 is a lot more difficult because the effect is more gradual, and you'd need to start bringing in other data sources, like audio/video quality ratings from home video review sites that do tend to be somewhat unreliable. I find #2 to be a question of interest though. If you found any other form of correlations with titles whose ratings improve substantially after quality home video releases, you would have potentially found a way to identify under-appreciated films. If you pulled that off, in addition to discovering some good flicks to watch, companies like Kino and Criterion would probably start knocking at your door!

<comment><USER6> > Is there any way to extract movie ratings vs time from your data-set? I've > subjectively noticed a few patterns in movie ratings, and would love to see > quantitative confirmation.

I'm not the OP, but I'm familiar with the data IMDb provides. The short answer to your question is: not easily.

IMDb provides a plain text dump of a subset of their data here: ftp://ftp.fu- berlin.de/pub/misc/movies/database/ \--- it's updated (usually) once a week. So to get temporal data, I guess you'd have to track it yourself.

 _However_ , diffs are provided for each data update: ftp://ftp.fu- berlin.de/pub/misc/movies/database/diffs/

It looks like this could give you temporal data at the granularity of once per week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even though the internet is mainstream, I think imdb's rating are still a bit "nerdy". Granny doesn't go to imdb to rate a movie.

eg Batman: The Dark Knight Rises gets 8.6 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/)

<comment><USER8> No one ever is considering what Granny thinks when movie or television ratings are concerned. The age groups normally considered are 18-34 or 18-49, because those are the ones which far outweigh all others in terms of commercial interest. Also, all other age groups don't make up a significant part of the movie going crowd so even if they would contribute ratings it wouldn't make much of a difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Yet, [old movies] are getting better although not as high as old movies."

1) Don't forget that the raters are self selecting. For very recent movies, the ratings will only be from people who were attracted by hype, and were excited enough to immediately rate a film.

2) All of those ratings will eventually drop as people outside of the target audience(outside of the natural consumers of initial hype) rate the film, reverting the rating to the mean.

3) Most people that are aware of a particular older film are people who remember it because it was/is a favorite, or people who encountered it recently and found it interesting enough to research it on imdb, both probably tending to skew positive.

If you were able to collect the changes in ratings over time, I'd bet that dip of low ratings would always be around the same distance from the present.

I might be off on this, though, because there will always be a qualitative separation between movies that were ratable at the time of release, and movies released pre-imdb.

<comment><USER10> 1\. Yes, I agree with you and I wrote on the first post is that that is mostly due to selection bias. [http://bugra.github.io/work/notes/2014-02-15/imdb- top-100K-m...](http://bugra.github.io/work/notes/2014-02-15/imdb- top-100K-movies-analysis-in-depth-part-1/) 2) That is true but I think that holds for __all__ of the movies not a subset of them. 3) I am not quite sure about that but I think that would be quite interesting look at the temporal information correlation to the rating of the movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really enjoying the analysis.

I hope you'll get a chance to check out writers after actors. It'd be a really interesting test of Schrieber theory, which argues that the writer is a better predictor of a film's quality than the director.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schreiber_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schreiber_theory)

(I had a similar comment last time, sorry for hounding the same issue, just not sure if you saw it.)

<comment><USER10> I missed the comment in the previous one, sorry about that. I am not familiar with the theory but if I could get the writers information(right now I only have the directors) that would be interesting aspect of data to investigate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One thing I was hoping this series would shed light on was an oddity in demographic voting patterns with the ratings system.

From my own (anecdotal) observation, there's a class of films where the 'Females 45+' rating is a big outlier in the voting, with a large proportion of '1' votes. it's as if there's a gang of a few hundred users consistently downvoting films who are classed by IMDB as being part of that demographic - <USER2> don't know if it's a default setting that some bots or trolls have used or if there really are a bunch of cinephobic old women out there just watching and hating on films, but it did spark my curiosity as to what the pattern was. It doesn't happen in every film, and it's rare that you see any other demographic sticking out like this.

The best examples are critically acclaimed films with low voter counts. More popular, or less well-received films tend to have a lot of negative noise to begin with, so the effect is less noticeable, if it's there at all.

Here's some examples:

Army of Shadows : [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064040/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064040/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

Spartacus : [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054331/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054331/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

Ikiru : [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044741/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044741/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

Passion of Joan of Arc : [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019254/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019254/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

Breathless : [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053472/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053472/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

Z : [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065234/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065234/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2)

Barry Lyndon : [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072684/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072684/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

<comment><USER10> That is exactly why I generally prefer median-like average methods versus mean-like averages in these type of crowdsourced systems. Generally speaking, average votes are distributed evenly whereas the ratings on the edges are not. The movies that you gave as examples could be due to preference of voters for particular type of movies.

<comment><USER12> I don't think it would make much odds for IMDB. Sure you'll maybe negate the overly high proportion of extreme votes, but I don't think that effect is large. I did once take the top films on IMDB and remove the extreme votes, and the effect was marginal - a few films shuffled a place or so. In exchange, if you use the median, you could have polarising films - like Twilight, having their ratings change markedly over time, as people decide to start warring over it and the numbers swamp the small number of ambivalents.

For your other point, there will be voting patterns for various demographics and certain groups of people prefer certain movies. But I think the phenomenon I'm describing is a bit too extreme to be merely a bunch of old women disproportionately taking a dislike to Ikiru and then rushing onto the internet to tell the world they hate it. It is the smallest demographic IMDB has, so it's not hurting the ratings of the films in general, it's just an oddity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Next time please also include a simple list of top 1000 movies, it would be helpful (without movies that received too few votes, of course).

<comment><USER12> IMDB provides that by itself:

[http://www.imdb.com/search/title?groups=top_1000&sort=user_r...](http://www.imdb.com/search/title?groups=top_1000&sort=user_rating&view=simple)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Do you think that doing text mining on the films subtitles will add interesting information?

<comment><USER10> So, I tried to do cluster the outlines but generally they are quite short and does not reveal much about what the movies are about but rather the plot. So, I am a little skeptical if it yields good results for subtitles.

<comment><USER14> Ok, it was just an idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> All of this data assumes that IMDB is a complete record of all films.

I don't believe it is, and I think the further back you go, the more likely it is that only well-regarded films are in the database.

<comment><USER9> As databases go, I'd bet it's as complete as it gets. There are lots of awful films from the 20s and 30s in there.</comment></comment>


Markdown CSS styles - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mixu/markdown-styles <comment><USER2> Would be nice if Mixu had provided some credits for those who he's appropriated from.</comment>


Ubuntu ends Unity software unification project - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39490848 <comment><AUTHOR> The original blog post: [https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing- ubuntu-for-cl...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for- cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/)</comment>


Chinese medicinal herbs provide niche market for US farmers - <AUTHOR> http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9808ca6d89274f739476830f79e33214/chinese-medicinal-herbs-provide-niche-market-us-farmers <comment><USER2> And this will also help in lowering the price.</comment>


Ask HN: Fix for crappy Logitech mice? - <AUTHOR>

I love the Logitech "Anywhere MX" mouse except for the shoddy quality. I go through about one of these mice a year and judging from the Logitech forums this has been a design problem since day 1 that they have no intention of fixing (button stops working reliably).<p>Has anyone hacked/"modded" one to fix the button problem? Just replacing the button with another cheap one is not cost effective. I'd like to fix it once and be done with it. My time is expensive enough that going through the warranty hassle is not cost effective. <comment><USER2> There: [https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Logitech+Anywhere+Mouse+MX+Micr...](https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Logitech+Anywhere+Mouse+MX+Micro+Switch+Replacement/10243)</comment>


American Nations Today (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2013/features/up-in-arms.html <comment><USER2> Los Angeles is listed as part of "El Norte" which on their map is mostly all Mexico. That is absolute hyperbole. Though Los Angeles (GDP $800-billion) along with the rest of Southern California have a huge immigrant population the GDP of the area as a whole is well over $1-trillion. The cultures in Southern California and L.A. are remarkably diverse.

To associate Southern California with nothing but Latino and Mexican culture itself is a mighty broad brush stroke. The San Fernando Valley is way different Than Malibu. Hollywood is a polar opposite of Orange county. San Diego ($202-billion GDP) compared to Beverly Hills is laughable. The culture in Long Beach as compared to West L.A. is like comparing Mars to Moon.

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

<comment><USER3> I think you're overstating how much the author associates socal with only Latino and Mexican culture:

"Before I describe the nations, I should underscore that my observations refer to the dominant culture, not the individual inhabitants, of each region. In every town, city, and state you'll likely find a full range of political opinions and social preferences. Even in the reddest of red counties and bluest of blue ones, twenty to forty percent of voters cast ballots for the "wrong" team. It isn't that residents of one or another nation all think the same, but rather that they are all embedded within a cultural framework of deep-seated preferences and attitudes—each of which a person may like or hate, but has to deal with nonetheless."

