HyperNormalisation [video] - <AUTHOR> https://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/?repost <comment><USER2> I disagree that it takes too long. I wallow in it:

      - Russian folk punk
      - Avant garde theatre theory to control the spectacle
      - Trump's roots in the banksters' destruction of New York
        city government by financialization
      - The elites not as MoTU, but as clueless story chasers --
        now without a story

I recommend setting aside a couple of hours and enjoying this.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, a tremendous work with a dream like quality, a phantasmagoria contrasting vapid American consumer culture, against bloody reality in the lands the great powers toy with.

Also interesting observations on William Gibson's work and the genesis of the EFF.

Definitely worth watching in it's entirety.

It's central thesis, that the current state of affairs has become too complex to predict for elites, and that either a fake, simplified reality is both created and presented to the masses, and also willingly retreated into.

Plus great stuff about the cynicism created by the failure and capitulation of social movements.

One of it's assertions is that Gaddafi willingly accepted a false role as a global supervillian because he liked the attention and status, and was in fact not actually responsible for some of the terrorist acts attributed to him, was completely new to me.

History and reality is hard to know in an age of state sponsored manipulation campaigns, intelligence and counter-intelligence, spycraft and subterfuge.

One has to look at any attribution as highly suspect in this environment. Cui bono?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to _love_ his documentaries. I'm a fan of the music, and the aesthetic. I haven't seen HyperNormalisation, and plan to.

But, years later I look back and kind of think, 'huh, was there really substance to these films, or are the more art piece than legit documentary?"

From what I recall, they're not exactly clear on the sources for claims, and the filmmaking style is fairly manipulative – dramatic music and ominous stock footage that would make almost any politicians look like lizard people.

edit: Also, not saying they'd be 'bad' if they're more 'art' than 'documentary', but that context is important and I know from experience it's easy to take films at face value.

<comment><USER5> Narrative aside, there is some amazing footage from the 70s and 80s just seeing those clips made the whole thing worth it.

Taken as a whole it comes off as a conspiracy theory and I think that was intentional, but the individual parts contained a ton of interesting factually correct history tidbits paired with said footage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The thesis is good. But like many of Adam Curtis's documentaries this can feel like it takes too long to get to the point. For the curious (and montage averse) the Chapo Trap House podcast had an interview with Adam Curtis (Episode 65) in which the thesis was outlined much faster, and in more amusing fashion.

<comment><USER7> I disagree. I listened to the Chapo Trap House podcast with Adam Curtis and was incredibly disappointed. They seemed to have barely superficial familiarity with HyperNormalization or Curtis' work in general. It was awkward. Curtis can talk at length linking topics like government, culture, science fiction, and 21st century monetary policy together while the podcast guys made lame jokes that did not really fit with the theme or mood.

<comment><USER6> Hmm. I had watched the documentary before listening to the podcast, so maybe my assessment was off since I was already primed with the info.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tip: You can right click on video and download for offline viewing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not really a documentary -- just an extended op-ed piece. If you already have any deep knowledge of the topics he goes into, he's not terribly convincing (sometimes even getting a bit looney.)

On the other hand it's nice to see a brazenly unapologetic Marxist, rather than the milquetoast, watered-down socialists the media normally present.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd watch Oh Dearism II first [1] as it's only 5 minutes long. Then read Sarkov's "Without Sky"[2]. These two pieces of information are the best way to ground yourself against both "news" and apathy.

2014 - "Things are increasingly chaotic, along with the reporting of the events in the culture of 24-7 rolling news, sound-byte feeds and the Internet. The result, as we see, is not a coherent public understanding of these complex events, but more a profound mass-confusion, with discourse destroyed"

[1][https://thoughtmaybe.com/oh-dearism-2](https://thoughtmaybe.com/oh- dearism-2) [2][http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue582/without_sky.html](http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue582/without_sky.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Adam Curtis is, by far, the best documentary maker I know. His origin-of- terrorism doc "Bitter Lake" gives an insight no one else will.

Hypernormalisation is, also because it is simply the most recent, his best docu imho. If you liked this, take a look at The Century of the Self as well.

</comment><comment><USER12> In my book this is a post-truth for the left. All my hip friends shared this on FB months ago. Hypnotizing voice, amazing imagery, cool music, selective facts, far fetched conclusions, simplifications dressed as induction. Thanks but no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER13> This was mentioned here a couple weeks ago. I watched it and his previous film, Bitter Lake, in quick succession. Both were really interesting and well worth the time.

</comment><comment><USER14> Lack of sources and many unverifiable claims about peoples intentions and interpretations of situations.

But it is and interesting view of the described events.</comment>


'Pics or it didn't happen' – the mantra of the Instagram era - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/26/pics-or-it-didnt-happen-mantra-instagram-era-facebook-twitter

<comment><USER2> "who wants to be on the outside? Who wants to miss a birthday, a friend's big news, a chance to sign up for Spotify, or the latest bit of juicy social intelligence?"

Me, me, and me. If it's important enough, I'll find out via other channels (like word-of-mouth). And no, that stupid dress doesn't count.

</comment><comment><USER3> YUK! But great article. . .</comment>


Ask HN: lighttpd or nginx for a low grade server? - <AUTHOR>

I've been looking into lighttpd and nginx for a server with low memory. I'm somewhat familiar with lighttpd, but there is an online rumor that it has memory leaks. I'll serve mostly static pages and some FastCGI pages. Any advice on which one to use would be greatly appreciated.<p>[Note: I moved here from Reddit and I don't think I'm going back there anymore. Reddit is becoming the new Digg] <comment><USER2> I've used Lighttpd, Cherokee, Nginx and of course Apache (although stripped down for speed) on a high load production site for serving static files and reverse proxying.

Nginx wins no contest. Highly stable, serving for almost 2 years now with zero issues.

Lots of features, much simpler config, uses less resources.

Hot config reloading. Hot binary upgrading.

Low grade? Hardly.

Issues with others:

Lighttpd - configing slightly annoying, uses more cpu and memory

Apache - slow performance and memory hog even when stripped of all it's extra modules, (just try and support 5000 keep alive connections on it)

Cherokee - very nice, well thought out and featureful and fast but had some stability problems in production, I may take a look at it again later on because it has a sweet admin interface

<comment><AUTHOR> Many thanks for all answers so far!

I talked to a Ukrainian programmer and a friend of mine, who said he knew the guy who programmed nginx. He said that nginx was designed as a load balancer for Apache. I've been reading its docs for two days now and I can't find anything like that, but then again most of the docs are in Russian. Am I missing something? Is nginx a stand alone server or an addition to Apache?

<comment><USER3> English Docs are here: <http://wiki.nginx.org/Main> \- the site used to be wiki.codemongers.com but it is now under nginx.org

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> nginx hands down. nginx is probably the most stable piece of software with the least problems we run here at engineyard. We've had thousands of nginx instances in production for years now and I can truly say it is one of my favorite pieces of software.

<comment><USER5> I second this recommendation, except on a vastly smaller scale. My uptime currently reads about 530 days. My wee little nginx has not needed a restart in the entire time, except for reloading configuration files. This is through, and this is a back of the envelope number, probably 20 million HTTP requests.

It is far and away the most stable software I've ever seen (at least, among non-trivial publicly-accessible pieces of software).

It also has memory requirements which are low enough that some Japanese toilet seats probably qualify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not a heavy user of nginx although I've read more than I care to about all of the various options lately.. and my single data point is that nginx would be the better option _of the two_ right now.

</comment><comment><USER7> Have a look at mathopd: <http://www.mathopd.org/>. Very lightweight and stable/mature, and unlike lighttpd, an excellent security track record.

<comment><USER8> mathopd is not scalable, because uses select for connection multiplexing. With many connections, CPU load is many times higher, than for nginx or lighttpd (where epoll/kqueue used). I suggest to use nginx instead mathopd.

