Ask HN: What would you do with unmetered 10gig? - <AUTHOR> In the next 3ish months I will have unmetered, symmetric 10gig fiber Internet available at my house.  I recently exchanged messages with the first person in town to get the 10gig service, and his reasoning for getting the 10gig service was "it's cool", which I understand...
I'd like to actually be able to justify 10gig service.  Ideally, running something on it that appeals to other potential customers of the municipal broadband, to attract new customers to it.
The easy one is to set up a Linux mirror server.  In the past I've run a mirror server for ~a decade, so that shouldn't be a huge deal.  I like the idea of running a Tor exit node, but worry about the liability of that.  Some sort of a block storage for backup service came to mind while reading that Cloudflare Utah post yesterday.
I run production Linux boxes and networks as my day job.  But I don't have machine space at my house, so I'm limited in the number of servers I can put in place.
Clever ideas to attract other locals to the Municipal Broadband service? <comment><USER2> OpenStreetMap is looking for caching servers, those need a lot of outgoing bandwidth [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Servers/Tile_CDN](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Servers/Tile_CDN)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a spectacular idea that I hadn't thought of. Especially since we use OSM tiles at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Help the OpenZim.org project run a scraper for their Zimfarm service that archives large sites like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, TED talks, etc.

[https://farm.openzim.org/about](https://farm.openzim.org/about)

Or you can run your own internet archiving node with something like ArchiveBox.io or Webrecorder.io and feed it your entire browsing history (including viewed YouTube videos, streamed music, all git repos looked at, etc.).

Alternatively run an IPFS or Bittorrent node, or a Tor snowflake relay, which is a lot less risky than running an exit node: [https://snowflake.torproject.org/](https://snowflake.torproject.org/)

<comment><USER3> And to specifically help users around you, you can then rehost the ZIM archives that you help scrape, and provide a local offline copy of Wikipedia, TED talks, etc to your community so that even if the originals go down, your peers will have access to that content.

See [https://www.kiwix.org/en/downloads/kiwix- serve/](https://www.kiwix.org/en/downloads/kiwix-serve/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I ran an ISP. Most people max their bandwidth for: backups, downloading Steam games, torrenting, and then about a week later their usage drops to about 5-8mbps sustained for Streaming and Videoconferencing.

<comment><USER5> One question. Why is it that ISPs don't have an on-demand offering for larger bandwidths?

Like if I pay for a 300mbps but I need 1gbps for the day you can charge me 5 bucks extra per day that month.

Are the unit-economics of this that bad? I never understood why ISPs have such crappy/unflexible pricing tiers. Mobile carriers are way ahead on this type of flexible offering and the math seems to work.

<comment><USER6> ISPs operate on a similar business model to gyms. They couldn't afford to provide the service if everyone maxed out what they are paying for. Allowing on demand increases of bandwidth would break this business model.

<comment><USER7> While true in general, the cost of unoversubscribed wholesale bandwidth is rapidly approaching the cost of oversubscribed retail bandwidth.

Wholesale bandwidth is 5 cents per Mbps or less at scale. Not that the ISP pays for all bandwidth, peering and CDN traffic is free.

In other words, even if you max out a 1 Gbps line 24/7, you are only costing the ISP $50 per month.

Add to that that most people are unable to consume even 10 Mbps on average and bandwidth costs become less and less of an issue. An average subscriber will use 2-4 Mbps of bandwidth during primetime, and primetime is all you care about as an ISP.

Nothing in this means that offering bandwidth on demand is impossible or a threat to the ISP business model.

It's just that the overhead of offering an on-demand product to consumers isn't worth the time and effort, as you'd be making peanuts while having to deal with a lot of grief.

Bandwidth on demand is a thing for businesses and operators. A good example of this is Megaport, who offers virtual cross connects and transport. Price start from $100 per month plus a varying fee per Mbps, from a few cents to a few dollars per month.

<comment><USER8> > Add to that that most people are unable to consume even 10 Mbps on average > and bandwidth costs become less and less of an issue. An average subscriber > will use 2-4 Mbps of bandwidth during primetime, and primetime is all you > care about as an ISP

4k Netflix is around 15 Mbps alone, even 1080p is >5 Mbps.

And with games being now > 100 GB downloads these days, I would expect that to contribute meaningfully too to the bandwidth usage even if average person probably doesn't quite download new games daily.

<comment><USER9> 1080p Netflix is 2-2.5 Mbps in practice because of video compression. You only get 1080p or better with certain browsers too. Many people use Netflix in Chrome or Firefox and only get 720p

<comment><USER10> Wait...netflix in chrome is only 720p!? How do I get 1080?

<comment><USER11> You have to use Edge or Safari, because DRM.

<comment><USER12> Or the netflix-1080p extension. It's not a matter of DRM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I use my bandwidth to cost people who host "Flash Updater" Trojans money. When you find a site with a downloadable Trojan, just run a download script which downloads in a loop a hundred times simultaneously.

I'm very public about it:

[https://twitter.com/AnachronistJohn/status/12343139528652144...](https://twitter.com/AnachronistJohn/status/1234313952865214464)

I do hope someone reports me, because if they do, then I'll know who they are. So far, I've cost one scammer close to $2,000 before their links died completely.

<comment><USER14> Would that be classified as a denial of service attack? (which is apparently a federal crime)

<comment><USER13> No. I'm not denying or attempting to deny anyone service. I'm simply taking them up on their offer of a free download, but just a million times.

Web sites WANT to be popular. If they get too popular, though, they have to take responsibility for the costs that come with popularity.

If someone wants to claim that the I'm costing them money because their intention wasn't to allow their file to be downloaded millions of times, they'll have to come out of hiding to make the claim. I welcome that.

<comment><USER15> The real mvp here. Amazing work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would each new local customer be given 10gig symmetric, or does your loop get 10gig total and your price drops based on # of people on it?

Most people want conferencing that doesn't suck, so that they can Zoom/FaceTime/LTE-over-WiFi/Landline-over-VoIP without having Netflix interrupt their call. But I have that solved on a 50mbit down / 5mbit up connection by using an anti-bufferbloat NAT shaper (Eero SQM, or IQrouter, or homebuilt can all do this).

So if you said "this fiber internet ensures that your calls will stop being interrupted by netflix", that might be a great selling point for people who've experienced this problem on their current Internet, without having to discuss bufferbloat in any significant detail.

(Note that you can still have fairness issues with the wireless router, independent of bufferbloat _upstream_ of it — the above-listed devices apply their fairness stuff not only to the WAN uplink but also to the WiFi downlinks — so 10gbit fiber isn't a complete solution, but it's certainly 95% of the way there.)

<comment><AUTHOR> The standard service is 1gbps, there is a 5x more expensive 10gig service. Neither one is "local loop speed", but they also do design the service with expected overcommit. I suspect most of the contention is going to be inbound though, so if I'm serving something to the local community there hopefully will be plenty of bandwidth out of my neighborhood.

<comment><USER16> For 1gbps service, the question would be: Does either the 'modem' linking your home up to the fiber service, or the service network itself, introduce significant high-latency buffering when capacity is exceeded either at your router or at their router?

If the answer is "yes, we introduce significant latency to artificially boost throughput when network capacity is exceeded in either direction", then their 1mbps service is no better than Comcast and is not attractive as a solution to the latency issues of classical providers, and I may as well stick with my 50/5 shaped connection instead of their 1000/1000 connection.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're talking about bufferbloat? If so, I hope the answer is no...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can donate bandwidth to your community. Open wifi hotspot etc.etc. Depend where you live (neighborhood), but still believe people appreciate. Like library free internet access. You can make people happy. Sharing is caring.

<comment><USER18> Have to be careful with this or may end up with a no-knock warrant served on your home at 3:00 am for whatever illegal things someone you shared your IP address with.

<comment><USER19> I really wish there was a way around this, I'd love to offer free wifi, but don't want to deal with illegal content that might flow through it.

I've considered using something like PIA that claims they don't log, but not sure if that would help.

<comment><USER20> Route the wifi traffic all through Tor. You can even get this prepackaged for you by using something like [https://learn.adafruit.com/onion- pi/overview](https://learn.adafruit.com/onion-pi/overview)

<comment><USER21> This is the only workable solution for giving away WiFi to others. But then no one would use it because every site will captcha you to death if it can even load. It's terrible but the U.S. legal system forces everyone to subscribe to ISPs individually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You mentioned a linux mirror,, A mirror is a just like CDN PoP . Assuming your neighbourhood is not full of linux enthusiasts , if you can run a actual CDN PoP it would be the highest impact for your neighbourhood.

Anything for specific providers like FB, Youtube, Netflix, Prime,Play Store, Apple , Disney + etc or general CDN providers like CloudFlare, MaxCDN etc can change end user experience enough for them to buy in.

It _also_ has the added benefit of saving municipality upstream peering requirements and perhaps money.

Alternatively you can provide _application services_ like OwnCloud, Jitsi for equivalent cloud products, it will be cheaper/faster etc. and target schools/community services, it may help them save on their IT bill as well.

Final idea discord, game servers, streaming servers etc can generate network effect driven interest. i.e. If i want to play with my school friends and few of them are on your servers on the municipal broadband already it is strong incentive for me to get one.

<comment><USER7> AFAIK you cannot self host a CDN node for any of the services mentioned above.

You _might_ be able to self host an Apple cache.

<comment><USER22> Perhaps he can convince the municipality to host for the providers he cannot, it will still serve his objective.

You would be surprised on how small some PoPs around the world are. Providers usually come with their own boxes and have specific requirements on space/power/legal ownership etc.