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the reminder. If culture framework is defined as traditions, value systems, myths and symbols that are common within a given society. (I cheated and looked it up) Then I double down on my opinion. ;-)

An interesting exercise I just did was to go to Google Maps and pick various locales in L.A, San Diego etc, and virtually "drive down the streets" and see if the cultural difference. The symbols and systems are definitely not consistent: YMMV :-)

Hollywood Blvd & Vine; Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills; Van Nuys Blvd & Sepulveda (lot of pot shops) ; Gaslamp District San Diego, Huntington Beach, CA, Santa Monica, 4th street; Long Beach Harbor; Juarez, Mexico.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obviously there are numerous problems with this, but I'll just point out a couple. First, what is up with "Midlands"? Do we really see much commonality among Clayton NM, Aberdeen SD, Joliet IL, East Steubenville WV, and Baltimore MD? [For non-USAsians, these cities are nowhere near each other and are in no respect similar.] This looks like gerrymandering: something about these counties would have destroyed the narrative had they been included in adjacent Yankeedom, New Netherland, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, El Norte, or Far West, so they weren't, because reasons. Unconvincing.

With respect to the other focus of TFA, violence, we see more of the same "ignore-all-nations-except-for-Northern-Europe-Japan-and-New-Zealand" crap that is typical in trendy "comparisons" of USA to "the rest of the world". The difference between USA and the short list of nations this sort of "analysis" deigns to consider is that USA is a nation of colonial origin. [EDIT: whoops... NZ is too.] Look at all other nations that were colonized, in Latin America and Africa. They all struggle with violence to an equal or greater extent than USA. Ahistoric pap like TFA perpetuates political bias more than it promotes understanding.

<comment><USER5> > USAsians

This is the most confusing new demonym I've seen in a while. As an Asian- American, it took me a moment to figure out why this would be knowledge only Asian-Americans would be expected to have.

Edit: It's not referring to Asian-Americans, by the way. It's apparently? (guessing from context) a new? way of referring to Americans, for some reason. I'm not really sure what's going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The area labeled as Yankeedom in reality has a lot more variation than presented. There is a huge difference in attitudes between the coastal elites and the inland, more rural populations. You can see this somewhat in the repeated mention of New Hampshire as an outlier - it's a small enough state, with few enough urbanesque areas that they don't reliably dominate.

<comment><USER7> There is a circle around Boston (that include Manchester and Nahsua, NH) that is very different than a lot of the rest of New England.

I moved from Boston to Nashua, NH (a 90k+ person city less than 50 minutes from Boston) and was right at home; yet there are rural parts of New Hampshire I would feel entirely out of place like it is a different country. But at the same time, I feel there is a sense of unity in most of New England. A shared heritage and creativeness ("Yankee Ingenuity") that binds the region together.

Sometimes I think about moving to the West Coast (usually around the fourth foot of snow in the Winter) but I do like it here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Of late, Far Westerners have focused their anger on the federal government, rather than their corporate masters."

The whole Far West part is a bunch of bunk and actually ignores quite a bit of history and settlement waves, but this line is the dumbest thing I've read in a while. Our corporate masters? I get the feeling the folks in "The Left Coast" have to deal with corporate masters a whole lot more than anyone in "The Far West". The thought that anti-federal feelings are anything new is just foolish, heck there have been historical articles posted on HN that point to the exact opposite.

<comment><USER9> That's not what he's saying. He's saying they have disliked both from the beginning, but anti-govt sentiment predominates now. Which seems true as far as it goes.

<comment><USER8> What I'm saying is that I have never heard this corporate master garbage. I know of a dislike for some farm companies but that is about the same degree other people complain about cell and cable companies. Anti-government sentiment was predominate in the old days, its nothing new.

<comment><USER10> Your own ignorance of history is on you alone. If you wish to relieve it you could research railroad settlement of the American West, specifically land grant subsidies thereof and abuse by the railroads of their power over settlers.

<comment><USER8> The railroads screwed with everyone including the Left Coast, how is this unique to the section? Hell, some of the stuff they pulled on the east coast was pretty bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "It isn't that residents of one or another nation all think the same, but rather that they are all embedded within a cultural framework of deep-seated preferences and attitudes—each of which a person may like or hate, but has to deal with nonetheless."

It certainly paints a more nuanced picture than grouping people by state. In this case the unit is a county.

</comment><comment><USER12> For some reason they've split Metro Atlanta in two, which makes absolutely no sense. I move half a mile down the road, I'm in Greater Appalachia instead of the Deep South.

People in Metro Atlanta don't identify with Appalachia more than they do with "The South", and the northern half of Metro Atlanta definitely didn't side with the Union in the Civil War (which is what the blurb about Greater Appalachia says).

Obviously non-geographic borders are going to be a bit arbitrary, but splitting a major population center like this is particularly bad.

<comment><USER13> Any idea how this was actually mapped? It looks like census tracts.

<comment><USER6> It appears to be broken down by counties, I assume. At least, those are the divisions in the New England states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fascinating. As a Canadian, I certainly appreciate the commonalities between areas north and south of the border. (Of course, I am unsure whether I agree, but it is food for thought. Quebec, e.g., labelled as part of New France, may be liberal in some areas but is decidedly us-or-them in others, straining to wholly intolerant of those who even appear to be anything other than "pure laine" (pure wool).)</comment>


Everyone Will Subscribe to Media in the Future - <AUTHOR> https://baekdal.com/trends/everyone-will-subscribe-to-media-in-the-future-no-really/ <comment><USER2> The industry is heading towards micropayments. Nobody wants 10 subscriptions services, instead consumers are wanting to load up a wallet with $20 a month, browse and consume an article for 10c. The focus from providers will be on quality and engagement rather than promotions like Star trek discover to temp users to sign up.</comment>


The $10 Hedge Fund Supercomputer That's Sweeping Wall Street - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-20/the-10-hedge-fund-supercomputer-that-s-sweeping-wall-street <comment><USER2> The gap that firms are trying to bridge is _huge_. I work in finance (slow finance: insurance), but finance technical enough to have our own PhD-level quants building code. They are running simulations taking hours, so scaling up on # cores would seem the first step to take. But it's not that the quants don't know parallelization, it's the IT-architecture not allowing to use AWS at all. And well, many cores on your own premises is hugely expensive because they are idle most of the time. And as a sidestep, most quants are not the first you think of to woo architectures' support. (This is probably easier for firms that trade for own profit.)

Point being: improvements in AI / machine learning and other statistical techniques are huge, and analytical demand exists, but 'old corporations' need cultural change before they can start working with and embedding startup-like technology in their workflows.

<comment><USER3> This is pretty common outside finance as well. "We can't let our data touch any one else's network!" And, of course, we can't bother to get our IT group on the smarts wagon, so we're massively inefficient all the way around.

<comment><USER4> I'm playing devil's advocate a little: There are sometimes legitimate legal hurdles to having your data hit external networks. For example, if you're a medical insurance company, then you have to get everything HIPAA legal.

<comment><USER5> Looks like AWS is HIPAA complaint at least for some services:

"Customers may use any AWS service in an account designated as a HIPAA account, but they should only process, store and transmit PHI in the HIPAA- eligible services defined in the BAA. There are six HIPAA-eligible services today, including Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Glacier, and Amazon Elastic Load Balancer."

[http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/hipaa- compliance/](http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/hipaa-compliance/)

Notably, I don't see Elastic MapReduce. It seems that if you wanted to run heavy data crunching, you'd have to run you own cluster on EC2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi guys, I'm a founder at Domino Data Lab (one of the other companies mentioned in the article). I'm happy to answer questions anyone has. I can also corroborate the opinions in the thread here: many of our customers are in finance and insurance, and many of them don't want data leaving their networks at all (hence the need for an on-prem offering).

<comment><USER7> Is the on-prem offering a combination of "OSS private cloud" and a proprietary analytics / machine learning API?

<comment><USER6> We don't offer a proprietary ML library or API -- we run arbitrary user code, whatever languages and packages you want to use (Python, R, h2o, dato, compiled C++, etc.). The infrastructure piece is like a private cloud, yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've met some of the guys from Ufora and seen a demo of their technology; very impressive. I've always been leery of the claim that you can create smart software to make the problems of writing parallel code magically disappear, but what they've done has made me rethink some beliefs related to working with big data at scale. Definitely a company to keep an eye on.

<comment><USER9> Glad to hear you like it! We think it's pretty cool ourselves :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sensai which is mentioned in the article is hiring Java AI/NLP folks in Palo Alto [http://sensai.workable.com/jobs/19235](http://sensai.workable.com/jobs/19235) The CTO Monica Anderson also runs the bay area AI meetup group

</comment><comment><USER9> PM @ Ufora here. Happy to answer any questions you might have!

</comment><comment> bra-ket Ufora DSL: [http://kb.ufora.com/index/language/documentation.html](http://kb.ufora.com/index/language/documentation.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Is it common to use prop trading strategies for trading a personal portfolio? Or do quants almost exclusively work at hedge funds

<comment><USER12> I've never met a quant trader trading for their own account. It requires some infrastructure that would be hard to justify unless you have lots of money to invest, and you're really good at it.

<comment><USER13> It is common for successful quant traders to be partners (have equity) in their firms, which means they are "trading for their own account" to some extent.

<comment><USER14> I think what he meant by "for their own account" was something smaller and personal. Not part of a larger pool containing hundreds of millions of dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> LTCM wasn't a warning, it was prophesy.

