Trump executive order extends a ban on employment-based visas through 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/22/trump-visas-us-immigration-tech-companies <comment><USER2> The idiocy of claiming this is about prevent coronavirus infections from an administration that has openly stated its method for reducing infections was to reduce _testing_ , when we have utterly failed to even remotely contain just the first wave of infections is beyond frustrating.

The is about pandering to xenophobia and nothing else.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> > The ban on new visas applies to H-1B visas, which are widely used by tech > workers and their families, H-2B visas for nonagricultural seasonal workers, > J-1 visas for cultural exchanges and L-1 visas for managers and other key > employees of multinational corporations.

> Trump imposed a 60-day ban on green cards issued abroad in April, which was > set to expire Monday. That announcement, which largely targeted family > members, drew a surprisingly chilly reception from immigration hardliners, > who said the president didn't go far enough. The new steps to include non- > immigrant visas went a long way toward appeasing hardliners.

I recently married my wife who was on a cultural exchange visa, Fulbright, and thankfully live out of states with her. We were hoping to apply for a green card eventually but the situation has gotten worse.

</comment><comment><USER3> previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605557)</comment>


Ask HN: Reposting dilemma in Hacker News - <AUTHOR> What if my post does not get any attention at all, can I repost it? Rule says-<p>"If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill reposts as duplicates. If not, a small number of reposts is ok. Please don't delete and repost the same story, though. Accounts that do that eventually lose submission privileges."<p>The guideline is from story/news repetition perspective but it says nothing about the person who posts. So I'm not clear if I can repost my own post. Coming to the reason from where I got this requirement (pretty serious for me), We recently revamp our product site, I'm sure it's better than it's ancestor but skeptical if it meets standard UI/UX guidelines. Our sales figure, after launching the new site, does not see significant change either, which further provoked me to get some suggestions from other people. Yesterday I post a "Show HN:" requesting our community to provide their valuable feedback. Honestly speaking, I was expecting at least 5-6 suggestions but to my surprise, none came. It got only one comment and no evaluation. I know almost 90% of stories does not get engagement at all due to various reasons. But for us, it's not just a story, our survival depends on this product. So am I allowed to repost it again? If so, is there any mandatory time gap? N.B. - I intentionally exclude the post link as that might be seen as promotion as well. <comment><USER2> It's not very clear, but my advice is to wait a few days.

I agree with the comment in the previous submission. The site has too many things. It's not very clear what are you selling.

Do you know one of your (potential) clients? Sit one of them in front of a computer and watch him/her navigate the site while you are mute and have your hands tied behind your back. What are they interested in? What do they want to find? Can you reduce our offer to one product and add a link to "many more fantastic products here!!!"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for the suggestions. I like your idea to show very few on home page and providing a link to browse all other. Though these are all add-ons(paid), our base product WC Marketplace is a totally free WordPress plugin. We believe if we can increase user base of our base plugin then automatically sale of our paid addons increase. That's why most of the CTA redirects to WordPress site to promote downloading our plugin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I'd wait a few days, and then try a repost at a different time of day. HN regulars are pretty much global, and different crowds are reading at different times. I find posting during quiet periods results in slightly more interaction. Also include a specific 'call to arms' such as 'if you could improve X how would you?'

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for commenting, would you mind explaining 'if you could improve X how would you?' this part a bit more. I didn't get it. Sorry for this additional trouble.</comment></comment>


Longest-Serving Professor at Cornell Reflects on Journey Through Academia - <AUTHOR> https://cornellsun.com/2019/12/09/60-years-later-longest-serving-professor-at-cornell-reflects-on-journey-through-academia/ <comment><USER2> Interesting quote here:

> The university, although still of substantial size back then [50-60 years > ago], operated in a bottom-up manner, Nerode told The Sun. "All the faculty > in all departments met in the auditorium to decide the future of the > university. It is now top-down, but that is also the case everywhere else," > Nerode said.

I wonder, is this bottom-up (professor-led) vs top-down (administrator-led) shift a real thing felt by many old-time academics? It seems like this may be happening in a lot of different industries (e.g. medicine) and leading to "cost disease"[1].

