Ask HN: Fastest Web Framework? Rails, Django, Node.js, ASP.NET, PHP on HHVM - <AUTHOR> I have to create a SaaS. What backend should I choose?
Which one's the fastest in terms of processor performance? Something which will let me scale with minimum hardware.
I have to stick with the one that I choose as this is something which can't be changed later; like Facebook got stuck with PHP. <comment><USER2> The new kid on the block is Go. It has a lot of the features that frameworks claim baked into the language. The only caveat I can think of is how new the environment is.

Google [1] and Dropbox [2] have started using it successfully. And we all know the scale at which they operate.

Another thing to consider is this will provide a back end and allow you to use any type of front end that you wish.

[1]: [https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article](https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article)

[2]: [https://tech.dropbox.com/2014/07/open-sourcing-our-go- librar...](https://tech.dropbox.com/2014/07/open-sourcing-our-go-libraries/)

<comment><USER3> Go is nowhere near as fast as Rails to get something off the ground and running. Go is great and my other workhorse language, but don't lie to OP.

<comment><USER4> From OP:

"Which one's the fastest in terms of processor performance? Something which will let me scale with minimum hardware."

Getting off the ground and running quickly was not a requirement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They all have plus/minus. It is hard to say without knowledge of your app. You say in terms of CPU, but all have different characteristics.

We use node extensively, great overall for quick to market and i/o type operations but requires some decent design choices to make it perform and easily maintainable.

PHP is good and you see tons of very scalable sites using it. It has issues, and done poorly (like anything) it can be a real bitch to deal with.

ASP.NET is the last one I would ever use at this point (although I spent years writing large systems in it). Mostly because of cost to deploy and scaling it can be a royal pain in the ass on top of expensive. Not that it can't be done, and done big and good. Just expensive to me compared to the other options.

Rails, I don't do anything with today. Not a bad platform from my understanding, quick to market, but generally not thought of for high performance applications. But again, design probably is the biggest factor here.

Frankly if I needed all out CPU performance for say an image filter or something along those lines, I'd write that functionality in C/C++ and connect it to any one of those frameworks. At which point I'd pick the web framework that got me to market the fastest.

If you have someone else building it, make sure they pick the one they are best in, or seek them out for being the best at what they do. Don't go to an ASP.NET shop and ask them to do it in Rails because you think that is the right framework. They might be able to do it, but unless the framework is a core competency it will never be as good as it should be.

</comment><comment><USER6> this might help, it provides benchmarks for most of the popular frameworks: [http://www.techempower.com/blog/2014/05/01/framework- benchma...](http://www.techempower.com/blog/2014/05/01/framework-benchmarks- round-9/)

If you're going to hire someone to do it, asking them what their preference is might be better than saying, "We're going to use x."

<comment><USER7> >If you're going to hire someone to do it, asking them what their preference is might be better than saying, "We're going to use x."

YES! This. I wouldn't worry so much about which framework is the "best". They are all good. I would say it is more important to find a programer(s) that you "click" with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is like asking "I need to commute to work, what car should I drive?."

There are many factors at play with creating and running a SaaS-based business, and often technology plays a minor role. Even less important is how fast your chosen backend runs.

By the time you run into a technical scaling problem where you are stuck with a less-than-optimal solution, you've already solved much, much harder problems like finding customers, scaling a team, raising money, etc.

So decide how big your org will get, look at the skill sets of developers available in your local area, and partner with someone that has experience with both. Then let them make the decision on the tech and trust them.

Then you can focus your energy and attention on what's really important for your new business.

</comment><comment><USER9> First of all:

Rails is a framework

Django is a framework

Node.JS is a platform/framework

ASP.NET is not a framework, but a language

PHP is not a framework but a language, HHVM is a platform

That being said: you did not specify what exactly you are planing to do. For most scenarios, the choice of the environment doesn't really matter. What DOES matter is that you find someone that is proficient, has experience and knows the pros/cons in whatever framework he is using.

If you really need minimal memory and CPU footprint, i'd suggest you choose Go.

<comment><USER10> >ASP.NET is not a framework, but a language

C# and VB.NET are languages. ASP.NET is a framework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Since you mentioned Django, why not try out Flask?

[http://www.jeffknupp.com/blog/2014/01/18/python-and-flask- ar...](http://www.jeffknupp.com/blog/2014/01/18/python-and-flask-are- ridiculously-powerful/)

</comment><comment><USER12> A lot of your performance problems are more likely to be database related, assuming you use one. Add in caching and things can improve. It will depend a lot on what you are doing.

</comment><comment><USER13> shouldn't you pick the one that you are the strongest at?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to hire a developer experienced in the backend, not create myself.

<comment><USER14> If you're hiring local look into what is popular in the area. Where I am it's C# or Java. Anything else and you'll have a hard time finding talent.

<comment><USER7> This is good advice. All the frameworks are good.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Loop: Elliptical Pool - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/11/elliptic-pool-loop-round-billiard-table/ <comment><USER2> A background article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10100979](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10100979).

</comment><comment><USER3> I would love to play this. It looks like it has _just_ the right amount of frustration mixed with a clever and simple bank shot setup to keep me playing.

The pocket ("hole"?) must've been stolen from a carnival game or something :).

</comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of Cowboy ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_pool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_pool))

The table seems pretty small, anyone know the dimensions?

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't see the "geeky" aspect of it. It reminds me of golf + pool.. neither of which are geeky.

</comment><comment><USER6> They should have made it a real ellipse.

<comment><USER7> In what sense? I was under the assumption that they had.

<comment><USER6> Isn't it a perfect circle ?

<comment><USER7> No, it has two foci—that's the point of the table. One focus is a hole, so a ball hit from the other focus will always bounce towards the hole. That's the diagram at the top of the page.

<comment><USER6> Ha, I thought it was a pool term...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Real Reason Jeff Bezos Grinds Trump's Gears - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-18/the-real-reason-jeff-bezos-grinds-trump-s-gears <comment><USER2> Journalists should be beside themselves with gratitude for Trump - he both delivers compelling subject matter and gives them a perfect target for their sneering pomposity.</comment>


Ask HN: How to be a good mentee? - <AUTHOR> I've lost touch after not having a mentor for the past 3 years. Looking for tips on how be a good mentee, what to look for when searching for a mentor and how to ask for help appropriately. <comment><USER2> Who were your previous mentors?

Why are they no longer?

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> I moved countries. They didn't.

<comment><USER2> Why not ask them for advice?</comment></comment></comment>


Sooner Than You Think, We Will Connect To The Cloud Directly From Our Brains - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/3027984/sooner-than-you-think-we-will-connect-to-the-cloud-directly-from-our-brains

<comment><USER2> You know what will make me cry in the future? The current generation has trouble picking up books, staying away from screens and focusing. Many of us have learned in this traditional path of, search, research/read, analyze, practice, repeat. When the generation that has such a feature existing where they don't even need to open a book for knowledge or pull out their phones I will cry, not from jealousy because of the way we have spent learning but because of the way they have not. The lack of need to actually gain information will be destroyed. Who will need school (except for when the wifi is out)? Who will needs real hard cover books? What will happen to the constantly connected brains...</comment>


Website Builder Webflow (YC S13) to Exceed $200M Valuation in New Funding - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/website-builder-webflow-to-exceed-200-million-valuation-in-new-funding?pu=hackernewsqf889u&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock <comment><USER2> Congrats. They deserve it.

Even though my company focuses on front-end dev, we still use webflow for our marketing website because it's _that_ easy.

They're by far the closest to achieving what Dreamweaver once set out to. Works best when used for marketing websites and when mixed with a basic respect for CSS.

(1) Idea > (2) Make page in something that feels like figma/sketch > (3) Publish ... is such a pleasant workflow.

<comment><USER3> Webflow seems like a perfect acquisition for Microsoft to take on Adobe. I agree, it is the modern Dreamweaver.

Microsoft could, in one week, acquire Serif (Affinity), Black Magic (Davinci Resolve), Webflow, photopea.com, squarespace and have a day 1 full feature competitor to Adobe Creative Cloud. Microsoft Creator 365.

Im kind of shocked they have moved into the marketing cloud sector against Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle, but ignored creative tools while allowing companies like Serif to reinvent themselves overnight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FYI: the information in this article is inaccurate. See the August 7th Forbes article for the correct information:

* [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2019/08/07/webflow-w...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2019/08/07/webflow-went-from-near-bankruptcy-to-72-million-series-a/)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20636476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20636476)

</comment><comment><USER5> We tried and used Webflow extensively in our company for about 2 years. It was great for most tasks and we could get up and running fairly quickly. Sadly our UI dev team never fell in love with it and slowly but surely Webflow faded to the background. I noticed our subscription had run out a couple of months ago and nobody had since complained. Brilliant piece of software, however if you are someone who operates on the code level, never quite good enough.

</comment><comment><USER6> Webflow was definitely a gamechanger in terms of All-in-one CMS. It lacks a thousand features, but the core value of the product is just too good: Creating new pages in a few minutes (with reusing lots of components), hand it over to the content team, you're done...