<comment><USER16> A prophesy which became manifest a few years back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> 2006 called, they want their technology back.</comment>


Darwin (Operating System) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system) <comment><AUTHOR> Question: Can I build a simple "hello world" text/console mode binary in Darwin, and would that binary then work unmodified on the corresponding (see table in article) MacOS release?

According to the article, you don't get a lot of features that you get with MacOS, with Darwin, e.g., GUI, etc.

That's OK.

But, what I want to know is, if I write a console program without using any of those features (GUI, etc.) on Darwin, then could it work on the corresponding MacOS, unmodified? Why or why not?</comment>


The Feynman Method to be a Genius - <AUTHOR>

Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, "How did he do it? He must be a genius!" <comment><USER2> Hamming said the same thing:

      Most great scientists know many important problems. They
      have something between 10 and 20 important problems for
      which they are looking for an attack. And when they see a
      new idea come up, one hears them say "Well that bears on
      this problem." They drop all the other things and get after
      it. Now I can tell you a horror story that was told to me
      but I can't vouch for the truth of it. I was sitting in an
      airport talking to a friend of mine from Los Alamos about
      how it was lucky that the fission experiment occurred over
      in Europe when it did because that got us working on the
      atomic bomb here in the US. He said "No; at Berkeley we had
      gathered a bunch of data; we didn't get around to reducing
      it because we were building some more equipment, but if we
      had reduced that data we would have found fission." They
      had it in their hands and they didn't pursue it. They came
      in second!

      The great scientists, when an opportunity opens up, get
      after it and they pursue it. They drop all other things.
      They get rid of other things and they get after an idea
      because they had already thought the thing through. Their
      minds are prepared; they see the opportunity and they go
      after it. Now of course lots of times it doesn't work out,
      but you don't have to hit many of them to do some great
      science. It's kind of easy. One of the chief tricks is to
      live a long time!

"You and Your Research"

<http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> The implied second step to this method is that you have to be constantly on the alert to hear or read about new tricks. In Feynman's time this was much more difficult in industry than in academia, but nowadays thanks to the Internet I suspect it is applicable even if you work a desk job at a software development firm.

<comment><USER4> This is my excuse for browsing HN all day instead of working. Just being a genius!

<comment><USER5> I hope you are working towards being effective. I did, and my job basically became read HN for 4+ hours a day.

<comment><USER4> Yeah it's a lot easier keeping up with the day job these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Found in Rota's lessons, here: <http://www.math.tamu.edu/~cyan/Rota/tenlesses.pdf></comment>


Are Index Funds Evil? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/are-index-funds-evil/534183/?utm_source=atlli&single_page=true <comment><USER2> As someone who invests in Index Funds this does worry me. Surely we can't all invest in Index Funds and still have everything work?

I don't think it's an issue for now, but something to keep an eye out for 10, 20 years into the future once many more people move into Index Funds.</comment>


The Coinbase iOS app has launched - <AUTHOR> http://blog.coinbase.com/post/64824441934/the-coinbase-ios-app-has-launched

<comment><USER2> This is good news, but it's important to remember that the way Coinbase works is for Coinbase to keep the private keys. A Coinbase "wallet" is really more like a Coinbase demand deposit account. That means you are trusting Coinbase to hold on to your bitcoins, thus losing one of the key benefits of bitcoin, which is that you hold your money. A better alternative is the Blockchain.info app, but from my understanding this is not available for un-jailbroken iPhones (please correct me if I'm wrong).

<comment> w-ll Correct, I go as far as to not even really consider Coinbase a wallet, even though I know that's what there shooting for. I still like using Coinbase to buy when dips occur, It's the easiest way for US residents.

Blockchain.info web interface I believe works on the iPhone, albeit It's been a while since I've been there. If you really want to embrace Bitcoin, build from source [https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin)

<comment><USER3> Agreed... Coinbase is simply a mechanism to purchase and move Bitcoins through to my bank account. I never felt right storing coins in anything other than a paper wallet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is good news. Congrats to Coinbase guys.

If you are new to Bitcoin apps, you may want to check out Gliph. [1]

The app lets you view your Coinbase, Blockchain.info or BIPS bitcoin wallet and send Bitcoin to people easily.

[1] [https://gli.ph/](https://gli.ph/) (I work on Gliph.)

<comment><USER5> Wow, sweet. It seems though that the "send me a link" feature doesn't work with non-US phones? It would be nice if you had a friendler message when someone enters a non-us phone (essentially, a number beginning with "+", and not with "+1")

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Coinbase already had an app... At least I had one installed from way back. It had the exact same icon and name. It was basically just a list of transactions and you couldn't take any action. Maybe they aren't counting that app. Interestingly, this new app must be using a different bundle if because I now have both Coinbase apps installed next to each other on my phone.

<comment><USER7> Am I wrong for having a moment of panic were I wondered if I had been tricked into installing an app that was not actually Coinbase's all those months ago?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. This seems like big news in the Bitcoin world to me. This means Apple is giving the green light to Bitcoin related apps in the iTunes store.

I wonder if Apple will start allowing entirely phone-based wallet apps now...

<comment><USER9> Look at the Blockchain app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is it that Apple doesn't allow Bitcoin wallet applications, but does make an exception for Coinbase?

<comment><USER5> there is a blockchain app as well, and someone mentioned gliph in this thread

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm still a novice to Bitcoin but I thought the lure of it was so that there is no way to track/audit money transactions in as far as who was involved.

The top screenshot seems to show such an audit trail. I hope it is stored on the device (never on Coinbase's servers) and only temporarily.

<comment><USER12> It's not a private wallet it's an interface to a coinbase's shared wallet obviously they track it. If you didn't want that you would use one of the many local wallets / blockchain.info's wallet.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the info!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Finally! Now when the inevitable "Coinbase is shutting down" post appears, I'll have some idea of what they're referencing...

( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6573455](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6573455) )

</comment><comment><USER14> Coinbase taking over a lot of the bitcoin ecosystem makes me nervous. They seem to have great engineering skills, but have the morals of PayPal. It might be better to push for other services that seem to be pushing for the betterment of the whole bitcoin community like inputs.io

<comment><USER15> Do you have any specific examples of behavior to illustrate your low opinion of Coinbase?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hm... this seems nice (while the Android app is just their website packed with Phonegap or something like it).

</comment><comment><USER9> For those curious: Yes, there is already a wallet app available on the App Store called "Blockchain". It's a thin client app, which is usually more secure than using Coinbase (which keeps your private keys). It supports sending, receiving, etc. from your phone. The UI is so nice that I prefer using it to all other Bitcoin apps, be they mobile or desktop.</comment>


Ask HN: Going native, hybrid or responsive - <AUTHOR> So, I'm going to start (another) side project. It's obvious that it should be available for web and mobile and I would like to know your opinions about the (as far as I know) three available options:
a) Going native. Android and iOS by the moment.
b) Going hybrid. SPA. Maybe Meteor/Ionic, Cordova.
c) Going responsive. Just one website.
I have experience with a) and c) but not with b).
Reasons to do this side project:
* Extend my portfolio
* Keep improving old technologies or learning new ones.
* Could be the next big thing! So naive :)
So, it would be great to see your pros and cons listed here. Thanks! <comment><USER2> If you just want to create a MVP and figure out if people like the idea, then I'd say a responsive website might be your best bet. Otherwise you might end up wasting a lot of valuable developer time while figuring out too late if the project will be a success of failure.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you need App/Play Store distribution, or offline support? If so, you usually need to go native or use something like Cordova to package into a native app. From the GUI building side of things, responsive and Cordova can be considered the same technology, although with some special considerations when running under Cordova (webviews might be a bit different than bleeding edge browsers, native access etc). If you do decide to go responsive/Cordova, do yourself a favour and get to know CSS Flex (great for layout on screens etc). Responsive/Cordova also allow you to use other great stuff like React+Flux.

The one thing that will haunt you if you do not go native is the "feel" of you app, compared to the native apps on the same platforms. Most games solve this problem by having their own "immersive" GUI which often works because GUIs in games are fairly limited. Usually a responsive/Cordova type app will either select one of the native "styles" and mimic that, OR select to mimic a "website" type interaction, but regardless, it will never feel quite native on mobiles/tablets.

From another point of view, if you have to build everything yourself, going native means it's going to be a looong time until you cover all platforms (Android, iOS, responsive web). Depending on your app, doing cross platform first, THEN invest in native when you've got a hit under your belt.

</comment><comment><USER4> Going native has the advantage of giving (potentially) the best performance on each platform. Things like infinite scroll, animation seem to be smoother using native code. The downside is having to know how to code in two languages and having to maintain two codebases.

Responsive site is the logical first step, since you want it on the Web anyway. You can use most of this to build your hybrid app. I've used Cordova and it works well for basic apps, so this is the direction I would take.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've had experience building MeteorJS based (Cordova under the hood) mobile apps and they are dreadful. Wood advise against it. However, MeteorJS is a great framework and our app, Linkwok is built using MeteorJS.

If you do decide to go the MeteorJS route and need SEO take a look at this post I made here: [https://hub.kadira.io/posts/sFWNi7ZdPoamaZF6x/](https://hub.kadira.io/posts/sFWNi7ZdPoamaZF6x/)

If it is more of an app and has a strong web app use-case I would suggest a,b MeteorJS + Native Apps

</comment><comment><USER6> If you know React, I'd suggest looking into ReactNative. It's a new tech but what I've tried and seen it's VERY promising. No Android support yet but it's coming soon.

