Show HN: Working code for Operational Transformation/CRDT hybrid - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@raphlinus/working-code-for-operational-transformation-crdt-hybrid-9d04a57309da <comment><AUTHOR> Author of the posted article here. For the last year or so, I've been doing a deep dive into operational transformation, trying to figure out why it's so hard, and whether CRDT is a better approach to collaborative text editing.

The result of this work is a hybrid technique which I think combines the best features of Operational Transformation (especially the RAM-efficiency) and CRDT (ability to work in arbitrary network topologies, not requiring a central server). It also turned out to be appealingly simple, about 400 lines of JavaScript. That's with a core data structure implemented as a balanced binary tree, to make the merge algorithm O(n log n), as opposed to O(n^2) for the best operational transform algorithm I know about (n is a measure of the number of edits in flight concurrently).

For anyone spinning up a new collaborative editor, I believe these techniques are a significant advance. Of course, if people disagree, I'd be more than happy to discuss.

<comment><USER2> (You should point out that you're the author of the article! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, done. Otherwise, it would look like a pretty ham-handed attempt at sock-puppetry :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wish someone should offer a "firebase for OT" SAAS that offers an API, SDKs for JS/iOS/Android and a few working samples.

Every time I want a collaborative OT like environment for apps that I build, I end up:

1- implementing some sort of janky locking scheme, or

2- having to learn how to install and host a tightly coupled server and client environment, or

3 - Abusing some other service (like firebase or couchdb) that has pseudo-OT semantics and getting close enough

I know there a bunch of people working on this, but I've never seen it offered as a service. If one of you do, please add my to your list of potential beta testers.

<comment><USER4> Realm is pretty close (it is not offered as-a-service, but they have a free version you can run yourself).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would love a good in-depth tutorial on operational transformation but so far haven't found one that is satisfactory (for a complete beginner). Maybe I've been spoiled with all the great javascript/react tutorials out there that I'm hoping someone could do the same for OT. A tutorial or series about OT with detailed instructions from concept to implementation is something I would pay for to learn.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand where you're coming from. Unfortunately, the academic literature on OT is really difficult. A lot of the papers are flat-out wrong, and even the ones that aren't have tons of confusing notation and terminology. It's a specialized area, so I don't have hopes there will be an easy-to-follow tutorial any time soon.

<comment><USER6> The linked article here is surprisingly accessible!

I would add just one small tidbit of advice that might help interested people get up to speed: skim the paper, then look at the implementation.

Being able to work with actual code can make a lot of things easier.

(This article comes with working code! Try it out!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> @raphlinus, fantastic work! I'd love to connect because I am also one of those people who has been working on CRDT/OT algorithms for a couple years now. I wound up building a custom database because of it, haha.

My approach (not finished) is to use linked lists and tombstones. I found index transformations to not be provably correct in an arbitrary P2P system because it always required a document root.

Here is a (terrible terrible) demo of the linked list approach: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rci89p0o2wQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rci89p0o2wQ) .

What are your thoughts on your approach handling rich text? (document nesting)

Would love to chat more, mark [AT] gundb [DOT] io

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, let's connect offline.

I have thought some about rich text, but haven't implemented anything yet. My general thinking is that attribute spans lend themselves well to the OT model, but trees do not. The classic example is if you have three words, user A bolds the first two, and user B italicizes the last two. With spans, they just partially overlap, which is fine, but with trees you have an ambiguity.

Representing certain kinds of document structure (like nested bullet lists) is not obvious with spans. I want to explore the combination of a marker representing "beginning of tree" and a span, and define transformations in and out of tree form that would be robust to concurrent edits. However, this is all just ideas at this point.

<comment><USER8> Have you looked at the Quill delta format?

[https://quilljs.com/guides/designing-the-delta- format/](https://quilljs.com/guides/designing-the-delta-format/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've heard of Quill but hadn't seen that document. Looks like interesting reading, thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Super Meat Boy developer proves the App Store is "kind of sh*t" - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/games/super-meat-boy-developer-proves-the-app-store-is-kind-of-sht-20100311/

<comment><USER2> the pricing issue is very interesting, but there's not a lot of meat to the story here. i'd like to see the developer find a way to interview the people who bought the increasingly pricey app and try to actually get some data to go with the conjecture.

otherwise, in a competitive marketplace you need to differentiate and promote your product constantly, i would think that's a given and not really a fault of the app store. is there a design decision which can help that? i'm not sure. i'm sure we don't want Apple to be MORE selective of which apps they allow in some kind of attempt to separate the chaff, though, and that means your awesome app may always be outnumbered by crap.</comment>


I'm Obsessed with San Francisco's Bunk-Bed Craigslist Ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/09/im-obsessed-with-san-franciscos-bunk-bed-craigslist-ads/407281/ <comment><USER2> Gives me an idea for audacious and fearless entrepreneurs : go start a new city and make it the new high tech center of the world.

Actually, it's an obsession many countries had for the last 25 years : create the new silicon valley. Nobody has ever succeeded.

Now, another idea : instead of making this city in the real world, just create it virtually on the web. With all the people working from remote places, the physicial location doesn't really matter that much anymore... You'll need online universities, research labs, and places to hang out and meet people. That would be a fun project.

<comment><USER3> Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is trying to turn Vegas into just that. Wish him luck!

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/350-mill...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/350-million- might-not-be-enough-to-save-las-vegas/386213/)

<comment><USER4> Arg... why Vegas? I would start that somewhere in the philippins/thailand/indonesia...

<comment><USER3> Ok.

<comment><USER4> Good food. Great weather. Everything is cheap.

I don't see the point moving SF to the middle of the desert really.

<comment><USER5> As one of many developers here in south Asia, we agree with you :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I learned, that "roommate" for students in the US really meant a person, that had her bed in the same room as you, I was totally baffled. I just thought this was the US word for flatmate till then.

Why would anyone over the age of 13 want to share a room with another person? of the same gender? for many years?

I never saw this here in Germany. Just hostels do this kind of stuff.

In the student-homes the minimum you get is one own room.

I think such things are even forbidden by law, in Germany.

<comment><USER7> As a fellow german i found this out long ago: Different architecture. Americans tend to build less multi-story apartment buildings, and more small one-family buildings, so the density of available housing per mile is really low even in settled areas, compared to the average german city.

Look at this: [https://www.google.de/search?q=suburban+hell&tbm=isch](https://www.google.de/search?q=suburban+hell&tbm=isch)

<comment><USER8> It's true what you say but having spent a reasonable amount of time in Asia I always wonder why we don't build higher here in Berlin. There is a huge housing shortage and they wanted to build apartments on Tempelhoferfeld. That is just absurd when there is tons of prime but underutilized real estate on Köpenickerstrasse. It would probably be possible to completely (albeit temporarily) relieve Berlins housing crisis by building up the derelict areas along the river with 30+ level towers. That way it would be possible to preserve the pristine park and semi-wild greenery that helps make Berlin such a wonderful place to live.

<comment><USER7> At a guess: Because Berlin's housing market is very cheap and prices can't be easily raised, so there isn't much money available for building up.

<comment><USER8> I'm not an expert but is it really more expensive to build up rather than out given the state of technology today? Surely the cost of land alone is enough of an incentive to build up? Also Berlin's real estate market is increasing in price steadily. There is huge competition for every rental flat on the market inside the ring. This seems like a good opportunity to increase volume to meet demand as would happen in a perfect market. I would imagine the increase in volume (and the revenue that comes with it) would alone be worth building up?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not from the area so forgive my ignorance but, is it really that bad or are these just very in demand areas? Can you work in the area albeit with a longer commute for a reasonable price?

I'm from New York and people complain about real estate prices here as well. It is undoubtedly very expensive in Manhattan (small 1-br for $4k in nice building) but that's only in Manhattan. You can easily find rent for less than $2k if you're willing to increase your commute from ~30-40 minutes to ~60-75 minutes. I know people living in suburbs of New Jersey (Pal Park, Fort Lee) as well as suburbs of Queens or Bronx for even less than that.

<comment><USER10> If you value your time at $50 per hour, a 60 minute commute twice a day costs $1900 per month (assuming you commute 230 days a year). And this doesn't count the direct monetary cost of the commute. Different people value their time differently, but it's worth doing this calculation consciously.

<comment><USER11> >a 60 minute commute twice a day costs $1900 per month

Only if you're comparing it to a 0 minute commute, which isn't realistic.

<comment><USER12> You could have a five minute commute on foot, in which case it's more just much needed fresh air and daylight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> These bunk beds look OK. As a young programmer in London I lived in hostels for a while, with 4-story bunk beds crammed by the dozen in a small room. I remember it rather fondly, free breakfast, new people to talk to every day, walking distance to work in the centre... damp was a serious problem though.

</comment><comment><USER14> I suppose it depends what you want. I have a colleague who lives in youth hostels in Taiwan, working remotely. He loves it.

But I don't really understand the "give up basic privacy to pursue your dreams" thing. Seriously, programming is programming. You can do it any place in the world. If your goal is to strike it rich at a startup in SF... well... good luck is all I can say. Are these the new 49ers?

<comment><USER15> I agree, it totally depends what you're after, and how much you value your privacy. It's like the difference between staying in shared hostel dorms vs. private hotel rooms when you're travelling. I've just been travelling for the past 6 or so weeks, mostly in hostels, and although I've missed having a private room, the money I've saved by being in shared dorms (not to mention the people I've met) has made it totally worth it. For me of course :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Renters are living a nightmare in order to pursue their dreams.