<comment><USER7> I'm uninclined to credit this sort of assertion without seeing application- specific benchmarks, and even less-so when the OP explicitly states that his application is memory-bound. On how many websites is system call overhead actually the limiting factor that prevents scaling?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use Apache Web Server on a four year old server. It hasn't gone down outside of two server moves. Coming from the Java application server and IIS worlds, it's seems pretty simple to me. It seemed to be a more widely supported choice amongst my customers, and thus worth my time to invest in learning it.

</comment><comment><USER10> look on forums, let's say on slicehost: many people uses both of them, there are lots of comments there.

</comment><comment><USER11> To add my voice to the chorus: Nginx, hands down. It's a great piece of software - simple enough to configure, small and efficient, and it just works and keeps working. I have literally never seen it crash or do anything it wasn't supposed to do.

As for lighttpd, I messed with it a while ago and while it has its advocates, I found it fiddly to install and configure and quite old-fashioned. The arrival of nginx means you don't really need to consider lighttpd, IMO, it's kind of the older, worse version of the same thing.

However ...

Your other option is of course just sticking with Apache. I don't know the details of your server (maybe should have said?) but it doesn't use _that_ much memory! For many common scenarios using it could be quite a bit easier. Well, it would likely be no work at all actually, since it's probably already installed and running fine. There can be a tendency to over-optimise up front; why not take the path of least resistance, get something up and running with Apache first, then switch if and when you need to? Just a thought ;)</comment>


Postgres Case Statement Basics by Example - <AUTHOR> https://blog.panoply.io/postgres-case-statement-basics-by-example <comment><AUTHOR> This tutorial introduces to the basics of using CASE statements/expressions and also cover comparison operators (greater than, less than, equal to) and BETWEEN.</comment>


Lessons learned from the restaurant across the street - <AUTHOR> http://blog.reamaze.com/2012/10/lessons-learned-from-restaurant/

<comment><USER2> Hijacking this thread but...

"Plentiful for the cost" is an oxymoron to "great restaurant"

Okay maybe that's a little bit flippant but seriously, judging a restaurant based on quantity of food for cost is apparently a very American thing and one of the reasons food is so bad here in general

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767920562> had a chapter on how different cultures think about food. Having lived in a different one for several years that valued flavor over quantity I wish there was some way to influence America's culture more in that direction. It might also help our obesity issues. I'd much rather have a small scoop of unique and delicious ice cream than the tubs that some of the most popular American chains dish out

<comment><USER3> Assisting with hijack, I'm not sure it's only an American thing... Trawl Urbanspoon for Australia and you'll find plenty of restaurants (particularly fine dining) reviewed with a bitch about how much they cost compared to quantity delivered.

Non-hijack: I'm not convinced that this restaurant has a "strategy" that involves being under the radar. Indeed, their marketing appears to go as far as telling people who walk past that it's open. They don't even appear to have a name. That's not being a tricksy "invite only" place, it's just not having any branding. At all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Relevant: <http://xkcd.com/993/>

<comment><USER5> That's basically Muji(rushi Ryouhin)

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

The name literally means Unmarked Good stuff.

<comment><USER6> I think this doesn't quite fit what Muji actually does; their products often lack obvious "forward" branding (of the sort that too often gets fetishized), but are definitely "branded" in the store, and often on the products as well ... (e.g. notepads / pens / etc come with obvious labels that are possible to remove, but people typically don't bother). There are certain attributes associated with Muji products, and that's why people shop there.

A much closer fit (for the xkcd strip) is the short-lived early-'80s "generic products" fad in the U.S. You'd get stuff like beer in plain white cans with "BEER" written on them, on ordinary supermarket shelves.

I wonder if the xkcd guy knew about that, or whether it's just convergent evolution ... :]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Corner of Williams and Saratoga in San Jose!

I've thought about visiting that restaurant, but always wondered if it would be a disaster. I guess it's time to pay a visit...

</comment><comment><USER8> This isn't an entirely unique scenario, as there are other establishments not unlike this one that, once they achieved critical mass in awareness, simply gained intolerably long waits.

This could be viewed as either an inability or unwillingness to scale. ("Inability" could be inherent in the effort, as in there is just not a feasible means to scale effectively.)</comment>


Amazon S3 Price Reduction - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/02/amazon-s3-price-reduction.html <comment><USER2> I graphed the old and new prices so you can see how they compare:

[http://willj.net/static/amazon_s3_old_and_new_price_comparis...](http://willj.net/static/amazon_s3_old_and_new_price_comparison.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's still pretty expensive for archival storage without instant access requirements. Can somebody please do a tape based cloud storage service with slow file access but much cheaper per TB storage costs?

<comment><USER4> I wonder how slow you'd be willing to go.

Would you be willing to pay $1 for 100GB if it meant waiting 15 minutes to load your tape? How about 30 minutes?

<comment><USER5> For some data, I could wait a week. I take pictures and movies that take up a lot of space; I don't want to ever lose them but they are not mission critical in any way, shape or form.

I store everything on a NAS + another NAS as backup; it's a fairly safe setup as long as my house doesn't burn down, isn't flooded or burglarized.

I would love an offsite backup solution that would be cheap because of very slow reads: if my house burns down it'll be some time before I can access those backups anyway.

<comment><USER6> Couldn't agree more. please notify me if you found a solution

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While Amazon keeps reducing the price of storage, I don't think they have ever reduced the price of requests. :( I would have expected the cost of every component of a request (CPU, bandwidth, etc.) would have gone down over time, but it is still 1000 PUT/LISTs per $0.01 (or 10k GETs, also per $0.01). :(

(These request costs actually add up quite quickly: I spent something like $8k on PUT/LIST last month. At one point I found out a client library I was using made the horrible decision to verify the bucket existed with a LIST request each time you made a connection; I tracked that down to $70/day I was losing.)

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting. That puts them from just above below Google's Cloud Storage to just below, [https://developers.google.com/storage/docs/pricingandterms#p...](https://developers.google.com/storage/docs/pricingandterms#pricing). I didn't even think GCS was on their radar.

<comment><USER9> Amazon started cutting prices long before there was any competition. I dont think this is due to Google, as for most people the difference in network costs depending if you use EC2 matters more. It is probably more to do with hard drive prices renormalizing after the flooding...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've never understood why they use a stair step function for pricing. Why not just name a continuous function for pricing and simplify the scheme?

<comment><USER11> The pricing function _is_ "continuous", it isn't differentiable.

<comment><USER12> I think it was meant that the marginal cost function isn't continuous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What I find slightly worrying is that the cost of EC2 instances does not decrease more with time. DRAM prices have fallen quite a bit since EC2 started, and yet the cost of EC2 remains relatively stable.

<comment><USER14> I would imagine that their power costs have not fallen quite as quickly.

<comment><USER13> Look at EC2 pricing — instance pricing is pretty much a function of RAM size. I realize RAM isn't everything, but it is a large variable factor, with other cost factors either being constant or not growing proportionally fast.

I'd still argue that we should see bigger drops in pricing, especially for the large-memory instances.

<comment><USER15> They're really using RAM as a proxy for other real costs. The amount of RAM you allocate is a pretty good predictor for server/VPS utilization -- which means their actual power, bandwidth and hardware replacement costs as you wear out hardware faster. Virtually all unmanaged VPS and dedicated hosting companies make RAM the primary factor in determining the monthly service cost even though the price-per-gigabyte is more each month than it'd cost to buy the physical RAM outright. In other words, it's a mistake to think that the actual cost of RAM is the reason pricing is proportional to RAM size.

<comment><USER16> CPU is a better proxy for utilization than RAM, no? CPU uses far more energy than a RAM, and I can write a low CPU web cache in 12GB RAM or a high CPU scientific simulation in L2 cache.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is good news. Now if they would lower their EC2 instance pricing, especially large RAM instances!