</comment><comment><USER7> If going native makes sense, then going hybrid or responsive seldom does. That is, if the app isn't about content, like a catalog, or other content-centric purpose, then go native.

Or you can look at it from the other side: The more rich the interaction, and the more direct manipulation, the more reason to go native. If it's just a few buttons and text fields, you can choose whatever implementation is easiest for you.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think hybrid is a fine option if the user experience is good enough for the app you're doing. Writing two native apps plus a web app is a massive undertaking for a sole developer especially if you don't know if the app will be successful. Having to maintain three separate codebases will significantly reduce your ability to adapt quickly to feedback as well.

</comment><comment><USER9> I suggest looking into ionic framework and building a hybrid app. They have put a lot into making the workflow amazing to work with. Ionic View will let you run your app natively on a phone without having to install from the App Store or drop money on the sdk. Just push from the command line!

</comment><comment><USER10> Totally dependent on the scope. But if it functions well as a mobile (responsive) website, and your making that anyway, just wrap it in Cordova for App Store distribution. Easy peasy.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. So many useful responses, thanks. I didn't mention the scope of the application. It is some kind of CRUD app: users, comments, posts, etc.</comment>


Tell HN: SpaceX Launch Scrubbed for Weather. Delayed for 3 days - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322948](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322948).

</comment><comment><USER3> The use of word "Scrubbed" bothers me. Whats wrong with "Aborted"? Scrubbing is a mechanical action to remove something. "Aborted" or "Cancelled" is a more precise word. Not just the title of this thread, SpaceX themselves use the word "Scrubbed".

<comment><AUTHOR> If I recall, there is a distinction. I believe aborted is a reserved term for mechanical or technical issues within last-minute launch sequence, while scrubbed is for unrelated issues (ie, weather).

The SpaceX spokesperson even accidentally said "aborted", but then correct himself to "scrubbed" immediately.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the insight, so there is actual reasoning behind this distinction. Still a weird choice of a word, but I concede the original remarks. Similarly, the use of the word - "Scrapped" \- why not "Discarded"?. Way better and more precise.

Reminds me of "Take off" vs "Departure" in commercial flights due to the mixup in some 1980's incident. Notice that they always use the word "Departure", as in - "Ready for departure", when communicating with the passengers but the ATC reserves the word "Take off" when instructing the pilots "Clear for take off".</comment></comment></comment>


Aloha Editor - The HTML5 Editor  - <AUTHOR> http://aloha-editor.com/index.php

<comment><USER2> looks awesome, but... how the hell do you install/use it??

<comment><USER3> Here is how I integrated it into our system: [http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/using_rdfa_to_make_a_web_page_edit...](http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/using_rdfa_to_make_a_web_page_editable/)</comment></comment>


Book Machine at Harvard Bookstore - <AUTHOR> http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2009/09/event-book-machine-at-harvard-bookstore.html <comment><USER2> I wrote a better article about the Espresso Book Machine about five months ago. It has quite a few more details for those who are interested.

[http://inkweaver-review.blogspot.com/2009/05/espresso- book-m...](http://inkweaver-review.blogspot.com/2009/05/espresso-book-machine- better-than.html)

<comment><USER3> There's one here in Melbourne already, out of 15 in the world. <http://www.ondemandbooks.com/our_ebm_locations.htm> We usually get cool stuff last.

$US100,000 is a long way from mass-market, but we already have cheap home/office colour laser printers, so it seems conceivable. Imagine one in every library, kinkos, post office, video store... very science fiction.

<comment><USER2> Yeah it is very far off from the mass-market yet. And the problem is that before the price goes down it will have to reach a sort of saturation point after which its own popularity will take over.

You're lucky to live near on of the fifteen in the world. ;)

<comment><USER3> Actually, it doesn't sound too promising:

 _This bookstore has an Espresso Book Machine which sometimes works._ [http://www.librarything.com/venue/34802/Angus-&-Robertso...](http://www.librarything.com/venue/34802/Angus-&-Robertson ---Melbourne-CBD---Cnr-Bourke-&-Elizabeth-Streets)

<comment><USER3> I went and had a look, but it wasn't running. Apparently, it's usually on between 10am and 3pm (though that's not stated on their website).

There was a sample book, and though the cover and binding were great, the printing was a significantly less bold than a real book. Maybe low toner, but that was the show-off "sample" book... The print also looked just like those pdf's you see of scanned books - not as good as a real book. I was unimpressed, because I think it could easily look much better.

The catalog is only about 100 books, more expensive than I'd thought, starting at about $16 AUD (about $14 USD). Range should change with Google's massive out-of-copyright catalog - price too, I hope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very cool tech. Hopefully it finds it's way to pretty much everywhere. It's a mystery to me why it hasn't shown up in every Border's and Barnes & Nobles yet. I'd gladly pay a few bucks to get some classic literature printed on demand.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.thesponty.com/events/242040/Unveiling_of_The_Book...](http://www.thesponty.com/events/242040/Unveiling_of_The_Book_Machine_at_Harvard_Bookstore)

<comment><USER6> Why not just link to the actual Harvard Book Store event page?

<http://www.harvard.com/events/press_release.php?id=2390>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> video of version 1 <http://www.bookshop.unimelb.edu.au/bookshop/p?Z.ebm>

video of version 2 <http://www.ondemandbooks.com/video2.htm>

The videos have a boring start but become cool.</comment>


Startups Adjust to Web's Down Cycle - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324296604578177541652032424-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwNDEyNDQyWj.html <comment><USER2> Down cycle? I would just call it they possibly got the IPO wrong.

<comment><USER3> Every time I hear the word SoLoMo they give me the impression they have no idea what they're talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4961966></comment>


Steak Gets Serious Flavor from a Magic Rub - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-steak-gets-serious-flavor-from-a-magic-rub-11570736738?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> You _must_ declare a nut allergy. Nobody expects steak to come pre dressed with peanut. Anaphylaxis is not funny, just routinely "kicking up a notch" is not ok.

People know not to go to a satay joint but if random chefs now do spice rub with peanut.. oy vey.</comment>


Manage your redis keys with key-guard - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Amberlamps/key-guard <comment><AUTHOR> Orignally this module was created to keep track of keys in redis. But you can use it for any other application of course. Redis is an awesome key/value store, but you can easily lose track of all keys used in production, because there is no schema that every developer of your team has to follow.</comment>


7 Deadly Sins of Outsourcing - <AUTHOR> http://aymeric.gaurat.net/2012/the-7-deadly-sins-of-outsourcing/

<comment><USER2> [http://aymeric.gaurat.net/2011/how-i-work-with-my-remote- dev...](http://aymeric.gaurat.net/2011/how-i-work-with-my-remote-developer/) this is another great link from the same series. awesome stuff!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

I deeply believe entrepreneurs don't understand how important outsourcing can be for their business.

I am on a mission to make it easier :)</comment></comment>


Cog: Bringing the power of the command line to chat - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/operable/cog <comment><USER2> Congrats on this launch pretty exited to see its evolution</comment>


Ask HN: Gmail plugin - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
For those of you who have experience building a Gmail plugin, I have an idea but I'm not sure how to begin? I've noticed some extensions offered on the Chrome Store, Streak and Rapportive but do they attempt to do DOM manipulation or is there something much simpler?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Check their source code :)</comment>


Why TechCrunch is boring, SAP is not, and the world has gone mad - <AUTHOR> http://peopleprocesstech.com/2011/12/05/why-techcrunch-is-boring-sap-is-not-and-the-world-has-gone-mad/ <comment><USER2> Do you think anyone has a copy of SAP at home that they hack on in their own time for their own pleasure? I suspect not...

Anyway, I have to repeat my favourite quote about SAP from a Slashdot discussion:

"SAP is how Lucifer interacts with our world."

[http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/2143219/Allegedly- Rig...](http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/2143219/Allegedly-Rigged- Product-Demo-In-SAP-Suit-Goes-Missing)

Which I think sums it up nicely.

<comment><USER3> I love the comments but this is exactly the stuff I was talking about in this article. I'd love to show the wider tech audience a bit more about SAP and how it works. Guess that can be my project for 2012.

1) Yes, you can download a trial version as Zalthor points out. I'm trying to work with SAP to make this more open and easy to do. It's important.

2) SAP customers vary from 1 employee (SAP BusinessOne) to 250,000+ employees (SAP ERP). But from a download perspective the interesting stuff is coming with Gateway and the Unwired Platform. With those tools - the server components of which will be available in the cloud - you can build Edge/Web Apps and Mobile apps using whatever tech you want. Ruby on Rails, iPhone, whatever. That's the sort of open integration which I hope will interest this audience, not downloading copies of SAP ERP for home.

3) Couldn't agree more, don't block social media at work. I wouldn't work for a company that did. By the way, SAP encourage social media and have 50k+ employees. But some organizations are stuck in the dark ages.

4) Streamworks integration is coming for the mainstream soon. It will be PaaS, integrated with the new Java environment and developer toolkit and supports open integration. It's had a bad press so far. Hopefully this will help.