A "nightmare"? I spent my year in the army bunking with 12 people in a room, and there are plenty of civilian jobs (eg. most oil rigs) that require hot bunking: your share of the bunk is 12 hours per day, and the rest of the time someone else is sleeping in it!

<comment><USER17> But isn't "housing" free in those scenarios? Certainly not +$1,000/month for your bunk!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't buy the idea that San Francisco has a housing shortage. San Francisco already has rather a lot of houses for 47 square miles of land. What San Francisco has is is a ridiculous oversupply of people who want to live there.

The time has come to say it: San Francisco is full. Everyone start colonising somewhere else.

<comment><USER19> No. SF has ample space horizontally and more importantly vertically for housing. The problem is the construction of housing has been hindered dramatically by bureaucrats.

<comment><USER18> Sure, you could pack more people in, at the cost of quality of life for people who live there. But why would you want to destroy a nice city full of historic buildings just to cram more people in? It's ridiculous.

A forest of skyscrapers like the nastier parts of Hong Kong? No thanks. Besides, you can't increase the amount if road space or the amount of footpath available. And geography makes it an awful place for ultra high density, you can only get out in one direction.

<comment><USER20> > But why would you want to destroy a nice city full of historic buildings

Eh? San Francisco is a century old (because 1906 earthquake and fire), you can find rabbit cages older than that on the east coast.

> A forest of skyscrapers like the nastier parts of Hong Kong?

Increasing density doesn't mean skycrappers. London and Paris have twice and thrice the density of SF. Hell, Lyon has a 50% higher density than SF (27000/sq mi to 18000) and there's almost no skyscrapers in the inner-city skyline[0] and still room left for antique buildings[1], parks and basilicas taking up whole hilltops[2].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon#/media/File:01._Panorama_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon#/media/File:01._Panorama_de_Lyon_pris_depuis_le_toit_de_la_Basilique_de_Fourvière.jpg)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon#/media/File:Amphitheater_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon#/media/File:Amphitheater_von_Lyon.jpg)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon#/media/File:Lyon_paysages...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon#/media/File:Lyon_paysages.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> And I'm here thinking that 200/300€ for a shared bedroom in Dublin was already absurd.

<comment><USER22> It's not as bad as it seems when you compare salaries.

<comment><USER21> True, in SF it's probably double of what someone gets in Dublin

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Do people buy camper vans and live in these? I've did a contract over a 6 month period in a camper van but was able to come home every weekend and recharge the leisure batteries. It definitely needs a sport centre membership to really make it work.

<comment><USER24> That's a fantastic idea! Now, just tell me where I can park and sleep at night without being woken up by the cops, fined and told to move along.

Unless you know someone willing to let you park on their private property, you can't do this in a lot of cities. If you're near a wal mart, though, I think they have a policy that allows it. Not sure if you have to ask first.

<comment><USER25> There were plenty of RVs on Duboce under the 101 in the Mission when I worked there ~2010. And on International Blvd when we left Oakland last year. I'm sure there are plenty of other undesirable neighborhoods around the bay area. Not that I'd recommend it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hong Kong demonstrates where this trend is leading:

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hong-kongs-poor-live-in- stacked-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hong-kongs-poor-live-in-stacked- metal-cages/)

<comment><USER27> How do the housing markets compare? Hong Kong is famously more free market than San Francisco, though I have heard that real estate is one of the more constrained sectors?

<comment><USER26> This kind of thing is certainly the result of policies which the Heritage foundation or Cato would approve of.

They're the ones who make those lists that put Hong Kong at #1/#2 "most free market countries".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> industry hostels are doing the same, though often worse

50$/nt(o), at a forgiving 28 days in a month is 1400$/mn

but they'll usually be kind enough to offer a 250/week deal for responsible long term stays

but still, thats $1000/(4 week period..month rates will fluctuate with length)

you may be able to find a 33$/nt, so 924/(4wk), which will probably grant a 200/wk.. but most will require you to leave after 3 weeks anyway for fear of sf squatter rights

if you want a steady living space, with access to the tools of your trade: electricity,internet, and like interested people; for $850/month seems a fine alternative to other temporary living opportunities

though, i agree both are appalling and minimal living space should be a commodity

so are these 'bunk-bed craigslist ads' exploitative or, to turn a poignant phrase, disrupting the already unfortunate hostel market

(o) [http://www.hostelworld.com/hostels/San- Francisco?source=adwo...](http://www.hostelworld.com/hostels/San- Francisco?source=adwordsdynamic&network=g&creative=79775089820&adposition=1t2&uniqueclickID=9347571887421410650&sub_keyword=_cat:usa%20hostels&sub_ad=b&sub_publisher=ADW&gclid=CPGy7feclcgCFUNrfgod7w8EQA)

<comment><USER28> the san francisco board of supervisors(o) recent board meeting actions(i) passed recommendation 150646(ii)(iii) which states:

        1) prohibit, with certain exceptions, rent increases
        based on the addition of occupants even where a pre-
        existing rental agreement or lease permits such an
        increase; 2) prevent evictions based on the addition
        of occupants if the landlord has unreasonably refused
        the tenant's written request, including a refusal based
        on the amount of occupants allowed by the rental
        agreement or lease;

so now you can lawfully build those bunks while everyone talks about prop f(iv)

(o) [http://www.sfbos.org/](http://www.sfbos.org/)

(i) [https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=M&ID=434339&GUID=F48A...](https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=M&ID=434339&GUID=F48A591D-3463-45CB-87D5-FB3FF765D111)

(ii) [https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2358278...](https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2358278&GUID=DBC936F1-AC46-44CF-802F-5C0EC25F9B70)

(iii) [https://sfgov.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Master&GID=...](https://sfgov.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Master&GID=60&ID=2358278&GUID=DBC936F1-AC46-44CF-802F-5C0EC25F9B70&Title=Legislation+Details)

(iv) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10280282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10280282)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> What's worse is that those "hacker hostels" in SoMa require you to apply and be approved of before you can give them your money. If you're local, speak english and aren't founding your own startup, they will say 'no, you can't rent our bed'. They seem to prefer out of country entrepreneurs hoping to make contacts for funding their new startup.

</comment><comment><USER30> Honestly, this is fine by me. I just need a bed to sleep in at night. Seriously between work, school, gym, going out how many hours are you actually home anyway? Really all you need is a bed imo.

<comment><USER31> How about sex?

<comment><USER30> Sex? Ill just strap on my free time helmet and squeeze down into a free time cannon and fire off into free time land.</comment></comment></comment>


YaCy – The Peer to Peer Search Engine - <AUTHOR> https://yacy.net/en/index.html <comment><USER2> This project has been around for years (created in 2003 according to wikipedia). In fact I submitted it 3 years ago. [0]

It's awesome but not Show HN (unless you made it)

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746883)

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Also it's not so easy to find out about recent developments of the Yacy Project. From Twitter I found something called "Yacy Grid", "second generation implementation". It's a microservices implementation of the original Yacy it seems -> [https://github.com/yacy/yacy_grid_mcp](https://github.com/yacy/yacy_grid_mcp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey, this is actually pretty cool! I have some questions.

On this page [1] there is mention of documents being stored locally. How much memory does this take up on the user's machine? What about pruning of old documents?

I'm aware that you're not targeting the smartphone space as of yet (I can't see any downloads for Android and iOS), but as the majority of searches do come from a smartphone, I'm wondering if YaCy is planning on moving into that space? If so, those previous questions about storage and pruning are very much relevant.

[1]: [https://yacy.net/en/Technology.html](https://yacy.net/en/Technology.html)</comment>


What Happens When You Piss Off the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://bufr.tumblr.com/post/19112788402/dont-piss-off-the-internet?1 <comment><USER3> _"The point that I'm trying to make is if you're going to spent months of your time and thousands of your dollars drafting a concept, hiring a team, and building a free and completely open source video game as a hobby, you better use zombies as your theme."_

That is not the right thing to have learned from this. I suggest this one:

If you're going to take a bunch of ideas and content wholesale from a community for your new thing, it might be good if you engage with that community and make something that respects the context of the stuff you're taking, instead of making something they'll perceive as cheap and foreign.

<comment><USER4> Which community would that be? 4chan? Reddit? The rest of the internet that also regurgitates memes?

You cannot 'engage with' the internet as a whole. No community owns a meme: it's the fact that so many people reproduce them that makes it a meme. The problem here is that some folks do feel they, or their community, own a meme. These people are the problem, not this guy with a place for a game. Or at least, he's another kind of problem.

<comment><USER3> The engaging with the community isn't so that you can make a petition that says, "Are you cool with my game [Y/N]" and have everyone on the Internet sign it. It's so that you can create something which demonstrates an awareness of the culture and doesn't come off as derivative and shallow to the people who deal in it daily and care to defend it.

If he had made a post on Reddit or talked to anyone on 4chan and said "I want to make a meme-themed iOS game, help me make it not suck" and listened, he probably would have wound up making something that did not entice people to mock him and insult him. That's what I mean about engaging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You want to exploit something you consider "garbage" but which has a certain value to the people that create and/or perpetuate it, and you find it odd that it would piss those people off?

This has nothing to do with "the internet" or Reddit, or 4chan or whatever. You try to do this with some local group of people that's involved in whatever kind of hobby or activity you consider weird, or "garbage", and you'll get more or less the same response.

<comment><USER6> Plus the other aspect is that he is taking stuff that other people built for their own enjoyment and trying to exploit it in a commercial context.

If he had tried pulling together an open source development team nobody would have been seriously offended.