[1]: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on- cost...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost- disease/)

<comment><USER3> I've seen this play out in some heavily funded (mechanical engineering) organizations as well.

Some are incredibly top-heavy, with decisions being flipped from the experts to the administrative staff who have at most 3-5 years of experience at the company and industry, but often less.

The organizations that are self-funded from selling specialized products and not either government bids or wealthy backers are usually much more bottom-up organized.

<comment><USER4> That's a organizational pattern common in outsourcing scenarios. There's a small cadre of people who know what they are talking about to some degree, who build whatever and define an operational process.

Then the operators do whatever they do, and usually aren't empowered to do anything that changes the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" I learned how to acquire new subjects because I had to walk into class and pick up everything that the people had done before," Nerode told The Sun. ... Nerode remarked that "there was no such thing as an academic advisor for people going to college."_

This is important. A fellow like Nerode could walk into any university and be fine, and his background is a major reason. Nowadays, universities are open to much wider swathes of the population, and these people need support services, or they'd fail out. Everyone who complains about the growth of the administrative hydrocephalus must consider this fact.

<comment><USER6> I think over the last 2-3 decades standards have fallen across the board because ideals behind the original purpose of such services, to prevent underperformers from failing out, have morphed into a general administrative goal. I went through college in the early 10s, and there was a very clear implicit bias in all grading - failing students didn't look good for professors, departments, or schools in general now. The result was a consistent sort of unspoken grade padding. The goal of making college accessable to increasingly greater swaths of the population is amicable, but it rests on the again implicit assumption that a simple change of environment allows everyone to thrive equally - but the result is overall reduced rigor and a general watering down of the very meaning of a college degree.

More people may be going to school, but the distribution of talent hasn't changed much, and by the time you're entering college there is a minimum level of intrinsic ability necessary to really grasp technical degrees that no amount of tutoring will mitigate.

<comment><USER5> _but it rests on the again implicit assumption that a simple change of environment allows everyone to thrive equally_

This is emphatically not true. The SCS Noonan Scholar program is a very successful program for underrepresented minorities. Initially, they tried just giving money and a seat at an elite institution (Harvard, Amherst, that caliber), and they found that their students failed out of STEM subjects with regularity. So now they offer summer programs where they teach the subject and soft skills, i.e. time management, networking, & so on. This improved outcomes enormously. At Cornell they do the same. For some admits their summer program is mandatory.

<comment><USER6> You're talking about Ivy League institutions which sample from the tail end of the performance distribution. What works for the cream of the crop, whatever disadvantaged background it may come from, does not necessarily work for the rest. I the concept of distribution statistics is sorely lacking in much of the theory that underpins modern Western social policy, and the negative results are gradually accumulating.

<comment><USER7> Then again, even if we had sound statistics backing our policy, the facts would be dismissed in favor of the ideology backing the social policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He had some great observations as a young man. I studied physics decades later but the attitude was still the same.

 _The professor got up for the first session and said look to your right, look to your left, one of you won't be here next semester," he said. "I found that to be the attitude of physicists towards students: to cut down the number of students as much as possible and deal only with the ones that they wanted to. I just did not find that a very humanistic thing."_

</comment><comment><USER9> My academic grandfather.</comment>


5 Useful Tricks You Didn't Know for Git - <AUTHOR> https://densitylabs.io/blog/5-useful-tricks-you-didn%27t-know-for-git <comment><USER2> Those are pretty handy! I use git every single day, and have for about 6 or 7 years now. I still don't feel like I understand it well. I'm no expert, there's a million things it does I don't use, I screw something up and can't figure out how to undue (Why can't I just command-z?), but somehow it's one of the most important parts of my job. I can't imagine going back to CVS.

Docker's the same way, but I feel even more ignorant when I start digging in there. I mean I get it, but it still seems mostly like magic most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm, don't really need the date. Git has `--oneline` to print things condense, though I guess you wanted an example of custom formatting.

        * acfb7b0 (HEAD -> master) local commit not pushed
        * e79a979 (origin/master) Merge pull request #1 from OtherDude/master
        |\
        | * 38c5e19 Updated translation status
        |/
        * 014d564 (tag: v65) tabify

I use `lg` for this, and `lga` to print all branches. `ff` to pull the latest stuff.