<comment><USER7> I doubt the municipality will have much luck either.

CDN operators and OTT providers have fairly high traffic requirements before they will qualify you for an on-net appliance.

Netflix, for example, requires a minimum of 5 Gbps of traffic until they will even talk to you.

<comment><USER22> Perhaps thats is true for Content Providers like Netflix Youtube, for pure play CDN providers adding PoP in new areas bolsters their network and helps in sales a lot, it makes no sense for them to not talk to you at all.

<comment><USER23> From a security perspective, even assuming those operators already design to not trust the locations they're in, shipping servers to random end users seems like a bad idea.

<comment><USER22> Oh they don't trust the location at all, in some DCs, I have seen continuous camera feeds, actual cages which are locked etc. this is /was the case when you have to ship your equipment to a co-lo,

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would have to read your terms of service before I could offer any useful input.

Depending on those ToS, offering services to others could expose you to legal problems.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, you will definitely want to read the ToS very closely. A lot of home service providers explicit say you cannot host and commercial services, and at least in the past had issues running servers. Back in the day my internet was shut off because I had an ftp server running. Though don't think that is common anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I honestly haven't cared about bandwidth since I hit 50mbps. Having 300mbps, it's fun when I download a new Steam game to watch my hard disk become the bottleneck. But that's about all I get out of it.

<comment><USER3> I regularly use my full 500mbps between torrents, steam, backing up my VPS servers to local NAS, and my whole family backing up to my NAS over the internet from their 100mbps connections.

I'll admit I am the exception, but with a decent ZFS pool you can easily saturate 500mbps with remote backups alone. I have a bunch of cheap SSDs in a mirror config and get about 2000MB/s write on a good day, so the bottleneck is very solidly on the network side.

<comment><USER27> How do they backup to NAS using the Internet connection? Is it not local?

<comment><USER3> Time Machine over VPN (Tailscale/Wireguard), works great. Requires fast ping and good bandwidth though, which we have (<10ms rtt from NYC to MTL! still blows my mind).

Family -> NAS (using Time Machine) NAS -> Backblaze B2 (using Duplicati)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > I like the idea of running a Tor exit node, but worry about the liability of > that.

There are also guard nodes and intermediary nodes, which don't cause third party traffic to exit from your house.

> I run production Linux boxes and networks as my day job. But I don't have > machine space at my house, so I'm limited in the number of servers I can put > in place.

A single virtual machine host can saturate 10G and allows an arbitrary number of virtual machines, limited primarily by memory and storage. Linux KVM is good enough for Google and AWS and it's free. Get some Socket G34 or LGA2011 workstation with 8+ memory slots, fill it with cheap registered DDR3 and you'll be all set.

But realistically, the biggest benefit of 10G to ordinary people isn't being able to transfer 2500TB a month, it's being able to transfer 25GB in 25 seconds instead of hours.

There are people who upload 5GB to YouTube every day. With garbage upload speeds like 10Mbps, that takes more than an hour and a half. With 10Gbps, not only would it only take five seconds, you don't even need to upload it to YouTube because you can host it yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Re: ToR. Perhaps it's changed, but back when I ran a routing node (probably a decade ago?) it seemed to be of limited use because of the limited exit nodes, limiting the overall bandwidth. But might be worth looking at again.

<comment><USER29> Relays help protect privacy. The more independent relays that exist the harder it is to attack the network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've had a number of dedicated servers with 10G unmetered bandwidth (and still do have access to one), and its difficult to find good uses for them. A younger, more idealistic me did run a large exit node with support from an organization with legal backing, but this still lead to emails and calls from various countries Anti-Terror police forces. Would not recommend without serious consideration and talking to your ISP.

</comment><comment><USER31> In a similar spirit, maybe IPFS nodes, or instances of federated communication networks like Mastodon/Matrix/etc for friends and family, or maybe even something like Nextcloud. If you band together with a few people in your community, you could also use each other's machines for encrypted "off-site" backups (note: you're all still sort of co-located geographically, so YMMV).

</comment><comment><USER32> > Clever ideas to attract other locals to the Municipal Broadband service?

If that's the aim, imho it's really difficult. Assuming your neighbourhood isn't made up 99% nerds&geeks, I'd assume most private users are pretty happy if they can watch movies in 4k, download their games on Steam and/or update their gaming console "fast enough". Downloading 50GB already takes only ~30m on my 400MBit/s, and wouldn't feel much different to 1Gb/s. Latency for gaming/video conferencing also isn't an issue these days. Maybe for big families or shared housing (student dorm) this would make sense.

If you wanted to sell me, you'd get me with (1.) reliable and (2.) affordable. Maybe a no-BS pricing scheme instead of "25 US$/month the 24 months and after that 70US$/month" (which virtually every ISP in Germany does, which means I need to waste my time with stupid ISP hopping every other year if I don't want to feel like being ripped off). I just know that - for my usage - there is no practical difference between 1Gb/s and 10Gb/s. At least none that's worth paying more. Sorry, not that useful, but maybe some valuable feedback? :)

On the business end, this is much more interesting. No need to worry about hitting bandwidth limits when video conferencing with customers is pretty nice (we sometimes have that issue and work around it with multiple connections). Also a perk: Faster access to cloud-stored data, or the ability to put data on-premise and still allowing sufficiently fast external access. Of course it must be reliable. But then, your day job is networking, I think you know that kind of business better than I do :)

//edit: Ooooh, post a "Ask HN" and bask in the envy of the internet people =) /s No, seriously, I think promoting offerings like this is a good thing to do, and asking for advice on HN is a good idea. I'd love to see (or maybe even run) a local, no-BS ISP in our municipality.

<comment><AUTHOR> The service should be providing the reliable/affordable/no-BS portion. It's $60-ish/mo for gigabit symmetric, $300/mo for 10gig, run by the city, all underground infrastructure. The city power infrastructure is super reliable, so they do have some demonstrated ability...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am interested in knowing the price that you are paying for this 10 Gig unmetered connection.

<comment><USER34> From another comment it looks like $300 USD per month

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23481803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23481803)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> >Linux mirror server

Consider adding torrents.

You could also check out running a folding@home node. Though that seems to require a fairly beefy server.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaMjPs66cTs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaMjPs66cTs)

</comment><comment><USER36> Out of curiosity, do they include hardware to actually use it? When Comcast came around here trying to get people to sign up for 2Gbps they required a couple thousand up front and for you to rent a PCIe card for your PC to actually get the speed (since you needed a 10Gbps NIC), which would've been annoying. Unless you have a ton of devices, or are hosting services (does your ISP let you do that?) I don't know what I'd use it for.

Having a Linux mirror within 100 miles has been handy for me in the past though, so if you can spare the storage that would be a good idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> They seem to be providing a 10gig copper port on the equipment they drop in, from looking at a photo of the other guys 10gig install... I don't currently have any 10gig, so I'd have to put those parts in place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've got 1gbps symmetric unmetered fiber here, and I really don't do much more than when I had 100mbps, or 50mbps.

What I really like is that everyone in the house can go crazy and it doesn't affect me working.

</comment><comment><USER38> Some comments here suggest donation, which implies that groups of users could utilize what you are not using. But I am used to rationing 250 MB (Verizon plan from 2015) - and there is so much information that can be obtained with this amount of data (mostly text based and some pictures). High quality Youtube videos do not mean as much to me as the audio. A 10 second HD Snap or TikTok does not concern me. Torrenting hundreds of gigs of movies will only occupy your life with sitting and watching movies. Video game downloads are a one time affair (mine have been performed/patched every few months at a public watering hole Starbucks/Gym/Walmart). Aren't you tired of HD Zoom calls with your social circles?

5G wireless everywhere approaching does not feel practical to me. I do not subscribe to conspiracies about direct health detriments (indirect more concerning - people lusting for 4k videos of everything while sitting in a bathroom stall, or in a public place alone instead of natural resolution of the eyes gazing upon real life).

Perhaps high resolution IoT data upload could occupy your infinite bandwidth somehow? This would only be local.

Red flag to me seems to be constant upgrading of "data throughput". Surely data transmission is good, but at some point is it a waste of effort when we can all only take in so much? Youtube audio and 480p video satisfies my curosity...

</comment><comment><USER39> I'll be honest there is absolutely no need for average or even very technical home users to pay for a 10gig connection right now. If you want to make municipal broadband attractive, the focus should be on providing cheap and reliable 100-250 Mbps connections to a large area.

<comment><USER40> Just to put some real world perspective on this. Netflix recommends 25Mbps to stream 4k movies.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2017/12/10/you...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2017/12/10/youre- buying-4-k-tv-how-much-internet-bandwidth-do-you-need/933989001/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Share bandwidth on I2P? It's like TOR, but with no exit nodes. Many services run on it: IRC, bittorent, anonymous limewire clone, anonymous websites, etc.

Your function would be similar to a TOR relay and you could do that too of course.

Maybe even hosting a Jitsi or Matrix server could be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER42> Run full blockchain nodes, a bittorrent client, Tor relay (not exit node, so less door knocks)...

</comment><comment><USER43> Share libgen, sci-hub and run a storj node.

</comment><comment><USER44> Libgen, personally. I've used it so much, may as well pay it forward.

<comment><AUTHOR> For those, like me, unfamiliar, Wikipedia says: Library Genesis (Libgen) is a file-sharing website for scholarly journal articles, academic and general- interest books, images, comics, and magazines.