But what this guy is doing is the same as taking art done by anonymous street artists and selling merchandise based on it. If people pay before or after the production doesn't matter in that case. Acting totally surprised when "the street" is fighting back seems slightly naive.

<comment><USER7> FTA:

> When I sought out on the endeavor to create a mobile tower defense game, I > announced that the game would be open source, and it would be free.

What are you talking about?

<comment><USER8> He means the money raising on Kickstarter

<comment><USER9> No, but that's an understandable cultural misconception. The money is relevant, but not the main issue at hand.

In these communities, nobody cares about money, because your standing in the community isn't determined by how much money you have, but by _how much you have contributed_. This is kind of implicit in 4chan users, where it's considered tacky to even claim explicit ownership, because memes are understood to be products of an amorphous community. It's explicit on places like Reddit, where cultural standing is measured as a number.

Yes, the author would not be receiving money for this product, but having created the game _as himself_ (as opposed to as, say, a semi-anonymous Newgrounds member) he draws more ire. Contrast the relevant videos: the original Kickstarter video features a single strong personality, a person mediating the experience of the memes in the game, while the response video is relatively anonymous, attempting to minimize the mediation between the viewer and his point. The fact that the response video also calls out other YouTube celebrities who do the same thing—i.e. offer mediation and commentary of other content through an explicit personality—should be incredibly telling.

Other comments that say things like, "I'd be honored to have my content featured in someone's game," are missing the point. It's a basic culture clash: the article's author expresses distinct authorship which can be traced to a concrete person (or persona), even if he gets no profit and open-sources the result, while the people who make up the response understand that authorship as contrary to the whole point of communal humor, i.e. memes. The other meme aggregation sites are also 'mediators' of a sort, preventing people from experiencing the direct product of the community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel your pain. I had something similar happen to me -- though not to the same degree. Recently I was selling posters based on a meme unique to my campus -- the designs were our own (so we had the copyright), but the original concept the memes were based on was not. (Imagine you sold a photo of your own cat with the text "I can haz cheezburger" -- it's still your copyright, right?)

Anyway, some guy started posting that we were fraudsters, were raping culture, etc. It's funny, our troll sounded just like yours -- obviously intelligent and articulate, but took something trivial (internet memes) way too seriously. I really can't understand the mindset of these people -- when I noticed that reddit was becoming a waste of time, I didn't post a long rant about it -- I just stopped going to reddit.

If it's any comfort, know that such people likely have little else going on in their life, and trolling in defence of their online "tribe" is all they have. If you're actually creating stuff, being entrepreneurial, putting yourself out there, you're already beating them.

</comment><comment><USER11> You have two problems:

1\. On the internet large amounts of traffic means that you will have trolls galore. In my eyes some of those comments are normal internet fodder and just need to be moderated out.

2\. You are using IP that you do not own. Memes are not public domain. Of course that is going to get people angry, particularly when there is money involved.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Point taken.

2\. Even under fair use? How do sites like memegenerator, knowyourmeme, and others get away with it? They make money. My project was free.

<comment><USER12> My advice is to contact "memegenerator, knowyourmeme, and others" and ask them what licensing agreements they have with the copyright holders that allow them publish the content. You may be surprised to learn how much or how little money changes hand.

<comment><AUTHOR> I spoke with the founder/owner of campusmemes.com asking the same questions. He basically said, "We operate business as usual until we get a C&D. Remove the image. Life goes on."

<comment><USER12> Hmm, The Monetization of Copyrighted Content without any Licenses sounds more like a service than a software product. Maybe try to obtain license agreements from the copyright holders and put the funding for agree'ed to licenses in the Kickstarter campaign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This guy asked for money for a project using 4chan memes and got abused for it. Not very surprising, they are a vindictive bunch and hate the popularization of their culture. Their wrath is even greater if it even appears that money is somehow involved.

A couple of years ago Hot Topic made a shirt using the "Rage Guy" face from 4chan. They responded by rebranding the "Rage Guy" as "Race Guy" making tons of racist comics featuring the image and then complaining to Hot Topic for supporting racism.[1]

1: <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/race-guy>

Unrelated Question:

What happens on kickstarter when you pledge a project, they get tons of money, and then they don't deliver? For example, what if this guy gets enough to begin but he sucks at coding and isn't able to deliver anything like what he promised? Or what if someone were to just pocket the kickstarter money and disappear?

<comment><USER14> Donating to Kickstarter gives you no guarantees whatsoever. The guy can basically just walk away with the money if he so decides. No, really.

This however makes it all the more a powerful concept in my mind, since the "makers" have to figure out how to communicate they are trustworthy AND have this great idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think these communities are worried about the culture they've created becoming more commercialized than it already is?

<comment><USER16> Absolutely. I have this theory that part of the reason that meme culture is often so absurd, obscure and frequently offensive exactly to prevent its co- option and commercialization.

<comment><USER17> Case and point: Two years ago Hot Topic started selling "rage guy" t-shirts. The internet decided it would be having none of that and coerced the meme "rage guy" into "race guy" by pumping out tonnes of racist comics. Hot Topic were forced to withdraw its t-shirt range.

<http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/race-guy>

<comment><USER18> I don't really track Hot Topics current inventory, but the same page you link to says they unwithdrew it one day later.

<comment><USER17> Huh, I didn't know that. I was working from memory and didn't read the article. I wonder if they still sell the shirts?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The thing to remember is that behind every meme is a person. Someone spent time and effort to make a funny image or story, and they probably never got paid for it. Then someone comes along and tries to make money off of it: how would you feel?

<comment><USER20> You don't own a meme. Heck, that's almost an oxymoron:

"an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture" \- <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme>

And who actually makes money from meme's anyway? Is YouTube scum for making money from showing video memes? Likewise for 4chan (the website, not the community) and Reddit? The advertisers that buy ads on those pages? What about memegenerators?

Double standards?

<comment><USER12> The obvious answer is that the content being discussed isn't really a meme. They are copyrighted images. The idea of a "Troll Face" can be a meme, surely, but the specific image of a trollface that is widely recognized was obviously copyrighted. If you don't like that then create your own image and release it with a more permissive license like Public Domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really couldn't follow this. Can anyone explain it?

</comment><comment><USER22> Please don't let the haters hold you back. The entire creative world is awash with re-mixes. This is nothing to be ashamed of or to avoid. Contrary to what some seem to believe, NOTHING is created in a vacuum. Everyone is influenced by others. The extent to which you show your influences in your work is really just part of your creative process in my opinion.

I hope you find a way to make your game regardless of all the "original" people that think they are better somehow than those who are re-mixing to create something new with the culture they love.

</comment><comment><USER23> I thought the video was funny, and when I read your post I just assumed that it would turn out that the art studio that you were going to hire turned out to have made the video as advertising for your game.

To me it looks like awesome advertising, and it turns out that you got it for free, so why not just be happy? Ignore the trolls and see it from the bright side. =)

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't believe anyone is taking this seriously. This was the guy's strongest critic: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2LmjiTduSe0)

Regardless of their position on the matter, they are all attention whores.

</comment><comment><USER25> Off the top of my head, this already worked for...

CollegeHumor - Cashed out. EbaumsWorld - Cashed out. Knowyourmeme - <USER2> out. The entire Cheezeburger network.

</comment><comment><USER26> So, wait a minute.

People draw some crappy pictures or take a crappy photo and slap an average joke over the top spread it around the internet and then get annoyed that someone puts it in a game?

Why aren't they going after the people who endlessly re-post these things?

</comment><comment><USER27> The Internet gives douchebags a soapbox, news at 11.

</comment><comment><USER28> > Most of what Internet communities like 4chan, Reddit, and 9gag produce are > highly-regarded garbage.

Why does he want to smear poor, innocent garbage? At least garbage composts into something useful.

</comment><comment><USER29> In the future, everyone will be threatened with death for 15 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER30> I got death threats when I followed the open source license, but tried to make money on my own app. It utilized an app under the GNU license.

The problem with open source (especially anything involving the GNU) is that although you can make money, the majority (not all) will make it very difficult for you to do this.

</comment><comment><USER31> Right, all those communities are garbage because they were mean to you. But you're still gonna make your little game from the images and ideas those communities traffic in. So, what does that make your game?

</comment><comment><USER32> Say what you will about it, but Whynne's recording was actually genuinely funny.</comment>


One startup CEO's surprising cloud cost discovery - <AUTHOR> https://www.cloudability.com/blog/one-startup-ceos-surprising-cloud-cost-discovery/ <comment><USER2> Why wasn't your CFO doing their job?</comment>


Ask HN: Why do you run multiple VM's? - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone!
I'm a developer working mostly on MS technologies so I don't really use VM's. I've been reading HN for quite some time and every time there's a development thread (or the latest Dell XPS13 and its 8GB RAM thread) a lot of developers pop-up saying that they "constantly" run n VM's (n > 1).
Can you please explain to me, what are some cases that this makes sense (please don't write just "multiple build environments" but expand a bit)?
Thanks for your answers! <comment><USER2> I think it's mostly from developers trying to use their target deployment environment or to use a common dev environment image. Others might like it as a nice way to sandbox different workspaces and for convenient functionality of taking snapshots you can revert to (like source control but for your whole machine). Also some orgs have their QA make extensive use of VMs to test different set ups and for reproducible bug reports.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I understand that, but a lot of people are talking about running multiple headless VM's at once and I can't really see any use cases outside of QC/QA environments. Even for people working on multiple projects at once (for multiple clients) it sounds like there is no real reason to run more than 2 at once (one for tools, the other for the server environment).</comment></comment>


Fixing Obfuscated Emails in Gmail with Dotjs - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jazzychad.net/2012/05/25/gmail-dotjs-obfuscated-emails.html <comment><USER2> I feel like I should point out that if a script to recognize and fix those common patterns is that simple to create - its just as simple for a spammer/scraper to create. This implies its probably not worth obfuscating your email in the first place....