        [alias]
            lg = log --oneline --graph
            lga = log --oneline --graph --all
            ff = pull --ff-only origin master

</comment><comment><USER4> That last tip is really fantastic. I've often sort-of improvised it with git blame, but this is really what I've been looking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad it helped you!</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Like monitors.txt? Henchmon Beta wants you - <AUTHOR>

Yesterday I published a little idea on HN I had about simplifying web app monitoring using monitors.txt (http://monitorstxt.org).
Based on this idea, I'm building Henchmon, a monitoring service that'll use http://yoursite.com/monitors.txt to setup monitors for your app.
If you're interested in monitors.txt, please register for the Henchmon Beta at http://www.henchmon.com and I'll be in touch soon when its ready. <comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.henchmon.com></comment>


Top Uber riders by rides, miles, hours - <AUTHOR> https://uber.totals.io/leaderboard

<comment><USER2> Useless without Javascript enabled. ;(</comment>


Reddit Fires Cryptocurrency Engineer; Cryptocurrencies Not in Short Term Plans - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ryanxcharles/status/560922573769170944 <comment><USER2> Background: Reddit planned to give money(?) back to its users last year. I guess they'll be using a different method now.

"Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8390136](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8390136)

</comment><comment><USER3> They didn't realize this when they hired him?</comment>


Commuting? Have you done the math? - <AUTHOR> http://www.jefclaes.be/2012/11/commuting-have-you-done-math.html <comment><USER3> Thank god for commuter rail. My commute is 20 miles. I take Metro North every day into Manhattan, and it's absolutely the most civilized way to commute. The trains run frequently (~4 an hour), are pretty cheap (~200 pre-tax), and are never very crowded. It's ~30 minutes at the beginning of the day where I can check my e-mail, plan the day, etc, without anyone bugging me.

I used to car commute that distance from the DC suburbs into DC, and it was hellish. 2 hours of my life each day wasted in ungodly traffic. That's not how people were meant to live. I'd much rather have Biden's 100 mile Amtrak commute into DC from Wilmington than the 20 mile car commute into DC from the suburbs.

<comment><USER4> >I used to car commute that distance from the DC suburbs into DC, and it was hellish. 2 hours of my life each day wasted in ungodly traffic. That's not how people were meant to live. I'd much rather have Biden's 100 mile Amtrak commute into DC from Wilmington than the 20 mile car commute into DC from the suburbs.

I'm always surprised by how many people drive in and out of DC every day rather than take Metro and/or MARC / VRE.

I understand the shortcomings of Metro as well as anyone and better than most, but still consider the time I can spend reading or otherwise engaged while in the system preferable to slogging through traffic.

<comment><USER3> Those systems are extremeley limited in terms of coverage relative to Metro North/LIRR in NYC or Metra in Chicago. A huge amount of the residential development in northern VA is out in Fairfax County, and that area is just now getting a Metro line. Moreover, the metro stops in Vienna, Fairfax, etc, are god-awful. They're built in the middle of the woods so you have to drive to them. A sensible rail system needs to have high density development around the station.

Meanwhile, Metro North, LIRR, and NJT go pretty much anywhere people live in Westchester, Long Island, or NJ. And the train stations are all approachable on foot. I walk 4 minutes from a 40 story high-rise in Westchester to the train station. That's 4 minutes from getting on my elevator to being on the platform.

<comment><USER4> >Those systems are extremeley limited in terms of coverage relative to Metro North/LIRR in NYC or Metra in Chicago. A huge amount of the residential development in northern VA is out in Fairfax County, and that area is just now getting a Metro line. Moreover, the metro stops in Vienna, Fairfax, etc, are god-awful. They're built in the middle of the woods so you have to drive to them. A sensible rail system needs to have high density development around the station.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here?

The DC area systems are pretty young relative to the ones you're comparing it them to. The NY subway has been around since 1904. The DC Metro broke ground in 1969 and opened 1976. This is significantly different from systems like Metra or NJT which subsumed existing commercial tracks.

How densely populated will Fairfax be in 2084?

DC versus wherever else was never my point though. It's about people with cars who choose to brave some of the worst traffic in the country rather than driving the local Metro station and zipping on in.