<comment><USER45> wikipedia unlike google always has the current Library Genesis URL [https://libgen.is/](https://libgen.is/)

<comment><USER46> This is funny but looks somewhat useful.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22790425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22790425)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Maybe not using it? At that price, you aren't getting a dedicated 10gbps line to anywhere else than your ISP (and still...), afterward it's shared by everyone else. Using that bandwidth fully is not only going to make it not worthwhile to offer this service to people, it's also going to impact the service of others. Use it for what you would be normally using it, don't make up some usage for it, just to use it.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have a hard time finding uses for my 1 gbps FIOS line. Which is surprising considering the bandwidth I had with my first modem (which is also my username).

</comment><comment><USER48> > I like the idea of running a Tor exit node, but worry about the liability of > that.

Run a Tor relay instead.

> But I don't have machine space at my house, so I'm limited in the number of > servers I can put in place.

Also you probably want them to be noiseless and with low energy usage. For example: 10x Raspberry Pi 4 cluster could make use of 10 gigabit and sounds like a fun project.

<comment><USER35> Isn't it quite difficult to get software to run on a rasp cluster?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I cannot help but ask - So how much does this cost? You mentioned several different plans. Of course I will not get that here, but I will enjoy living vicariously through you and your awesome internet speed. I can hear myself now at work: "I know a guy who gets 10G! And for only $100 a month" Wait for the ohs and ahs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to break it to you, but it's $300/mo for 10gig. :-)

<comment><USER50> That's a steal here in Germany. My company is paying ~500€/mo for 35/35 _M_ bps...

<comment><USER49> My company in the UK was paying the same as you. We asked how much it would cost to get more. We are getting 300M for about 200. When asked why they used to charge us so much, when more cost less. 'If you are too lazy to look up a better price each year, they are too lazy to offer it'. I would engage your service provider, and see if they have a lower price for more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Tons of options

Game servers Voice servers IRC Mirrors for software or datasets Custom download to usb service for those in rural areas.

<comment><AUTHOR> USB? Interesting idea... You've heard of dead drop USB? Perhaps I could add something to our Little Public Library where you could insert a USB stick with a list of URLs, and it would download them to the USB stick...

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Are you connected with the Municipal Broadband service in anyway (I don't mean like technologically, I mean relationship wise)? Are they asking you do come up with some services they can offer customers? If so how about setting up Pi- Hole, then the Municipal Broadband customers can use that as their DNS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not connected, though if I were to come up with compelling services, or there were questions about my intentions, I know people involved. The Mayor also used to hire the company I ran to provide technical consulting, so that would probably help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Well, I guess your first step should be to redo your LAN to actually be able to make use of those 10gig :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, but I'm not gonna upgrade my LAN unless I have something to put on it. If I have an attractive application, setting up a 10gig switch, router, and pulling some cat7 is the easy part. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I would seriously consider hosting my own startup ideas and side projects at home on a personal server if I had a symmetric 10Gig service. An old server off of Ebay with an SSD raid-1 array is reasonably unlikely to fail, and much cheaper than a VPS.

</comment><comment><USER55> A decade ago when I had my own Ultima Online server, I would have asked you to host for me!

</comment><comment><USER56> Go install www.zerotier.com and create a community LAN, then share each others' stuff?

</comment><comment><USER57> The best reason for this level of service is: You get to stop caring. It's fast enough that everyone you invite over can do _everything_ on hardline and they won't impact each other.

As others have mentioned you could also actually run (personal) servers at home as well.

* Games, with higher bandwidth (audio, video conferencing)

* Live auto-video conferencing the easy P2P way.

* Have a media library of your own and access it while out. This can include private video memories, not just photos. However you could also store and forward images of legitimately purchased HD content* (Assuming you support the private use format shifting doctrines).

* If you're teaching a class from home that video-call could be self hosted, rather than routed through a data center half a country away.

<comment><USER39> While all this is true, you hit the "not caring" stage _well_ before 10gig. I have a reliable 100 Mbps connection at the moment and do almost everything mentioned above (simultaneously) with zero disruption. Almost every internet problem people have is due to latency, jitter and general unreliability rather than bandwidth.

<comment><USER58> Depends. A AAA game like Red Dead Redemption 2 can take hours to download with a 100 Mbps connection.

<comment><USER59> You can't really download games from PSN at anywhere close to that speed anyway. I have a hardwired gigabit connection to my PS4 and I'm lucky to hit 100Mb download. It's a similar story with Steam, when the stars align it might hit 500Mb for a minute right before finishing, but it usually hovers around 100-200Mb too. It's also much faster than the speeds of rotational hard drives, so unless you keep HD video on SSDs, it's no good for that either.

Beyond speedtests, the only way I can realistically saturate my internet connection is through S3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> blaser-waffle I'd have hard time using FastE (100 Mbps); 10Gbps seems like overkill.

Tor node? Seedbox? I'd be hesitant to have either of those at my house or anything with my name on it, though.

<comment><USER7> > I'd have hard time using FastE (100 Mbps);

You must not get out much :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Run OpenShift and invite friends to use it for hosting.

</comment><comment><USER43> You can also contact the-eye.eu who host, among others, a curated list of covid articles. Helping make knowledge available is an interesting cause.

</comment><comment><USER61> "I like the idea of running a Tor exit node"

Do it. It's the best thing you can do. Thank you in advance.

You can also run a Lightning Network node!

</comment><comment><USER62> you could run plex and give me access.

<comment><USER18> I have tried to get Plex up and running with my ~20 TB collection but its library management doesn't work for me. Fails to load files, categorization is horrible and many other problems. Kodi (XBMC) has perfect "point it at a folder and don't worry about it" functionality. It just doesn't have the remote capabilities I've found as good as Plex. What am I doing wrong with Plex?

<comment><USER36> If you don't have your files named correctly, it won't work right. [https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing- your-...](https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-movie- media-files/)

It can sometimes be forgiving, but other times it won't find it unless you name the file exactly correct. With a library of that size, you might have to leave it for a day or two to do the initial scrape, as it sometimes does a couple passes to find everything (why, I don't know).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Maybe Cloud and heat, use servers as your central house heating system instead of oil, gas,...

<comment><AUTHOR> Son, let me tell you about the early days of Bitcoin... I left the windows open that winter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Host a couple of community Vainglory servers to ressurrect the best touch- first MOBA that has is essentially in ICU due to poor management by SEMC / Rogue

reddit.com/r/vainglorygame

</comment><comment><USER65> Where do you live and how can I get one?

<comment><AUTHOR> Fort Collins, Colorado. 6+ months into a multi-year build-out. I think the anti-muni-broadband advertisement that the local telco and cable operators took out made HN front page a few years ago...

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Who's your provider? Thanks.

<comment><USER67> > Municipal

So most likely their city/county.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Considering running Tor servers!

</comment><comment><USER69> Run speed tests.

</comment><comment><USER70> how have you got that deal?</comment>


Show HN: LISTENSERV | Discover New Music Daily - <AUTHOR> http://listenserv.com

<comment><USER2> I signed up - A few thoughts:

* Get rid of the FB like counter unless you can inflate it. It looks like a ghost town.

* Music is one of the most polarizing items in existence. Use that. Something like 'once you sign up, you can add a song to our list'.

* Sign up page looks good. The footer could be moved to the bottom of the page, but no biggie.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey so this is a little project that I have been working on, nothing too complex but just something I thought people might enjoy. Any feedback is appreciated.

Thanks!</comment>


B&N Release a Colour Nook - <AUTHOR> http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookcolor/features/index.asp?cds2Pid=35583

<comment><USER2> Pretty rad. Here are the specs:

[http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookcolor/features/techspecs/i...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookcolor/features/techspecs/index.asp?cds2Pid=35607)

The IPS display looks to be similar to the iPad's and is a full touch screen. I doubt it is multi-touch, though. Odds are the glare will be worse than the Kindle's now, but it looks like they did just about everything right. Kindle 3 buyer's remorse setting in...

<comment><AUTHOR> It strikes me as a competitor to the iPad more than the Kindle. I already have an iPad, so I am not so interested in this, but I think it's a radical decision to move away from e-Ink. This strikes me as B&N giving up and admitting that they cannot compete with the success of the Kindle.

<comment><USER3> I don't think I'd go that far. I think it's trying to differentiate itself from the Kindle, but they're still selling the E-Ink ones. The E-Ink screen is a big selling point for me with an e-reader ... if I wanted a tablet I'd buy an iPad. So I'm not sure where this fits in the market.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook is down - <AUTHOR> http://facebook.com <comment><USER2> For anyone who cares, here is a list of posts with people saying "Facebook is down":

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15080671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15080671)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15080660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15080660)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15080229](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15080229)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not for me (BiH) - not that anybody cares about BiH, just wanted to pitch in :)

</comment><comment> rkuykendall-com Down for me (US, NYC)

</comment><comment><USER4> Down for me (FR)

</comment><comment><USER5> Not for me (AU).

</comment><comment><USER2> Not for me (UK).</comment>


200 years ago, the sky went dark and there was no summer - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/05/12/200-years-ago-the-sky-went-dark-and-there-was-no-summer/?hpid=hp_local-news_wv-no-summer-130pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory <comment><USER2> This was really an amazing event really, one that could be repeated should one of the volcanoes in the ring of fire decide to erupt in a similar way. I don't believe I've ever seen a disaster plan that included "Volcanic Eruption causes 12 months of winter", its a low probability thing after all, but the Pacific rim is rumbling. perhaps we should.