</comment><comment><USER7> Congrats! Used webflow for 2 yrs to launch my last startup. That was 4 years ago. And now using it again for the next one. The CMS is new and what a wonderful thing it is. Love the thought they put into releasing very polished product. Great work!</comment>


Ask HN: Topics for an introductory distributed systems course? - <AUTHOR> Hello!
I'm a Scala software developer interested in knowing more about the theory behind Distributed Systems. One of the things that I want to do this year is to learn the topic by sharing what I learned in form of a course.
I have the following material to start:
- An introduction to distributed systems by Kyle Kingsbury (https://github.com/aphyr/distsys-class/blob/master/README.markdown)
- Distributed Systems for fun and profit by Mikito Takada (http://book.mixu.net/distsys/)
- Designing Data intensive Applications by Martin Klepmann (https://dataintensive.net/)
I have references of papers authored by Leslie Lamport and some of his theory (CAP Theorem, Clocks).
My questions are: which topics are the "essentials" for an introductory course? And what other materials could you recommend?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> You cannot teach distributed systems without messaging (disclaimer: i am a zeromq contributor):

[https://dzone.com/articles/distributed-systems- zeromq](https://dzone.com/articles/distributed-systems-zeromq)

[http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all](http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.</comment></comment>


Ceptre: A Language for Modeling Generative Interactive Systems - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cmartens/ceptre.pdf

<comment><USER2> Url changed from [http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5216](http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/node/5216), which points to this.</comment>


Show HN: Honest Valentine's Day cards - <AUTHOR> https://www.punchycards.com/valentines-day <comment><USER2> These made me laugh. Wish they had more options though.. "I hate having to like you on a schedule - can we just have Valentine's Day every day?" Or, better still, "I don't really like you today, but I like you most days"

</comment><comment><USER3> Beside the obvious advertising for the site, is there a particular tech I missed ?

<comment><USER4> Love is the best tech </comment></comment>


Show HN: Chat Correct (for English learners) - <AUTHOR> http://www.chat-correct.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Built the site with Rails and WebSockets. I hope to add WebRTC video soon. I teach some English lessons through Skype and I wanted a chat client that I could easily show my students their mistakes (and if I add video something that could completely replace Skype for teachers and students). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

<comment><USER2> It doesn't recognise the following sentence as incorrect - "George and me went to the shops"

It should be - "George and I went to the shops"</comment></comment>


Lawsuit between origami enthusiasts unfolds - <AUTHOR> http://www.scpr.org/programs/madeleine-brand/2012/06/11/26899/lawsuit-between-origami-enthusiasts-unfolds/

<comment><USER2> This debate reminds me of the battle over an 8-bit remix of the cover of Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" [1]. The discussion here at that time [2] was strongly in favor of the person doing the repurposing, with folks bemoaning the fact that the original photographer would (ab)use the legal system for such a trivial matter.

Why is everyone now on the side of the original content creator, despite the fact that (unlike "Kind of Blue") Lang's crease patterns aren't culturally revered, nor were they ever reserved for commercial use?

[1] <http://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2687950>

<comment><USER3> I can only answer for myself, but in the case of the 8-bit remixes, I felt they were like a parody of the original and should be protected on that basis. Plus, they did do a transformation that made them original.

Looking at this case, it really doesn't look like she did much of anything. They are not a new medium and seem quite like a small alteration. If it was a painting of the final origami then I would be all for the defense (change in medium always struck me as good enough), but it isn't.

<comment><USER4> They paid the mechanical royalties on the score for the music. It's absolutely allowed on that basis.

The whole kerfuffle was with the cover art, which was not licensed, and Jay Meisel has said the he would not license. It's unclear if he would have prevailed in court, but that was potentially far more expensive for both parties than the settlement that wound up happening.

<comment><USER3> I was referring to the cover art, not the music. In my mind it was a parody of the original and should have been fine. The new cover art fit the transformative definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The posted article doesn't have examples of the copied art, but this page does: [http://www.langorigami.com/copyright/sarah_morris_copyright_...](http://www.langorigami.com/copyright/sarah_morris_copyright_infringement.php)

It's not a matter of similarity, or independent creation - The painter Sarah Morris directly copied the original artist's work, removed the lines and colored in the voids.

Since there's no question that copying took place, the case will hinge on whether the copying was "fair use" - that's where the issue of whether the copying was "transformative" comes in.

<comment><USER6> It's especially interesting given that Lang has exhibited his crease patterns - though not as standalone images, judging from what he shows; he's very aware that it's a precursor to a model.

Morris is copying his crease patterns and treating them as an end in themselves; the way she turns them into abstract color fields is very different from what Lang has done with them. Although on the other hand I will quite happily bag on people like Shepard Fairey (the Obey Giant dude) for tracing images without attribution.

I dunno, I've got some of Lang's books in my library, he is amazing and I totally respect him as an artist, but I think that Morris is doing something interesting here too. Citing her sources would help a lot though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For reference, Robert Lang is not just some origami guy who happens to use computers; he's one of the foremost origami-math guys [0] and one of the pioneers in computer-designed origami.

In his books, he typically has both detailed step-by-step instructions for each model, as well as an "overview" image that shows where all of the creases will end up on the original sheet of paper (seen in image 3 and 7 at the top of the article, as well as example [1]); it's paintings of some of these overview images that are in question. He seems to treat both those overview images and the final products as art, not mere "instructions", in prior interviews (they are actually quite useless as instructions.)

This will be a critical point in the case: do the crease overview images count as art? If so, Lang has a certain amount of say-so in how they are used.

[0] he authored the proof of completeness of the Huzita-Hatori axioms: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huzita%E2%80%93Hatori_axioms> [1] <http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/17/Scorpion.jpg>

<comment><USER8> I think Lang is going to lose, and here is why.

The artist looked at his crease patterns and painted them. His work created color symmetries in a field of symmetries. The colors bring their own message to the art. Had he taken a couple of Lang's folded animals (or folded one himself or had it folded) then set it on a table with some fruit or even by itself, painted it as 'still' art, the artist has created new art.

When you paint a scene in the park, and you paint in the people who are sitting around enjoying the park, you don't have to get signed releases from them to paint them into your painting, even if someone who was at the park might recognize themselves or someone they know by a particular geometry that person has and what they were wearing that day.

My belief is that no jury in the world is going to look at Lang's actual folded stuff, and see this abstract pattern stuff, and say there was infringement.

<comment><USER9> In the US, you can take a recognizable photo and benefit from its exhibition as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Going through the actual complaint (<http://bayoaklaw.com/FAC.pdf>) shows 20 complaints from various origami artists. Each one is obviously taken from the origami designs, but each one is significantly transformed by the painter. I would call this fair use.

Our cultural heritage is being strangled enough due to overly strict copyright. We don't need to add to it.

<comment><USER7> Sections 27-28 outline an important part of the complaint:

[fragmented quote] Morris has claimed in interviews and promotional materials that the Origami series is based on "found diagrams," "found designs," and "traditional origami diagrams." ..... Morris has created confusion as to the authorship of Plaintiffs' Works [/quote]

Copyright law explicitly grants rights holders the right to be _credited_ for their work. So even if the concept of "transformativeness" [0] holds (which I'm not convinced of), I suspect Morris' failure to credit the original authors will be ruled as a violation of copyright.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformativeness>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a person who spends all day looking at contemporary art as my job, everyone in my field considers this lawsuit totally insane. The way Sarah Morris's audience (and she has a very big one) approaches her work has absolutely nothing to do with the way Lang's work is approached. Unless origami masters are using terms like "endgame", "the death of painting," or "the history of abstraction."

Fine art is really about invisible distinctions between existing objects, the difference between Duchamp's urinal and any other urinal. Contextualizing something in a contemporary art museum, even a much more direct appropriation than this, radically transforms it. In my view, applying intellectual property violations to contemporary artworks is at least as insane as any of the software patent shenanigans we have seen. No one is happening upon Morris's work and thinking she is a great origami designer.

<comment><USER12> Who decides when something is fine art?

Why would that give someone a pass on copyright law that would, were the copy not deemed fine art, get someone in a mess of legal trouble?

I see a weird connection here with claims of exemptions to copyright violations from people saying that the avi file they have is really just a very large integer.

<comment><USER13> As iffy as the "is it art" question can be, I think it is safe to assume that if it is on display as art, as these paintings were, then it is art. Being on display makes it clear the intent was for it to be art, which should be enough to answer any legal questions in which "artness" is a factor.

<comment><USER11> Yes. At the margins, it's a complicated argument. But many people and institutions have purchased Morris's work for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and she has shown all over the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Robert Lang's work is jaw dropping - Here is his TED talk [http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.html)

<comment><USER15> Just... wow! I had no idea origami had progressed that far. The animals are so life-like, it's a bit creepy. All the practical applications of the folding principals are very interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not strictly between origami artists, though; between an origami artist (Lang) and a painter. She painted his crease patterns, well-recognizable, with one or two changes that my eye parses as annoyingly illegal.