</comment><comment><USER18> What about Rackspace Cloud Files? [http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/...](http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/pricing/)

<comment><USER19> See comparison[1]. It's still cheaper than Amazon. They don't charge for requests and incoming bandwidth.

1: [http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/...](http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/compare/)

<comment><USER20> Amazon also does not charge for inbound bandwidth. I'm not sure what you're getting at. They also had to do the comparison with the additional support package from Amazon to inflate the price to make their pricing model look more appealing.

<comment><USER21> (Bandwidth prices not withstanding.)

10,000,000,000 GET requests on Amazon = $1,000.00 (0.01/10000 reqs) 10,000,000,000 GET requests on Rackspace = $0.00 (FREE)

1,000 GB on Amazon = $125.00 (0.125/gb) 1,000 GB on Rackspace = $150.00 (0.15/gb)

Total Amazon: $1,250.00 Total Rackspace: $150.00

That's what he's getting at.

<comment><USER22> Damn, that's a lot of GETs if you're just doing backup. What's up with that?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Windows 8: Hardware That Will Physically Hurt - <AUTHOR> http://www.techsociotech.com/2012/10/windows-8-hardware-that-will-physically.html

<comment><USER2> This makes no sense. At all. Not only is the authors experience specifically _not_ about Windows 8 (spoiler: it's an iPad with a keyboard), but his complaint doesn't even apply to the devices he's calling out.

> _The convertibles take the idea even further: these are tablets to which you > can easily attach a rigid keyboard and then have a laptop-like device but > that then doesn't have a touchpad or nipple mouse, it's all touch driven._

I haven't seen a single Windows 8 device demoed yet that comes with a keyboard but without a dedicated pointing device (either a trackpad or trackpoint, or a mouse for some all-in-ones). Convertible tablets still have a trackpad. Even Sony's little slider has a trackpoint.

> _Microsoft itself is explicitly making a keyboard cover for their tablet, > almost built-in, meant to be used like the set-up in the picture. From a > minority use-case this mode of interacting is becoming a blessed paradigm._

The Touch Cover and Type Cover still have a trackpad built in.

If anything, this article is demonstrating why Windows 8 will be better for tablets (at least for "productivity"), because _it doesn't have the problem he's describing_.

Disclosure: Microsoft employee

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclosure: friend of the author and article submitter

Let's say there are three use models for Windows 8:

\-- pure tablet mode (horizontal touch only) \-- pure desktop mode (keyboard and mouse+trackpad only) \-- hybrid mode (vertical touch with keyboard and mouse+trackpad)

The first crop of machines designed specifically for Windows 8 are enabling that third "hybrid" mode. It's not just something they -can- do, it's one of their key selling points: traditional input PLUS vertical touch in a laptop- like form factor. Gestures, multiple-finger touch, the whole shebang.

Unless vertical touch is not going to be used whatsoever in hybrid mode, it's going to invoke a kind of physical strain that hasn't been seen in typical personal computer use.

So! Vertical touch is potentially problematic and it's only seen in two real- world scenarios: iPad+keyboard and (soon) shipping Windows 8 hardware.

<comment><USER2> > _Unless vertical touch is not going to be used whatsoever in hybrid mode, > it's going to invoke a kind of physical strain that hasn't been seen in > typical personal computer use._

I don't think so. Switching between the touchscreen and the mouse/trackpad breaks up the repetition, and should probably _reduce_ repetitive stress injuries. Instead of always reaching for the screen or always reaching for the mouse, you can do both, and more importantly, you can do whichever is more comfortable. In a vertical form factor, use of the touchscreen will undoubtedly be lower than use of a traditional pointing device, because it's not comfortable to reach for the touchscreen constantly. It is however comfortable to do so intermittently, and for some actions, direct screen manipulation feels more intuitive (especially on laptops when they're actually in your lap, and the "reach" is much smaller).

I'm sure that some people will get repetitive stress injuries from touchscreens, but it's definitely not a given that it will happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with all that. It will definitely be interesting to see how Windows 8 shakes out: there's no larger real-world test that can be run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> TL;DR

Through my experiance of using my iPad and keyboard in an unergomonical setup, I can conclude that Windows 8 will severly injure people.

<comment><USER4> Right. This guy hasn't looked at any Windows 8 hardware. You CAN'T use a mouse with an iPad. Windows 8 is touch enabled, meaning either mouse or touch.

Basically, he's saying that Microsoft has a better product, he just doesn't know he's saying it yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think he has a point: using a touchscreen on a desktop device has been known for ages to be uncomfortable for long periods, see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#.22Gorilla_arm.22>

However, that setup he has there is looks very bad from an ergonomic standpoint, and he's asking for carpal tunnel trouble. For your workstation, you really need a good chair, one that adjusts to have your feet flat on the floor while keeping your elbows above your wrists while typing, and if at all possible adjustable height rests for your arms. A 2nd-hand Aeron chair is definitely, definitely worth your money. Your wrists will thank you. Also, the top of your monitor should be at eye level (stack books or whatever underneath if you're too cheap/broke for a stand), otherwise you will hunch your shoulders over and get upper back pain.

Listen to me, O Teenage Hackers, or one day when you are as ancient as I you will wish you had :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> I have co-workers, who have their keyboards and mice too far away and suffer from shoulder strain from "stretching" for their peripherals - so the author has a point that the usage of Windows 8 that comes naturally will influence this strain on desktop/laptop scenarios, and could worsen with larger screens.

Learn to use short-cuts I guess!

</comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr Author doesn't have experience with Windows 8, only iPad, which is unergonomic when used with keyboard.

Sounds like there is an opening for someone to do something better. Like Windows 8.

</comment><comment><USER8> We spent twenty five years telling people NOT to touch our screens...</comment>


What is the collaborative editing technique used by OnlyOffice? - <AUTHOR> OnlyOffice provides collaborative editing on Words, Presentations, and Spreadsheets.<p>I am curious how they implement the collaborative editing functionality, operational transformation (OT) or commutative replicated data types (CRDT). <comment><USER2> That's operational transformation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply.

Does OnlyOffice build its own Markdown editor for supporting office files compatible with Microsoft formats?

<comment><USER2> yes, it does)

<comment><AUTHOR> You worked for OnlyOffice?

<comment><USER2> I do work for ONLYOFFICE))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


X-37B spaceplane 'spying on China' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16423881 <comment><USER2> Some of the comments on this article are interesting, in that they note that the respective launch dates of the two missions would have to mean that USA-226 either anticipated Tiangong-1's orbit, or manoeuvred to track it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-226>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1>

</comment><comment><USER3> I did some rough calculations using some online tools to determine the distance between the X-37B and Tiangong-1 and as far as I can tell they're on opposite sides of the earth to each other. I'd also hazard a guess that the USA has far better tools both on the ground and in orbit to track Tiangong-1 than the X-37B, especially with its rather limited payload capability.

Full blog post if you're interested: [http://www.therefinedgeek.com.au/index.php/2012/01/06/is- the...](http://www.therefinedgeek.com.au/index.php/2012/01/06/is- the-x-37b-tracking-chinas-efforts-in-space/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Funny how we both fully fund China and spy on them at the same time.

But no commerce with Cuba except leasing land for a prison.

Oh and billions for secret military space shuttles is fine but no more civilian space program.

</comment><comment><USER5> agree</comment>


Students built a 16th-century engineer's book-reading machine - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/behold-the-renaissance-bookwheel <comment><USER2> Wow! such a nice idea and great work by the students. On thing to note is that the modern rebuilt version is not near the original in artistic finishing. For one the original version never intended to show the cogs to the outer world, they may have thought it's either dangerous or ugly.. and had nice carvings in the other side which is visible. Also the the stands too had gorgeous wooden carvings then. Truly was a piece of art then. Wish more projects like this happen.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you like this, you might also like to check out "John Muir's Alarm Clock Desk"

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/john-muirs-alarm- clock-d...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/john-muirs-alarm-clock-desk)

</comment><comment><USER4> Tabbed browsing... doesn't this invalidate some patents on ideas of how to use multiple tabs? :P

</comment><comment><USER5> The earliest window manager, supports six tabs and weights 600 pounds.