</comment><comment><USER3> BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time" has a great discussion about this:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077j4yv](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077j4yv)</comment>


Girls in Tech employee fired for misogynist email rant - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/10/04/girls-in-tech-employee-fired-for-misogynist-email-rant/ <comment><USER2> It was very unprofessional of him to stoop to their level. After receiving such a rude response, he should have either let it go calmly or inquired about what their problems are. I wouldn't want someone who feeds the trolls like that to be representing my organization either.

The whole homophobic accusation was out of place from this context; as was the implication that he was fired for being "misogynist". GWC kept the "misogynist" name after the resignation, and it was unlikely that this person was the one to come up with it in the first place. I am absolutely saying that someone in that position should be more level-headed, and rightfully deserved the resignation/firing. I doubt it had a sliver to do with the ill-delivered complaint in the original reply.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, that email was rude, but not quite misogynist, and it was in response to a rude reply. Not entirely his fault, but I'd agree with krisdol that it could have been handled better.

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with the use of "Lady Pitch Night", unless there's some innuendo that I'm missing, and Amy Millard's rudeness was just as uncalled for. Here's what the organization has to say about the name: [http://www.girlsintech.org/why-girls-and-not- women/](http://www.girlsintech.org/why-girls-and-not-women/)

</comment><comment><USER4> It was neither misogynist nor homophobic. It was, however, a really really bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> Both seem like horrible people

<comment><USER6> How is Amy a horrible person?

<comment><USER2> Her email and tweet kind of speak for themselves, don't they?

<comment><USER6> Rude/abrupt, yes. But 'horrible' through an email and a tweet seems like a stretch to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Data munging with Perl ebook for free - <AUTHOR> http://datamungingwithperl.com/ <comment><USER2> I wouldn't really describe it as an ebook. It's just the PDF that Manning made back in 2001 when the book was published.

I'm getting reports that the PDF looks horrible in various Linux PDF readers. I'll see what I can do about regenerating it using more standard tools and fonts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for making it available!</comment></comment>


Investors Cough Up $1.6 Million To Dine With Grubwithus - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/06/grubwithus-funding/

<comment><USER2> Congrats! It's a great idea and well implemented. Though I started laughing and got distracted at the raffle note: "If you do win, you'll be asked to pay the $35 set fee for the meal"

It's an article about raising $1.6 million.

The contest must cost what, $350? Is this a legal thing?

<comment><USER3> they want to make sure the people going know who NEA is and are not just going to go for free food.

<comment><USER2> Ah! That makes perfect sense. Thank you.

The tone of it just came off as absurd in an article about raising so much money.

I think I like the charity auction route much more than the raffle with that in mind. The auction is simple and familiar but the raffle version needs to have this mechanic where you win and then you pay. It just feels weird, especially at first glance: "You won! Here's the bill."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One issue I've seen with Grubwithus is the fairly limited menu, which is generally not particularly vegetarian-friendly. Even when it comes to the meals that have vegetarian entres (~1/2, it seems like), sometimes they're things like "Vegan Plate: fresh veggies from local farmers cooked up with love!"

I'd rather not pay $25 for a meal that has 0 protein.

</comment><comment><USER5> Was Yuri Milner's investment part of that blind $150k investment he gave to all companies in YC during that one season? Or is this a subsequent investment?

</comment><comment><USER6> From today's TechCrunch article: "For the Andreessen Horowitz meal on May 18, you'll have to bid to win"

From last week's TechCrunch article: "A lot of people have suggested he have the "commoners" bid for lunch spots with the more well-known investors and Valley personalities on the site. [...] I want to lunch with people who are interesting, not people who can pay the most money. That's just weird."

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/27/letslunch-launches-in- new-y...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/27/letslunch-launches-in-new-york- today/)

Disclaimer: of course I have a horse in this race. But I find the differing approaches fascinating.

<comment><USER7> Hello,

I came across an old comment of yours here regarding no vesting cliff for co founders.

I'm a young entrepreneur and I have a question about vesting ciffs and would really appreciate a response or a link to some relevant reading.

My team and I consisting of three total co-founders have just received offers from three separate incubators (NYC Seedstart, Alphalabs, and Betaspring).

All three of them require vesting/cliffs for cofounders. I'm just reading up on that now and am appalled that if my co-founders (who are best friends with each other), elevan months from now, wanted to dismiss me and replace me with a good friend of theirs or family member, they would be legally allowed to send me on my way with 0% equity for all my hard work, ideas, and connections. How is this normal practice?

The core of this business model and much of its evolution came from my ideas and although I trust my partners, I can't take the risk of losing everything at their very whim. Is there anything I can do to protect myself going into this, so that I can at least insure some amount of guaranteed equity?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Best,

Jason

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That is quite a list of investors. Ashton Kutcher is all over silicon valley right now. Congrats, GWU.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great idea, great news! Tech Crunch couldn't resist using the phrase "cough up" in conjunction with a food startup, eh?

</comment><comment><USER9> I wish Grubwithus was in Toronto. I love the charity idea. The "suggest a price for this dinner option" for some of the lunches with the top ten prices attending is simply brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER10> I loved the YC alumni dinners, and there are a lot of interesting possibilities for themed private dinners too.

</comment><comment><USER11> Everybody remember this thread from a couple of weeks ago about their "naughty" antics and the good that came of them ?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2479757>

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats guys! I'm heading to my second one @ Front Porch next week

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow...reads like the who's who of investors. Congrats, Grubs.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great idea. Looking forward to the inevitable name change to something more...palatable.

</comment><comment><USER15> Congrats guys, great idea,</comment>


Making Control Simple - <AUTHOR> http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=391922327130

<comment><USER2> Fair play to Facebook, they've done exactly what they said they would, and to the same timeline.

I don't like the long preamble trying to justify themselves, but now that I can turn off Facebook Platform entirely, it's a small price to pay.

<comment><USER3> wouldn't it be great if instead, you could turn it on and it was turned off by default?

give people a compelling reason to use a product (in this case to turn it on), or you have no product--period.

<comment><USER4> That's true...if only new computers shipped without an operating system, and operating systems didn't come with a browser installed, and you had to turn on every feature in every application or website that you signed up for. If only the world was "off" by default and I had to spend lots of time and energy trying to get things into a usable state, instead of having the settings set to usable levels by default.

You might disagree with the defaults they've chosen, but having everything "off" by default isn't a great world.

<comment><USER3> I fail to see how the examples you provide have any parallels with the "opt in" by default settings in a social application.

Having everything by default is the very reason people chose to use this application in the first place. That's the product people bought into--with _their_ data and attention--and now that product is getting changed, in many cases, without their knowledge and/or without their understanding of what's at stake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has anyone else been caught with random popups on facebook "offering" to link your profile interests to public pages?

It's really scammy. Once it pops up, you're trapped. Click on the facebook logo, and it doesn't take you home. There is no way out unless you either agree, or manually go back to facebook.com yourself.

What are they thinking doing crap like that...

<comment><USER6> Even worse, once you close out of that page a few times and navigate back to facebook manually, at some point they just delete all of your interests, unprompted.

Totally obnoxious.

<comment><USER7> This is because they are replacing your interest with a linked page. The offer to link is the prompt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I want to point out, that this entire blog post is dedicated to being able to manage your profile accessibility in a more simplified manner, yet not a single link in the blog post takes users to the direct page in which they can make the changes being referenced. This matters because non-savvy users _don't have the slightest of a clue_ where to edit their privacy settings. When Facebook rolled out their first major redesign, status posts came in by the numbers that people couldn't figure out where to post new pictures, despite having an icon right under the status box that they could have clicked.

Secondly, I just went and checked out the instant personalization feature, which I explicitly opted-out of when it launched, only to find the feature re- enabled.

Things have changed, but nothing changed at all.

<comment><USER9> Mark mentioned that they're going to put links to this in messaging on the home page, which is about as in-your-face as possible. Nonsavvy users aren't reading blog posts either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't understand why people are jumping back in the band-wagon. Facebook has shown its intention, clearly. Reverting back is only a temporary solution.

<comment><USER11> What were their intentions... to trick people with their security settings? Perhaps they just didn't take enough time to plan out the settings the first time around.

<comment><USER12> You really think a huge company full of lawyers and an entire office in DC dedicated to privacy & policy messed up because they were in a hurry? Trust me, there's not a single setting in the old design that wasn't vetted by a pile of lawyers and policy wonks.

<comment><USER11> I will give them the benefit of the doubt until someone proves that wrong. Right now, all you have is assumptions to rely on.

<comment><USER13> What I don't have to assume is that FaceBook has repeatedly made big privacy- impacting changes without consulting its users. This is the third major overreach/retreat. Three incidents is enough to realize that taking privacy seriously is not part of the company's DNA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "If you simply want to turn off instant personalization, we've also made that easier" would read a whole lot better if it read:

"If you simply want to turn on instant personalization, we've also made that easier."

If "personalization" is such a great feature, people will turn it on. "opt in" by default, please!

I see absolutely no changes here, except that privacy settings are now tabbed, and that instead of a dropdown, you now have radio buttons. Wow, now _this_ is simpler! /sarcasm

<comment><USER14> Absolutely no changes? Seriously? This lets people control their privacy without needing to go through dozens of granular controls, which is a change. It also lets you completely opt out of platform in its entirety, which is a change. It also no longer requires pages and friends to be public, which is a change. If you want to criticize that's cool, but stick to things that aren't completely false.

<comment><USER3> "absolutely" is a hyperbole, but you're right, let's not add to the misinformation--it's self-defeating.

BTW, are you a facebook employee? I went through your comments and a good 90% (no hyperbole this time) are comments related to Facebook posts, and some looked pro-facebook. Nothing wrong, of course, just curious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if anyone who deleted their profiles now want them back?