If you're not into origami, you may think a crease pattern is just an unintended byproduct -- what you happen to get when you unfold a model. This isn't the case, as the article explains. These things are carefully designed, and are the heart of the engineering process. Models in books or on display sometimes come with diagrams of the pattern. Receiving a model as a gift, one may very well unfold it flat to look at the crease pattern and see how it was done.

So I guess this is sort of like finding a pretty geometric pattern in someone's source code (that they put there!), and painting it.

I think it's too much of a shortcut to just take his crease patterns without attribution. She's an artist; she can learn the art and make her own. It's not as though it's a unique insight on her part that the useful patterns are beautiful in an abstract, geometric way. We (origami enthusiasts) all think they are. The paintings are beautiful and intriguing, but the art that makes them so isn't hers; it's Lang's.

I'm all for remixing and free information, but . . . I think at a minimum, attribution would be polite.

<comment><USER17> To be fair, the piece makes no mention of both of the artists as 'origami artists'. The title depicts them as 'origami enthusiasts'. To be fair I initially had a bit of a problem with the description, but then I read the materials concerning Lang's claim and I will agree that the artist somewhat of a origami admirer (so the title is correct).

Though, I absolutely agree that at a minimum, permission and attribution would be polite. I can't imagine on what ground the painter thinks they are standing on, as the 'inspiration' is so overwhelmingly overt. But as an origami 'enthusiast' myself, I'll watch this with an interested and slightly sad eye.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> She should have mentioned his name as source material. I don't think royalties or anything were in order, but his name should've been there as a matter of courtesy.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a fascinating case.

There is no question in my mind that the resulting origami is art. There is no question in my mind that the paintings are art. The question is whether the crease pattern is fundamentally a copyrightable work, or a set of mechanical instructions. Software copyright exists in a similar space, and I'd be interested to hear a real lawyer comment on the parallels.

</comment><comment><USER20> While the article has parallels in software copyright, I +1'd this post because it has the best title ever.

<comment><USER21> Some stories exist just to give pleasure to headline writers.

I'm not planning to commit murder, but if I ever do I'm going to decapitate the corpse and stash the headless body in a topless bar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reminds me of Andy Warhol's use of soup cans, except the subject of the art is itself an "art".

<comment><USER23> Agreed, and if Roy Lichtenstein got away with his comic book reproductions I don't see how this lawsuit can be supported

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I feel like legally, Lang will probably lose. Morris made paintings of patterns than were meant to be transformed, in essence turning the scaffolding of a piece of art into a piece of art itself. My guess is that this is enough for the work to be considered her own.

From a non-legal standpoint, it's pretty sleazy to take someone's design, paint over it exactly (with some color modifications) and not give that person any amount of credit. Did she transform it? Perhaps. But she didn't just get inspiration from it, she literally used the design, verbatim, as her own. I take issue with this.

I'm all for people using each other's work and art progressing as a whole, but I also think it's bad form to not give credit where it's due. I definitely think this is a case where it's due.

I'm interested to see what the courts think, although something tells me it won't get to court.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think it is instructive to look at Duchamp in this context. In a very clear sense, the transformative with regard to art lies in changing it's meaning. However, this can be a very subtle thing. And it may be that the subtlety is not realised or played out in the way the artist intends, or in the way that the viewer receives it. This could then boil down to a matter of quality, or strength. It is not even that simple. If Duchamp's early forays into 'readymades' had been slapped with lawsuits, we may never have had 'the fountain'.

</comment><comment><USER26> I see no difference in a visual representation of a crease pattern and a photograph of one. So I would treat the suit just like any case where a photographer believes an artist has made a derivative work from his photograph. Usually, an abstract painter would not be concerned with such things, and so maybe that is why she is having a problem understanding the crease pattern author's complaint.

</comment><comment><USER27> She took someone else's artwork and coloured inside the lines like paint by numbers. I'm not really sure what the legal ramifications are, but it definitely seems like a cheap and possibly fraudulent way to make art.

Can I really just take someone else's artwork, change the colours around, and then call it my own and sell it in a gallery?

<comment><USER28> Duchamp put his signature on an urinal in 1917. Magritte replaced people on "the balcony" with coffins in 1950. I don't even need to mention "las meninas" by Picasso, or Warhol paintings, etc. For 100 years, it's been standard practice for artists to copy, parody and work from others' works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> They could have included a photo of this origami piece the whole article is all about. Oh wait...

</comment><comment><USER30> >Reporter Sanden Totten takes us inside a dispute between and origami maker and a painter.

How hard is it to proofread the introduction to an article?

</comment><comment><USER31> ceci n'est pas une origami

</comment><comment><USER32> Someone should break into the gallery in pink-panther style, fold up one of the paintings along the crease lines, then sign it and number it with their own telephone number and leave it on display in the middle of the floor. That would definitely count as transformative art.</comment>


Co-op that blocked the sale of .org plan to democratise parts of the internet - <AUTHOR> https://coop.exchange/blog/7062477b-9e8d-11ea-b711-06ceb0bf34bd/the-co-op-that-blocked-the-sale-of-the-org-domain-to-private-equity-has-a-plan-to-democratise-large-parts-of-the-internet <comment><AUTHOR> CCOR site: [https://www.ccor.org/](https://www.ccor.org/)</comment>


React Inline Styles and the Future of CSS - <AUTHOR> https://blog.formidable.com/react-inline-styles-and-the-future-of-css-cbc85e74bc42#.9v8fasnhn <comment><USER2> I wonder if we're making out CSS to be harder than it is. Yes, there are difficulties and common problems in practice, but news tool and approaches introduce their own. The biggest of these: overhead in the form of tooling, performance and a higher barrier to entry.

Consider the cases where CSS's common painpoints are maximized: complex pages with a lot of (3rd party) components. Does the added cleverness of the tools make that much difference, or does ultimately, a complex page come with unavoidable challenges by definition? So far I'm not completely convinced that the value-add is big enough to warrant such a different approach.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't forget cache.

Using style=`...` in the HTML, although delivered in a scalable manner will lead to huge HTML size and no caching on the CSS ( e.g. external CSS files will be cached if the user loads another page, that uses it ).

This might be okay for a single page application, but indeed having the browser to re-compile the CSS in the inlines every time you do unmount a React component is another performance hit.

I don't like the idea at all.</comment>


The AntiPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.uncrate.com/men/gear/netbooks/asus-eeekeyboard/ <comment><USER2> I really appreciate the innovation in this product. It might need a number of iterations though before they get a really good product out of it.

<comment><USER3> Presumably there will be a wireless HDMI dongle so you can pop down by any screen, plug in the wireless dongle and use that screen with your keyboard computer ("keyPad"? "netboard"?).

As for iterations, when I can fold it and put it in my pocket ...

I don't really see how this is better than having a netbook or in a static setup having a wireless keyboard with a touchpad ([http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003GU1028?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003GU1028?ie=UTF8&tag=flapjacktasti-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003GU1028) , aff).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a little nostalgic coming from C64/Apple II days having a keyboard+computer in one, but this doesn't make sense anymore. Once you consider the cost of a display, why not just get a netbook or a nettop with display? Even in a developing market, this is pointless.

<comment><USER5> Funny you mention C64, there's a commodore branded thing that's similar coming out soon:

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/25/commodore_64_redux/>

<comment><USER6> Just to be clear, that's not really a Commodore-branded machine. Some hoaxer took pictures of another company's product (an all-in-one keyboard-computer meant to be used for Point-of-Sales systems) and threw up a poorly designed website claiming it was made by Commodore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

In all seriousness, this is awesome, but...at a price $100 higher than the entry-level iPad, it's hard to justify. I was super-excited for that Optimus keyboard, too, but at the end of the day, they're both keyboards, even if they do crazy stuff on top of it.

<comment><USER8> "Ultra Wide Band transmitter and external receiver for sending audio and video to a TV wirelessly, b/g/n Wi-Fi, ..., Bluetooth"

<comment><USER9> I don't think you're getting the reference..

<http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Windows XP? I'd like to see android running on there! :)

<comment><USER11> Right. Would be good to be able to mount a phone in a keyboard, and to hook up an external monitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like this. I'm thinking: what if the iMacs shipped with a keyboard like that, basically one with an integrated iPod Touch style device where the numeric keypad usually goes?

I suppose the most obvious use would be for programs to delegate some controls onto that touchpad. For instance, sliders for an audio mixing program. The rest of the time it could just be a keypad or collection of shortcuts. Or maybe a good place for notifications/readouts like newsfeeds, tweets, system monitoring, etc.

Can anyone think of more innovative uses?

</comment><comment><USER13> Was sad to see it run Windows

</comment><comment><USER14> Give me this combined with glasses that project the screen image and I won't touch a laptop ever again.

<comment><USER15> Me neither. Add 3-D to the glasses and hand gesture recognition. To me, much more powerful than a jumbo-sized iPod

<comment><USER16> [http://hollywoodhatesme.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/johnny_m...](http://hollywoodhatesme.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/johnny_mnemonic_3.jpg)

:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have for years contemplated buying a mac mini to hook up to my plasma TV, but I just haven't been able to justify the cost when I can just hook my laptop up to it. When I heard about this Asus keyboard/computer a couple years back I got pretty excited, especially about the wireless transmitting to a display.