<comment><USER6> Along these lines it somewhat reminds me of the iBooks shelf from pre iOS7 days

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes! I knew exactly what they had built when I saw the headline. I have used the old drawings numerous times in lectures as examples of the very earliest kind of proto-hypermedia.

Now, if someone could build a MEMEX with the technology available in 1945...

</comment><comment><USER8> An excellent hack (a lazy susan would have been the workmanlike solution) in which Xanadu's metaphorical tumbler cross references have parallels in mechanical tumbler cross references.

<comment><USER9> Books were bigger back then, so imagine trying to create a lazy susan to hold 8 books that were ~2 feet wide when open. You'd need a circle more than 10 feet in diameter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love the engineering in this.

I don't think I would use it to read multiple books at the same time though. I've already got a simpler solution which I use regularly - lots of bookmarks and a sturdy table to hold the big pile of books.

However, with a bit of refinement, you could repurpose it to be a rotating bookcase with each shelf holding a row of books. A standard bookcase is obviously simpler but what a way to pick your next read.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a shame physical books seem to be obsolete at university libraries. The public can't go in and browse now -- one needs a license to access the e-books.

<comment><USER12> This is just categorically untrue. I've been able to peruse and yes even read very rare manuscripts at the NYU library all while being a mere "civilian" (no uni affiliation)

<comment><USER11> Sure, the old books are still there, and I didn't say otherwise. If you want current content, it's often only available in electronic form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Bücherrad in Neal Stephenson's "the confusion"

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm really not getting the real added value of using such machine. Can't you just have the 8 books open on a table? Even placing them in parallel next to one another an swiveling around on a swivel chair seems easier.

<comment><USER15> I'm sure the 16th century engineer realized that too and designed it more because it was an amusing idea than anything practical. There's a reason it wasn't built until now.</comment></comment>


Cadillac Super Cruise Sets the Standard for Hands-Free Highway Driving - <AUTHOR> http://media.cadillac.com/media/us/en/cadillac/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2017/apr/0410-supercruise.html <comment><AUTHOR> Some additional context at [http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/15/15289194/cadillac-super- cr...](http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/15/15289194/cadillac-super-cruise-lidar- map-interview-ny-auto-show)</comment>


Ask HN: Are You a Chief Security Officer? - <AUTHOR> I have a possible SAAS idea and I would love to ask a few questions to a handful of Chief Security Officers or people who have similar roles.
I'm not sure what I could do to make it worth your while, but it would really mean a ton to me and it would only take a few minutes of your time. I could paypal you $10 if you want, I guess.
Please post here or PM me if you are willing to chat! :)
I apologize but I don't want to post the idea publicly at this point in time. I would obviously be more than happy to post it publicly once we have a product ready to sell.
Thanks HN! <comment><USER2> I'm not a CSO, but I do run a security consulting firm. You're welcome to ask me whatever you'd like and I'll do my best to answer. Ask me here or via email and I'll try to help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much, I have sent you an email.</comment></comment>


PayPal: That Debit Card You Didn't Ask For - <AUTHOR> https://chrisbanescu.com/blog/2019/09/paypal-heres-that-debit-card-you-didnt-ask-for/ <comment><USER2> The (secret) opt-out URL is: [https://www.paypal.com/nothanks](https://www.paypal.com/nothanks)

Don't you just love it when businesses trying to push something you don't need and never asked for make you choose "No, thanks" for their pestering to stop. How about simply: "No!" (possibly with an exclamation mark)

In PayPal's case, a firm "no" without a "thanks" just redirects to their Norwegian website: [https://www.paypal.com/no](https://www.paypal.com/no)

So to opt-out you still have to thank them. Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas but they could even spin it as "millions of PayPal customers express their gratitude for debit card offer."</comment>


Retroospect for Teams - <AUTHOR> http://blog.workshape.io/introducing-retroospect/

<comment><USER2> We use 15Five (employees spend 15mins/wk answering questions, managers spend 5mins reviewing). It's extremely valuable for measuring happiness and weekly goal attainment while soliciting ongoing feedback. What I like most is that it draws information out of those employees who prefer written over face-to-face interactions, and enables me to address 'concerns' before they become 'issues.'

15Five trial referral link: [http://ssqt.co/tkdC](http://ssqt.co/tkdC)

Edit: How does 15Five compare to Retroospect, now that I see someone from the team is on here?

<comment><USER3> Haven't used 15five, although it looks to me like a report form for weekly challenges, issues and so on - Text-based, way longer to fill in, yet probably more detailed.

Retroospect on a basic usage takes like 15 seconds to fill weekly and only tracks 5 basic data points, allows anonymity and produces charts, breakdown reports, etc... it's a more lightweight product, demands less from users and cost less - quite different kettle of fish.

In my experience teams tend to stop using products that demand too much after little time unless you enforce their use, although these tools are probably a better choice if you want in depth reports.

<comment><USER2> Great feedback, thank you!

<comment><USER3> :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm, I don't really understand this. How is this used on real teams? Doesn't having an unhappy face next to your name signal "I AM A PROBLEM EMPLOYEE"?

<comment><USER3> You can create anonymous teams, also the unhappy face would be only a preview, since you can segment individual user charts (Even anonymised) into 5 different data points and events that have been tracked and locate problems quite efficiently.

We use it in our small distributed team (Transparently) and it helps us figuring our when we have an issue worth discussing in depth.

You can anonymise it on larger teams and use it to figure out what actions may have made your team less happy, etc..</comment></comment>


Aren't Women Supposed to Be Caregivers? - <AUTHOR> https://code.likeagirl.io/arent-women-supposed-to-be-caregivers-91af892efe87#.jt7k24np8 <comment><USER2> I'll add a second observation Dinah. Toxic personalities like the sort you run into on message boards are great at chasing women out of tech. The sort of person who will attack you with nothing but anecdotes to claim there is no gender imbalance in a field like tech or teaching, despite clear evidence of the opposite. These people demand the last word, so the only option women have is to sit down, shut up, and be put in their place... or leave. My experience is that most girls choose to leave.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd say Blake Burns is wrong. There is systematic bias.

"Hi, I'm a middle aged man. I would love to hang around with school aged girls in my spare time. Where do I sign up?"

You see the problem. The majority of people who could teach young girls to code are men. To fix the girls in tech problem, one must first fix the lack of male teachers.

<comment><USER3> All the coding teachers I know are men. All of them work at bootcamps or non- profits that accept school-aged girls. This taboo that you're implying exists may exist in some places (like playgrounds), but it doesn't keep men out of teaching jobs.

Also, I've been writing software for 20 years, and I can easily say that anyone who can teach science or math can also teach coding. It's not rocket science. The basics are pretty basic. If a 12-week bootcamp grad can get a job, a high-school teacher can learn enough programming to teach the basics to kids.

<comment><USER2> >All the coding teachers I know are men. All of them work at bootcamps or non- profits that accept school-aged girls.

And yet, some parents are reluctant to bring their girls. Hmmm.

>it doesn't keep men out of teaching jobs.

It doesn't keep ALL men out of teaching. FTFY.

I know what you want to say. I'm concern trolling and exaggerating. Let's agree to disagree. I'm sure Dinah didn't post this rebuttal with hopes of reading a flame war. I replied with my perspective. I'm sure she'd love to hear yours instead of hearing you try to tear mine down to fit your world view. Looking forward to your top level post direct to her.

<comment><USER3> > _concern trolling and exaggerating_

I wish you would save that for Reddit (or anywhere else). I like HN because trolls are downvoted and exaggeration isn't tolerated much -- even to the point that harmless jokes are downvoted into oblivion. It's not that those things are unacceptable, but rather that a lot of us come to HN for the serious, genuine discussion that is hard to find elsewhere.