<comment><USER2> From what I understand, if you log back in to your account within 14 days* then the delete request is cancelled and everything goes back to normal.

It makes me wonder if Facebook had a bad couple of days of people deleting their accounts and Mark Zuckerberg thought "Right, we've got 7 days to fix this and get them logging in again, let's get to it!"

* I could have the precise timeframe wrong

<comment><USER16> This is unfortunately a common misperception. If you deactivate your account you can bring it back. If you delete it the data is deleted.

<comment><USER17> _This is unfortunately a common misperception._

Wrong. If you deactivate your account, you can bring it back. If you request it to be deleted, you have 14 days to cancel that request (by simply logging in) before it's deleted. Once it's deleted, that's the end -- you can't bring it back.

 _(edited to make clear which part of your comment is wrong)_

<comment><USER16> Ah, you are correct. I just tried it (with a dummy account). Apologies. I work at FB but don't delete my account often. :)

It looks like you will be asked to confirm deletion if you log in during the waiting period. Simply logging back in will not cancel the deletion request.

"Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days. If you log into your account within the next 14 days, your account will be reactivated and you will have the option to cancel your request."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I suppose this might put an end to the Diaspora dream.

<comment><USER18> I sure hope not - decentralised social networking (whoever makes it) is the only logical way forward. Imagine email was controlled by one company.

<comment><USER2> To most non-technical people, email _is_ tied to one company; their ISP or one of the free Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo-style providers. Changing a personal email address can be a huge hassle.

Now, I can see ISPs setting up social network nodes for their users, I just wonder if there won't be some similar pain if/when one changes provider.

<comment><USER19> Even if it's a pain, it's possible and they cannot actively take steps to prevent you from backing up your email.

Not true for all the contacts in your fb profile.

<comment><USER11> Creating an app to extract Facebook contacts would be a piece of cake.

<comment><USER20> I don't think that's allowed.

"III. Storing and Using Data You Receive From Us ...

7\. You must not use user data you receive from us or collect through running an ad, including information you derive from your targeting criteria, for any purpose off of Facebook, without user consent." [1]

I suspect that means you need consent from every user whose information you collected (your own list of contacts is made up of other peoples' basic information).

[1] <http://developers.facebook.com/policy/#policies>

<comment><USER21> From a more thorough read of the policy, III. 3. looks like it means that you're ok to use "basic information" from someone who connects to your service however you like, as long as you don't go selling it to ad networks/third parties. That means that you can store one person's first name, last name, email address, profile pic, FB ids of friends - but not any of their friend's details other than their id.

It's not much, but it's enough to help create someone's account on your competing social network. Whether you'd be able to store/export their posts/other people's comments is a different question - it depends on the definition of application, but FriendFeed seemed to be able to do it, so why can't someone else?

<comment><USER20> FriendFeed is part of Facebook though?

[http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009/08/friendfeed-accepts- facebo...](http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009/08/friendfeed-accepts-facebook- friend.html)

You might be able to take a user's data to establish their profile, they consented by using your application after all. But I don't think you can export their friend list and use it to invite them to your new social network.

Either way, I think Facebook could find something in their ToS to shut you down if they feel like you're stealing their users away. There was a recent article about a tool from Power Ventures that allowed you to login to multiple social networks and aggregate the messages, friends lists and what not. Facebook seemed to claim it was a violation of the ToS because they were accessing account data using "automated means."

<http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/05/03>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm confused did they really change anything? Or just make the controls "simpler"? Are there still "only me" settings? (I got bored after reading the first few paragraphs of the history of Facebook)

<comment><USER22> Or this: [http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/facebook-privacy-must- kno...](http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/facebook-privacy-must-know/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Eww, looks they are bundling photos with status and posts (you can see them grouped in the pic). So, to make your posts world readable, your photos have to be too. That's not very good control.

<comment><USER24> Which is why you can still also access the granular controls and choose different privacy for those items.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This should deter Diaspora and other open social networking alternatives exactly as much as a monthly decrease in the price of crude oil should deter alternative energy research.

<comment><USER26> Since when did Diaspora become an alternative to social network or even Facebook? No one knows what the hell it is, other than a few kids drawing some diagrams on a black board.

<comment><USER25> Point taken. But has that stopped fusion researchers?

<comment><USER26> Man you are way out of your head. You are comparing Fusion research to Diaspora? There has been tangible research done on nuclear fusion, there is a road map, we known how they plan to do it, they are building reactors, they have 100s of scientists employed working on it. They may not be successful, they maybe horrible failures, it might never happen. But they are working on it. Its way way far from the black board and you can actually see the work yourself.

What do you have with diaspora? Nothing! Other than some kids notion of what an open social network _might_ look like. No code, no prior reputation, you don't even know if they can make a tic-tac-toe. You know nothing.

So please don't compare Diaspora, something that doesn't exist in any form, to something that does (facebook) or something that people are working on (fusion).

<comment><USER8> I had no choice but to upvote this, possibly the most categorical, flat-out statement that diaspora deserves more scrutiny than they're getting.

It's certainly possible they'll build a solid product, but for something of this magnitude, and with the amount of audacity they have within their ranks to accomplish something this monumental (especially coming close on $200,00), they haven't particularly sold their case to the technical crowd that what they're going to build wont turn into vaporware.

More pointedly, they haven't sold their case that diaspora will even be worth checking out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the desktop security model? - <AUTHOR> For some reason I have been thinking a lot about the "desktop security model" lately in comparison to the browser security model.
What stops spotify, or chrome, or any other desktop app that I install from reading my .ssh directory? I assume nothing, by default, since it's under the same user. Is there a long history or book about this subject that I don't know of? Is there a way to restrict disk access of an application by directory? Obviously, I understand how things have evolved from the early days of assuming installed software was benign. I'm not complaining, or shaming, or whatever, that developers didn't think of the threat model for desktop apps back then as we might if the concept of desktop apps came out today.
I am mostly just wondering if this problem has already been discussed and if there is a canonical approach to it.  To give you a sense of why I think this is interesting, compare google search results for "desktop app security model" to "browser security model". The latter is formally (or "officially") defined. <comment><USER2> Most operating systems these days show you a "Do you want to open/give access to this app to make changes on your computer?" prompt or popup. We then click "yes" while rolling our eyes for the inconvenience. The end. :)

</comment><comment> green-bottle I don't have much of an idea about Windows or OSX. Regarding Desktop Linux, I think I wouldn't be far off if I said it has no desktop security model. The permission system on *nixes (and Linux by inheritance) were formulated in the context of it being a multi-user system with multiple people logging in via a terminal. Your data had to be protected from access by unauthorized users. I don't know if security aspects of running untrusted or unverified programs was even considered which are significantly more important in the current context.

I think Flatpak is trying to improve Linux application security but still has a really long way to go compared to the likes of Android and iOS.</comment>


Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1006-sleep-deprivation-is-not-a-badge-of-honor

<comment><USER4> In my years as an investment banker, most of the sleep deprivation that I was subjected to was the result of poor planning (mostly by other people) and a hyper-macho, superficial culture. Now as I'm trying to rebuild my health and psyche, I realize that maybe 20% of it was necessary to accomplish some important project. The rest could have been skipped without harming the financial results of the company, though my reputation would have suffered and I might have been fired long before I quit.

David, if your advocacy leads to even slightly more humane workplaces, you will deserve to be hailed as a saint by millions of people.

<comment><USER5> What goes on (that you are allow to share) in those places that requires so much time and energy? I can see building things taking a lot of effort, but is it just for theater that people put in so many hours in those places?

<comment><USER4> In investment banking, you usually work on a small team of 3-6 people. The work day is very different depending on whether your team is currently working on a deal or is between deals and pitching clients.

If your team is on a deal, then there could be honest-to-goodness work keeping your team busy for 100 hours a week. Tasks include preparing the materials used to market your client to potential investors (including financial models, presentations, and dense official offering documents), managing and attending meetings with investors or the Board, running down data requests, and diverse other things.

Most of the bullshit work comes in when a team is between deals. During this period, the senior members spend a lot of time working their connections at potential clients while the junior members prepare "pitches" - <USER2> designed to convince a company to do a deal. Junior employees are expected to be at the office when their superiors arrive and stay at the office when their superiors leave. When I was working, I might start a typical day by finishing up a request from the day before, then have absolutely nothing to do for 4 or 5 hours, and then receive and turn around assignments from sometime in the afternoon until the evening. The boss would make his last calls around 7PM, which is when I would get my last batch of work for the day. I would work on that for anywhere between one to thirteen hours and then head home (or not, if it was 13 hours).

The culture at an investment bank is very unforgiving. An employee must be a competent worker to survive, but he must also be sure to keep up appearances. Half of an employee's pay is paid in an annual bonus, which is determined by a mixture of objective and subjective factors. It is not enough to be a good worker, an employee must also make sure he looks like a good worker - <USER3> entails being seen in the office a lot. The time of a junior employee is not considered valuable, since they are well overpaid compared to their peers their bosses feel like they should be willing to take unlimited shit without bitching. Managing Directors think nothing of asking an Analyst to do something on Sunday when it pops into their minds, even if the work could easily wait until Monday morning. An MD will also have no qualms about asking an Analyst to start on something at 7PM when he could have told him about it hours earlier. You have never seen so many bitter 23 year-olds as you can find at an I-Banking office.