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER4> I think you might be somewhat lonely in this good will campaign for SAP.

In my decade-long career as a lawyer for customers who buy enterprise IT, the only company that I consider more obnoxious across the table than SAP is Oracle. If you are doing business with these companies, you pretty much deserve what you get. I've seen a few CIOs lose their jobs when ERP falls apart (it almost always does, for a variety of reasons).

I'm not saying there isn't a bunch of useful technology, but these aren't technology companies – they're sales organizations, and that side of the business is not pretty. I can't understand why anyone does business with obnoxious sales organizations like these in 2011.

<comment><USER5> What are the other options exactly?

<comment><USER6> I'm currently taking a class in managing SAP ERP systems, and noticed how really bad it is. The user interface for end users is absolutely abysmal. Like some other people here have pointed out it doesn't scale very well.

There are a couple open source ERP products, Compiere which is technically open source but uses a service model. However, the most interesting open source ERP is by far Openbravo. If you're question about other options was serious, you should look into using Openbravo: <http://www.openbravo.com/about-us/>

<comment><USER3> It's true that SAP ERP could really do with a better interface (and it does, for the consumer end of the market by the way). But SAP ERP is bought by people who enjoy the business benefit (increased revenue, decreased cost) rather than by the users - that's life.

To say that SAP ERP doesn't scale on the other hand is a bit nuts. It scales easily to the biggest companies in the world. Apple iTunes Store sales billing runs on SAP.

I've not spent a lot of time looking at open source ERP in the context of large enterprise. I'd be interested in a serious comparison of the contenders and their UX, ability to scale to many countries/currencies/languages and their ROI and supportability and extensibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> SAP was built in the seventies on seventies technology, which it still uses today (ABAP). None of it's front end reporting tools (even Business Objects) are anything like "modern", and every patch they release is more and more unstable.

TechCrunch people know this, I'm sure there are plenty of ex-SAP consultants who got pretty tired of badly run projects by badly educated middle managers who have no business being put in charge of enormous and complex SAP implementations.

I have worked for some of the biggest companies in the world fixing some of the rubbish out there, and you know why SAP has so much money? Because the business just order another instance to migrate to each time they mess it up.

And so it goes on...

<comment><USER8> _I have worked for some of the biggest companies in the world fixing some of the rubbish out there, and you know why SAP has so much money? Because the business just order another instance to migrate to each time they mess it up._

SAP seems to run a powerful Reality Distortion Field. I live in a municipality (Johannesburg) that is experiencing a huge multi-year billing crisis, following a flawed SAP implementation. Despite being a disaster, SAP gave it an award: [http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view...](http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34778:sap- fails-to-explain-award)

<comment><USER9> Awards and spotlights at conferences are how companies like SAP (Oracle has done this too, I assume many "industry success stories" are nothing but this) award managers who generate big profits and who will probably generate even more cleaning up the mess they got into. By branding their failure as a success story, they reduce the likelihood of a change in direction to less flawed approaches and maximize their chances of tying the customer forever.

After being awarded "CTO of the year", the incompetent one will probably move on, away from the problem he/she created, and will possibly inflict the same damage to the next company that hires him/her, generating even more profit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> SAP passes an image of a predictable company where innovation doesn't really happen (whether that's true or not is irrelevant - perception is what counts).

Money and size is irrelevant. Concrete supports all of our homes, but calling is cool compared to e.g. "ultralight metallic microlattice" [1] is ridiculous by most people's definition of cool.

[1]: [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/11/lightest-...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/11/lightest- material-on-earth.html)

<comment><USER11> """whether that's true or not is irrelevant - perception is what counts"""

Actually, no. Reality is what counts. I don't bet my money based on perception, and neither I trade with perception in mind. Except if I'm looking to take advantage of some bubble.

<comment><USER12> >and neither I trade with perception in mind

Then I'd be surprised if you do well in trading. For monetary value; perceived value _is_ value. We have no other means of valuing things monetarily.

<comment><USER13> Yes, because we all know what a reliable guide to value trading has been over the past three decades.

To _some_ extent entrepreneurship found in technology has been the counter- culture to the con game that the financial markets have become accustomed to.

<comment><USER12> Again wrong. How do you think entrepreneurs are pricing their wares if not by perceived value? Did you think they were doing something like "labor cost + 20%" or something?

The cost of making something is only used to determine price floor (i.e. if perceived value is lower than the price floor it makes no sense to create this product).

<comment><USER13> This was originally about trading. Entrepreneurs are not traders, and while in a perfect world they would have a similar set of concerns, but generally not in today's world. (see HFT)

What your model of perceived value isn't accounting for are speculators who are in a market with no real vested interest in the product. The correct amount of speculation within a market can round out extremes but there is a balance. Free markets generally find the best prices for most things and works well in the majority of situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So I'm just going to throw it out there that I'm a young SAP Developer. I've been known as an "up and comer" in the community (yes, we have a community) until I decided I was no longer sure I wanted SAP to be my long term career choice. I've done SAP hacking on the side on multiple occasions and I've even made money from a little side project that won a SAP innocentive challenge.

For all of you SAP naysayers (I oftentimes find myself among you) the best explanation I've ever heard for why to work in the SAP ecosystem is "If you want to change the world, you should work with the biggest lever you can find".

Feel free to ask questions.

<comment><USER15> Nice to hear. I have a couple of questions: 1\. Is the community open to all or do you need to be working for a SAP customer? 2\. What's the simplest way to get set up to start tinkering with some SAP stuff? 3\. Can you mention some interesting projects that you've done or was done by others?

<comment><USER14> 1) The community is open to the public: <http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index> -> Not a member? -> Public User 2) The main platform can be downloaded here: <http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/nw-downloads> -> Choose a developer edition Application Server. You can also find and download a trial of gateway, (mobile platform) business objects, (analytic) etc if you look around. I'm actually not so familiar with whats actively available these days. 3) johnappleby is probably better qualified to answer this question at this point but I will tell you to look into SAPlink since its considered the "open source enabler" of SAP <http://code.google.com/p/saplink/> you can also check out the enterprise geeks, good light-hearted site for SAP content <http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/projects/>

I built a framework for integrating data between SAP's cloud offering and their on premise solutions but after unsuccessfully trying to opensource it in collaboration with SAP (a frustrating experience) I pretty much stopped my community activities. That experience sucked a lot of the SAP enthusiasm out of me but I have watched the company get much better over the last 2 years and I am in talks about getting involved in an another open source project sometime in the next few months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _What's wrong with the world is that they are so focussed [sic] on Apple, Google and Facebook – with their over inflated [sic] IPOs and everything that comes with that. The world was not built on technology bubbles – it was built on hard work and honest money._

Even if I agree with the author's sentiment, that last line made me laugh.

Also: Apple, with their over inflated IPO? (their IPO having been long ago) destroys SAP's revenue and profit.

Edit: The world _was_ built on hard work, but I'm not sure how SAP is necessarily the embodiment of that.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the same can be said for 'boring' non-tech industries, like energy, transport, finance, food retail etc. These are essential industries that make the world turn, but because they lack the 'cool' factor they also get the blame for many of the ills in the world. This is while the entertainment industry (film, games, art, music) can shrink by 90% without causing much damage, are often considered less evil or even more important than those who provide the essentials.

I don't think the world has gone mad, I just think it's how the world is perceived from by different age groups. When you are a teenager you think you'll never stop listening to the cool new music when you are older, but when you are older you realise the latest craze is cute but not that relevant.

On a different tangent, every year or two I have a look at what is happening in the open source world in the space that SAP operates in. A few promising things pop up from time to time but never gets much traction, but it does seem to progress a bit over time, slowly. I think the only thing that will move it forward is if universities put some projects behind it in their business and technology courses.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wait, what? According to his figures, SAP makes $1.18bn profit from $12.46bn revenue (about 10% profit margin); Facebook brings in $1bn profit from $4bn revenue (about 25% profit margin), yet SAP is somehow claimed /more/ interesting? By what metrics? Is SAP somehow gonna grow quicker than Facebook and overtake it?

However you slice it, both SAP and Facebook have major share of their respective markets. Facebook seems to monetize the market better. Next story please.

<comment><USER18> > Wait, what? According to his figures [...], yet SAP is somehow claimed > /more/ interesting?

I also like that _by his own metrics_ Facebook has ~800m users, SAP has ~500m users, therefore Facebook is insignificant?

But of course, TFA is (apparently) a SAP consultant and his tagline is "Tangential Musings about Enterprise IT". It's not like he's going to say otherwise.

<comment><USER3> Come now, I didn't say that FB is insignificant. That would be ignoring the biggest social trend in the 21st century! What I'm saying is that the consumer press community spends 99% of its time talking about FB et al., who are interesting, cool but haven't got a proven commercial model, and 1% of the time talking about (and denigrating) SAP et al., who run the real software that makes businesses run.

And in the meantime, the global economy is going down the drain and Bubble 2.0 means that investors are throwing more of our savings down the drain. Some of the latest startup IPO valuations have been ridiculous.

Yes, my primary income is SAP consulting, but that doesn't mean I am not interested in wider IT issues. Facebook is a very relevant trend, but social media is a fickle partner, and the crown has changed hands several times already. Valuing it at 19x earnings is nuts.