Now I own an iPad and the appeal of surfing the web on my plasma greatly diminished for me. As for watching internet video like Hulu, I think I'm just gonna get myself one of these Henge (<http://www.hengedocks.com/>) docks and save myself the $600.

</comment><comment><USER17> It looks awkward with the screen on the right. I'd like to see one with a split ergonomic keyboard with the screen in the middle.

<comment><USER18> That's not the screen on the right. That's a touch pad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> $600?

I wish someone would just make an electronic wifi typewriter. Full-size laptop chassis, 7" screen, space for spare batteries if you want. The bare-bones model with 4 hours battery life and a 400mhz processor could easily clock in at $100. For $200 on top of that in batteries and solar, 20 hours would certainly be in reach.

</comment><comment><USER20> This has been in development for well over a year. Very disappointed it's going to hit at a whopping $600. That's way overpriced for an Atom CPU. This was supposed to be $400 originally, I think.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there an extremely lightweight screen to go with this? I'd love to have a very lightweight computer that I can carry around. I would then Remote Desktop onto the beast running at home.

<comment><USER3> Microprojectors are pretty light weight and luggable, YMMV (a lot).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I seldom downvote, but here I could not resist to take a point from everyone who did not read the article and mistook the touch pad for the screen.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think i want a 1200x300 display above the keys. Split into three tabs, and i could almost edit code and open a terminal to fix a server or two.

<comment><USER3> I remember electronic typewriters like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Put the screen on the _other_ side of the keyboard and I might go for it. I cram my neck the other way. That's where my 2nd monitor is.

<comment><USER18> That's not the screen on the right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I got a sore neck just looking at the picture of that thing. I'm surprised that anyone thought such a device would sell.

<comment><USER18> Why? Having a touchpad to the right doesn't seem like something that's bad for your neck. You are supposed to hook it up with a monitor.

Go, read the text in the article.

<comment><USER24> OK, I'm gonna change the subject and complain that this thing is not suitable for left handers. Yep, that'll do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> By mistake I first read ant-iPad and was confused :)</comment>


Raspberry Pi announcement on Wed 29th Feb at 6am GMT - <AUTHOR> http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/716

<comment><USER2> I'm really looking forward to these shipping. The combination of high-quality graphics and networking will make it easy to build lightweight graphic displays and integrations with other physical devices. I'm thinking an HDMI dongle for making displays like Panic built ( <http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/03/the-panic-status-board/> ) but self- contained and configured from the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER3> 2/29 is a good date. 3/14 would have been much more in tune with the Raspberry Pi name.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be pretty damn cool.

If it weren't for the army of geeks with internet pitchforks :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know how they are planning to sell off the first batch?

If they do anything besides some manner of dutch auction they will be leaving a lot of money on the table for enterprising folks to pick up by reselling them on eBay.

<comment><AUTHOR> Between the one-per-person limit for the first batch and moving to rolling production fairly quickly, the eBay inflation factor should be cut to a minimum.

The first batch of 10000 Model B's will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The website is going to buckle under the pressure unfortunately :(

Really looking forward to getting my hands on one though, although I doubt I'll be quick enough to snap one up from the first batch

<comment><USER6> They did also put out a call for mirrors recently for their OS image download. Possibly part of that effort went to distributing load for the shopping cart app. <http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/683>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Curious - if the announcement is going to be "the store is now open" why don't they just say now "the store will be open on Wednesday at 6am?"

<comment><USER8> There are multiple replies to tweets asking this same question, all of which cite "arcane contract requirements" as to blame for the secrecy.

<comment><USER6> They very likely have contract stipulations with suppliers / distributors / fulfillment service preventing Raspberry from committing to product availability at certain datetime, before said suppliers are indeed ready to go.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Scholarref tools – never deal with journal webpages again - <AUTHOR> https://adamsgaard.dk/scholarref.html <comment><USER2> > clicking the "Download PDF" link should redirect the user to an unusable in- > browser PDF viewer

Pro tip: in Elsevier's case, middle-click the "Download PDF" link so it opens in a new tab. Briefly avoid switching to that tab until it does some redirects. Voilà, you get the actual PDF instead of the stupid viewer.

This looks like fantastic software btw, I wish more people would release their tools as old school POSIX-style shell scripts instead of asking for hundreds of MBs of dependencies or fancy electron GUIs.

<comment><USER3> Which browser are you using for the Elsevier trick? This doesn't work for me in Firefox.

Edit: Middle click doesn't work for me in Firefox, but opening in a new tab via the right-click menu does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very neat, when I was writing my thesis I used zotero and its firefox downloader plugin which was a heck of a lot better than dealing with the biography process manually but still fairly manual (then again, so is the process of finding references... I don't understand why, in 2019, people don't include a DOI in their references) but this seems better still. That said, this implementation in particular would not have worked well for me since, at least for the journals I frequent, availability on scihub is patchy and even for the journals which do have good coverage it takes a while for articles to show up. Zotero has connectors for those journals and the auto-downloader works pretty well until the journal rate limits you and requires a captcha for each download.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a refugee from the late, lamented CiteULike.

I have tried to like zotero and mendeley, but neither of them grab me like C-U-L did.

Dinosaur that I am, I am currently using JabRef to maintain a BibTeX database, semi-manually.

Now I'm going to have to play around with the ScholarRef scripts to see if they replace/augment my current somewhat clunky method.

What have any other C-U-L refugees settled on?

<comment><USER6> I am also a CUL refugee who is using JabRef after trying Zotero. Would be interested to know if there are any other options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great! I did something similar for myself that also renames the input pdf file based on metadata from CrossRef. Hopefully I can get around to contributing code to this project.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great idea. Please do contribute if you get around to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm pleased to see this as I have been working on some shell scripts for managing a collection of research PDFs myself. But I think the headline's a little misleading. The scripts don't do much more to help you avoid journal webpages than feed a DOI into Sci-Hub. If the material you're collecting isn't on Sci-Hub, or breaching the publisher's copyright is likely to cause problems for you at work, then these tools aren't useful.

</comment><comment><USER9> I really love the idea of ditching reference managers. The utility of these three scripts (or something like them) really is demonstrated when on mobile.

RSS feeds, Twitter (or emails from colleagues) give me a raw list of papers to read. Using the url of whatever journal webpage as a basis it then gets converted to a doi by the Zotero translation server (hosted as a lambda on AWS). From there its the crossref API to generate a filename for the PDF, and then Elbakyan's resource to download the actual file (even though I'm usually on an academic network that has full access, the scihub api is cleaner). All this gets launched from the share sheet from the browser, and deposits files in a cloud drive.

A little bit off topic, but could anyone explain to me the actual utility of a reference manager if all your references have dois? I don't get what it provides over a folder of PDFs with annotations?

<comment><USER3> I use Zotero for references but keep the files in a separate organized directory structure, where the filenames match the citation key in Zotero. Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The largest advantage of the directories is speed. I don't need to wait for Zotero to launch, and Zotero has gotten much clunkier over the years. (I think they need to do an entire rewrite at this point.) I also have some bash aliases to, for example, open a PDF file I have in my reference folder given only the citation key.

Zotero is better for annotations, and other information associated with a citation. I make very heavy use of the related documents pane. I also often put citations in multiple folders in Zotero. That's a bit more complicated in the directories as I need to add links and then maintain the links. (I have a few shell scripts to help with the creation and maintenance of the links.)

Zotero also makes generating bibliographies in different formats easy. I normally use BibLaTeX format, but a journal I'm submitting some things to requires BibTeX. The conversion was dead simple in Zotero. If you manually curate your bibliography file then this would be a pain.

Also, I have many citations in Zotero where I don't have a copy of the document. Not all documents have DOIs, and not all documents have been digitized. I use Zotero extensively when visiting the library so I can keep track of which documents to scan.

<comment><USER10> > I use Zotero for references but keep the files in a separate organized > directory structure, where the filenames match the citation key in Zotero. > Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Why not install the Zotfile plugin [1]? You can configure it to do exactly that, and point it to a Dropbox folder to get better synchronisation between devices.

[1]: [http://zotfile.com/](http://zotfile.com/)

<comment><USER3> I wasn't aware of Zotfile. I'll take a look. Thanks. Hopefully it has some way to automatically associate with ~10,000 files...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks, it looks really helpful. I made an AUR package here: [https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/scholarref- git/](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/scholarref-git/)

</comment><comment><USER12> This looks useful but one thing I've found is that with papers with multiple meta-data sources, some sources are much better than others. That and chasing down references without DOI, probably leads me back to zotero pretty quickly.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I frequently encounter references which have no DOI and often aren't even online. A system which is based entirely around DOIs is going to be of limited utility to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> FYI Elsevier doesn't like people linking to Sci-Hub: [https://boingboing.net/2019/08/02/publicsphere-v- elsevier.ht...](https://boingboing.net/2019/08/02/publicsphere-v- elsevier.html)</comment>


What I learned from Hitch Hiking today - <AUTHOR> http://okdork.com/2007/07/19/i-hitch-hiked-today/#comment-121255 Scary stuff but interesting... <comment> daniel-cussen I wonder: is it harder to sell oneself as a hitch hiker or a web app?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> hmm...great question. at least with web app i can get my friends to use it.</comment>


Creating 3D worlds with HTML and CSS - <AUTHOR> http://keithclark.co.uk/articles/creating-3d-worlds-with-html-and-css/ <comment><USER2> This is incredible work. I've written similar abstractions for my former startup ([http://bubb.li/](http://bubb.li/) \- it'll take a while to load) which abstracted a 3D rendering engine across CSS3D, WebGL, and Flash. Unfortunately, when we launched the only platform stable enough for CSS3D were Safari & Mobile Safari and some Android (they also couldn't run any of the other aforementioned technologies at the time).