In exchange for most of your life, an entry-level employee is usually compensated well for someone just out of college. I'd estimate the mean analyst on the street earns $120K in an average year. I wasn't on the street, but I'm not working right now thanks to my savings from my days as an I-Banker. If I could do it again, I probably wouldn't. I like where I am but those were a bleak, desolate 2 years and the angina hasn't completely faded away yet.

<comment><USER5> Wow. Thanks for the insight. From the outside, I thought the I-bank business was the zenith. Looks a lot like my vision of hell, given that info.

<comment><USER4> It is what it is. It is cool to work with hard-nosed, business-minded, sharp people. I enjoyed sitting in on meetings between Private Equity funds and the executives of the companies we were trying to raise money for. I learned the function of all the players in the financial market and I got to stay in nice New York hotels on someone else's dime. I made good money. But it wasn't for me, so it was slowly wearing away my health and sanity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Doing a startup seems to me more like playing soccer than running a marathon. Though you need to pace yourself, there are moments when you want to work super hard. So while being out of breath is not a sufficient condition for winning, it probably is a necessary one.

Likewise for startups. Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one. Not long-term, obviously, but during certain peak times. Even at YC there are times when we have to work so hard that we sleep less. On interview weekends, for example.

So the reason people who work hard (not just in startups, but in all fields) treat sleep deprivation as a badge of honor is that it's a sign that one has the necessary commitment not to cave when there are spikes of work.

<comment><USER7> "Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one."

It doesn't seem to be a necessary one either, given the existence of counterexamples. Eg. Pierre Omidyar started E-bay while keeping his day job and adamantly refused to work more than 8 hours/day on it even after going full-time. One of the reasons he stepped back from a management position was that he didn't culturally fit in with E-bay after hiring a few work-through- the-night cowboy coders.

<comment><USER6> Not everyone in a startup has to work hard, so long as some people do. But someone had to be carrying a pager when the servers went down, or eBay wouldn't still exist.

<comment><USER8> Being on call out of hours isn't the same as working (too) hard. 40-hour week, plus being paged a few times a month to deal with 4am crises, is perfectly reasonable. So is pulling the occasional all-nighter to meet a deadline.

The article is talking about something completely different: putting yourself in a state of constant sleep-deprivation through working ridiculous hours. And the author is right: that's not half as effective as people claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This might be better titled " _Chronic_ sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor", but the point is well-made. Being sleep-deprived is like being drunk: you're not competent to realize how incompetent you've become.

<comment><USER10> >This might be better titled "Chronic sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor"

The original title is better. It makes perfect sense. It expresses the same meaning. He is clearly referring to the phenomenon of sleep deprivation and not to a single instance. It's clear from the title, and the article even explicitly points this out.

He isn't writing legalese. He doesn't have to gird every sentence against being taken out of context and nitpicked. To do so would be bad English (as your example demonstrates).

I know we live in a fast food, sound bite time. I know we expect headlines to be clear and to the point. His is. And it uses better language.

The last thirty years have placed a tremendous strain on the language. We have lots more to talk about and not many more words to do it with. The solution isn't to pile on more and more qualifiers. You can never attain absolute precision. The solution is to realize that as the number of things we have to talk about increases, the expressiveness of the language expands to account for them.

You can't fit everything into a sound bite. If it's worth talking about, it's worth explaining at length. And if it's worth explaining at length, you might as well use good English.

<comment><USER9> Please tone it down. I made a suggestion for adding _one_ word to the title, and said it _might_ be better. That is a flimsy pretext for such a vitriolic response.

The first sentence wasn't even my main point; the second sentence was. You write, "He doesn't have to gird every sentence against being taken out of context and nitpicked." Extend me the same courtesy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good article... and it reminds me of the messes that I've had to clean up at various jobs; in every case, the people who were working the insanely long hours weren't getting as much done as I was, and since I was getting my work done, I had to clean up their messes. The people working the 80+ hour work weeks typically ended up causing more harm than good, and also typically got more rewards and respect from the management because of their "dedication" to the job.

Never mind that most of the code they wrote didn't work until someone else fixed it.

</comment><comment><USER12> The 'badge of honor' concept rang true for me while working the videogame industry - The crunch period was often times discussed with great pride, 'Man, I was up for two straight days fixing the item bug!'

The ironic thing was that more bugs were being introduced during this period than the 'regular' development period (We measured it during one of my last projects).

Our conclusion was that we'll work as hard as it takes, but sleep was necessary - We mandated that everyone get rest after 10 hours at the office (on the couch, under the desk, or at home). Though since I left, they went back to their old ways.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is why I wish more software jobs had flexible hours. The vast majority of programmers have absolutely no need to be in their office at some predefined hour. So if you had to work late one night, it'd be nice to be able to sleep some of it off the next day. But no... Megacorp wants you in your chair by 8.

And as a night owl, I can not fall asleep before 2-3ish am, but I have to be at work by 8 or 8:30, so I'm constantly working with some sleep deprivation.

<comment><USER14> I second this.

Personally I am super productive from about 9pm to 2-3am.

But I need to be at the client at a reasonable hour (9am-9:30am).

Lately I've taken to hacking away from about 9pm to midnight then going to bed so that I can keep everyone happy. Of course, I tend to toss and turn a bit because there is always something that my mind is chewing on that I left off at midnight.

Weekends, all bets are off and my sleep schedule gets totally messed up with late nights and early mornings (2 year old kid). Ugh, I am not 18 any more :)

<comment><USER15> I have the same tossing and turning problem when I work close to bed time.

I find that reading a fiction book, even just a few pages, helps flush my brain's "cache" and relax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can second this whole-heartedly. Especially the point about motivation. I find the lack of sleep really kills my willpower and I end up being really unable to do anything that doesn't interest me.

</comment><comment><USER17>
      So trying to extract 110% performance from today when it
      means having only 70% performance available tomorrow is a
      bad deal. You end up with just 77% of your available peak.

Uh, not quite: x(1.1) + x(0.7) != 0.77(2x). Reminds me of the fuzzy math in DHH's startup revenue calculations...

<comment><USER18> I think it might be more accurate to say work per day = (x(1.1) + N * x(1.1 * .7))/(n+1) = x(1.1 + n * .77) / (n+1)

So as your number of days approaches infinity average work / day approaches 77% of your old work per day. Or on your second day you only get 77% of your normal work day done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It might not be a badge of honor, but it is often the best thing to do in the short term. This isn't even new to startups. My grandfather was looking for work in the middle of the Depression, and got a 2-day 'feel-you-out' kind of assignment at a gold mine. So he worked 48 hours at a shot, and got the job.

</comment><comment><USER20> Depriving yourself of sleep for long periods of time is obviously not good. But pulling a couple of all-nighters a week when needed is pretty necessary if you want to get anywhere IMHO.

<comment><USER11> I think it's the "when needed" part that is the real problem. Most startups use being a startup as an excuse to justify a perpetual crunch mode to make up for poor planning.

All three of the startups I worked for over the years tried that, and none of them have gone anywhere significant. All of them ended up laying off a lot of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Max Levchin had some insights on this in his interview with Robert X. Cringely (NerdTV).

<http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/transcripts/002.html>

</comment><comment><USER22> someone tell this to david blaine

</comment><comment><USER23> (For once) I agree with 37 Signals. I'll go ya one further: if you plan well, there is no need to chronically work 12+ hour days. Really.

In pre-dot-bomb startups, we used to work like that -- mainly because we were writing tools and infrastructure that now exists in generic form. For free. On the inter-webs.

I'm just saying. :-)</comment>


TheCodePlayer (Alpha) - HTML5, CSS3, Javascript tutorials - <AUTHOR> http://thecodeplayer.com

<comment><USER2> "... walkthroughs... will be put up on the home page of TCP only if we think the walkthrough is good in terms of the design, layout, cross browser compatibility (IE not needed, but FF and Chrome are a must)."

I _love_ that you are not requiring IE compatibility for walkthroughs.

<comment><AUTHOR> haha, yeh

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TheCodePlayer is a new concept to make learning front end technologies easier. Code is played back like a video with output rendering making conceptual and process based learning butter-easy. Feedbacks would be highly appreciated.

<comment><USER3> Very interesting concept, but I am worried that this encourages a copy/paste style of coding, rather than actually learning why you would do this or that.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are in the process of making a strong guidelines for authors to maintain quality of the learning material. Users will be free to make anything but only the ones which are in compliance with our guidelines will make it to the top.

Guidelines that we have prepared till now is here - <http://thecodeplayer.com/guidelines>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great. I'm just starting to learn this stuff and I've enjoyed the user experience so far. couple thoughts:

1\. Would love to be able to type my code as the walk through is played so I compare my code and see if I can replicate.

2\. It be nice if I can ask questions or make comments tied to specific lines in the code.

<comment><AUTHOR> these are on our todo list, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For anyone wondering whether we are using any library for play/pause or not, no we are not. It's all custom code based off the code from <http://cssdeck.com/t>

</comment><comment><USER5> I love the replayer and seeing someone type/create code. Really Awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a lot, still a long way to go as there needs to be more and more upgrades and fixes. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Etherpad meets codecademy? Interesting.

</comment><comment><USER7> this, shit, AMAZING. need more tutorials, more authors and that's about all. What are the technologies behind?</comment>


Burst Your News Filter Bubble with Read Across the Aisle - <AUTHOR> http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com/ <comment><USER3> I feel like this is the type of thing that people say they want and know they should do, but won't work at wide scale because it flies in the face of our biology.

"Filter bubbles" exist because we seek them by default, it's proven to be cognitively expensive to challenge your beliefs, so the people who actively seek out challenging information are outliers.