<comment><USER3> Agreed. It's better to use something like reCAPTCHA Mailhide (<http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/>) to protect your email address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You're kidding yourself if you think obfuscation is saving you from any spam at this point, and it's just making it harder for legitimate people to contact you. Use a real spam filter and you won't have to bother with fake addresses and obfuscation.

I've been using the same e-mail address since 1999, posting to public mailing lists, signing up for new websites, showing it as a real mailto: link everywhere on my website, and I only get 1 or 2 pieces of spam per day that make it past my spam filter (Postini).

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems like a nice fix for many cases, though it would parse emails like firstname.lastname@example.com into firstname.lastname@example.com

Separately, it seems like putting your email into an image is the obfuscate it against spam scrapers who can use tactics like this

<comment><AUTHOR> no, it looks for other separators around 'at', so it would only replace ' at ' or '_at_' or '[at]' for example. so email@example.com would be safe.</comment></comment>


The State of Developer Ecosystem in 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.jetbrains.com/research/devecosystem-2017/ <comment><USER2> 5% sleeping less than 3 hours - total bullshit. Probably the same for 38% sleeping 3-6. It's really a dumb culture - to brag how short hours you sleep.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Only 17% of those who develop for Windows have Windows-based smartphones.

I guess it is more a hobby for them now.</comment>


Chris Anderson on drones and open source hardware - <AUTHOR> http://blueprint.shoplocket.com/stories/3d-robotics/ <comment><USER2> I heard this guy talk at DEFCON once, explaining how great he was at leveraging free work force from "opensource people" in order to make his company a success.

The way he worded that and how he only talked about that (almost nothing technical, more of a how did my business succeed story), made me basically dislike him forever :P

I felt like he was throwing himself flowers for having found a way to get ppl to do the hard work for him. Which isn't how i see open source. :/

Obligatory link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysyYKPa9Rcg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysyYKPa9Rcg)

<comment><USER3> Well, _this guy_ is Chris Anderson. The same guy who wrote The Long Tail, Free, was Wired editor for more than a decade, and wrote about the hardware and maker movement well before IoT became mainstream.

His company created DIY Drones [1], and heavily supports ArduPilot [2], paying developers to actively contribute to the project (either through benefits, physical goods, or even equity). He's certainly not your typical business guy, trying " _to get [open source] people to do the hard work for him_ ". Chris has been involved and contributing in meaningful ways for decades, either as a thought leader, a writer, entrepreneur, or contributing to the open source community.

Several other large businesses were created on top of open source communities, and have a symbiotic relationship with the community. MakerBot started as a clone of Rep Rap. Arduino was created on top of Processing IDE. Amazon AWS wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Xen. Raspberry Pi was created on top of Linux. I feel it's exactly the same with 3D Robotics (or better; e.g., MakerBot's contribution is highly controversial).

Having said that, I agree that his profile and this talk wasn't a good fit for DEFCON. It'd be a better fit for Solid, or other O'Reilly conference.

[1] [http://diydrones.com/](http://diydrones.com/) [2] [http://ardupilot.com/](http://ardupilot.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> (OT) I am given the idea that popping up a banner soliciting an address for e-mail updates (as this site does) is a standard practice on many blogging platforms, and that it is apparently quite effective at retaining users, but as a user I find it quite obnoxious. I opened this page in a new tab, and when I clicked over to it I did not immediately recall what the page was about. The 'close' button is also small and hard to see.

I purposely avoid subscribing to e-mail updates because I get very little to nothing out of them that I could not also get elsewhere, e.g. through an RSS reader, at my own convenience or intent. E-mail updates almost always read to me as advertisement, similar to dead tree junk mail.

Compounding this annoyance, though this is squarely in the realm of my own responsibility, I configure my browsers to clear cookies every user session. So doing allows me to easily be logged out of services simply by closing my browser and has the side benefit of perhaps confounding tracking services just a little bit. Unfortunately it also means that any of these websites which I visit very rarely will display the subscription pop-up every time.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious about their stance on hardware clones such as Hobbyking, RCTimer, etc.

Being an open source company, do they embrace this? I've seen some pretty harsh words spoken on various forums from 3dr employees towards people asking about clones.

<comment><USER6> Having heard some talks from 3D Robotics people and followed them online, I get the sense that they (officially, as an organization) accept the clones as competition and simply try to continue innovating to stay ahead of the game. That sentiment is exemplified in this blog post: [http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/05/19/cloned-open- source-h...](http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/05/19/cloned-open-source- hardware-diy-drones/)

That being said, I think it is natural for there to be some animosity towards the clones on a more individual basis, especially in a situation where community members and employees feel that they are expected to provide support for the clones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how much of the £30m series B they got finds its' way back to the open source community who made arducopter

I have a 3DR drone and it's pretty good. Their community website could be better. DJI is still kicking their ass in some respects

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm glad the birdman beat that kiddy porn rap.

</comment><comment><USER9> It'll probably be slightly offensive to him, but every time I read "Chris Anderson", I think of "Gerry Anderson"... It takes me a couple seconds to drop into the right mental context and shed the futuristic images off my mind.</comment>


Snow Drawings Transform Frozen Lakes - <AUTHOR> https://www.storehouse.co/stories/s2rm-snow-drawings-transform-frozen-lakes

<comment><USER2> Crowdsourcing art! I especially admire how little poaching goes on, with each element neatly separated from the next. It would be so easy to get lazy, cut across someone else's piece. But even the most elaborate layouts are perfect, with no crossed-out parts and no shortcuts.</comment>


My Weekend Project: Famous For - Meet awesome people - <AUTHOR> http://befamousfor.com/en Hey there, I'm Philipp from Germany and I've created this web applications to improve my skills in Rails development.
I would really like to hear your thoughts about this site.
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Hey there, I'm Philipp from Germany and I've created this web applications to improve my skills in Rails development.

This Project provides a way where you have a profile page which displays all the characteristics for which you are famous for. Other users can view your profile by clicking the "discover"-link (this will pick a random user). If they like to, they can connect with you.

I would really like to hear your thoughts about this site.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER2> No "About" page? I'm not going to log in without have _some_ idea what this is about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your comment! Lessons learned! Really forgot it :-( Really appreciate it!</comment></comment>


How often does XOR magic come up in interviews? - Avi-D-coder I almost never use/see XOR magic in production (I.E using XOR to solve conveniently defined problems in O(n) time and O(1) space. How common are XOR interview questions? Am I just missing real-world use cases? How important is it to be able solve problems with Bit-Magic? <comment><AUTHOR> I'll take a different approach in my answer as I expect most others are quite happy expecting brain teasers and puzzles in interviews. I'm very much the opposite.

I've failed in interviews for not using coding magic tricks. I use these tricks and puzzles as an opportunity to ask them about their processes in general and software development practices in particular. Got one job out of that "failure" but the rest I did it just to burn out brightly. Hearing a would-be future manager justify XOR and other tricks as production level code is always enlightening.

So to restate: _Every_ piece of code they show you is an example of their production code and philosophy. They are deliberately showing you what they consider the best or worst. Judge them on it.

You are interviewing and testing them as much as they are testing you. A lot of interviewers fail to understand this.

Postscript: this is from a history of interviews and followup from accepted positions across multiple organisations. Every puzzler-heavy interview job I have foolishly accepted later ended up in management misadventures, culture defects or political issues. The interviews without the foolish puzzles have been indicators of future success. For me there is a clear correlation.

</comment><comment><USER2> I think it's a nice-to-have and not a need-to-have.

This is a super basic example, but I had a phone-screen question that was "reverse the order of the words in this C array in-place without allocating more memory." I found out with clarifying questions that I could use a temporary variable, but midway through I remembered how the XOR swap worked, and I think that scored me some points with the interviewer.

</comment><comment><USER3> > I almost never use/see XOR magic in production

Then, if interviewers have a clue, you should almost never see it in interviews.

But do interviewers have a clue? Aye, there's the rub. _I_ have never seen it, but that's not saying much...</comment>


Deconstructing "K&R C" - <AUTHOR> http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/learn-c-the-hard-waych55.html#x62-28000055.1.3 <comment><USER2> Just for the record, I am as sick of this part of the book showing up on HN as everyone else. I do not post it here, other people do, and I apologize in advance for it showing up here all the time half-finished.

But, if you have a problem with this I ask that you write code disproving that the copy() function does not terminate for all possible inputs. Or, that you write a function that can check if a C style string is valid. If someone can do that it'd help me with the book.

<comment><USER3> Zed,

Please don't feel bad or sorry here. Your critic to the code is VALID. Besides, you are not the only one who have understood the problem in K&R. I had a boss who was aware of this since 90's and talked about it when I was quite ignorant of his points then until I got bitten. But I am glad you rediscovered the problem and made an effort to write it on web.

K&R has its value in historical context. I hope you are not discouraged by the general reaction and I really think we should put more effort in creating new material to teach people in modern context. Please keep on working on it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For people who say "C strings are null-terminated and you don't pass their length, get used to it", let me point out [https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode...](https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode/API02-C.+Functions+that+read+or+write+to+or+from+an+array+should+take+an+argument+to+specify+the+source+or+target+size), which is part of the "CERT C Secure Coding Standard", and the new bounds- checking features in C11 (which I haven't actually seen yet).