Also don't troll and exaggerate if you don't want anyone to respond with a counterpoint. Isn't trolling about getting a response?

> _I replied with my perspective. I 'm sure she'd love to hear yours instead > of hearing you try to tear mine down to fit your world view._

If you don't want anyone to respond to your comments, don't post them somewhere that discussion is encouraged.

> _Looking forward to your top level post direct to her._

I agree with her and don't have anything to add to her article. If that weren't the case, I would have posted a top-level comment. Don't tell me where my opinions do/don't belong on an open forum.

<comment><USER2> >don't troll and exaggerate

I'm not. You're passive aggressively implying that I'm doing that instead of saying it directly. It's not appreciated, but I tried to bury the hatchet and let you have your say. You'd rather tear down others than share your own experience. You have admitted that you have nothing to contribute other than argue with me. Thanks. I hope it made you feel like a bigger man.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Visual Explanation of OLS Regression - <AUTHOR> http://setosa.io/ev/ordinary-least-squares-regression/index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, if you're in SF and are interested in learning more about d3.js, one of the primary libraries that we used to build EV, we'll be teaching a 1 day workshop May 2nd geared towards people comfortable with data but haven't gotten deep into web programming. We'll also be using "explorable explanation" style techniques along the way.

Have a look at our preliminary workshop demos for an example: [https://vicapow.github.io/d3-1-day- workshop/](https://vicapow.github.io/d3-1-day-workshop/)

I promise the demos will get more advanced and start incorporating data before the workshop :)

You can apply to the workshop here: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VgBUu7znZVllkVw2d6TISzsTjGD...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VgBUu7znZVllkVw2d6TISzsTjGDDviPF3vbo- Zlz6ME/viewform)

The application process is to ensure everyone's at about the same level. If you're accepted, the ticket is $99 and includes food and refreshments.

</comment><comment><USER2> Great visualization (as the rest from [http://setosa.io](http://setosa.io) , go have a look)!!

I wonder, though: I learnt OLS as standard math / symbolic logic; but, if kids and students learnt from these visualization, would they be better off, or worse off?

Because, at least for me, it is difficult to reason about this and other visual math examples (whereas there are others that are great as demonstrations, as the integer proof in [http://www.catonmat.net/blog/visual- math-friday/](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/visual-math-friday/) , this one, regarding OLS, _confuses_ me).

It probably depends a lot on each person. Out of curiosity, does this particular example give you insights? Which ones? How?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's important to remember that, for at least EV, these explanations aren't intended to stand on their own. There's a lot of good resources online already for learning this stuff. The problem, as we see it, is one of motivation and curiosity. If we can help people intuit what's happening and why it's important, we think this will help motivate people to want to get more into the details on their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> love it. a cool feature for the visualizations after the first would be to show the SSE for the OLS line vs whatever configuration you picked.</comment>


Netflix, Amazon Forced to Fund European Video Under New Rule - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-02/netflix-amazon-forced-to-promote-fund-eu-works-under-new-rules <comment><USER2> This sounds great! I hope they offer original language versions rather than only overdubbed.</comment>


Here's the difference between Polymer and Angular - <AUTHOR> http://www.binpress.com/blog/2014/06/26/polymer-vs-angular/

<comment><USER2> This looks interesting, but you run the risk of new developers sliding down the learning curve of your codebase. In my experience, rails partials and render calls are always a stumbling point for entry-level devs. The prospect of replacing html tags in a JS app with additional abstraction is a dangerous one indeed.

</comment><comment><USER3> The most compelling case for Polymer (in my experience) is CSS encapsulation.

When explaining to other devs that Polymer makes it possible to create rich tags like the existing video, audio, and progress tags, it's much easier to grasp.</comment>


Airbnb's growing pains: half of its NYC listings are illegal rentals - <AUTHOR> http://skift.com/2013/01/07/airbnbs-growing-pains-mirrored-in-new-york-city-where-half-its-listings-are-illegal-rentals/

<comment><USER2> >We want to avoid becoming legal advisors who are required to know the law in every market we operate.

Uh, sorry. I like Airbnb, and I like to support startups, but trying to make the claim that you should't have to know the law in every market you operate in just doesn't fly. If you don't know the laws in a market, don't operate in that market until you do. Hire people who know the law. Bring on lawyers from different regions. Have even just one person whose job is to research the laws in the markets you're moving into.

I don't want to have to know the speed limits of every road I drive on, but if I don't pay attention to the signs (or the highway code for unmarked roads), you better believe the officer won't care what I do or do not want to know.

<comment><USER3> This is an interesting issue... is AirBnB legally obligated to police the rentals? Or are they considered more of an intermediary?

Your analogy to driving is an interesting one... is AirBnB the car rental company or the driver? For instance, if I drive drunk in a rental car, it's my fault, not hertz's.

There is a big difference, of course - Hertz really can't control what I do in the car (and they do spell out some restrictions on what I can do with it), whereas AirBnB has geographic location that might be more useful in determining whether a short term rental is allowed in an area. But even then, there may be different regulations on different types of housing units, leases that might have different restrictions, and so forth. It's hard to see how this wouldn't involve a requirement that the user "comply with all local laws and regulations".

<comment><USER4> If AirBNB are taking a cut and facilitating the rental than of course they need to know the laws in each location they operate.

<comment><USER3> My earlier point was a narrow one about an analogy to driving laws. In general, I'm inclined to agree with you.

A big factor for me here is that you can book and pay through AirBnB. That does make it different from the classifieds or craigslist style ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Until the law is changed, can't a rental owner solve this problem and avoid fines by requiring buyers to purchase one extra rental day in which the owner stays in the unit? i.e. if you want to stay for five days, the owner rents it out for 6 days, giving you one day free and the owner has to be there that one day. AFAICT there is a loophole so long as the owner is present for just one day of the stay. It only states that the owner must be present, not that the owner must be present for the entire duration of the stay.</comment>


Trump: 1,700 Google Engineers are building a website to direct coronavirus tests - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/google-building-coronavirus-test-website-trump-says-2020-3 <comment><USER2> If nine woman can produce a baby in one month, can 1700 women produce a baby in 3.8 minutes?

</comment><comment><USER3> I would have to assume that number is exaggerated...

</comment><comment><USER3> This was another Trump lie: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21179118/google- coronavir...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21179118/google-coronavirus- testing-screening-website-drive-thru-covid-19)</comment>


PEP 3146: Merge Unladen Swallow into CPython - <AUTHOR> http://svn.python.org/view/peps/trunk/pep-3146.txt?view=markup

<comment><USER3> I don't really understand the politics surrounding Python, but I don't understand why they believe this could be "blessed" by inclusion into the repository.

Performance goals have not been met so far; it increases memory usage; PyPy is an alternative with more community support (if only because the typical Python programmer knows more Python than C++); and it makes the code much more complex, introducing lots of hard-to-debug problems, at a time when the developers already have trouble getting people to migrate to 3.x.

The 3.x branch does _not_ need a reputation for instability.

(None of this is to say Unladen Swallow is a bad idea, or should be killed; but it should prove its worth first.)

<comment><USER4> > but I don't understand why they believe this could be "blessed" by inclusion > into the repository.

Google is, of course, a big company with lots of _very_ smart people, and they rely on Python (and probably want to rely on it more in the future). Given that they employ Guido and also the primary developers of Unladen, the chances are very good that they will continue to vigorously improve upon it until their performance goals are met.

As far as introducing C++ goes, it's going to stay roped off in LLVM land (see [the PEP](<http://python.org/dev/peps/pep-3146/>) for details).

As far as community support, LLVM has plenty of that.

<comment><USER3> Hmm, yes, I understand why the Unladen Swallow developers, and to a certain extent Google, would want to do that. It just seems to me that the community would benefit more by waiting a little.