I don't see anything here that takes cognitive science into account to truly change behavior, which I think would be required.

Good idea but I think we need to fundamentally change biology for this kind of thing to work.

<comment><USER4> People are definitely on a spectrum when it comes to this. I've talked with people who really want to read news on both sides, and are in fact already doing so manually. They're looking forward to having something automated to help them track their progress and remind them.

There are also folks on the other end of the spectrum, for whom this isn't something they can stomach. In some cases this is because it reminds them of painful conversations with family members or others, or just because they feel marginalized at a personal level when they read certain news from the other side.

This app is designed for folks in the first camp, who are looking for ways to have a more balanced "news diet", so to speak.

We're also considering adding some gamification techniques to make this stickier for people. This could operate at the individual level (letting people level-up based on their track record) or at a team level. It's a work in progress!

<comment><USER3> I think the gamification or making it something addictive is a good idea. If the crowd is actually people already doing it, I would be curious to know what that TAM is and if it's something that is growable.

Essentially you are making a cognitively heavier Reddit/facebook feed/digg etc... that also assumes each side has equivalently quality content.

Good luck, I think this is something needed but it's probably in the hardest camp, with toughest monetization.

<comment><USER5> We'll have to figure out something that combats cognitive dissonance. Ideally, it would be an AI which double binds them when they say stupid shit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Liberals read across the aisle all the time. Feels like it's half the shows on Comedy Central.

<comment><USER7> all the cries of Trump being supported by a resurgence in fascism or racism say otherwise. I often find that liberals understand conservative values much less than conservatives understand liberal values, and are thus prone to off- handedly ascribing conservative views as based in racism, xenophobia, or protecting white privilege.

<comment><USER8> There are some huge assumptions and obvious bias in this statement...

I agree that both sides would benefit from learning about what the other side values beyond the sound bites but part of the reason "liberals" are pushing back is because of the outrageous behavior of the Trump administration in regards to blatant lies and an apparent policy of reform through dismantlement (c.f. some of his cabinet picks and their lack of qualifications/pedigree for the position).

If conservatives want better understanding then they should act more moderately. There is a massive double standard by conservatives/Trump supporters in regards to issues like executive orders, presidential vacations, adultery by politicians, conflicts of interest, nepotism, and congressional investigations. If you want more understanding then stop pushing a divide and conquer agenda.

<comment><USER7> I've followed the reporting on both Trump's campaign and presidency, and have attempted to follow both sides of the aisle. While Trump has lied or exaggerated, the extent to which the left media has also lied and exaggerated has been astronomical. I think the most overt example I can show you, that you can't argue against whatever your political position may be, is this clip of Chris Cuomo of CNN claiming that it is illegal for viewers to read the Clinton emails themselves and that all opinions must be pre-approved by the media: [https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512?ref_...](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

this is but one of many, many overt lies and untruths that the media has told over the last year to attempt to construct a narrative about who Trump is and what he stands for.

Reform through dismantlement was a key plank of Trump's campaign so I don't know why you think that him implementing sweeping changes is either a surprise or a bad thing in the eyes of his supporters. The election between Clinton and Trump in part boiled down to a choice between "business as usual, corruption and all" or "tear it down and rebuild it in the image of business". Trump's election is an intentional attack on bureaucracy, politics, and government expansionism by the working and middle classes.

<comment><USER8> Respectfully....

> While Trump has lied or exaggerated, the extent to which the left media has > also lied and exaggerated has been astronomical

I don't disagree that the media is biased but Trump is the President and still blatantly lying. That is not normal in a healthy government.

> Reform through dismantlement was a key plank of Trump's campaign so I don't > know why you think that him implementing sweeping changes is either a > surprise or a bad thing in the eyes of his supporters.

And you wonder why accusations of privilege are used? Reform may be needed but not everyone had the luxury of being buffered from the change process as they dismantle environmental regulations, welfare programs, and the institutions of government. This isn't some political game it's people's lives.

> The election between Clinton and Trump in part boiled down to a choice > between "business as usual, corruption and all" or "tear it down and rebuild > it in the image of business". Trump's election is an intentional attack on > bureaucracy, politics, and government expansionism by the working and middle > classes

Is there any objective evidence that the Trump administration isn't corrupt, doesn't have massive conflicts of interest, and isn't "business as usual" for special interests? I'm just as biased as you are but come on!! Do the tax returns and refusal to actually divest not bother you if you care about corruption etc?

(Typing on mobile so apologize for typos and errors!)

<comment><USER7> > I don't disagree that the media is biased but Trump is the President and > still blatantly lying. That is not normal in a healthy government.

Simply invoking "liar" is not in itself important unless you point to an instance of a lie and a reliable non-partisan source that disproves it. That might be a high barrier for agreement but partisanship has reached toxic levels in the past few years.

> And you wonder why accusations of privilege are used? Reform may be needed > but not everyone had the luxury of being buffered from the change process as > they dismantle environmental regulations, welfare programs, and the > institutions of government. This isn't some political game it's people's > lives.

You realise it's largely the poor that voted him in? Poor white communities use the most welfare and they voted for Trump en masse. Perhaps it's because dignified people don't want to live on welfare, but want to have a job and contribute to society?

> Is there any objective evidence that the Trump administration isn't corrupt, > doesn't have massive conflicts of interest, and isn't "business as usual" > for special interests?

That's a burden of proof fallacy. The onus is on you to show that the administration is corrupt, has massive conflicts of interest and is business as usual for special interests. Simply going against your own political beliefs is not evidence of this either - for example, Trump wanting to improve relations with Russia is not evidence that Putin put him in the White House.

> I'm just as biased as you are but come on!! Do the tax returns and refusal > to actually divest not bother you if you care about corruption etc?

Management of Trump's brand umbrella has been handed off to Ivanka for his time in the White House. You could argue that anyone who owns any company at all is potentially making corrupt dealings if they land in the White House - that doesn't justify making them detach permanently from their life's work. I'm not aware of any calls from his supporters to divest - only the opposition, who have been throwing so many accusations at him as to render their voice moot. Throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks does not lend itself towards being considered reasonably.

<comment><USER8> > Simply invoking "liar" is not in itself important unless you point to an > instance of a lie and a reliable non-partisan source that disproves it. That > might be a high barrier for agreement but partisanship has reached toxic > levels in the past few years.

[http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/01/21/fact-check-trump- overst...](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/01/21/fact-check-trump-overstates- crowd-size-at-inaugural.html) [http://www.wsj.com/video/white-house-disputes- inauguration-c...](http://www.wsj.com/video/white-house-disputes-inauguration- crowd-estimates/766DA5D7-6DB1-4928-BE97-25BC3FC9A313.html) [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-38707722](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38707722) [http://www.npr.org/2017/01/21/510994742/trump- administration...](http://www.npr.org/2017/01/21/510994742/trump- administration-goes-to-war-with-the-media-over-inauguration-crowd-size)

The inauguration photo debate is a litmus test for the credibility of the administration and it's ability to tell the truth.

We will have to agree to disagree on all of the other points.

<comment><USER7> the whole inauguration crowd debacle strikes me as ridiculous. We know Trump is a man with an ego, he made a claim that the crowd was big, it wasn't as big as he thought, the media starts whipping up a frenzy about how it proves we live in a "post-fact" world. Then, the media started throwing up photos from earlier in the day to show that the crowd was tiny, when there are other photos that show a bigger crowd, for example: [https://i0.wp.com/www.commonsenseevaluation.com/wp- content/u...](https://i0.wp.com/www.commonsenseevaluation.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/Real-Inauguration-Crowd-Size-vs-FAKE-NEWS.jpg)

The real story here, in my opinion, is how both sides respectively exaggerated and underrepresented the size of the crowd (unimportant), and the media spun it into a narrative that was very clearly designed to invoke 1984-esque ideas that the party can declare that 2+2=5 and it becomes the truth.

Also, your decision to "agree to disagree" on everything I've said strikes me as unhelpful. Rather than flesh out why you disagree with, for example, established facts like that poor whites largely voted Trump, you refuse to engage? If you wish to critique my argument then you should be expecting me to counter your critique.

<comment><USER8> It is ridiculous. But like I said, it's a litmus test for whether the Trump administration can look at fact and tell the truth.

I struggle to understand how anyone can look at photos/video taken from the same perspective and claim it was bigger than Obama ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdantUf5tXg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdantUf5tXg) \- the gaps at the back are clear). No one doubts it was a large crowd - <USER2> your photo shows, there were clearly hundreds of thousands of people there - and both sides definitely put a spin on everything, but the Trump administration clearly tried to play 2+2=5 on this issue, either for his ego or for more serious reasons. Either way, it's not part of a healthy society.

<comment><USER7> For context, I'm not trying to claim it was bigger. I don't think you were trying to say that, but just so there's no misunderstandings.

Trump has been elected precisely because he's not a focus-group-groomed super- careful politician who never says anything concrete. He was elected as a "real person" who, as a business magnate, should be able to apply his knowledge of negotiation and wealth accumulation to the nation at large.

As such, there are going to be jarring incidents like this for those of us who are used to groomed politicians, where Trump says something off-hand and it turns out to be inaccurate. I think that's fine, as a non-politician he's going to make mistakes, but it's also an asset (IMO) to be able to signal intent with concrete statements, or to be able to make initial statements and then revise them when more facts come to light. The characteristic that made him slip up on the inaug. crowd size is the same characteristic that has led to him fulfilling campaign promises at record speed. I think it's a good trade-off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sincerely, I don't think the answer to the problem is to read stuff that's clearly biased from the other side as well, but to rethink journalism in the modern age so that it can go back to actually be more moderate, factual and professional as it was 2 decades ago when reputable journals wouldn't go for the clickbait.