</comment><comment><USER5> "because it does not terminate cleanly for most possible inputs"

"Most possible inputs", meaning "random garbage"? Insisting that an algorithm "terminate cleanly" on every possible input is... a somewhat high standard.

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

<comment><USER6> I'm a little confused by the reference to the Halting problem.

You don't need to solve the Halting problem to prove that a specific algorithm will terminate.

Random garbage here is still constrained because the input is still a sequence of bytes.

<comment><USER5> Nope, you don't, in this specific case. My issue is with him asserting that an algorithm is automatically "broken" because you can't determine whether or not it will terminate. That standard would exclude every single programming language in common use.

<comment><USER7> First, programming languages aren't algorithms.

Quite a few algorithms can be proven to terminate on all inputs (even malformed ones). Zed is asserting that when you have available an algorithm that will definitely terminate, you should tend to prefer it over an algorithm that may not. I tend to agree, especially in an educational text because that's where a lot of people will start picking up habits, both good and bad. Non-terminating algorithms aren't broken in general, but this one is because there is a terminating alternative.

<comment><USER5> "First, programming languages aren't algorithms."

True, but irrelevant.

Any Turing-complete language will allow you to implement functions that don't terminate, and indeed in general implement functions for which it is impossible to determine whether they terminate or not.

Better?

"Non-terminating algorithms aren't broken in general, but this one is because there is a terminating alternative."

An algorithm is only "broken" if it doesn't work. That's not the case here. Among working algorithms, one may be a better than another because it is faster, takes up less memory, is more robust when faced with garbage inputs... many engineering tradeoffs. His implementation is probably safer, but it's going to use more space and be slower. Now, that's likely a good tradeoff for most situations, but not all.

However, his claim that the algorithm is "defective" because it doesn't work on random garbage is absurd. It's as if someone claimed that a car was "defective" because it grinds to a halt when you fill the tank with soft-serve ice cream, or that the most common algorithm for integer addition is "defective" because it doesn't work for vectors.

"Safer" I could live with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm interested to see what people have to say about this as someone who is looking in to learning C.

<comment><USER8> Was this thread not enough for you? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3448573> The topic is good, but couldn't you wait a bit more to resurface it?</comment></comment>


Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.alexanderdickson.com/moving-to-germany-as-an-australian <comment><USER2> Regarding the trains,

>They are usually on time and cover basically everywhere worth visiting in Europe.

He has a very ungerman definition of usually on time :) There's probably not a bigger laughing stock in Germany than our trains (Okay, there is BER). The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time [1]. If you have tight transfers to make, that can get very annoying.

I also thought the ICE and non-ICE dichotomy was funny. I would split them into long-distance (IC, ICE, EC) and regional (RE, RB, S-Bahn).

[1]: [https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen...](https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen_fakten/puenktlichkeitswerte-1187696) (Db-Fernverkehr tab)

<comment><USER3> > The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time.

By standards I am familiar with, that's good. Last time I checked, my local train station had trains arriving within 10 minutes only 50% of the time.

<comment><USER4> "In Germany, there are two kinds of "on time". So far [2017], 94.2% of trains have reached their final destination within six minutes of the scheduled time, and 98.9% within 16 minutes."

The article also goes into detail how every country measures punctuality differently.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42024020](https://www.bbc.com/news/world- asia-42024020)

(Yes, Germans love to complain about the train company)

<comment><USER5> > 94.2% of trains have reached their final destination within six minutes of > the scheduled time

That's a terrible statistic. First off, connections are designed to be just a few minutes, so 5 minutes delay (not included in this stat) makes you miss an average connection.

Secondly, that statistic is about trains, not people: one could manage to have 50% of people be delayed by 30-60 minutes every day and still have 94.2% of trains run on time just by having only the busiest trains between 8-9h and 16-18h delayed enough to miss people's local connection.

Finally, the final destination says nothing about intermediate stops (why not just look at every stop?). Things like switching drivers, refueling, or just introducing some slack in the schedule is most often done at endpoints. Heck, if I know this is the statistic being used, I would be sure to design my schedules to have even more leeway at the endpoints than I otherwise already would.

I'm curious to see how this statistic changes when it includes intermediate stops and counts delayed passengers rather than empty trains running on time. Optionally, counting the full delay (missed connection / actual frustration) instead of the technical train delay would also be interesting.

As one datapoint, my girlfriend takes a train from Cologne in rush hour that is 4-20 minutes late more than half the time, with a connecting bus that goes once an hour that is always on time or even early. She usually misses it.

<comment><USER6> also this statistic is favored towards the north of the country. because there are way more trains. he lives in the south I guess (near munich) probably which has way less trains for regional traffic

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I moved from Perth to Berlin. The biggest thing that hit me was the alcohol. I can buy a (good!) beer at anytime (even 3am) for about 2 euros from a spati ("late shop"\- like a deli but mostly selling beer), and then walk around in the open air drinking it. All the supermarkets sell alcohol all day(and so cheap). People gather by the canals in summer, just drinking and talking. No- one seems to get drunk, there's no violence or shouting. It's such a pleasant change.

Also smoking in bars. I don't smoke, but I don't mind it.Ny gf hates it and prefers to sit outside in the cold rather than inside in the smoke.

The bureaucracy is about the same - Aussie bureaucracy is less finicky but feels more hostile.

People are people. Though Germans seem less angry than Aussies. I always wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling abroad.

The graffiti and street art is also striking. Perth goes in for tagging, but not on the same scale or creativeness as Berlin. I really like it, but I understand why other people don't.

I'm really enjoying my time here. Miss the beach, though.

<comment><USER8> I'm also from Perth, lived around the world, including some years in Germany .. had the same set of observations. On this:

>I always wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling abroad.

I think Australia has a lot of deep pain in its history, and in its culture, and this manifests in a hostility.

Every time I go back, I wonder why its such an angry shithole. Australians just seem to be getting madder and madder...

EDIT: Germany does have deep pain in its history. Germans are aware of that, and overt about it. Australians not so much.

<comment><USER9> I'm from Australia, lived a decent portion of my life overseas in various countries, and traveled extensively (never lived anywhere more than a year in my life).

I've always noticed Australians in general are very easy to get mad, take things the wrong way, etc. I'm constantly surprised by how many of my friends have so much loud hatred for things that seem so.. trivial? I'm constantly made fun of for being a "hippy" and "not caring about anything" because I prefer to always try stay positive and as stress-free as possible.

Of course this is a vast generalisation, but it's purely my experience and something I've distinctly noticed too, and I agree it seems to be getting worse.

I don't think the nations history has anything to do with it though. I don't know where it started but I think it's just a cultural thing that spreads like most cultural things.

<comment><USER10> People raised in Australia are just used to things being easy and when they're not they get grumpy. Which is happening more as the population grows and the big cities become proper cities and not giant suburbs. It's even happening to me as a migrant after becoming too comfortable. Also read comments pages on press sites and blogs etc. They have no sense of perspective for their complaints as they've spent no time living anywhere else.

Another issue is cultural cringe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hello, author here. Thanks a lot for reading my post!

A few things to clarify:

\- indeed I am now in London, but have very fond memories of life in Germany and still enjoy practicing my German

\- I took a US keyboard layout to work, which made things fine except for when I was on the laptop only (some keys are different shapes as well)

\- I found it amusing the comments about the German trains. I will confirm that the standard was pretty low in Australia :P (hopefully that's going to get better)

\- the impracticality of 4 seats and 2 doors in the car was meant to imply that it means it's more difficult to put people in the rear seats in this configuration

\- thanks for the corrections on train speeds and naming of the ground floor, I'll fix that

Let me know if there's any other corrections I should make, anything I missed or should expand on.

</comment><comment><USER5> > [My car is] impractical with only two doors and four seats

I like four doors, but only two isn't too bad (drove one of those for five years). Seats though, is it normal to own a bus in Australia? The people I would expect to own a car with more than two rows of seats are families with 4+ kids, which is nobody here.

I've recently been thinking about a 2-seater to save on gas/CO2 since I have no kids anyway and you can always rent or borrow a car for that one time a year that you need it (since friends and family have 4-seaters, when we want to go somewhere, we can go with their car and pay for drinks or whatever). Of course, I'm in an exceptional situation with only a girlfriend and no plans for kids. I just can't help but wonder if this "4 seats is impractical" statement comes from being scared of "but what if I need it one day and then I don't have the option?" when logically, it is really much cheaper to rent a van once every four years than permanently own a huge car.

> The trains are so awesome in Germany

hah, try the Netherlands. Living in Germany for more than a year now, I think the trains here are quite crappy. Not unusable or filthy, but also not like the Netherlands. And the ICEs go 300km/h, not 250, and are very unreliable punctuality-wise.

Related: "You also won't find automated checkouts [in Germany]." again, try the Netherlands :)

> it's normal for all shops to be closed except for servos (there's a > confusing word for Germans)

Eh, I'll say. Servo(s) only exists in merriam-webster as well as the community-based dict.cc as I know it: a motor. Is this from a Brisbane dialect or something?

<comment><USER12> > is it normal to own a bus in Australia?

No. The market for three row vehicles exists but is small, served mostly by a few mid-sized* SUVs with a third row only suitable for small children. Most people I know with families of 5 make do with two row vehicles.

The modal private car in Australia is a five door hatchback (Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla) closely followed by the compact* crossover (Mazda CX-5, Toyota RAV4, Subaru Forester). Work vehicles are dominated by "utes", which are small or medium* pickup trucks (Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger).