By the developers' own admission, LLVM's JIT infrastructure is immature and integrating it with Python uncovered lots of issues. Sure, clang has pretty good community support, but that doesn't mean that the Python integration - <USER2> even the JIT stuff - is equally well-supported. And the Python community doesn't contain many LLVM experts, I'd wager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A pretty, rendered version of the markup is available here: <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3146/>

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think it's enough to just add JIT. For a runtime system the garbage collector is important, it's important to do optimizations such as V8's hidden classes, function inlining, to remove the GIL etc. This is probably the reason why their perfomance gain is so small - - they have added JIT, while applying only a few smart optimizations.

I don't think Unladen Swallow should be merged into CPython until the benefits are proven. Currently it will just add an extra layer of complexity, worsen Python's greedy management of memory and add little benefits in perfomance.

</comment><comment><USER7> I want a pony from Guido too

<comment><USER8> Surprisingly on-topic :-) For the curious, the reference is within this article: "We seek the following from the BDFL:

 _Approval for the overall concept of adding a just-in-time compiler to CPython, following the design laid out below._

 _Permission to continue working on the just-in-time compiler in the CPython source tree._

 _Permission to eventually merge the just-in-time compiler into the py3k branch once all blocking issues have been addressed._

 _A pony._ "

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's unfortunate that they never hit their original 5x performance boost. Hopefully acceptance into CPython will help.

<comment><USER10> So is the goal to gain resources by becoming part of CPython? It seems like the small performance increases they got are completely overshadowed by the additional memory requirements. I don't pretend to understand the mainline Python development cycle, but this surely doesn't seem mature enough to justify declaring it as "the way forward".

<comment><USER11> Ya I noticed that too. I'd love to have some performance benefits from JIT too but not at those costs. 2.43x - 2.76x increase in memory to Django[1]. Ugh. That's a large enough change that I'd have to upgrade hardware. Come on now.

[1] <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3146/#memory-usage>

<comment><USER12> From TFA "We view reducing memory usage as a blocking issue for final merger into the py3k branch. "

<comment><USER9> Down further they say something about how they'll ask the community what the acceptable memory usage increase will be. In other words, they might reduce it by say 15%, but not anywhere near the JIT-less levels, and call it a day. I suppose you always have the option to compile python as --without-jit...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think that a JIT compiler will eventually be added to python, so the sooner this happens the better. The new generation of javascript engines (e.g. V8) have shown us how fast dynamic code can be; there is no reason python can't achieve this either. I also think the swallow team has gone about this in the right way: presenting what they've done, and asking for what needs to happen before it can become mainline. They obviously value this merge, so kudos to google.

On the other hand, performance so far is quite underwhelming. Certainly, as a PEP, this is by no means intended to be merged now, but to provide a roadmap for the future. Here's to hoping they can remove their remaining roadblocks.

</comment><comment><USER14> Until they get more performance out of it, it's way too marginal for the memory used. If they can get it 2x the speed of CPython I'm all for it.

Of course one day pypy will emerge too, so unladen swallow should hurry up!

(TBH I'd prefer pypy to become the canonical python in the end)

</comment><comment><USER15> Sorry but I need to know this: What does "Pony" mean in a nerdy-geek humor context?

<comment><USER16> "... and a pony" is just an admission that you've already asked a lot and it might not happen. A pony is the kind of thing a child requests on a whim, who is then crushed because they don't understand how ridiculously impractical it would be.

<comment><USER15> Thanks. That's a very good answer :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If it was at terminal velocity it should be considered, but it's yet to get off the ground. Until then, psyco is a great JIT compiler that really works.

</comment><comment><USER18> ...African or European?</comment>


U.S. Truck Driver Shortage Is on Course to Double in a Decade - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-24/u-s-truck-driver-shortage-is-on-course-to-double-in-a-decade <comment><USER2> The shortage, is pay, and freedom. Plenty of drivers are willing to jump back into the market if the nannys are turned off and the pay bumped a tiny bit. Most people get into trucking to be left alone, not to be more micromanaged than the average cube-dweller.

<comment><USER3> Trucker. The nanny-tron can be annoying. But it can also save you some hassle when you're in the right, as it has for me. And it's reasonable easy to stay on Nanny's good side, just drive safe and sane, and follow the rules.

I doubt they'll turn off the nannies, companies get dinged by the feds when drivers screw up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems contradictory to me that there is going to be a driver shortage at the same time that transport volumes are dropping disastrously.

[https://www.joc.com/trucking-logistics/truckload- freight/us-...](https://www.joc.com/trucking-logistics/truckload-freight/us- economy-nears-crossroads-shipping-costs-volumes-drop_20190620.html)

<comment><USER5> I have to say... That's a pretty weak source. In fact, it's only one sentence.</comment></comment>


Greek Genocide of 1914–1922 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide <comment><AUTHOR> What has happened, has happened and gone by. We must now find a way to live next to each other so that nothing like this happens ever again, that no more blood is shed and no more people lose their homes to senseless nationalism and hatred.</comment>


What We Give Up When We Become Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/12/what-we-give-up-when-we-become-entrepreneurs.html?mid=fastco&utm_source=facebook <comment><USER2> so - what is the message of this article? freelancers give up colleagues, and therefore it is harder to be creative?</comment>


Github Reliability - <AUTHOR> http://thoughts.wallproductions.com/2014/01/27/github_reliability/ <comment><USER2> Iconically the blog post about Github being down is now down:

Forbidden: You don't have permission to access /2014/01/27/github_reliability/ on this server. Apache Server at thoughts.wallproductions.com Port 80

 _Here 's the content even though it's not worth reading IMHO:_

I have been using Github for work for the last couple of years. I have noticed that their service has been getting less and less reliable throughout the years. They are the leader when it comes to Git hosting. So it's hard just to turn them off completely at this point. Plus I am using it at work so I don't have much say in moving off of it. It's sad to see it as overall their feature set is really good. They have been very innovative throughout the years. I have been very impressed by their pull request feature and many more. I have also been impressed by how easy they make Git. Saying that they have their own set of issues you have to deal with on a monthly basis. I have noticed more and more that they go down often. It seems that at least once a month Github will go down for a small time period. This can range from a couple of minutes up to ten or so minutes. It's never hours of downtime. They seem to respond to the issue fast and get it fixed. I feel that most downtime can be avoidable or should be worked at so it is avoidable. We don't see Google services go down once a month. In the last couple of years I haven't seen any Google services I use to down at all even. Yes in the technology world unexpected things happen from time to time but it shouldn't be every month. I think Github has forced us to at least think about other hosting providers. One name that comes to mind is bitbucket. It seems that their feature set is also very rich but they may not have as many downtime issues as Github. I really hope to see Github be able to get it together but if not companies are going to have to start thinking of other Git hosting solutions. It's also possible to roll your own Git server but of course you won't get all the rich features of these service platforms.

<comment><USER3> I didn't choose Github because of their HA policy, did you ?

This article seems more like FUD to me, even if I don't understand the DDoS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Um... The last month, Github has had 99.939% uptime, Bitbucket has had 99.854%.

In Github's case that corresponds to approximately 30 minutes of downtime, and in Bitbucket's case it's about 60 minutes.

I think that given the cost, a 99.9% uptime is perfectly acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER5> > We don't see Google services go down once a month. In the last couple of > years I haven't seen any Google services I use to down at all even.

[http://www.google.com/appsstatus](http://www.google.com/appsstatus)

</comment><comment><USER6> Git is a distributed version control system for a reason.

Even if GitHub is down for a few hours, you can still do most of your work. (Yes, no issue tracking, etc. I know.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I suppose. Unless you need to make a pull request.