The primary issues are touch handling and clipping. The safari team nailed clipping (or they just relied on the GPU to do it for you) and touch handling has always been a little bit hit or miss, fortunately not huge for our requirements (although I did end up writing my own raycasting to compensate in some unreleased things). Chrome has been somewhat of an utter disaster with clipping and based on the current demo, still is (things flicker in and out randomly). They've come a long way (Android Chrome was locked around v18 or so for a while which was completely unusable for this sort of thing), but the fact that Chrome supports both real GPU accelerated and acceleration in software appears to have somewhat muddled their implementation.

<comment><USER3> Oh wow, Safari has indeed mastered clipping. It looks fantastic in Safari with zero issues.

Also, if you thought Chrome did clipping badly, you should try Firefox!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a very, very cool performance benchmark for CSS operations but for the love of god, don't ever even think about using it in production if there is a slightest chance a) someone else would need to maintain your code b) modify the content.

If you actually want to implement 3D graphics in production, please learn it first from a proper source.

This free online course get's you up and running on the basics of 3D graphics with WebGL: [https://www.udacity.com/course/cs291](https://www.udacity.com/course/cs291)

There are fairly decent books on WebGL available as well which also run you through the basics.

To get coherent 3D stuff going you need to actually understand what is going on at a fairly deep level, or you will just ruin everyones day who is a stakeholder in your project. Learn to use Blender at least on a rudimentary level. Learn WebGL. Figure out how to get the 3D content from Blender to your renderer. Then reconsider this.

[Note: I have a few years of professional graphics programming under my belt so I think I know what I am talking about.]

<comment><USER5> I think it would help decrease your snarkiness meter reading if you also provided some specific, constructive, criticism.

What major mistakes are the author doing due to not knowing (as you seem to infer) 3D graphics well enough?

I, for one, was impressed (after grudging a bit about the talk about rectangles in the intro, which I think should be triangles to be more specific but I could be wrong, it's been a while).

<comment><USER4> Sorry about the snarkiness, I was aiming rather for "opinionated".

IMO, there are no "mistakes" in implementing how the graphics behave as they are. I'm not putting down the author, the demo is cool like I said. No, sorry, it's friggin awesome.

But! It's not an advisable production environment prototype.

First of, the content path is a bit more non-obvious than using more established methods. The extension mechanisms to the technique, as the author himself stipulated, are quite tricky.

WebGL was created specifically for rendering 3D graphics on the browser. I'm not an expert on the exact state of the art browser rendering implementations but I would expect the OpenGL context would offer a more consistent rendering on a larger set of end user devices/browsers than depending on the correctness of implementation of CSS transitions, or, on mobile devices, at least more battery friendly.

Now, if someone is looking into implementing a realtime 3D rendering solution to ones non-hobby webpage, it would make sense to research established techniques and understanding what someone is actually doing rather than jump in with this technique since to use it properly, I think you still need to grok all the stuff about linear algebra and shading models that are exposed in a structured manned e.g. in the course I linked.

I began my computer graphics hobby stumbling with vague hacky techniques years ago until I found out there was an entire well established field that teaches and extends this stuff at which point I cursed I had not found the courses and the books earlier. Just trying to save anyone's time who finds this sort of thing fascinating.

I have known a legacy codebase that would be _a_lot_better_ in every aspect had the original authors used well known graphics concepts to structure the system rather than kludges they made up along the way while re-inventing the wheel. The core concepts in 3D graphcis are not among the most complex technical things. However, there are lots of tricks and such you either need to discover on your own or read up. If you just ignore the established literature and best practices you will probably lose a lot of time hitting your head against a wall that would have been better used in drawing pretty pictures :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OT: Anyone remember VRML?

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

<comment><USER7> I remember an online VRML pseudo-MMO that pre-dated SecondLife and friends by quite some time in the late 90s. I think it was called CyberCities or something.

I remember thinking how huge it was going to be.

<comment><USER8> I believe you're thinking of Cybertown by Blaxxun Interactive.

<comment><USER7> That's the one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is probably the most insane way I've ever seen a 3d environment created (look at the DOM), but it really is incredibly well done. The performance is of course not nearly as good as WebGL, but it is a great proof of concept and could possibly be used a a polyfill for simple 3d effects and objects in browsers where WebGL is not supported or broken.

<comment><USER3> It sure is a fun way to do things. I have my own little CSS 3D demo: [http://ajf.me/demos/200blocks](http://ajf.me/demos/200blocks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm going to offer a contrary opinion here and say that while the work is technically impressive, it's also crap. It's purely a case of "if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". It is also NOT just HTML and CSS. Most of the real work is done in JavaScript. Given that, you might get better performance writing a software rasterizer that puts the whole image into a single rectangle and put that on a single div without 3d transforms. Another more "pure" implementation would use XSLT to convert XML into SVG with 3d transforms along the way.

What we really see here is a JavaScript 3D engine with a CSS backend. Impressive - yes. A good idea - not so much.

<comment><USER11> Well...sure. The correct answer is "use WebGL, it's designed for this." Looks like the guy learned a lot about 3D engines though. His next goal (to make a CSS output for Three.js) is similarly silly, but the history of computing is full of ridiculous side projects.

<comment><USER12> The correct answer is not to use HTML5, JS and CSS whatsoever and just use proper native tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I see things like this and am immediately humbled. Impressive work, the bar just got raised a bit.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is awesome!

I guess this should be a nice test case for lots of work fixing z-indexing/z-buffering glitches for the Chrome developers, because I get constant z-fighting between the objects.

The fact that this works at all is a testament to how amazingly powerful modern DOM rendering engine are. All this from something that was initially designed to layout text on computer screen!

</comment><comment><USER15> _In many ways this makes dealing with 3D easier, as there's no complex math to deal with — just apply a CSS transform to rotate an element around an axis and you're done!_

What? Knowing how to transform each object though is the hard part - especially as scaling needs to change if you are only using rectangles. The demo is a little wonky for me but I am also on an old FF system currently so I will look again when I get home.

I think this is really cool, and could be really interesting - I am mostly wondering how you transform 3D objects into the CSS dimensions.

<comment><USER16> What I find more interesting is the intention to make a THREE.js renderer for it. It's an interesting exercise to work out how to make the 3D objects, and the lighting was particularly impressive. But presuming that something like THREE.js is available to you, then what advantage does this provide over the already available WebGL or Canvas2D renderers? Getting access to hardware accelerated texture mapping in the exceedingly rare cases where a particular browser version on a particular set of hardware with a particular OS has hardware acceleration for rendering DOM but has for some reason failed to implement--or intentionally blocked--WebGL?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is interesting - it opens up the possibility of the usual design/coding separation of concerns that web development has had entering into web browser game development.

Also, the CSS syntax seems very straightforward as compared to the WebGL I've seen, which I haven't ever really been able to understand just by glancing at it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Amazing work! I would never have imagined someone will take CSS 3D rensering this far.

Regarding scalability, my previous experiences with similar rendering techniques is that this will definitely not scale on current GPU architecture.

The problem here is that with each polygon, your GPU api performs a draw call, an expensive operation you don't want to abuse. Also, updating matrix and other uniforms with each polygon is expansive. In a certain sense, your browser has to upload your entire geometry to GPU every single frame.

I can see this approach being useful for simple scenes with relatively flat objects. For an actual 3D geometry, I would never think using this in production.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't know much about html/js or css, but I've spent decade in a video game shop (generalist).

My first impression is that there is no z-buffer (or anything like it). With this you'll end up with some objects popping in-front of others ("fighting" who to be drawn). Nothing bad with it, but subdivision helps in there. That's how the Playstation 1 used to work and many other PC chips at the time.

I haven't even dared to look at the source, because as I've said I don't know much about it (and heard of DOM, but that's about it).

But then - HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE! That's fuckin incredible!

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER20> Really cool, although it seems to break a bit in my browser(s). Chrome ran it fast with some flickering, but in firefox it was a mess -- really slow and a lot of artifacts. Anyone else see that?

<comment><USER3> I had exactly the same issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> He gave a great talk on this at the HNLondon meetup in September 2013, he was a really engaging speaker as I recall.

</comment><comment><USER22> I really like seeing examples that illustrate how the more limits are imposed, the more creativity thrives. Not that CSS/HTML are that limited, but as far as creating a full blown 3D environment they would definitely not be something I'd even think about, and then I see this...