Three door/two row cars used to be common as the base ("poverty") specification of some small economy hatchbacks—but it appears this trend has completely died away. Toyota's cheapest new vehicle is a five door, for example. Three door/two row hatchbacks are horrid things: worse for the customer in every respect and any cost savings probably offset by increased chassis development costs and SKU counts.

* Per the North American lexicon. Australia and the rest of the world sizes cars a bit differently.

<comment><USER13> all the cars you listed have 5 seats. M235i has four. Also every car you listed has way more cargo room. So saying the m235i is less practical than the norm is, I think, accurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you want to move to Germany don't underestimate how hard it is to have a social life around here, especially if moving alone. It is the one thing that seems a constant, whenever I talk with other foreigners. Even Germans seem to find it hard to have friends when they relocate away from their previous social lives.

<comment><USER15> I think the issue is that here in Germany there is a lot of unspoken peer pressure in regards to where you should be in life at your age. That pressure makes it hard to keep things in a flow and basically people (German and expats) tend to put a structure around everything. Social interactions? Needs to happen at the appropriate time and scheduled at least 2 weeks in advance. Fancy restaurant dinner with girlfriend? Needs to be scheduled weeks before. Work life balance? You must have work life balance and you must go out on sunny days, which is great until it feels again like pressure to be something you don't want to be. Hiking? You will find another zillion people on that mountain because again you are supposed to go out on sunny days.

It can feel very "robotic" and I think people just end up detaching themselves from what they truly want or truly need from their social interactions.

<comment><USER8> As an Aussie who's lived around the world with stints in California and Germany, I really miss my American friends' ability to just show up when they figured I'd be around, unannounced, and hang out for an afternoon - or not, no worries, nobody home - compared to my German friends who literally needed a weeks notice to come over and have a couple of beers, even in this mobile- phone era. Or, my Australian pals who would come over, let themselves in, do the dishes, have a beer, and wait until I got home.

Then again, there are the Austrians. Never, ever be even a minute late to an event involving Austrian friends.

Strange how things are more and more rigid, the further from the frontier one gets ..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > It's also more difficult for me as a I have a US layout keyboard at home and > a German layout at work.

I'd hate tp be forced to use a specific layout governed by my employer and I'm glad it's not been a problem so far to get a replacement keyboard with US layout.

It's pretty common nowadays for developers to simply prefer the US layout if their country's is not great, like the German one that makes typing braces etc. a pain in the ass.

<comment><USER17> At any rate, learn to to touch type blind, and then switch to your preferred keyboard layout in software (and ignore what's printed on the keys). My mom can do it; I'd expect any programmer to be able to do it.

<comment><USER5> > and then switch to your preferred keyboard layout in software

If only. They have a different shape shift and enter key. It's not impossible to type on different keyboards at home and at work without mixing it up _too much_ , but it is annoying, and not just a software configuration. (Source: am Dutch, live in Germany, have different keyboards at home and at work because I don't want to throw one away when it still works fine even if it's a little annoying.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting! And I think it's a good alternative to the typical 'work in the valley for a few years' that many Oz devs do. He seems to be working for Facebook in London now.

</comment><comment><USER19> Worth noting that the chap is now in London.

</comment><comment><USER20> I would have thought as an Austrian you would find it quite easy

<comment><USER21> I hate that I laughed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Honestly it's getting to the point in North America that I'm seriously considering uprooting the family and transferring to my company's Munich office. My father is from Germany and I have cousins and aunts there. If I could dig up the proper birth certificates and paperwork I could probably get a passport. Quality of life seems like it would just be better.

Unfortunately we have chickens, and a border collie ... so...

<comment><USER23> I don't know what to do with the chickens. But the dog is easy to bring.

<comment><USER22> My dog has 6 acres to run right now... I can't imagine keeping this tasmanian devil in an apartment...

<comment><USER24> Check with the Munich colleagues, but some of them will live in houses. They're unlikely to have 2½ hectares though.

As well as all apartment-vs-house compromises you'd have anywhere in the US (cost, noise, travel time to work etc), moving to a new country and living at the edge of a town or in a small village can feel more isolated, if you don't speak the language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would be interested in the other direction.

Would anyone from the EU who moved to Australia care to tell us about their experiences?

<comment><USER26> Trains are meh. The average train speed is 50km/h, so living out in the suburbs is a long slow commute. What should be a 20-30 min journey can be 1hr plus. Forget interstate travel as each state has different line standards.

"She'll be right mate" the stereotypical image of Aussies, not so true at least these days. Highly litigious, lots of red tape, and following strict rules, love their fines, if they can fine it they'll be a fine for it! You often find police officers in Sydney CBD fining pedestrians for crossing the road or police sniffer dogs around the train stations randomly plucking commuters for strip searches. Australia often gets a bad write up from the UN on social justice, take the encryption laws rushed in as an example.

The car is king. In the EU if you cross the road in a safe manner, cars will back off the accelerator. In Australia, it's a case you shouldn't be on the road, so they speed up intentionally to hit you. Similarly, if you want to cycle, you better be brave. Driving standards seem far worse. On the topic of cars they have high import duties so your average European car becomes very expensive. Instead, there's tons of Toyota Hillux's and Corollas, Landcruiser, etc and the odd Holden but they've stopped being produced in the AU so don't seem as popular as they once were.

It's impossible or near impossible to eat out after 8 pm.

Shops close at 6 pm so no after work shopping.

Sydney has zero nightlife for an international city, it's like a ghost town now after dark. They introduced "lock out laws" essentially killing the nightlife as bars close early, prevent you from getting into bars after a specific time, and limiting drinks that can be purchased over a specific time. They have recently backed down from this and reducing the restrictions in the new year. The damage has been done, bars have shut and turned in to apartments.

A high cost of living. You have two grocery stores, Coles and Woolworths, so far less variety. There is a third chain called IGA that tries to carry a little higher quality produce, you see them more in smaller towns.

Being so far from anywhere, it's a long journey to travel outside of Australia. Perth to Sydney is a 5hr flight, a 5hr flight you've crossed Europe.

Australia is on fire, the prime minister denies climate change and walks into parliament with cole saying don't be afraid it's only cole, kind of sets the standard.

Tech jobs, you get your usual low barrier agency knocking out website jobs writing javascript. Then the other popular work is big data doing questionable stuff with user data or cryptocurrencies. When you search on Linkedin, for example, for EU jobs or US jobs compared to Australia, Australia's availability of meaningful, interesting, well-paying tech jobs is lacking/behind other parts of the world. Some do exist but few and far between. The computer science degrees here must be good though worked with some very smart Aussie's. The US companies tend to cherry-pick the graduates due to the special AU-US visa agreements.

The housing they've yet to discover double glazing/insulation. A lot of the properties look like they haven't been renovated since the 70's. Slight ignorance that insulation works to keep the heat inside during the winter and heat out during the summer when the aircon is on. Also the mean Sydney house price is $1million +, although that $1 million won't buy you what you'd expect for a $1 million house. Instead, you'd get some shitbox that needs renovating or what is popular knocking down and turning in to apartments.

On the plus side, if you like an active outdoor lifestyle, it's fantastic. If you like the beach it has them, bushwalking, lots of that, outdoor sports lots of that.

Great coffee that's down to the high multiculturalism, although there's is a lot of quiet racism the more regional you go.

Also in the cities etc food is really good. I eat out a lot more in the AU for brunch and dinner. Lots of variety from AU / EU style food to Asian etc.

Work-life balance is generally ok. It's certainly a comfortable lifestyle. There's also less crime. I've never walked down a street or through a suburb that's felt unsafe.

Life is good in the AU if you get a tech salary, it's a bit of a bubble, though compared to the rest of the world due to the isolation. I don't love it, I don't hate it, it's comfortable, for now. My partner is Australian, so I'll be sticking around as she wants to be here when we start a family. We did plan to go overseas to Europe for a little while to live and work, but due to the mess of the UK and brexit that might not be as easy as we thought. I'm currently waiting on my permanent visa to come through so we can make our next plans until then it's hard for us to plan ahead.

Australia, the lucky country. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country)

<comment><USER27> >In the EU if you cross the road in a safe manner, cars will back off the accelerator. In Australia, it's a case you shouldn't be on the road, so they speed up intentionally to hit you.

Which is a questionable behaviour because the car driver is usually found to be at fault in most cases whenever a pedestrian is struck. The law favours the pedestrians over the car.

<comment><USER28> > Which is a questionable behaviour...

It's a questionable statement. I haven't ever had this happen to me in Australia.

<comment><USER29> No. As well as insulation we have vehicular manslaughter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Edit: removed. (My post was too negative and was just me venting.)

<comment><USER31> It's a shame. If a country can't show you its culinary best at a university cafeteria, where else _can_ you go?

<comment><USER16> There it is: Don't eat at cheap places.

I really wouldn't bash a country's food based on bottom tier experience. I have to agree though that it's easy to end up in a bad place and in Germany there's no limit to how disgusting it can get. Germans do seem to have a higher tolerance for this. Of course nothing beats the university cafeteria but I don't know anyone who likes that food, it's just that the typical student cannot afford to avoid it.

On the other hand there are not that many countries I can think of with high standard of living and minimum wage where food is consistently great even when comparatively cheap.

<comment><USER32> You can eat very cheaply in Germany, but if you do that, you probably can't complain about the quality.

<comment><USER33> Food prices are very low in Germany. They are extremely low, if you cook yourself and even restaurants are not that expensive in international comparison.