Please do take a look at the innovations that SAP are doing. I look at wider market trends and I think what SAP is achieving in innovation is well beyond what Oracle/IBM/Microsoft/Google are doing right now. You may be surprised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From the article:

"Well for my money SAP is possibly the most interesting technology firm in the world right now."

To be sure, what trips one's trigger may not do so for another, so to each his own. That said, this is just a synopsis of one guy's very tiny view on the world.

To the original author: the value of an acquisition doesn't set the pace for what's interesting. If that were the case, Exxon would be the single most interesting thing on the planet.

Rather than bitching about someone else not writing about something that interests you, why not start the Enterprise IT version of TechCrunch?

</comment><comment><USER20> If any SAP consultants are out there reading this, can you give me some insights on how to get up to speed with the SAP products and ecosystem? I'm a developer/consultant (primarily Salesforce) but am interested in exploring SAP product offerings. Infos in profile.

I think there are probably many of us that are interested in this side of the "enterprise" but SAP is sort of its own universe and difficult to understand/penetrate from the outside.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that most of the legal documentation available are really boring power point presentations that provide as little technical information as possible.

Most of their detailed documentation is only available for people who take up their courses (yes, they are that evil) and certification exams.

I do remember quite a bit of it was available on rapidshare though unless you were already working on something specific you wouldn't know what exactly to search for.

To start with, I would suggesting getting a book on SAP R/3. More specifically the SAP R/3 handbook by Jose Antonio Hernandez. I don't know of any thing available for free (legally) that is as good a place to start.

As for the product offerings from SAP, they more or less seem to be components that sit on the same application stack. So getting into one of these applications could provide insight into what everything else does.

Disclaimer: I work as an SAP Basis consultant (that's sort of an application admin + OS admin + DBA)

<comment><USER20> Thanks, added to my Amazon wishlist! I'm planning to pull aside some SAP consultants at some point soon and get them to show me the inner workings of the SAP stack. It is amazing to me that they only provide documentation to people who take their courses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article establishes and uses a brand new metric:

SAP's technology must be interesting for develpers because it costs exorbitant amount of money to hire anybody to work on it. SAP is interesting for investors because it pulls in massive 10% profit margin. SAP's services are interesting for customers because it has high barriers to deploy, maintain and replace. SAP is interesting

By comparison, Facebook-like projects must be boring for developers because they flock to work on them, even if for free or `ramen-profitable' for year or two. Facebook is boring for investors because it manages mere 25% profit margin. Facebook is boring for users because barriers to entry and exit are essentially non-existent.

What kind of metrics is that?

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm saddened by the fact that this is #2 on HN.

The entire thing is one big fat straw-man argument. The author (the bored one) didn't even _mention_ FB in the article in question. The author (the attacking one) pulled that out of thin air based on little more than:

>From what I get of her article, if it's not Apple or a startup, she's not interested

Then he proceeds to refute the argument that he just set up by enlisting stats...not even convincing ones at that.

And finally whether something is boring or not is entirely subjective. This angle is as pointless as proving to stamp collectors that collecting stamps is boring.

I agree with his point in that the glamorous companies get attention at the cost of others & that this is a problem. The manner in which it was done however is a fine example of:

>a crap piece of journalism

<comment><USER3> Can't argue - it was a reactionary response, such is the way of social media, right?

I think that the underlying discussion is an interesting one. HN readers perhaps might get some benefit from understanding SAP technologies and how they integrate into the stuff they want to hack with. I've employed some real hackers into the SAP market and it is a deeply interesting and open technology stack.

<comment><USER21> >I think that the underlying discussion is an interesting one.

That it is. Clearly SAP is doing something right.

Somewhat off topic, I'm surprised you say "open technology stack". I'm not particularly familiar with SAP tech, but I always thought they were as closed as it gets (& successfully so). Have I missed something?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm interested in hearing what the author has to say about this topic, I'm _really_ not interested in this new FOX/CNN trend of quoting random people on Twitter, even if they're semi-famous.

This is somewhat OT, but can we stop with this? Quoting the immature salvos fired between random people on Twitter doesn't give your blog post any more credibility, and probably less. It's like news networks nowadays - they're more interested in what people on Twitter and YouTube think of some topic rather than seasoned analysts and correspondents.

The whole blog post would've been just as informative and way less irritating if I didn't have to wade through all the Twitspeak.

</comment><comment><USER23> Okay, let me help the author here.

Having success and market penetration doesn't make things cool. It's great for the company, great for the ecosystem (and - that's a topic for another time in this particular case..) built around it. But not cool. Not sexy.

It could be. Success, piles of money and 'cool' aren't incompatible per se. They are just unrelated in my book.He has to accept that for a large audience out there, _in the real world_, there's nothing more boring than looking at SAP (and - wait. and wait. and wait).

"My advice: stop being bored by the stuff which makes the world turn."

My advice: Don't blow this out of proportion. If SAP dies tomorrow, the world is not going to end.

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure what you mean by 'SAP dies tomorrow', but - to put it bluntly - YES, the world will most likely stop functioning normally.

<comment><USER23> Fair enough. I'm the first to admit that I'm actively avoiding contact w/ that kind of technology (I did develop small things around SAP QA systems in a distant past, but except for that my exposure is limited to watching users around me).

To explain: I meant if they go out of business (and I didn't imply that this was even remotely likely). If the software had a kind of stroke and wouldn't work anymore, starting tomorrow, I'd agree with you.

I just hate the metrics used and the 'makes the world go 'round' tone in that article. What percentage of shirts, shoes and gadgets are produced in China? Would it be 'cool' (nothing against China..) to be live there, based on the 'We provide x% of the world's shoes' metric?

<comment><USER25> > If the software had a kind of stroke and wouldn't work anymore, starting > tomorrow, I'd agree with you

Well that's interesting, because if the SuccessFactors acquisition is indicative of SAP's intent to become more "cloud based", and those critical infrastructure systems which run on SAP move to the cloud, then if the company went out of business their software _would_ just 'have a stroke'...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> SAP deployments must work in some cases, surely.

I read somewhere that a large part of Apple's supply chain management is built on SAP, as well as being the system of record for iTunes/App Store transactions.

I can't find a reliable citation, since this will probably not be something they broadcast, due to their secrecy.

But then, they have the capital to massively spend on heavyweight internal systems.

<comment><USER3> Yes, Apple's iTunes store system of record runs on a custom SAP ABAP based system. It used to run SAP ERP but that could not take the load of transactions.

As I understand it, this is the reason why you get a weekly bill from Apple: the iTunes ABAP system makes financial postings to ERP, to reduce the overall number of transactions - and presumably also their credit card overhead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Also I think the main reason why no one talks about SAP is because SAP == Work whereas sitting at home and hacking together your own open source project outside of work hours? A welcome break.

To me: -

* Java EE == my day job == Work

* SAP == Work

* Working on own app at home written in Haskell == Fun hobby project that I do outside of work hours and doesn't feel like work

</comment><comment><USER28> Disruption and innovation is cool, not big companies relying on a cash cow business model created decades ago.

</comment><comment><USER29> I work in finance and I use SAP. Or more accurately, I try my best to delegate any SAP tasks to my co-workers because I swear I lose IQ points whenever I interact with SAP.

Is it dull? It depends. For the TC crowd, yes, but that's because they're consumer oriented and not very technical.

It should be interesting to the HN crowd because it's a huge opportunity for disruptive innovation.

</comment><comment><USER30> Author's primary income comes via SAP products

<comment><USER3> For sure, and I'm open and honest about that :)

I would like to say a few things though, especially to those people who think that it's an us and them scenario.

First, I have personally spent a lot of time on open source software, and you will for example find some of my code in the Linux Kernel, if someone hasn't removed it by now.

Second, I think that closed communities are a bad thing, and it's something I strongly believe that SAP needs to get better at. Yes, SAP has the largest community network in the world with 3 million members. But it's not good enough at opening that up to the wider tech community, which is a loss.

Third, I think that integration to the wider tech community like HN, would be a huge benefit to Enterprise IT. We can be silo'd and the expertise of this group in writing nice-to-use apps is something we really need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The thing is, if SAP did not exist there would still be some piece of crappy software running all those transactions. Maybe it'd be custom, maybe Accenture, whatever. In fact, many (most?) SAP installations are barely recognizable after the customization. And who can even guess what SuccessFactors does besides not make much money.

</comment><comment><USER32> There's one thing he forgot to compare: number of employees.

According to Wikipedia, Facebook has 3000+ employees, and SAP AG has 53513. So, profit per employee is ~300k for FB and 22k for SAP.

<comment><USER11> And this metric matters over profits because?

If I have a 1,000,000 person company that has 1 bln in profits, and you have a 100 person company that makes 10 million in profits, you make 100 mores per employee.

But I get to bank a cool billion...

<comment><USER33> Sure, but mine is probably a more interesting company for TechCrunch to write stories about. It's more likely to be innovating in ways that readers will care about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm curious. Are any of you working on commercial ERP products or services? It seems to me that there is lots of opportunity there for well executed vertical applications.