I'm not saying they were perfect back then, but there was a clear sense of professionalism and fact checking in journalism even in the recent past, that now is difficult to find even in major journals.

<comment><USER4> You identify one of the important structural problems — that media outlets have partisan audiences, which for business reasons they need to keep happy. This means that an outlet like Vox will continue writing from a liberal perspective, and using headlines that get traction on platforms like Facebook. If they stray too far from their current strategy, their existing audience will disappear. And they have nothing to gain by becoming more moderate, since they have very few readers who are not liberal (who would read more from them if their coverage was more moderate)

We see this as a potential benefit to facilitating people reading from both sides: if we can bring moderate/other-side audiences to news outlets, they will have more of an incentive to make their coverage more moderate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There should definitely be an additional axis for alternative, non-mainstream sources. It doesn't really work if you're just lumping everything together as either Democrat or Republican.

<comment><USER4> You're absolutely right that this is a multi-dimensional issue. We're starting out with just one dimension but want to add more in the future. What are the alternative sources you're thinking of? We're considering how to add libertarian to the mix, but there are other alternatives, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This project seems flawed before it starts. It just continues the bad tradition of giving the loudest voice to the ones with the most money. That's not how to get all sides of an issue.

<comment><USER4> Creator here. How is it giving louder voices to people with more money? We definitely don't want to do that (and I'm pretty sure we're not).

News outlets are not paying for placement in the app — the list of included news outlets is being crowdsourced through our Kickstarter community. Does that address your concern, or am I not understanding?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> founder here — I'll be checking in on the thread in case folks have questions!

<comment><USER12> The example puts Fox at one extreme. Uh, might this be your own filter bubble? Not too long ago, there was a study posted here with statistics-derived positioning that showed Fox being barely right of center. (BTW, can anybody dig that study up?)

FWIW you're missing Drudge Report, Breitbart, Stormfront, The Daily Stormer, The Daily Caller, /r/The_Donald

You had more on the other side, but Mother Jones was notably missing.

<comment><USER13> > FWIW you're missing Drudge Report, Breitbart, Stormfront, The Daily Stormer, > The Daily Caller, /r/The_Donald

News?

<comment><USER7> Breitbart and The Daily Caller are definitely news sources. The_Donald and Drudge Report are news aggregators, and Stormfront and the Daily Stormer are "third position" i.e. fascist/nazi sites that reject both liberalism and conservatism.

FWIW the list misses a large number of right-wing outlets, but that's likely to do with the author's lack of familiarity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


First-Class Automatic Differentiation in Swift - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/rxwei/30ba75ce092ab3b0dce4bde1fc2c9f1d <comment><USER2> This is really cool, and I'm excited to see how this goes. When people first hear about automatic differentiation, their first reaction is "that's cool, why isn't it everywhere?", and the answer has been "it's really hard to use in practice".

Until recently, AD systems only worked on restricted subsets of languages, or required extremely cumbersome template usage throughout the code. ML frameworks like TensorFlow pushed AD into the mainstream: they are essentially AD-compatible runtimes, but they are cumbersome to use (you have to use their functions instead of the language-provided ones) and they miss potential optimisations.

So it's become increasingly clear that the next step was to actually embed AD as part of a language. I work on Julia, so I hope Zygote.jl ([https://github.com/FluxML/Zygote.jl](https://github.com/FluxML/Zygote.jl)) gets there first, but it's always good to see others moving in the same direction.

</comment><comment><USER3> I desperately want to write my ML code in a statically typed language. I hope one of these Swift-based projects takes off. But I am worried that they will not treat Linux as a first-class platform.

<comment><USER4> > I desperately want to write my ML code in a statically typed language.

Why? ML programs are typically sufficiently compact to not require a type system.

<comment><USER5> Type errors can happen in small programs. In ML applications, which are computationally very expensive and take a lot of time to run, an avoidable type error can result in a considerable waste of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have to confess to some confusion about how all these Tensorflow for Swift changes work. Is this being built into a tensorflow-ey fork of Swift? Is it on the roadmap for being incorporated into the core language? How does one tell from these Github manifestos?

<comment><USER7> Swift for Tensorflow adds language-level support for Tensorflow to Swift. It does start in the fork, but the ultimate goal is for all changes to be merged upstream. Some aspects, like dynamicLookup[0], which allows dot syntax for methods resolved at runtime, are already in the language. Others, like dynamicCallable[1] are accepted proposals.

[0] [https://github.com/apple/swift- evolution/blob/master/proposa...](https://github.com/apple/swift- evolution/blob/master/proposals/0195-dynamic-member-lookup.md) [2] [https://github.com/apple/swift- evolution/blob/master/proposa...](https://github.com/apple/swift- evolution/blob/master/proposals/0216-dynamic-callable.md)

<comment><USER8> > It does start in the fork, but the ultimate goal is for all changes to be > merged upstream. Some aspects, like dynamicLookup[0], which allows dot > syntax for methods resolved at runtime, are already in the language.

Personally, I feel like it would be unwise to merge in all of TensorFlow's requirements into Swift. Many features, such as the ones you mentioned, are actually useful to outside of the context of machine learning, so it does actually make sense to make them generally available. But compiler support for something as specific as @differentiable seems like an anti-goal for Swift.

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea is that in the not-too-distant-future, differentiable programming will become much more mainstream. c.f. [https://medium.com/@karpathy/software-2-0-a64152b37c35](https://medium.com/@karpathy/software-2-0-a64152b37c35)

<comment><USER9> > Neural networks [...] represent the beginning of a fundamental shift in how > we write software.

That's an...interesting statement, considering that neural networks are nearly as old as software itself. The original Pitts-McCulloch paper was published in 1943. Active use of them has certainly been ongoing longer than that blog author has been alive.

<comment><USER10> And yet it's true, since they haven't been used in the way they are now. There was no DeepMind in 1943. Computer science stuff usually takes a few decades to mature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Dual numbers are magic. They are somewhat obscure but very powerful e.g for reasoning about dynamically evolving systems. They are like complex numbers but instead of i^2=-1 you have epsilon such that epsilon^=0. Shit gets real from then on.

Dual number functions give you the value at the function as well as the derivative at that point. Very cool.

<comment><USER12> And if you want the second derivative... You have hyper-dual numbers! [http://adl.stanford.edu/hyperdual/](http://adl.stanford.edu/hyperdual/)

<comment><USER13> That's not normally necessary. One can often just use tagged dual numbers.

I guess one might consider tagged duals hyperduals.

<comment><USER11> What's a tagged number? Google isn't helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For whom it may concern, would be nice to consider autobatching [0] of DyNet fame when designing AD systems. Makes the world of difference for NLP applications.

[0] [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.07860.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.07860.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER15> I come from business programming in Swift (the usual CRUD API based stuff) and for me I completely get lost reading this once the formulas kick in. I have this problem as well when reading about more theoretical algorithm articles. Usually when I see the resulting code I do get it but I feel I miss out on a lot of theory.

Can anybody help me grok the more theoretical stuff in this article?

<comment><USER16> This may help [http://colah.github.io/posts/2015-08-Backprop/](http://colah.github.io/posts/2015-08-Backprop/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Still wish there was an easy way to render LaTeX in GitHub documents (the author of this paper had to manually paste in images it looks like).</comment>


Where the F#$ unikernel advancements go? - <AUTHOR> Unikernel were quite hot in 2016, I've seen developments of late, whats going on? I am not talking about AWS, Azure, etc. lambdas. <comment><USER2> have you seen [https://ops.city](https://ops.city) ? - moreso - there are quite a few unikernel projects out there now

<comment><AUTHOR> thats is significant work. thx</comment></comment>


Sexual Selection: How the internet has changed dating - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/08/18/how-the-internet-has-changed-dating <comment><USER2> Every time these kinds of articles pop up, I feel compelled to ask this question: how prevalent is online dating in America? Here in Europe it's of course a thing but the vast majority of people I know still find their partners in meatspace, even millenials. Frequent dating apps users remain a minority as far as I know, and people still meet through social gatherings, friends of friends, workspaces, etc. I'm under the impression, from my (limited) stays in the US, the (limited) conversations I've had with people there as well as the experiences of friends who live there, that online dating apps have become the _de facto_ standard for meeting people if you are single and looking for anything. Having never used them, I am sometimes bemused by the passionate and lengthy discussions these articles tend to provoke, as well as all the (sometimes ludicrous) social commentary about gender dynamics derived from online behavior. Maybe it's because you _are_ completely missing out if you don't use dating apps in America, and online dating has simply become _dating_. On the other hand, the stories I've heard are maybe only relevant to a tiny demographic (college-educated urban millenials living in one of the top 10 US cities) and have little to do with the general population at large. So, what gives?</comment>


How Ember.js saved my life - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jurgenwerk/how-ember-js-saved-my-life-3207acba4c3c <comment><USER2> Well written. Great post. Thanks for that.

"People can jump between Ember apps and be productive straight from the get- go. Another thing that blew my mind was that Ember encourages developers to write code in ES6 way and manage asynchrony with promises. I bet many JavaScript developers have only vaguely heard about these things as "The future of JavaScript", while Ember developers are using it for quite some time, by default."</comment>


Doctors urged to recognize post-antidepressant sexual dysfunction - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/s-dut012320.php <comment><USER2> Do SSRI's have a permanent effect on the Serotonin receptors?</comment>