Personally, driving all the way downtown takes about 1:15, taking the Metro is 12 minute drive to the station followed by a 35 minute train ride which I can spend reading to within a block of my workplace.

>Meanwhile, Metro North, LIRR, and NJT go pretty much anywhere people live in Westchester, Long Island, or NJ. And the train stations are all approachable on foot. I walk 4 minutes from a 40 story high-rise in Westchester to the train station. That's 4 minutes from getting on my elevator to being on the platform.

That's great. Plenty of people who ride the DC Metro have the same experience, there are 85 stations.

How many of those approachable train stations have 3500+ parking spaces or are served by 50+ buses?

Apples to oranges.

They're different systems serving different geography at different points in their development - any of which is surely better than driving.

<comment><USER3> You asked why people don't take the Metro or MARC/VRE. I explained that it doesn't go to where people want. Having to use two modes, driving then rail, is a huge deal breaker. From where I used to live, I'd have to fight through route 7 traffic for 20 min to take a 35 minute train ride, or I could just keep driving for another 45 min. When you factor in parking the time saving is nothing. Yet in the NYC metro, I live as far away as I did in DC, and can easily walk to the train. As a result, something like 10x as many people use commuter rail in the NYC metro per capita. And Westchester isn't exactly super densely populated. It's just smartly designed, unlike the horribly sprawling DC suburbs. You have walkable little towns of 5,000 people served by a rail station instead of the cluster fuck that is Fairfax County.

Traffic is god's punishment to northern Virginia for letting subdivision developers basically do all the urban planning for the last 50 years.

<comment><USER5> I don't get why anyone would live in the DC region and not live near a rail station. I don't see the allure of NoVa outside of Arlington and Alexandria.

NoVa is getting a bit better with some town center developments in Fairfax, but it's quality of life is far behind other jurisdictions.

I live in Montgomery County right by a red line station. I have the good suburban schools, relatively low crime, plenty of stuff to walk to and an easy commute into DC via the metro (or buses). I just don't get the people in the DC region who spend hours upon hours commuting in cars. Yes, we Marc and VRE aren't the same level of what some other cities have, but we do have rail service and metro is one of the top public transportation systems in the country (second most used behind a much larger city).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reasonable math. Personal anecdotal support:

Daily commute is 1.5 hours each way by public transport. 75% of that time is useful. Net result is 5 * 2 * 1.5 = 15 hours spent sitting on the train each week, of which just(1 - 0.25) * 15 = 3.75 is wasted (mainly in changing from one vehicle to the next). This, superficially, doesn't sound so bad. My employer is understanding so I travel outside rush hour so I always get a seat and can do stuff on my laptop. This means that I arrive at the office late and leave the office late. My colleagues just say that I work in a slightly different time zone.

What really kicks hard is that when you're at work you're 1.5 hours from home, the simple stuff - like going to the supermarket or the post office - <USER2> complicated. I leave before the supermarket opens, and I get home after it closes. Tricky things like being at home in the morning to receive a parcel become really complicated and end up costing much more than half a day.

tl;dr the math is good, but the model is too simple. Living a commuting life costs more than you'd calculate.

<comment><USER7> One thing I do is get deliveries sent to my office instead of my house. That definitely makes receiving stuff a whole lot easier, if your employer will let you do it.

<comment><USER8> For many items, you still need shipping home.

<comment><USER9> The only thing that we've absolutely had to have shipped home was delivered furniture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another option is to commute with a significant other.

My wife and I both have a commute by car that is 25-35 minutes each. We recently changed our schedules to make it easier for us to commute -- together. So now, instead of having an hour out of the day that couldn't have been spent with each other, we now have it together. We can talk about our day, talk about any issues going on, plan various "things." It's really quite nice.

</comment><comment><USER11> For me, the answer was to relocate and move within cycling distance of my office.

Compared to driving, cycling is incredibly life-giving. I get exercise, and can maneuver around downtown with ease (I never have to worry about a parking spot).

<comment><USER12> Doesn't work for major cities an example from the UK 2 bed flat in Bedford a 35/50 min commute is £115,000 red lion square near our office its £625,000.