<comment><USER35> I do. Not SAP. but Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft has an ERP product. (a 'suite' even: Dynamics) I've also worked with another ERP product. And you are right, there are a lot of opportunities, but it is also hard to get a foothold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Some of our applications here push a bunch of data to SAP via their API

To be honest I have no idea what SAP does nor do I really care, we just push a load of data over a network on a regular basis and the team who deal with SAP probably do something.

They all have to wear suits though while us Java programmers get to kick back in normal, comfortable clothing.

</comment><comment><USER36> It is so refreshing to see a post about this issue. In a nutshell: profits are cool.

<comment><USER13> True Hackers are interested in changing and influencing the world and the way it thinks, profits come secondary.

<comment><USER36> Agreed but profits allow you to change the world. Bankruptcy does not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's a humorous article. TC knows their crowd, and they are poking fun at everyone - themselves for not caring about a huge deal, their audience for also not caring, enterprise software for being boring.

</comment><comment><USER38> The article is poorly written, and SAP is indefensible as a company.

That said, welcome to my world. It's been an interesting experience working in an industry (ecommerce) that is regarded as a huge yawnfest by most of the startup community. The reality is that there really are very interesting problems to solve. Algorithms to predict demand curves, optimize warehouse pullbox location, and identify product flow constraints are all arguably more interesting problems to solve than sharing photos.

Nonetheless, nobody cares. And that's fine, mostly.

<comment><USER39> "SAP is indefensible as a company."

What does that even mean?

<comment><USER38> As others have remarked in this thread, their products are maintenance and UX nightmares, and their sales and legal departments operate on the basis of "do lots of evil".

I suppose it was an exaggerated choice of term, but I was trying to set aside the specific issue of SAP to talk about the somewhat broader issue of how the tech community often finds technology boring if it doesn't appear in the form of a consumer app.

<comment><USER21> It is difficult arguing with results. I can't personally judge SAP particularly well, but its interesting to me that they are so successful in the long run _despite_ "UX nightmares" & evil sales dept. That to me suggests that they are doing something else right which is worth paying attention to.

<comment><USER40> some companies are successful because of (rather than despite) "evil sales dept"

<comment><USER21> Not in the long run. Unless they have some other leverage like a monopoly or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> On the one hand the author is right about how SAP is a behemoth and shouldn't be written off. On the other hand, this is TechCrunch we're talking about. Do we really expect them to cover SAP? TC has its niche and I'm not surprised at all. I think however the mistake on the part of TC wasn't not covering SAP but covering it in the way they did. If you're going to write an article about how the company is boring and dedicate the majority of the content to why you don't want to cover it then just don't cover it at all. It would look better for them had they just said nothing at all.

That said, the author of this post has an opinion. Cool. We all have opinions. But he was off the mark in implying that there's something wrong with techcrunch. There isn't. They're all about the cool factor and dare I say shallow startup porn.

The post was almost a great point but the implication that something is wrong with TechCrunch killed it. I'm not a fan of techcrunch. I think it's shallow garbage and reads like a thinly veiled commercial a lot of times. But I won't be writing any blog posts complaining about that any time soon. That's what we've come to expect from them and their audience loves it.

</comment><comment><USER42> let's put it this way:

on any large german airport you currently get met with large billboards by IBM, advertising their urgent need for SAP consultants.

SAP is the backbone of the large tech consulting industry.

and no, you cannot compare it to facebook. like comparing a tv station to a manufacturing company.</comment>


LiveRebel 3.0 lands: Now release multiple apps simultaneously - <AUTHOR> http://zeroturnaround.com/blog/release-multiple-apps-at-once-with-liverebel/

<comment><USER2> And they're deprecating hot patching, which was one of the selling points of earlier releases. Guess it didn't work out -- I've seen enough problems with it using JRebel: for development it's just not worth the effort (and money) vs. hypothetical time saved.

<comment><USER3> It's not so much about in which scenarios it works or not, it's worked pretty well for people for a few years now. It's about how much magic you want in a production environment. Cluster dance gets the same net gain and is universally used everywhere. LiveRebel just takes care of orchestrating that out of the box and in synch with rest of the release aspects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really good to see more products/tools in this space. I don't mind the whole Docker/Chef/Puppet + scripts approach, but it's not for everyone.</comment>


Richard Stallman Defends Epstein: Victims Were 'Entirely Willing' - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-defends-epstein-victims-were-entirely-willing?via=twitter_page <comment><USER2> I have nothing to back this up, but I feel like nerds who get "honored with a slew of awards" or otherwise are very successful often are so full of themselves that they end up saying inappropriate things.

Of course, the thing with underage girls is that they're not mature enough to decide whether they "want" it. The purpose of the age of consent is to protect them from sexual exploitation because of that. I wonder what's so hard to understand about this, especially for an educated man.

<comment><USER3> And let's not discount that these girls didn't sign up to be child prostitutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Stallman has been a pedophile apologist and rape victim blamer for many years.

</comment><comment><USER4> He's had some pretty shocking things on his personal site for a while. I wonder if now is when it finally catches up with him.

Sigh, I remember the good old days when eating toejam was his big controversy.</comment>


The powers of ten - <AUTHOR> http://www.vimeo.com/974259 <comment><USER2> Someone recently pointed out that Google Maps has made this kind of perspective far more commonplace... and, of course, Wil Wright has just turned this movie into a game.

But this is still one awesome piece of science education.

</comment><comment><USER3> GREAT video! Reminds me of zooming out in google maps on the satellite view, really makes the world feel smaller.

> Wanna feel insignificant in the world, watch this.

Size != significance

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome video. A classic.

Anyone know where I can find the Simpson's parody? It's been removed from YouTube and everywhere else I looked :(

</comment><comment><USER5> Why did IBM want to make this video?

</comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome, but without the lame narration it would be ten times better.</comment>


A two-dimensional swingometer (in javascript) - <AUTHOR> http://www.lshift.net/blog/2010/05/03/a-two-dimensional-swingometer

<comment><USER2> That's a very nice visualisation. And a pretty effective indictment of our (the UK's) ridiculous electoral system.</comment>


Ask HN: What wiki does your team use? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently researching wiki's to migrate our documentation over to. We currently have everything stored in trello cards but it's becoming too difficult to manage it all.
I've used Confluence at past companies and really like it actually but after the first 10 users it can get pretty expensive for a wiki.
Are there any alternatives to confluence that your team uses that you've been happy with?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I like and prefer DokuWiki [0]. It's easy to set up and use, doesn't require a database backend (everything is stored in plain-text files), has all of the features I've ever needed (at two different employers), and is open source.

[0]: [https://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki#](https://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki#)

<comment><USER3> Vote for Dokuwiki too - the markdown syntax is pretty extensive.

<comment><USER4> Here is script[1] for `sed` for reformat Markdown to DokuWiki, and here is Perl script[2] for converting HTML to DokuWiki, and here is Perl script[3] for converting DOCX to DokuWiki.

[1] [https://gist.github.com/pletiplot/1869031](https://gist.github.com/pletiplot/1869031)

[2] [https://gist.github.com/weirdpercent/5940046](https://gist.github.com/weirdpercent/5940046)

[3] [https://gist.github.com/livenson/9446675](https://gist.github.com/livenson/9446675)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a big fan of BookStack. It's a Laravel based (PHP/Mysql) based app that performs well, is very stable, has a good interface, good features, etc.

[1] [https://www.bookstackapp.com/](https://www.bookstackapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I have worked on the initial version of www.stiki.io. Our vision was to create a super fast/lean wiki for teams. It's a subscription based model. No stakes in the company anymore but I think it might work for your use case.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a way for install DokuWiki on Github pages website? On forum[1] this is not answered

[1] [https://forum.dokuwiki.org/post/59346](https://forum.dokuwiki.org/post/59346)

</comment><comment><USER7> Why don't you create your own? If you have something difficult to manage in Trello cards and you really care about contents then probably you should create your own or fork a open source one.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here is example[1] of team wiki based on AsciiDoc + Github pages website.

[1] [https://github.com/jMonkeyEngine/wiki](https://github.com/jMonkeyEngine/wiki)

</comment><comment><USER8> We use GitLab. We can edit through the web UI or through the command line, with Git and Vim. And it's free -- it's part of GitLab Libre, formerly known as the Community Edition.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm a big fan of simple markdown-in-vcs wikis. If its a git repo you can stick Gollum in front of it and you have a web UI but can still allow devs/ops to clone and edit locally.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think notion.so is a great option (for smaller teams - I have not really tested with many users).

</comment><comment><USER11> We use self-hosted readthedocs with sphinx to build our knowledge base at datamaran.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use Gitit. Only complaint is, LaTeX integration is too basic for my needs.

</comment><comment><USER13> My favorite of these is notion.so

</comment><comment><USER14> A github repo</comment>


Ask YC:  "Think out loud" - like twitter/justin.tv but audio-based and for your thoughts.  Good idea? - <AUTHOR>

The idea is to reveal what people are thinking about at this very moment.  It's sort of like twitter/justin.tv but for your thoughts.  And perhaps it would work better using audio than text.<p>For example, consider listening to what people are thinking while watching a TV show, solving a problem, chatting with their friends, etc. <comment><USER2> I think it's getting more difficult everyday to get people interested in audio. Unless its music or some sort of premium content such as a quality podcast, I just don't see people getting excited over it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't Twitter for your thoughts?</comment>


Warning: this website will log you out of the most visited website - <AUTHOR> http://superlogout.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer, this isn't mine. But I found it while searching and I hadn't thought about it. But most sites don't check if the user actually initiated a logout.