<comment><USER7> Git supports many channels for sharing changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree completely on the diagnosis. But honestly suggesting Bitbucket as an alternative is kind of ridiculous: it has the same scale of availability problems, without all the pressure (DDoS) GitHub faces, and is much less transparent about the exact nature of their technical problems (it was different before being bought by Atlassian). Yours, a bitbucket user

<comment><USER3> And Bitbucket is damn slow, it's a day to day pain !

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The main question for me is: why the fuck do someone want to DDoS Github ?

Does anyone has an idea ?

<comment><USER9> Many possible reasons; varying from extortion attempts to personal gripes to some men just wanting to see the world burn.

<comment><USER3> Excuse me, but it still seems ridiculous.

Isn't hosted on site Github entreprise the main source of revenue of Github ? If we ask oursef "why do we choose github as Git hosters", features, awesome culture, openness will sort out, not availability.

Come on, this article seems indeed like propaganda. Git is all about asynchronous workflows. Github down ? Better commit some tests or review my mates the time I can push.

Github services are important but not critical, most of the users don't pay, critical users are not impacted, this all story seem like a huge waste of resources for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems like moving to GitHub Enterprise is making more and more sense. Too bad the pricing is simply too cost prohibitive for most startups.

Can anyone using an Enterprise install comment on the reliability/maintenance required?

Seems like there's a good opportunity to build a better GitHub and focus on delivering a solid, on-premise experience at a much better price.

<comment><USER11> if you need a self hosted version just use gitlab?

[http://gitlab.org/](http://gitlab.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To be clear I am not saying that Github is going away anytime soon. I love their service but I am just sick of them going down during business hours on a regular basis. Right now there is really no good alternative. So I agree on the fact that Github is it. It was more a post about the frustration of Github being down when it's needed the most.

</comment><comment><USER12> Funny that their own site appears unreachable.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you rely exclusively on "the cloud" you eventually get burned.

Either pay for 5 9's of reliability or cut the whining.

</comment><comment><USER14> Funny like this is posted while GitHub is under DDoS attack.

<comment><USER15> The cynic in me says that this has been waiting to be published at an opportune time.

<comment><USER16> I was amused that the post mentions Google services never being down, when GMail was down last week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another commit the post comes from the view point that Github has enough capital to hire really good people. That is an assumption though.

</comment><comment><USER17> I nearly fell off my chair laughing at this article when it suggested bitbucket.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there any alternative to Github at this point? For open source there is not.</comment></comment>


Pac-Man is NP-Hard - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/115677-pac-man-is-np-hard-same-as-travelling-salesman-problem

<comment><USER2> A _particular generalization_ of Pac-Man is NP-Hard _with respect to the size of the board_.

The actual arcade game, on the other hand, can't be NP-Hard because it has a fixed board. It can be solved in constant time.

Article titles like this are a major reason people end up with muddled ideas about technical concepts.

<comment><USER3> Also, since the game is deterministic, there are known patterns that let a player win every possible board with maximum points: <http://www.math.montana.edu/~hyde/pacman/> .</comment></comment>


Failing (and winning) at planning software projects - <AUTHOR> https://simplabs.com/blog/2020/06/17/failing-and-winning-at-planning-software-projects <comment><USER2> When was the last time the functionality and scope of an application was defined BEFORE it was built (and didn't change before shipping)?

The longer I program the more I like small, simple apps that can be chained together to do useful things... and be completely re-written at a later time when the full needs of the company are actually understood. What makes that re-writing or re-architecting a lot easier is clear documentation and modeling of the system at a high level, who the actors are, and what the essential/primary, secondary, and tertiary functions are as well as giving a score that reflects how essential each is to the company's core business (eg: a login/auth system would rate very low unless your product or service is a login/auth system -- this is a component that can/should be outsourced so you can focus on what makes money for your company).

Write the app "just good enough to work and make money" but document the business as completely and clearly as possible with the assumption that at some point in the future a team that's new to the company could write a complete replacement of all of your software (which might just happen if you are successful enough to get a massive investment and need to rearchitect for future growth).

</comment><comment><USER3> > Actively keeping a backlog is most often simply a waste of time. That is not > only the case for feature tasks but also for bug reports – a bug that has > not been addressed for the past six months is unlikely to be addressed in > the coming six months.

This makes me uncomfortable. I don't exactly know why, but the thought that ideas, nice-to-haves, and bugs move to a /dev/null of some sort, does not resonate with me.

What if that bug re-appears after 7 months. You'd want to pull up the old one and go: "see, it still hardly ever happens, but here's another one".

You could rename the backlog to "archive", but that hardly makes it different: a backlog is still a list of stuff you had no time to think about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not maintaining a backlog doesn't necessarily mean you cannot collect ideas etc. anywhere. I think the two main points are:

* putting effort into preparing proper tickets for all these ideas is likely wasted time as 90% of the ideas will never be taken on * keeping all the ideas together with the issues that are actually important creates noise and makes it harder to identify the actually important stuff; also having a backlog with thousands of open tickets puts loads of emotional pressure on teams since they are always feeling like they lack behind while in reality most of those thousands of tickets are irrelevant anyway.

Also I'm not sure what the point of being able to say

> "see, it still hardly ever happens, but here's another one".

would be really (except for being right about the existence of something) – if the decision is not to fix the bug it's irrelevant still.

<comment><USER4> [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel- test-12-s...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel- test-12-steps-to-better-code/#:~:text=5.%20Do%20you)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, you should have bugs documented somewhere but I'm not sure a bug that hasn't been fixed for x months needs to be there since it's a bug the team obviously decided not to care about.

<comment><USER5> I personally fixed bugs that have been opened for longer then that, so nope, they can get fixed. Plus, it prevents people from opening them again and again and again and again as they all notice the same thing.

<comment><USER6> I've fixed a couple Firefox bugs that were filed in Bugzilla 10-15 years ago. :)

At least one fix, however, upset some people who come to like the "incorrect" behavior over those 10-15 years. (In one case, I changed the filename of saved web pages from "index.html" to HTML <title> .html to match Chrome and IE behavior.)

This xkcd comic is relevant: [https://xkcd.com/1172/](https://xkcd.com/1172/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "other stakeholders that have legitimate needs with regards to predictability and insight into a project's progress are left in the cold"

Well, that's a bit dishonest, this is not really about coordination, this is about risk and money.

This is about helping people who are not working on the project to sleep better.

I believe that setting the budget and deadline from the start and then asking the team to scope the project is a reasonable way to manage risks, but not the other way around.

<comment><USER8> > not working on the project to sleep better

I believe it's more sinister than that: it's to prevent the people who are working on the project from sleeping at all. Remember, most developers are on a salary, which means minimum 40 hours a week, but a maximum of 168. People who view other humans as expendable "resources" \- the amoral types who inevitably rise to prominence in corporate America - then see planning as a strategy to push that number as high as possible. They thus insist that an inherently unpredictable process - software development - must be 100% predictable and, when that inevitably turns out not to be the case (yet again), they demand punitive uncompensated overtime. This isn't an accident.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I'm the author. I think you Mis-interprete what I'm saying - of course understanding timelines and budget will often be a legitimate need of one or some stakeholders, among others. And of course making teams stick to deadlines when that's not possible is bullshit. But the other extreme - demanding that nothing can ever be estimated and understood well up-front - is equally wrong. In the Limited scope of an iteration, it is well possible to reduce risk and uncertainty at least a good amount through thorough analysis and preparation.

<comment><USER7> I disagree, in my opinion it is never legitimate to pressure people into predicting the future, and it simply never works.

There is a very this counter-intuitive thing about predicting the future.

We tend to believe that by cutting our predictions in smaller and smaller pieces, our predictions will be closer to reality, or at least more manageable. But there is nothing further from the truth, the best predictions are made when someone experienced in the field is looking at the big picture and try to give a rough estimation.

This has been proven again and again.