But indeed, if you go to extremely cheap places, you can have really bad food too - but that is independant of the food style. They make bad Italian food too :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > the bottom floor is 0, not the ground floor

In the elevator sure, though just as often it's abbreviated EG for Erdgeschoss, which does mean ground floor. We call the floor above that "erstes Geschoss" or "erstes Obergeschoss", whereas that would be the second floor in English, but we never say "nulltes Geschoss", always Erdgeschoss.

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Erdgeschoss](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Erdgeschoss)

<comment><USER35> Calling the ground floor "first floor" is a North American thing, and everyone else (including UK) agrees with German numbering. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I moved to Berlin from Melbourne about four years ago. It's been a great move for my swdev career. There is really interesting and diverse projects and an abundance of work. It's a developers market. European infrastructure is amazing in general. It's also nice to be able to ride 20 minutes with a bicycle to work and feel like your not going to get hit by some moronic bogan.

I think that Berlin could be the most liberal and free city in the world at the moment, I love it.

I realised how culturally isolated Australia is and how English centric we are. Speaking any other language is kind of frowned upon in Australia . There really is this elitism attitude globally relating to english and it's a double edged sword, it makes us uncultured and insensitive. In Europe and Berlin specifically it's a melting pot of languages, cultures and ideas and I absolutely love that. What Australia lacks in culture it compensates with Sports. For better or worse.

I think violence is pretty common in Melbourne at least. I don't feel safe drinking in stkilda, Prahran or in the city. Everyone gets so drunk and if it's not racism it's petty masculinity that causes a brawl. The culture definently values "sport" over nearly everything else. Therefore it's a breeding ground for this kind of behaviour. I really dislike this about my fellow Australians. Conversely, I feel incredibly safe in Berlin.

Quality of food is arguably better in Australia overall, but great produce can be found here also.

Obviously Australian nature is incredible and offers a lot, it's also a very geographically isolated place, so it's hard to feel connected with the rest of the world. No quickly jumping over to Africa or the middle east!

Anyway, I love Europe and germany, they are doing some really forward thinking things and align with my beliefs. There is still a long way to go, but at least they are trying to steer their economies in a progressive direction.</comment>


Groupon Restates Results, Reveals Weak Controls - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577313983768173826.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories <comment><USER2> Groupon needs a controller's office with some self respect. What is this bullshit quote by the CFO: "We remain confident in the fundamentals of our business"? That is not your job. You work for me as the shareholder, and your job is to get the fucking numbers right. Because finance and accounting functions both fall under the CFO causes many CFO's to forget that they are supposed to behave as controllers much of the time.

<comment><USER3> > We remain confident in the fundamentals of our business

That verbiage sounds like it could have been taken from any of RIM's recent releases, which means it could probably be used as an anti-indicator of the company's fundamentals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My accounting buddy says 'Material Weakness' is code for accounting fraud.

If so, it explains why Andrew Mason and Eric Lefkofsky massively cashed out pre-IPO, and may have left everyone else holding the bag.

<comment><USER5> I'm an accountant. And it is fraud.

Andrew Mason is basically a newer version of Bernie Madoff. Except Andrew publicly runs a ponzi scheme... AND overinflates share valuation to pump & dump his shares.

LOL.

If he and his CFO aren't in jail over this... I don't know what! There goes investor confidence...

f me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is no one calling this out as FRAUD? They clearly and intentionally inflated results... a 200% difference off net income.

Why is the SEC and FBI not investigating? And why are there no class-action lawsuits coming together already?

<comment><USER5> Actually, there are class action lawsuits starting: [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hagens-berman- investigates-...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hagens-berman-investigates- groupon-following-restatement-of-financial-results-and-admitted-material- weakness-of-its-internal-controls-2012-03-30)

<comment><USER5> And ANOTHER class action coming together: <http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/646802>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Groupon seems to have a history of questionable bookkeeping. HN community saw this( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3270165>) way back when.

Edit: Added link to previous GRPN discussion

<comment><USER7> There were some questions about Groupon's accounting in the past, but the numbers Groupon initially released were actually a) more conservative, and b) harder to game, than the numbers they ended up using. Their current financial statements are confusing in part because their customer acquisition costs are so volatile; when they showed operating income excluding that number, it was way easier to see how fast the underlying business was growing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This will probably fall on deaf ears because HNers love to hate Groupon but does anyone here realize how difficult it is to account for financials that went from $14 million to $300 million to $1.6 billion over 2 years (with a great deal of it from very recent international acquisitions)?

<comment><USER9> Oh come on. There is absolutely no excuse for fucking up accounting and numbers like this. There are more than enough smart finance MBAs walking around Chicago that could handle the job.

This is just further evidence of a company culture that is willing to play fast and loose, and do whatever it takes to make themselves look good despite terrible financials. Remember the rediculous metrics they created to hide their real numbers before the IPO?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Groupon's stumbles come as Congress advanced a bill, known as the Jobs Act, that would ease the regulatory burdens on fast-growing businesses. Under the act, Groupon, which has less than $1 billion revenue, would qualify as an emerging growth company, entitled to immunity from annual audits of internal accounting controls.

The Jobs Act would loosen Groupon's duties "over exactly the type of controls that it was deficient in," said John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University._

Hm. I like the idea of easing the regulatory burden on emerging business, but anything with under $1 billion in revenue? That leaves room for a multitude of sins.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Groupon has become a bellwether for a new generation of technology companies that, using technology, are able to build massive scale over short periods"

If by technology, you mean lots of venture capital, and lots of money to throw at Facebook ads + Adwords...

</comment><comment><USER12> "The fastest growing company ever" can't get its book right? Shocking.

</comment><comment><USER7> Guys. This is bad news. But it's a tiny, transient issue, which they've already corrected.

If you're serious about considering this evidence of fraud, it would be great to get an idea of how much you've shorted since the story came out (or plan on shorting Monday morning). Groupon's stock is down about 6% after this story, and I don't see any comments that indicate that this raises the odds that Groupon will collapse by a mere 6%.

While there are lots of flaws with Groupon's current model, it's not very nice to jump on them for comparatively minor stuff like this.

<comment><USER13> Apparently there were investors who wanted to after the IPO, but chose not to simply because there were too many others looking for shares to borrow. Has shorting GRPN become less expensive and risky between then and now?

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-10/groupon-stock- among...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-10/groupon-stock-among-most- expensive-to-short-data-explorers-says.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So the underwriters have no accountability in any of this? Not a single mention of them in the article, go figure.

</comment><comment><USER15> And the bubble pops!

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow this surely signals the end of GroupOn. What a stupid company. They are a big joke and nothing they do is right. This is literally an unheard of mistake... no other company has done anything like this (and survived).

Why anyone ever invested here, why I didn't think fthe stupid idea first, I'll never know</comment>


Ask HN: What would be the syntax of an ideal programming language? - <AUTHOR> Hi, I am starting to write a programming language and currently deciding on syntax. So, I wanted to ask the HN community. What would they want in a programming language eg: GO like syntax for function and declarations or python like structuring with indentation. <comment><USER2> Syntax is kind of overrated, but familiarity can matter if you have a specific target audience. You will usually get some who are resistant to learning if the syntax is significantly different from what they're familiar with - but it is unlikely these are going to use a niche language anyway. PLT enthusiasts are generally more open minded about syntax choices, so you can choose what you think is appropriate.

Consider many of the top programming general purpose languages share some or most of their syntax (C, Java, etc), with Python being a bit of an outlier. This would suggest that familiar syntax matters for adoption.

Syntax choice is always going to be subjective and there is no "ideal". People often say Python is easier to read, but I don't buy it. It's easier to read for people who've had experience using Python, that's all (which happens to be a large number of people because it is a common choice of first language in academic courses). Just as I find S-expressions easy to read but non- lispers/non-schemers are often put off by the placement of parens.

In terms of implementing the parser, some syntax is simpler than others to parse. S-expressions are very trivial. C and C++ in particular have some ambiguities in parts of their syntax which need to be resolved through semantic analysis, but they cause trouble for writing tools for the language. Those problems can be avoided with careful design, however, there have been some attempts to re-syntax C++, such as SPECS[1], which never caught on. Existing tooling, code and integration with other parts of a system are more important than language syntax.

[1]:[http://users.monash.edu/~damian/papers/HTML/ModestProposal.h...](http://users.monash.edu/~damian/papers/HTML/ModestProposal.html)</comment>


Who Will Fix Facebook? - <AUTHOR> https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/who-will-fix-facebook-759916/ <comment><USER2> Facebook is operating exactly as designed. To hear people talk you would think Facebook was some kind of public utility or perhaps a system where Mark Zuckerberg does you a favor by hosting your cat pictures out of the goodness of his heart.

This is not so, you do not have a Facebook page - Facebook has a page on you[0].

The real solution to the power Facebook is probably regulation, but nobody wants to tackle that big ball of hurt.

[0] [https://sheep.horse/2013/10/the_seven_realities_of_social_ne...](https://sheep.horse/2013/10/the_seven_realities_of_social_networking.html) (I wrote this several years ago, today I would be harsher on some of Facebook's policies)

</comment><comment><USER3> It will fix itself when enough users really start abandoning it. And by fix I mean disappear.

<comment><USER4> Or when shareholders and board members oust Zuckerberg and Sandberg. Employees get fired for making mistakes that cost companies millions - why aren't executives held to the same standard especially when it's cost them billions in their market cap with no real solution in sight? The smart people are leaving (Chief Business Officer of Whatsapp being the most recent one), and the bleeding is only going to continue if there's no trust in the top ranks at FB.

<comment><USER5> Zuckerberg owns ~20% of FB and ~30% of its class A shares. So that's all easier said than done.