</comment><comment><USER2> It worked with youtube, tumblr but not Github.</comment>


Do you let employees leave their names in code on your web site? - <AUTHOR>

What's your company or agency's policy on allowing employees to leave their name/developer comments that identify themselves in code they write for you?
Specifically on public facing applications and web sites, and I'm not talking about on a credits page, I mean on inline comments and/or script/page header comments. Is it OK for your employees to leave their names in your code?
For me, than answer is NO. ;) <comment><AUTHOR> I don't because a lot of times they have used code written by other people. It opens you to suits for stolen producer credits etc...

People are shifty.

I think I'd be pretty upset if I found someone had slapped their name on my code and then put it on a web site like CNN. It looks like CNN doesn't allow any comments with names at all, I looked through their source files...

I'd like to find out if there's a Federal policy on names in code for Government websites....

</comment><comment><USER2> Most of the code the company I work for produces is open source, which naturally has comments, along with our public git repository, with all the developers' names and whatnot.

Though, for a company that does not do open source, the answer in most cases is probably a big no.

</comment><comment><USER3> This has been prohibited at every place I've ever worked.

</comment><comment><USER4> why not? It won't affect the end product at all (especially if it's a comment), why not let them have their fun?</comment>


Why we raised $110m from Fidelity, Google, Microsoft, Baidu and Qualcomm - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-raised-110m-from-fidelity-google-microsoft-baidu-and-qualcomm/ <comment><USER2> Great technology company, with special Security awareness efforts.

CloudFlare - defending those vulnerable Wordpress blogs for free.</comment>


Firefox OS support lands in EnyoJS 2.2 - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/03/firefox-os-support-lands-in-enyojs-2-2/ <comment><USER2> Excellent.

We've written a few apps with EnyoJS and it is a pure pleasure to code with. Not having to write endless lines of boilerplate code while gaining the advantages of true encapsulation really helps you keep moving forward. It's just not for mobile either, we've used it for a number of desktop browser apps.

Really looking forward to the MVC bindings (backbone) coming soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> excellent!</comment>


Real-Time Music Visualization on the iPhone GPU - <AUTHOR> https://deezer.io/real-time-music-visualization-on-the-iphone-gpu-579d631272d3 <comment><USER2> At first I was thinking "this isn't a big deal, Atari Jaguar CD did this back in 1995 on way less hardware," but then I realised it was a hackathon project and now I'm really impressed at how far they got in that short frame of time!

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks interesting but it's pretty hard to judge the quality of real time audio visualization with no audio.

<comment><USER4> I wrote a very similar prototype a while ago. Here's a video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYZEDSzX7MU&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYZEDSzX7MU&feature=youtu.be)

I didn't realise at the time, but the X axis is not in logarithmic scale, so most of the audible frequencies are bunched on the left hand side.

<comment><USER5> Nice, do you share the code?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty boring if it's just FFT based. I'd love to see music visualizations make use of more sophisticated musical feature detection, like polyphonic note recognition or tempo/rhythm analysis.

<comment><USER7> Hey, I'm Adrian. I did the 'More colors' shader.

Given the nature of the project, a hackathon, sticking to the last computed FFTs and a notion of time was all we need to play with nice shader effects.

I'm currently playing with tensorflow on my spare time. I'd like to use a neural net to find interesting features of a track and inputting this to a shader. That's what I would do if I had another go at it.

<comment><USER8> Cool work, but note that a 1024 point FFT isn't really sufficient to visualize music. At 44.1kHz, the lowest frequency you can resolve is 43Hz. Anything below that will be folded into your DC component. Your bass response is mostly going to be overall volume, rather than beat.

<comment><USER6> Most music is mixed not to have any useful spectral information below that frequency anyway. And if you want beat then a better thing you can do is look at the half-wave rectified difference between the sums of two FFT frames (with optional lowpass). This results in an onset graph that is the basis for a lot of real-time beat detection algorithms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd be interested in seeing the power load of these visualizations - are they a battery drainer?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is definitely an impact on the battery. The FFT part is well optimised (thanks to the Accelerate framework). What is costly is mainly the shader... and it really depends on the shader. A very simple shader is usually less than 5% of the GPU usage (according the Xcode Instruments, and on a recent iPhone). However if you do a lot in your shader it's going to be much more costly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I miss Winamp effects as well.

<comment><USER11> Yeah - we need a Geiss port :) [http://www.geisswerks.com/geiss/](http://www.geisswerks.com/geiss/)

<comment><USER7> Is the code available somewhere? It doesn't look like to be open-sourced.

<comment><USER12> Milkdrop, by the same author has been open sourced.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NoAdBlock on Cloudfare - Block AdBlockers and stop losing revenue - <AUTHOR> https://noadblock.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure who is behind this exactly but it's an app for Cloudfare</comment>


Ask HN: How would you monetize this app? - <AUTHOR>

Pricing models, advertisements, selling data collected from the users etc.. any suggestions would be great.  I'm not desperate to make money off of this as user growth is my number one priority but it would be nice to maximize cash output from it as well.  Thanks.<p>Link to the app (Android) - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=appinventor.ai_ViewSk8.BeerBattle <comment><USER2> I'd go with advertising, since you might get some drunken clicks. I doubt you'll have enough user data to be able to sell it anywhere, and you're not collecting enough user data to connect it to other data (e.g. the way Facebook collects both personal info and like/share/location data).

</comment><comment><USER3> Affiliate with a retailer, of course. Also, pull some pictures/logos and pretty it up some. I realize this is the first iteration but low-quality appearances make me assume low-quality code.</comment>


Assert(int+100 >  int) optimized away - <AUTHOR> http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=30475

<comment><USER2> Wow. That was a pretty stark example of what not to do when checking for integer overflow, _and_ what not to do when reporting a bug.

<comment><USER3> I think the point is not "this is the best/right way to write the check", but rather, this way of writing the check used to work, and is pervasive, and now it gets optimized away, and that seems like a Bad Thing.

The bug report appears to contain a lot of investigative work by the submitter to try to substantiate their claims.

I don't have a problem with the back-and-forth, people are allowed to get passionate, especially if they are doing the leg work to try to substantiate their position.

<comment><USER4> There's a difference between passion and just being rude though. Not only is the latter unpleasant, it removes _any_ chance you might have had of convincing anyone of anything. I mean, his third post ended with, "THIS IS NOT A JOKE. FIX THIS! NOW!" Can you imagine anyone reacting positively to that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The issue is six years old (2007) but the problem is still relevant in 2013: see the brand new paper by Wang, et al. 'Towards Optimization-Safe Systems: Analyzing the Impact of Undefined Behavior' to appear in SOSP'13 next week. The authors define 'optimisation-unstable code' unusually; what I think they mean is that compilers are permitted by the C language standard to do _anything_ with undefined code, but the real problem is that any change of compiler, environment, flags, or compiler version might _change the behaviour_ of existing code, including opening up security vulnerabilities that weren't there last week.

 _ETA:_ here is the link to the paper, in PDF:

[http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/papers/stack:sosp13.pdf](http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/papers/stack:sosp13.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> As very much not a C programmer, I did sort of grasp the argument that while the _overflow_ behavior may be undefined, once the overflow happens and if the end result is that the sign goes negative, how can you reasonably skip the negative branch?

      int a,b,c;
      a=INT_MAX;     /* statement ONE */
      b=a+2;         /* statement TWO */
      c=(b>a);       /* statement THREE */

<comment><USER6> Undefined behavior means _anything_ is allowed.

If you have a buffer overflow which overwrites your x86 instructions to completely change the behavior of the program, that's "OK" because buffer overflows are "undefined behavior". Simple cause and effect.

The authors of compiler optimizers noted this basically gave them free reign to optimize based on the assumption that undefined behavior does not happen, because if it DID happen, whatever the program ends up doing in that case of not a concern, as whatever it is, it's "OK".

An example of this: If I dereference a null pointer and try and assign it to three, and then after that dereference check if the pointer is null, I can optimize away that check.

On a typical x86 system, this sounds reasonable: "It'll crash anyways, right?" ...however, the optimizer is allowed to do this even if there's no guarantee there will be an access violation because I'm using an unprotected memory model, or the member is a sufficient way into the containing struct to be in a seperate mapped page, etc.

Taken to a further extreme, this applies to signed integer overflow as well. "You're not allowed to do it within a well defined program, ergo, we assume you don't do it and optimize away based on that assumption."</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Books or projects to learn data structures and algorithms practically? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a non-theoretical way to learn data structures and algorithms. Most DSA textbooks/leetcode are extremely dry and takes the fun out of learning it. I also enjoy learning by implementing for a real world problem. Any suggestions for books or projects I can get started on? <comment><USER2> [https://sp19.datastructur.es/](https://sp19.datastructur.es/)

Josh Hug's course would be a good place to start. Lectures -- Companion textbook -- Practice problems -- Projects -- all in one place covering everything from the basic to the complex.</comment>