At the end od the day, people are working and projects gets finished not because, but in spite of micro-management and other unhelpful practices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed we disagree. I'd say the reluctance that's relatively wide spread in particularly among engineers to even try and reduce risk as much as possible (within a limited scope) and framing that as "predicting the future" is a huge fallacy that doesn't benefit anyone. There's just not only the 2 extremes - completely and reliably predicting the future vs. just going off with no plan - but there's something in the middle.

Also the big picture That one could look at in the beginning of a project and base an estimate on is more often than not not what you end up with at the end of the project anyway.

<comment><USER7> My main craft is software engineering but I've occupied managing roles in the past, and even twice as the CEO of a small company.

I am perfectly aware of the difficulties of managing projects and keeping clients happy.

From my experience, what you are describing is something few founders are concerned about, because they understand and embrace risk.

On the other hand middle-management is always trying to push their peons to predict the future and accept the liability.

<comment><AUTHOR> > On the other hand middle-management is always trying to push their peons to > predict the future and accept the liability.

That's bad just middle management then though. It's also why I'm advocating against project managers who would typically/often/sometimes do what you describe here – if you have someone who doesn't actively contribute to the project influence (or dictate in the worst case) timelines, that's deemed to fail from the beginning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Planning and estimating projects (or sprints within projects) is associated with a lot of uncertainty and frustration on all sides. At the same time, teams feel they have to adopt processes like Scrum (or their own interpretation of it) and then expect that to fix everything which is usually not the case of course. In reality what I find lacking in most teams is direct communication and close collaboration as well as an appreciation for the valid and reasonable needs and interests of each and every project stakeholder (that's not only engineering and design but also product, marketing, finance maybe etc.).

In this post, I present a set of relatively simple techniques to practice that remove a team's frustration and enable better estimates and predictability.</comment>


Fuck Facebook Conversion: Be platform agnostic and use your own APIs. - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2007/08/fuck-facebook-c.html

<comment><USER2> That's a pretty naive analysis of the situation. A good Facebook app isn't just some functionality shoved into boxes on people's profiles and canvas pages. You actually have to integrate with the site to make it useful.

Any site that does anything remotely social already has it's own friend relationships to help manage that. Putting such a site's functionality into a Facebook app is never going to be as simple as copy and pasting, and if your site isn't social enough to have already necessitated its own friend feature, it's not going to be social enough add any utility as a Facebook app.

"Right now, most of the widgets that are out there are an attempt to squeeze the elements of a service into a neat little sidebar rectangle--a bottleneck created by one-way APIs, limited space, and underwhelming goals."

How does his solution solve that?

<comment><USER3> _"... That's a pretty naive analysis of the situation. ..."_

I'd say thats more _"punk - attitude"_ than analysis. There is a bigger problem(s) here that the title alludes to. Try reading this article ~ <http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/></comment></comment>


Hackers Steal Millions in Carbon Credits - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/hackers-steal-carbon-credits

<comment><USER2> Carbon credits are an attractive target for all forms of deception because they're modeled on an institution that has a couple of hundred years worth of bullet-proofing but do not themselves use the same, battle-tested institutions.

For example, if I tell you "I've got here a number which represents a one millionth part ownership in a company in a country you've never been to -- will you pay me $600 for it?", as insane as that might sound it is actually pretty routine. You can trust that paying me $600 will effect the transfer for the number, that the number does indeed represent a one millionth part ownership in a company, and that the company actually exists. This is guaranteed by an interlocking web of regulations, trusted relationships, and whatnot which is one of the wonders of the modern era.

By comparison, carbon credits are, well, is magic a strong word? With stock you're paying for partial ownership in something which doesn't exist but is convenient to think about for illustrative purposes. With carbon credits you're paying for partial ownership in something which might have existed but didn't, and potential-but- _crucially_ -not-actual existence is convenient to think about for illustrative purposes.

My private suspicion is that carbon credits probably involve outright fraud on a scale that would shame Communist agricultural ministers.

<comment><USER3> This reminded me of the pork futures warehouse :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why the talk about politics in the comments here when this is nothing but a plain old phishing attack? Isn't this about phishing, not regulations, good governance, climate change or any such thing? This has nothing to do with whether in principle carbon credits are good or bad, does it? Sure, it might tell you something about the security of their online trading system (or about the stupidity of the workers who fell for the phishing), but nothing else. I don't get it. Please tell me.

</comment><comment><USER5> It reminds me of a Rolling Stone article about how Goldman-Sachs has been behind the regulations and systems that made the last bubbles possible. It finishes with explaining how the next market would be carbon emissions. The fact that carbon emissions tickets are now an item to steal is a bit worrying.

[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_grea...](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm getting some serious future shock here - two weird science-fictional ideas, combined in an unexpected manner, seem to result in weird^2 rather than the expected 2weird.

It's apt that someone should mention Terry Gilliam's Brazil; This news item seems to evoke the same general feeling - being awestruck by a society that resembles a perpetual-bureaucracy machine.

</comment><comment><USER7> In the past, I wished for a sane and cautious government. I wished for a government run by intelligent and cautious people who believe in incremental progress and are skeptical of new bureaucracy. I wanted a government where leaders are accountable and individuals are protected first as individuals. I wanted the primary job of politicians to be to role models and advocates, looking to encourage voluntary good behavior rather than legislating it.

I'm starting to think that's impossible.

And if it is impossible, then I want the biggest, most ridiculous frigging circus imaginable. I want more regulation, regulations contradicting other regulations, courts getting into feuds with other courts, criminals stealing bureaucratic credits. If good governance is impossible, then at least let the bureaucracy be entertaining. Bring on the circus. More bailouts, more surveillance, more legislation, more courts, more politicians, more taxes, more programs, more agencies. Bring on the circus - if good government is impossible, then at least let us be entertained.

<comment><USER8> Have you got a 27B/6? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eosrujtjJHA>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> this just goes to show that social engineering is the most important part of being a hacker. That is a good payout 4 million in one day for a simple phishing site.

I know stealing is wrong, but I am impressed with their execution.

It also enforces the belief that network security is more dependent now on educating the people that use it.</comment>


Similarities Between C++ and Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://www.lurklurk.org/cpp_clos.html <comment><USER3> The article generally is quite useful, but some wordings are a bit strange for a Lisp programmer.

Interpreter: in the Lisp world a Lisp interpreter is an evaluator, which actually uses Lisp source code. Often people think that evaluation must be interpreter based. But that's not necessary. Some evaluators are compiler- based, but the compiler is able to incrementally create executable code - <USER2> machine code - for almost any Lisp form - even in-memory.

Dynamic binding. In a Lisp context the ability to select methods from a generic functions based on the runtime classes of the arguments is called Dynamic Dispatch. Dynamic Binding in Lisp is unrelated and is concerned with how values get bound to variables.

<comment><USER4> Maybe the author was thinking of "late binding" (of which dynamic dispatch is an example).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see how the C++ notion of encapsulation is better that Lisp's?

In C++:

* you can access anything anyway just by using friend declaration, that's something similar to accessing Lisp's class slots by package-private names, not real improvement

* you have to recompile everything when private part of class changes... actually a disadvantage

</comment><comment><USER4> [2000] missing.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you seen cases of english words in youtube urls? - <AUTHOR>

As youtube grows, the instances of actual english words in youtube urls should grow (albeit very very very slowly)
Have you seen an instance of english words in a youtube url?
I don't know why but I found no research or mention of anything like this on the web. <comment><USER2> Well, try it out. [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=site:y...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=site:youtube.com+inurl:watch+-inurl:title|search+inurl:eggs)

</comment><comment><USER3> Can I ask what would this research prove? The beauty of randomness I guess....

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> @spooneybarger You can read up on the Infinite monkey theorem.

<comment><USER4> This isn't twitter, you can reply to him directly by clicking the small "reply" link under his comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> what? why 'should' that happen?

<comment><USER5> wait? i got voted down? why? i asked a serious question, i don't understand why it 'should' happen. the op seems to postulate its a given, why is it a given?</comment></comment>