<comment><USER13> There are lot more factors at play than simple cost of housing. Financially speaking, there's the cost of commuting to be factored in, which depending on whether you drive or use public transit might or might not be substantial. More significantly, there's comfort: would you rather live in the middle of the city, or the burbs? How much is it worth to you to be able to bike to work?

I've made a point of living biking distance from every job I've had. It's definitely cost me much more in rent than it's saved me in automobile costs because of the astronomical price of living in an urban center (downtown San Francisco and Manhattan, in my case), but for me the financial aspect was dwarfed by quality-of-life preferences (and the good fortune to be in a situation where I could make such a trade-off).

<comment><USER14> I made the same decision when we moved to Cambridge (UK). It's a really, really big cycling town and there's a noticable drop off in property prices once you go beyond about a half-hour cycle commute to the science/business park part of the city. The A14 (the main commuter road to that part of Cambridge) is basically a carpark during peak times, and I can cycle to work on (relatively) quiet cycle paths in less than half the time it would take me to drive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of my coworkers and I both live around the same area. I commute to work via bus, he drives (occasionally we carpool, but our schedules are different most days). He doesn't understand why I would take the bus when it's a fifty- minute ride via bus and a twenty-five-minute ride by car.

However, I can use the time on the bus to catch up on email and news (I'm paid by the hour, so no point in working on the bus if I'm going to put in an 8-hour day anyway), or even doze off slightly. By contrast, when you're driving, your attention has to be entirely focused on the freeway. So while he has 50 minutes of being locked up driving, I have 100 minutes of time to relax.

<comment><USER8> Does your bus go door to door the moment you need it? My to/from/wait time for the bus is longer than drive time.

<comment><USER16> Which is even less fun in windy or rainy conditions :(

Even when there are bus shelters, often such effort has been put into making them uncomfortable for the homeless that they offer no protection from the elements at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _If possible, use public transport. Even if your total time enroute increases, you will have more time to do something productive_

If you're lucky! I commuted on public transport for a while in the south east of England and if your face wasn't smashed into someone's armpit for the entire journey, you were doing well (or working unsociable hours) ;-)

<comment><USER18> I've always wondered, in these situations, do you at least have enough room to use a smartphone, or is even that asking too much in the crowds? Where I live, public transportation doesn't typically get that congested.

<comment><USER17> Probably, it's been 15 years since I commuted.. ;-) I'm not sure I could do anything "productive" standing on a smartphone though but I imagine it'd be great for catching up with Letterpress(!)

The south east of England is notorious for crowded public transport. You're basically looking at several million people hitting it at the same time (and driving is a nightmare so public transport is very busy).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> See also "The True Cost of Commuting" [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost- of-c...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of- commuting/) with some more math.

</comment><comment><USER20> I take a 40 minute train trip either way and get a seat at the same time by pushing my work hours off peak. I just sit there and relax with my kindle and have read hundreds of books that way distraction free.

More people should push work off peak - who's bloody idea was it to get people to work 9 to 5? Why not 10 - 4 like me?

Hurried, stressed people under commuter pressure don't work well anyway and those extra hours are just wasted with busy work. I'm talking office workers here - blue collar workers have it completely different.

</comment><comment><USER21> I will soon be graduating from school and have accepted a job offer that I know will involve some commuting - probably driving.

My rationale is that I'll only do it for a few years, and it's worth it to have the company in question on my resumé. I think the fact that we all aren't working from home 2-3 days a week is frankly ridiculous, but the sea change is already in progress and can't be stopped. Eventually working remotely 50-80% of the time will be the norm.

<comment><USER22> Any particular reason you only plan to work for that company for a few years? "to have the company in question on my resumé" seems like a poor reason; if you actually _want_ to work there, why not work there for a substantial fraction of your career?

Also, have you considered the possibility of finding an apartment close to work? Unless you already own a home, moving to shorten your commute will save you huge amounts of money and time.

<comment> james-chipper Many companies see working at the same company for more than 2-3 years as a negative. Even if you love the company, you will be seen as stagnant and lazy.