<comment><USER6> maybe there is a lesson buried in there about letting a child with no previous experience having that much control over a global advertising corporation.

<comment><USER7> I thought that young people were just smarter? /s

<comment><USER6> Totes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I imagine if there was a Jira created to fix Facebook, the status would look something like:

        [ Closed:  Works as designed ]

</comment><comment><USER9> It's hard to conjure sympathy for anyone booted from Facebook. They built on someone else's platform and that platform pulled the rug out.

That's the price of admission to the Walled Garden.

<comment><USER10> They knew they were joining a private platform. How could they not? If the walled garden is the de facto way people get their news, then as a media company you're just a fool to ignore it.

<comment><USER11> Facebook is fenced yard. Instagram is the walled garden one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Who will fix Facebook?

Hopefully nobody. It's a relic of a bygone era, and while many people are hanging on for sentiment it's really a social wasteland of advertising and inactive accounts.

Unfortunately FB's other properties are following in the same path. My Instagram feed seems to be approaching a 1:3 ratio of ads to content and I find myself using other platforms (TikTok, recently) more and more.

</comment><comment><USER13> Facebook doesn't care if you're the owner of a page or a group. That means when you assign someone else as an admin of your page, they can remove you from the page and you are no longer the owner of the page. Crap. Why not holding `owner_id` to original page , so that in case of being hacked, you're still the owner ? Facebook never tries to protect your (or their ?) things.

<comment><USER14> This is for a reason. When Company hires Agency to design a social media presence, Agency doesn't have to wait for Company to create pages, assign rolls, and probably spend hours on the phone wasting everyone's time. Agency can just create a page, set everything up, then with the knowledge they already have, assign admin rights to Company, and Company can remove Agency.

<comment><USER13> It's not related to the ownership here. Assigning admin rights doesn't relate to the owner concept. In your case, transferring ownership is the right way to do, being admin is not enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No diff between Reverb and Alex Jones in my book.

My rule is pretty simple about who I follow - anyone using "us VS them" style language and communication techniques gets autoblocked. Complex issues can never be solved by bullying the other side into submission.

I don't care if they are liberal or conservatives, these are panderers and should be called out as such.

<comment><USER16> _anyone using "us VS them" style language and communication techniques_

Isn't that exactly what your comment is doing?

<comment><USER17> Probably the same, but why do panderers need a broadcasting platform?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Probably not Facebook. Just check out this interaction between a NYT journalist and them.

[https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/1065988154308538368](https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/1065988154308538368)

<comment><USER19> Legends speak of one called Tom: a great Entrepreneur of old, taken away to sleep in a secluded space of his own, who will one day wake and return to social media in our time of direst need.

<comment><USER20> Tom is my friend. Tom is all our friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I like Matt Taibbi's writing but this piece is unusually naive by his standards. The whole 'clamp down on fake news, Russian trolls and Nazis' schtick is just an excuse to limit free speech, which FB have every right to do in their walled garden.

It's v unclear to me what FB is actually _for_ these days. It's clearly not a high school yearbook style 'facebook' any more. The closed groups are AOL redux and the whole 'newsfeed' thing is a mess.

My more paranoid side suspects it will be sunseted soon as a newer, more sophisticated surveillance system becomes ready. A Yahoo style security breach will flush everybody off FB and onto a shiny platform with exciting new bells and whistles...</comment>


Problematic traits in Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://jlouisramblings.blogspot.com/2013/07/problematic-traits-in-erlang.html

<comment><USER2> > Erlang is interpreted.

I was under the impression it was compiled into .beam files. Is this just a subtle point that I'm missing somewhere?

<comment><USER3> Yes, and the .beam files are interpreted (i.e. they are not native code).

There is a native-code compiler (HiPE). I'm not sure how "much" it compiles the code (e.g. whether type-dispatch code remains or not).</comment></comment>


The guy who wrote 'The Revenant' novel has a seriously impressive day job - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.de/michael-punke-revenant-author-works-for-the-world-trade-organization-2016-2 <comment> amar-singh Hi,

'The Revenant' seriously a fantastic book also the movie and this book honoured by leo's performance. hats off leo on winning oscar. Truely you deserve this award.</comment>


The Greek Paper: Policy Commitments and Actions for EC/ECB/IMF [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://s.kathimerini.gr/resources/article-files/h-ellhnikh-protash.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the full paper as submitted and not excerpts being discussed in various outlets.

It is interestingly close to the old troika demands, but has a few key changes and reforms suggested by the greek side.

They acknowledged a full pension reform, which will affect even the poor, but the IWF promised a backup up to 300 eur, an essential minimal income.

VAT reform also almost as demanded. It will (i) unify the rates at a standard 23%, which will include restaurants and catering, and a reduced 13 % for basic food, energy, hotels (!), and water (excluding sewage), and a super-reduced rate of 6 percent for pharmaceuticals, books (!), and theater(!); (ii) streamline exemptions to broaden the base and raise the tax on insurance; and (iii) Eliminate discounts on islands, starting with the islands with higher incomes and which are the most popular tourist destinations, except the most remote ones. Minimum VAT on essential goods such as books and theatres? This looks very interesting. The greek variant of "panes et circensem".

The Fiscal part, Tax administration and the Public Administration, Justice and Anti Corruption part seems to be taken from the new finance minister. Close the holes, make the reforms (at least in legislation), cut military spending by €100 million in 2015 and by €200 million in 2016.</comment>


Show HN: Coolpoints - Creativity becomes currency. - <AUTHOR> http://coolpoints.net

<comment><USER2> But what can I buy with my internet points?

<comment><USER3> You can do anything with your internet points on zombo.com</comment></comment>


FREE 30 Day Startup Sales Success Email Course - <AUTHOR> http://close.io/free-sales-course/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, author of the course here. Would love to hear your thoughts/ideas on what you would like to learn about Startup Sales.

Here is the kind of feedback I've been hearing from Founders/Startup Sales people who have signed up for the course so far (we launched it a week ago):

"I don't think I've ever been so engaged with a mailing list content marketing before. Good stuff, and I can't wait to get more :D"</comment>


Ask HN: Can ISP see what you're doing through a proxy server? - <AUTHOR>

If I use an IP:Port proxy server to connect to the internet, I'm aware that the destination server (website) doesn't exactly know it's me, but can my ISP know what site I went to?
What would an ISP see if I connect to the internet through a proxy server I've set up on ec2 or something?
Lastly, if my ISP can actually see what I'm doing, is there a way to hide from them (e.g. does connecting through an HTTPS proxy hide what I do)?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> > If I use an IP:Port proxy server to connect to the internet, I'm aware that > the destination server (website) doesn't exactly know it's me, but can my > ISP know what site I went to?

Yes, of course. And if your proxy server pattern is in any way predictable, and in particular if you ever visit a site where you need to sign in, then they have everything -- who you are, and where you went.

Also, a proxy server doesn't undermine cookie tracking. The cookie scheme doesn't care what your IP is, only that you have the right cookies, so this undermines the goal of anonymity.

Also, if for the sake of argument you encrypt everything, and if later on the police want to know what actually happened, they can try to force you to unencrypt your communications (or grant permission for experts to do so). In a recent landmark case, the police tried to make a child pornography suspect provide a password to unencrypt what might have been incriminating files of alleged child pornography. This effort ultimately failed (and the police decrypted the drives by brute force), but it indicates the direction things are going.

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/feds-crack- encrypte...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/feds-crack-encrypted- drives/)

> Lastly, if my ISP can actually see what I'm doing, is there a way to hide > from them (e.g. does connecting through an HTTPS proxy hide what I do)?

There are intermediaries that scramble your transactions, encrypt them, so the content cannot be monitored. Others randomly route your traffic in such a way that it becomes very difficult to trace. Here's one example:

[https://www.torproject.org/](https://www.torproject.org/)

As to https, it's a suitable level of encryption for everyday matters, but it's not unbreakable, so if there's anything that might come back to bite you, don't rely on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wonderful answer, thanks! I'm a bit weary of using Tor (it may be an irrational fear, but I don't do anything that requires that level of encryption).

But as far as proxies are concerned, would a VPN be better of than some of the other methods (other than Tor)?

<comment><USER2> > would a VPN be better of than some of the other methods (other than Tor)?

Yes, if competently encrypted. But that only addresses content, not routing.</comment></comment></comment>


Steve Wozniak is not boring - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/blob/master/pkg/namesgenerator/names-generator.go#L83

<comment><USER2> For the nontechnical out there:

This is a random name generator that pairs adjectives with names (e.g. "angry_einstein").

In the unlikely chance the generator returns the pair "boring_wozniak", it discards it and generates another name.

</comment><comment><USER3> A good example of companies and open source projects having a little humour and showing that they're human too.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can we say something about using goto?

<comment><USER5> or a loop that is not guaranteed to end?

<comment><USER6> PRNGs don't work that way. They have periods over which all possible output values are produced, close to an equal number of times. Even when producing tuples, we know that this won't loop forever.

<comment><USER5> You know that, because you already know how "rand" is implemented

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this a reference to some earlier comment? Or just a general shout out to a hero of the programmer?

<comment><USER8> Read the source - it's a random name generator that pairs adjectives + names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Inspirational for sure but never boring.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice touch.</comment>


Carl Page, Larry's brother, is in a club of billionaires hoping to stop Trump - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/844487/meet-the-leader-of-a-billionaires-club-determined-to-stop-trump-from-destroying-the-world/ <comment><USER2> If they would just fix gerrymandering which I imagine both sides agree with fixing. People probably wouldn't need to worry about trump.</comment>