</comment><comment><USER23> This is pretty cool. Has there been any performance comparisons between this new technique and HTML5 WebGL?

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice proof of concept. But I think there is no advantage in comparison to webgl.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is very cool. It reminds me of what Famo.us does, as a wrapper for CSS3-transforms that abstracts away the painful math parts.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hm. Yeah. Looks great I guess... But is it semantic?

<comment><USER26> It was a joke... :(

<comment><USER27> Well I laughed if that helps - so I tried to upvote you back :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Here's simple code for 360 Product Visualizer with CSS and HTML [http://codepen.io/samarkandiy/pen/sLzmn](http://codepen.io/samarkandiy/pen/sLzmn)

<comment><USER29> That is completely different and pretty much entirely unrelated.</comment></comment>


Silly Python riddle - cool-RR http://blog.garlicsim.org/post/14506657016/silly-python-riddle <comment><AUTHOR> >>> f = lambda: g((yield))

>>> f()

<generator object <lambda> at 0x00B50828>

<comment><USER2> Sorry for the dumb question (I'm still inexperienced with python), but can someone explain why the yield needs to be enclosed in ()?

<comment><USER3> yield was first introduced as a statement similar to return. In Python not every statement is an expression; another example of non-expression statement is assignment, which was banned from expressions so that it couldn't be confused with ==.

Since then someone proposed (PEP 342) that yield could be used not just to yield values from coroutines, but to send one back in. yield becomes an expression, mostly used as the right side of an assignment. The parentheses are there because the grammar seems to handle the yield statement and yield expressions differently (the PEP mentions that "yield 12, 42" would have become confusing).

<comment><USER4> Stuff like this makes me seriously doubt whether Python critiques of Ruby's "blocks and methods" (SO MANY CALLABLES; ONE AND ONLY ONE) are actually made in good faith.

<comment><USER5> I might misunderstand the point you are making, but this actually stems from a "one and only one" mentality: there is only a single entry for "yield" in the grammar, and it is defined to take a specific kind of expression as its argument.

(edit:) (Additionally, there is the "one and only one" mentality that if yield is valid in a expression for a normal method, it should be valid in an expression for a lambda as well; however, that doesn't cause this syntax issue: statement vs. expression does.)

This level of expression is allowed to contain a comma. As an example, you can do "yield 1, 2", which will yield a 2-tuple containing 1 and 2 as elements.

However, if you wish to embed it as an argument in a function call, you will end up with an ambiguity, as arguments to functions are comma separated. You therefore must embed this expression in parentheses, lest you get a weird grammar conflict.

To be clear, this is identical to the case with tuples themselves, with the one caveat that they decided to make it actually be a syntax error to use it in a way that causes the ambiguity (I will be clear that I do not know if I agree with their decision on that regard).

"return 1, 2" <\- valid

"a, b = 1, 2" <\- valid

"a((1, 2))" <\- valid

"a(1, 2)" <\- not what you meant

(edit:) JavaScript has a similar problem, by the way: they have all sorts of special variants of expressions that are not allowed to start with a brace or the keyword "function" due to ambiguities at the top levels of statements.

However, the most similar issue in JavaScript is with relation to the keyword "in": "for (var x = 5 in a" could either mean "loop over x, initialized to 5, as all keys of a" or "initialize x as whether 5 is a key in a".

You can figure out the difference once you get to the next token: ")" (the former) or ";" (the latter), but once you get that far you've already committed to specific parse tree formulations for the code you've already seen.

<comment><USER4> There are two kinds of callables. Functions, which can contain multiple expressions, and lambdas, which can contain only one.

<comment><USER5> Ah, ok; that didn't seem related to this specific discussion of yield (yield is valuable to have as an expression even in a multi-statement function), but I can see how it is reminiscent.

It should be noted, though, that when you use the lambda keyword, the result is a function, and has the same properties and behaviors as a function (including that it can contain yield and be a generator).

The lambda syntax is simply a way to declare a function as an expression. You can't have a multi-statement block embedded in an expression due to fundamental limitations of normative whitespace.

There really, though, is only one kind of "callable": "function". There are two syntaxes for declaring it, however: "def", which takes a block of statements, and "lambda", which takes an expression.

This is (to me) drastically different than the behavior difference that I believe is what you are referring to in Ruby, where Proc and lambda have different semantics for embedded usages of the "return" keyword.

(That said, I want to be clear, to both you and any random audience: I personally agree with Ruby's decision to have these two forms of callable, per real-world conversations I've had with wycats.)

(afterword) Someone else might find this interesting: I was going to also make the point that both lambda and def result in the same class (function), but it turns out that Proc.new and lambda do as well (Proc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure, why you think the value of the lambda function is thrown away. The lambda function returns a generator object. The function body of a generator is generally not executed until you call .next() on it, so that's why you don't get a NameError instantly. Also the value, that you .send() into the generator is not thrown away either. In your example the generator just runs into an exception before it goes into a state in which it would accept a .send() call. Just consider this modified example:

      >>> f=lambda: (yield)
      >>> gen=f()
      >>> gen.next()
      >>> gen.send('foobar')
      'foobar'

<comment> cool-RR I think you misunderstood which value gets thrown away.

Consider this:

        >>> g = lambda x: 7
        >>> f = lambda: g((yield))
        >>> list(f())
        [None]

Can you tell me where the 7 went to? As far as I see, it went into oblivion.

<comment><USER6> As i said, f() returns a generator object in this case. So you're calling list on a generator that yields None once, the result of which is a list that contains None. If you change the `yield` to `yield "foobar"`, list(f()) will get you `["foobar"]`.

Edit: Perhaps, to clear things up more, about where the value 7 went- your snippet can be expressed without using lambdas as

      >>> def g(x):
      ...  return 7
      ...
      >>> def f():
      ...  v = (yield)
      ...  g(v)
      ...
      >>> list(f())
      [None]

Note that there's no return before g(v) because generators (at least in 2.7) can only yield, not return a value.

<comment><USER7> I'm thinking that the parent is expecting 'yield' to return 'None' into g(), and then for g() to return 7 since it doesn't do anything with the 'x' parameter, and is confused why that isn't the case.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but I think this is cleared up if you consider that calling a generator function does not execute its body, but return generator object. It doesn't really matter if it's a lambda or a regular named function.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had this (with 8 characters):

      );g=(int

giving:

      f = lambda: g();g=(int)
      f() -> 0

<comment><USER8> There is also this: f = lambda: g();g=(f)

Which produce a 'RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded'; But that's only because my computer is not powerful enough :)

<comment><USER9> And it's even shorter than the _yield_ one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I haven't been following the thread, but Ram posted the same riddle on Python- IL mailing list a few days ago. You can see the discussion there.

[http://hamakor.org.il/pipermail/python- il/2011-December/thre...](http://hamakor.org.il/pipermail/python- il/2011-December/thread.html)

</comment><comment><USER11>
      """

<comment> cool-RR Doesn't count... If only for the fact that you won't get a >>> prompt after it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> At 12 characters, this is definitely not the shortest, but it is a totally different approach than the other solutions:

        >>> f = lambda: g()if 0 else(1)
        >>> f()
        1

<comment><USER13> Creative solution! You can knock it down a character by removing the "1" and simply returning an empty tuple.

        >>> f = lambda: g()if 0 else()
        >>> f()
        ()

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was going to attempt this, but the solution was posted inline in the blog entry, and I read it by accident. My window was _just_ big enough that it was the last line displayed. =(

<comment> cool-RR Sorry, I couldn't find a way to blacken the text with Tumblr.

I now did a (Scroll down...) thing to "hide" the solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Something like

);f=(set

Leading to the whole line reading:

f = lambda: g();f=(set)

8 characters

<comment><USER16> Alternatively

);f=set#

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> the winning solutions seems to be 7 chars

</comment><comment><USER18> 0);g=(id

8 chars

</comment><comment><USER19> f = lambda g:(0) f() <function <lambda> at 0x113478>.

</comment><comment><USER20> f = lambda: g(""")

f()

technically not two commands, and it will look like:

>>> f = lambda: g(""")

. . . f()</comment>


Radiation concerns halt Brussels 5G development, for now - <AUTHOR> http://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/14753/radiation-concerns-halt-brussels-5g-for-now <comment><USER2> Having lived in Brussels for a year now and witnessing sidewalks covered in trash and bad air quality I'm quite cynical of politicians waxing lyrical about protecting their constituent's health. I think the last paragraph in that article holds more weight.

"Last week, the various governments in Belgium once again failed to reach agreement on the auctioning of the 5G licences. The file remains stuck on the _distribution of the proceeds_. It will be up to the next government to handle the proposal, said Telecom Minister Philippe De Backer (Open VLD) last week."

<comment><USER3> I'll take trash and bad air quality over cancer.

<comment><USER4> It's more do you prefer bad air which is proven to cause measurable numbers of cancer cases over some 5G towers which probably don't. ([https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/air-pollution- a-l...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/air-pollution-a-leading- cause-of-ca/))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I live in Brussels, internet over 4G works great and nobody complains about it being slow.

I am willing to change my mind if somebody proves why we need to upgrade but (and as much as I love new tech) "if ain't broken dont touch it", if anything just make it cheaper.

<comment><USER6> 4G, just like 3G before it will get slower over time. The spectrum is still shared, and the more devices are connected on the 4G bands, the less bandwith there is for each device.

IMHO, 5G is not so much about speed as it is about latency and better handling of devices in high density areas. Regarding the speed aspect, keep in mind that most smartphones (which are the primary 4G connected devices) are not equipped with modems that can reach the speed limits of 4G. They certainly could, but that would kill battery life. I expect something similar with 5G (although one the promises of 5G is lower power consumption). VoIP over 3G is often terrible. It's better on 4G, but, in my experience, it's often hit and miss. Having improved latency and speed means VoIP (and video calls) are, theoretically, less of a gamble.

(My experience with 3G/4G is a single datapoint and should not be taken too seriously, evidently)

However, cheap 4G is a good option for areas that have decent cell coverage but poor broadband (I refer to the usual copper lines for DSL). 5G can make the situation better, if only by making 4G cheaper. Deploying 5G means that an operator may have to upgrade their backbone ... which is good for 4G users too.

<comment><USER7> > 4G, just like 3G before it will get slower over time.

You are correct but that will happen again with 5G and then with 6G and so on. After a period all networks will saturate.

I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but I think one solution could be to increase the network density with the deployment of small cell networks that provide a better local coverage and bandwitdh. A few companies like nokia [1] and ericsson [2] are taking that route.That also requires upgradation on hardware form the operator but at least spares the customer from buying a new equipment.

[1] [https://networks.nokia.com/products/small- cells](https://networks.nokia.com/products/small-cells)

[2][https://www.ericsson.com/en/networks/offerings/small- cells/o...](https://www.ericsson.com/en/networks/offerings/small- cells/outdoor-small-cells)

<comment><USER8> One of the features of 5G is support for high-frequency (30 GHz+), high- bandwidth, small cell networks. Most(?) of the 5G deployments are planned to be of this type.

<comment><USER9> > Most(?) of the 5G deployments are planned to be of this type.

I am a software researcher in the field and I do not think this is the case. Most 5G deployments for the foreseeable future will be on 3.5Ghz. I do not think mmWave (30Ghz+) has been accepted for commercial use in any country. In fact, in many roadmaps mmWave is referred to as 5G NR (new radio), which to my understanding was left for later deployments. To give you an idea why: the mmWave receivers and transmitters (at my current facility) are the size of a door. I think the problem is shrinking those doors to fit your smartphone, but then again, I do not work on the physical layer nor have much insight regarding regulations.

<comment><USER10> 5G NR is already available in the US on Verizon with a Moto Mod

RF bands 5G: n261 (27.5-28.35 GHz); n260 (37-40 GHz)

4G: B2, B4, B5, B13, B46, B48, B66

Verizon launched 5G New Radio (Nonstandalone) at 28 GHz with 400 megahertz of TDD spectrum — which doesn't include the LTE anchor carrier, SRG said. Based on its initial survey, the firm estimated that there are close to 100 5G nodes in downtown Minneapolis, although it had yet to confirm how many of those were on-air. Each node has two Ericsson AIR 5121 5G radios, according to SRG.

[https://www.motorola.com/us/products/moto- mods/moto-5g#specs](https://www.motorola.com/us/products/moto- mods/moto-5g#specs)

[https://www.rcrwireless.com/20190405/test-and- measurement/pu...](https://www.rcrwireless.com/20190405/test-and- measurement/putting-verizons-mobile-5g-through-its-paces/amp)

<comment><USER9> How interesting! Thank you for correcting me. In my country, the government never auctioned the mmWave spectrum thus I assumed this to be the case elsewhere. Very excited that Verizon has decided to make the densely deployed infrastructure to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Someone should tell politicians about how radio waves propagate and the inverse square law: the cellphone kept in their pocket, very often more than one, expose them to a lot stronger EM fields than any tower they might have nearby. Or maybe they already know that, but banning or imposing restrictions on cellphones would destroy their careers.

<comment><USER12> In the EU the technical data of any phone already include a "radiation value" that measures your radiation exposure from using the phone. So regardless of whether this is something to worry about, it's aready covered by existing legislation.

Cellpone towers are also different in that you can't choose not to expose yourself to them. In contrast you can choose not to get a mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> " _The Brussels region has particularly strict radiation standards for telecom applications. The standard of 6 volts per metre has already led to problems in the past with providing fast mobile internet via 4G in the capital._ "

On one hand, 6V/m seems like a lot; I haven't been able to find a reliable regulation site. On the other, 20V/m is apparently common ([https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/what- is-r...](https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/what-is- radiation/non-ionising-radiation/low-frequency-electric-magnetic-fields)).

</comment><comment><USER14> I looked at some trial 5G gNB; you definitely feel nauseated if u r standing near these units. This will be a concern.

<comment><USER15> have you also tried to blind-test standing beside one that's switched off and on? Because plenty of people say they can "feel" cellphone radiation (so- called electrosensitivity), yet noone has ever been able to show this under controlled scientific conditions. As soon as they don't know if the radiation is there they stop feeling it.

<comment><USER16> Similar to the studies done on infrasound, which seems to bother residents living near wind farms. The studies show that the biggest indicator of whether you're affected by infrasound is if you're told there is infrasound being emitted...

<comment><USER17> That's not really the question though. If you have someone eat food contaminated with lead or mercury, they may not be able to taste the difference, but that doesn't mean it's harmless.

The question isn't whether you can immediately sense its presence, the question is the effects of sustained exposure.

And the fact that the placebo effect is a real thing doesn't really tell you that one way or the other.

<comment><USER18> Except we're specifically replying to a comment from someone claiming they could feel 5G.

<comment><USER17> > Except we're specifically replying to a comment from someone claiming they > could feel 5G.

By standing next to _the tower_. That is a known effect from high power radio transmitters. You can feel that because it's starting to cook you the same way a microwave oven does, to varying degrees depending on the transmitter power. If you stand too close to a large military RADAR transmitter it can kill you dead on the spot.

Then the response is referring to studies done at the power levels of an individual cell phone, and no surprise it's difficult to feel that. But the effects of long term exposure are a different matter.

Moreover, with 5G they're increasing the density of the towers, which implies building towers with closer proximity to people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It looks like there are a couple of disinformation campaigns against cellphone infrastructure and particularly 5G right now. One is aimed at retargeting environmentalists to fight harmless cell towers instead of bothering industry by fighting global warming. The other looks like the usual Russian campaign to slow down the tech progress of other nations. For example there was a widely shared story that a 5G test killed a flock of birds in The Hague, which was completely false (check Snopes).

<comment><USER5> Can you explain why we need 5G when 4G is already working very well?

<comment><USER20> As consumers we don't need it. If it was up to us we would never agree to invest so much into this tech for so little gain.

But all those giant corporations always want to sell you more devices, more expensive services, show you ads faster, track you and spy on you better, make more excuses to raise prices, harm competition, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1) Your eyes and testes are at risk

      "Two areas of the body, the eyes and the testes, are particularly vulnerable to RF heating because of the relative lack of available blood flow to dissipate the excess heat load."

source: [https://www.fcc.gov/engineering- technology/electromagnetic-c...](https://www.fcc.gov/engineering- technology/electromagnetic-compatibility-division/radio-frequency- safety/faq/rf-safety#Q5)

2) The WHO has an article written in 2014 that says:

      "Several studies investigating potential health effects in children and adolescents are underway."

I'd say that the lack of updates 2 years later is concerning.

source: [https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact- sheets/detail/electrom...](https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact- sheets/detail/electromagnetic-fields-and-public-health-mobile-phones)

</comment><comment><USER21> Wonder what this decision is baserad on, its non-ionized radiation and may confuse bees etc but humans ....?

<comment><USER22> Try sleeping for a week with your cell phone on airplane mode and your wifi unplugged. It certainly won't kill you but it causes oxidative stress on your cells. 5G just ups the intensity to 11.

<comment><USER23> > Try sleeping for a week with your cell phone on airplane mode and your wifi > unplugged.

What is this supposed to do?

<comment><USER24> Presumably, offer a sense of relaxation and peace - mostly through a combination of the placebo effect and not spending so much time looking at the internet, I guess!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We live in a culture where there is an normally an intense focus on the benefits of technology and not really a lot of regard for any of the possible the negatives. I.e. there is a huge bias at a cultural level. I guess this a lot to do with idea that consumerism is _the_ solution when things get difficult in life. If you study history you can see how this normally presents itself - and even effects the science c.f. the smoking industry.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is there a good (and short) technical summary of the 5G specifications?

I've seen some (very disturbing) values of 20W/square meter reported. Is this true?</comment>


Microsoft apparently removing 'Offline Accounts' for international Windows users - <AUTHOR> https://www.onmsft.com/news/microsoft-apparently-removing-offline-accounts-settings-for-international-windows-10-users <comment><USER2> Already discussed yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22382710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22382710)

(132 points/129 comments)

</comment><comment><USER3> This might be old news. The "Offline Account" link appears in Windows 10 Pro but not Windows 10 Home. It's unclear which version this is.

[https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/222344/microsoft...](https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/222344/microsoft- made-major-setup-changes-in-windows-10-version-1909)

<comment><USER4> Agreed, what they say Microsoft is "starting to export outside NA" is already the norm here in France since at least this summer.

If the computer is connected to the network in anyway, there is absolutely no way to install with an offline account. Removing all rj45 and not connecting to the wifi until that step is passed allows to use a local account like before.

Still not a path I like to see them take

<comment><USER5> This almost sounds like they're trying to force a subscription model for Home users at some point. Give away the OS for free for a good while then charge a buck a month to use it. Most will cave to the model to keep using it then they can slowly turn up the fire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unplug the network cable before you launch the installer.

This was discussed too [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22382710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22382710)

</comment><comment><USER7> If you are not Internet connected during the install, the system will still offer you the option to proceed with the creation of a local account.

<comment><USER5> This is so wrong. I hope that this type of thing encourages people to look at the alternatives like GenToo or Arch Linux.

<comment><USER8> You mean it is wrong of Microsoft, not that the comment you replied to is wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use Linux, I am pretty ambivalent about Windows, I don't like adware and telemetry in my paid-for software but if they really start doing that honestly that will irritate me enough to start pushing people to Ubuntu when that's possible.

<comment><USER10> Well, if the software is paid in full, there are no ads.

<comment><USER11> This is not true. I have Win 10 Pro on my work laptop. It's very much "paid in full". Some of the things I paid in full for include Bubble Witch 3 Saga, Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush Friends, and the Start menu came pre- populated with a bunch of ads for similarly useful apps (edit: among other things).

Edit: if someone who's more Windows-savvy than this ol' Unix nerd knows what information I ought to edit out of a screenshot so that I can safely share it, I have the screenshot, too. This "if you pay for Win 10 Pro there are no ads" crap pops up every single damn time so I took a screenshot of my laptop's untouched Win 10 Pro installation.

<comment><USER12> Apparently when a GNU/Linux installation shows messages to try out stuff, it is "spreading the good for the community", or has a modified motd, when one gets a couple of links on the start menu, easily removed by right clicking on them, it is "bloody Microsoft".

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure how that's relevant here. Does my post say anything about what Ubuntu does being excusable in any way?

Edit: also, FWIW, running apt-get upgrade doesn't re-enable the ads in the MOTD :-)

<comment><USER10> The whataboutism defense is absolutely failing at this point. If there was material criticism on HN of say Ubuntu or other providers for the same stuff Microsoft gets criticized your words might've been credible. But there isn't and they are not.

Pretending to be fair and objective is not the same thing as being fair and objective.

<comment><USER11> Whataboutism is a logical fallacy even when the "what about" thing doesn't get enough attention. If Ubuntu got more criticism on HN, would the ads you see on Windows become less intrusive, or more appropriate?

But FWIW, Ubuntu absolutely got, and still gets, plenty of criticism for that, even here on HN.

<comment><USER10> Just like the "fallacy fallacy" is also a fallacy.

That's not the point I'm debating. Whether I'm OK with product design choices of Microsoft is my own consumer decision. But what __really __is getting old, is the utterly predictable and abysmal level of discourse on this matter on HN, Reddit or wherever.

My point is, that since the Internet has learned about whataboutism, it is being used to shut down any criticism of bias. In fact, your comment uses the common formula for that "Just because A does B, doesn't mean that C can do B."

Sure, but then your actions don't really correspond to your words. If you take the amount of privacy invasion in Android, for example, HN should be loosing their collective shit on a daily basis. They don't.

This is obviously just people emotionally bashing things they have been taught are outside of their "tribe".

And that has zero credibility.

<comment><USER11> I'm sorry but really none of this makes any sense to me.

How exactly did you reach the conclusion that "my actions don't really correspond to my words" based on how HN collectively treats Android? What actions are you talking about specifically? Using Android? I don't.

An how exactly does this post:

"I'm not sure how that's relevant here. Does my post say anything about what Ubuntu does being excusable in any way?"

follow this formula:

"Just because A does B, doesn't mean that C can do B."

My original reply said nothing about anything other than Windows, and my second post hinted that I think both Canonical _and_ Microsoft are wrong in doing this. If I followed any formula, I'm pretty sure that's "neither A nor C should be doing B", which is as far removed from whataboutism as criticizing bias is removed from astroturfing.

<comment><USER10> > How exactly did you reach the conclusion that "my actions don't really > correspond to my words" based on how HN collectively treats Android? What > actions are you talking about specifically? Using Android? I don't.

I wasn't talking about you, the individual. It's a disembodied, collective "you" of HN. It's a rhetorical turn of phrase.

I don't know what to say to the rest. It's pretty obvious to me. If you don't get it, you don't get it.

Also, on astroturfing:

"Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants."

????

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've has MS-DOS and/or Windows as one of my boot options on all of my systems for gaming purposes for 30+ years, but the day they mandate a Microsoft account is the day I finally ditch them all together.

<comment><USER12> You can use the iCloud or Google Play ones instead.

<comment><USER14> How can you use these to login to windows? Using a PC offline makes sense for many reasons, taking this away reduces the value of the OS.

<comment><USER12> By making the point that Microsoft is a follower in this regard, yet the community complains about them as if Apple and Google eco-systems were some kind of angels.

<comment><USER13> I don't use Apple or Google services.

<comment><USER12> So using a feature phone.

<comment><USER13> Flip phone. I don't believe in trading my privacy for convenience, much less being coerced into doing so by Microsoft or any other corporation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Happened to me two weeks ago while installing windows 10 1909 Home - I just unplugged the ethernet cable and it let me create an offline account... It's still crap and not acceptable though.

</comment><comment><USER16> Recently ran into this "bug". Fixed it by unplugging my network cable during installation. I'm normally a Mac user, but I understand why so many people hate Windows 10. Hard to make the argument this benefits users.

</comment><comment><USER17> So basically the android approach

<comment><USER18> Nope, windows phone took the Android approach. Anyways, android is usable without signing into a google account. You can use the Amazon app store (which has most of popular apps), or fdroid or download apk files yourself like windows of old.

Windows is a paid product, Android is not. Apart from including ridiculous ads and telemetry some of which can't be disabled, Windows seems to be taking user hosting steps every day.

<comment><USER10> The fact that you have to actively and deliberately fork over cash for Windows, but not for Android, where it's hidden -- that really seems to trip people up.

<comment><USER18> And it's not hidden in windows, where you have candy crush pre-installed and ads in the start menu. So in windows, you fork over cash, give your data, and then have to seem some ads.

<comment><USER12> Candy crush is not pre-installed, it is just a link to the store, easily removable with right mouse click.

Gee, I never saw people complain this way with Solitaire, Mineswepper, GNOME Games Suit, or the dump of floppies they would get on their Atari/Amiga/PC bundles.

<comment><USER19> > Gee, I never saw people complain this way with Solitaire, Mineswepper, GNOME > Games Suit, or the dump of floppies they would get on their Atari/Amiga/PC > bundles.

Strange. Especially as those didn't actively run analytics when you run them. Perhaps those two situations aren't completely comparable.

<comment><USER10> This is very little to do with privacy matters if you look at the comments here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if this would be illegal in the EEA under GDPR? Tricking the user into "consenting" is not really obtaining consent.</comment>


Vijay Kedia's 10 "rules" to make ₹500crores in the Indian Stock Market - <AUTHOR> https://2600hertz.wordpress.com/2016/08/27/vijay-kedia-10-inspiring-rules-every-investor-must-know/ <comment><AUTHOR> Inspired from his talk on 20th Feb 2016 at IIMB (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore) where he addressed the students as part of the PGPEM day.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b53nE7tN0zE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b53nE7tN0zE)

</comment><comment><USER2> After listing 9 "rules" he says "luck matters". Right, thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hee hee :) :) Ya!

But, i found it a deliberate reminder at the end that NOTHING is a "SURE THING" in this world.

Simply because something works for him, it doesn't mean everyone else will have the exact same experience following the principles he outlines in his talk.</comment></comment>


The most powerful memory technique in the history of mankind - <AUTHOR> https://threader.app/thread/1041732142168891400 <comment><USER2> Well, that's a clickbaity title...and...it's about memory palaces, so, fair enough. Extremely short article though. (350 words)

 _I help people improve their memory because mine used to suck._

That illustrates a point re genius/talent/training - people often end up a champion at something _because_ they were bad at it, not because of their natural skill.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought spaced repetition was a more powerful technique

</comment><comment><USER4> What about people with aphantasia?</comment>


dummy.ai - A Marketplace for Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://jb3bt1pk.wishpond.com/start/ <comment><USER2> They make me signup and showed nothing.

It's only landing page so do not signup.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking time to sign up. We'd like to gauge interest in the research community first, and will be in touch once the mvp is released.

Sorry if it disappoints you.</comment></comment>