<comment><USER23> That is a scary line of thinking IMO. If you work for 40 years and lived by that philosophy you'd have worked for nearly 20 companies. While if you're a freelancer that might seem normal, but as a normal salaried employee, that seems like quite a bit. I realize that "getting the gold watch" and hanging around a company for 40 years isn't the norm these days, but to be counted as a negative just because you stay at one company for merely 2 or 3 years seems harsh. Have you had experience with this sentiment? I haven't encountered it yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've actually had a different experience with commuting. Even with the downsides you can make a lot of use of that time for a finite time period.

Things I've done with the time (which otherwise would have never happened):

-Used Pimsleur I-III to learn some Mandarin, and more importantly, HOW to learn a new language(/other things). Spoken Mandarin is less intimidating than westerners think, and the grammar is simpler than English in a lot of ways. (Caveat: My Mandarin is by no means good. I couldn't find any good systematic ways to keep going after Pimsleur III)

-Listened to podcasts on nutrition and got very in-tune with how what I eat effects how I feel, how productive I am, and what happens during my gym time.

-Neuroscience podcasts, ditto. That stuff is interesting. Especially relating to dopamine, if you're a heavy internet user and you check your email every thirty seconds on your phone.

-Developed a better idea of how successful freelancers operate and how they've transitioned into that (Kalzumeus podcast, Ruby Freelancers). Ditto for very successful startup founders (Techzing, Stanford's Innovation Thought Leaders podcast).

-Developed my musical taste.

-Developed my rock climbing grip by using a grip trainer.

-Learned to calm my mind and relax and not waste mental energy on situations I have no immediate control over. Shitty traffic is a great time to practice this specifically because it's so aggravating.

That said - the key thing is that this is for a finite period of time, and you have to act on stuff you learn. The eventual endgame is that you gradually run out of interesting things that you can pick up from a podcast and then do on your own. You want to use the time to work on something more specific.

In addition to the time cost, sitting in one position and staring in one direction for an hour destroys any kind of flow that you have. It doesn't matter whether you leave work energized and ready to rock - when you get home, sitting in a car for an hour will usually make you tired. If you work on complex side projects or like to go out after work, this has a pretty substantial impact.

<comment><USER25> Unrelated to topic, but for Mandarin you should check out chineseclass101.com. They have some cliched advertising, but they have a lot of audio lessons that range from zero to quite advanced, and the lessons themselves are much more entertaining and "real-world" than Pimsleur's imo.

Also, flashcards using Anki to memorize vocab and characters are effective, but not something you should be doing while driving!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> My current job has me commuting 45mi each way 2x/week. So about 90mi of driving each time I go in. The other three days I am at home during the week. A good part of what I do involves working across time zones, so I am generally "on the clock" outside business hours as well. I love the flexibility, the time not getting annoyed in a car, and the ability to live in a place that has both world class mountain biking and surfing.

Whenever I get a ping from a recruiter, flexibility is the first thing I ask them about -- both core hours as well as working at home options. My favorite response was, "well, once you are established, you might be able to work at home on friday now and then". The worst of the responses usually come from established companies rather than startups.

I understand the need to time to collaborate, face time, and the like. Some people need more of it than others. That said, the best teams I have seen/worked with were ones that provided some flexibility to allow their employees to work in the manner most suited to their lifestyle. (I don't mean complete capitulation, but a base that has some give and take for both the company and the individual).

I do like driving. I take road trips regularly, but the day to day grind of other people in their metal cages, stressed, distracted, etc. isn't driving, it is commuting. For where I live, public transport to Silicon Valley from where I live involves a bus and/or train, which is 1.5-2 hrs each way, not really reasonable for me.

</comment><comment><USER27> I felt somewhat betrayed that this had much less to do with algebra than I initially expected.

</comment><comment><USER28> I was travelling from Leuven to Antwerp everyday for ~1.5 years. During the 1 hour ride each side I worked on my laptop and used my phone's 3G. It was mostly fine, except the signal kept dropping as soon as the train was out of populated areas. That was annoying. I wish there be 3G coverage properly everywhere first instead of getting LTE/4G to big cities.

</comment><comment><USER29> I did the math for my first year of working - 3 hours of commuting a day, 48 weeks, 5 days a week. 30 full days spent sitting on public transport.

I wouldn't like to drive (wouldn't be much faster), but I'm still nowhere near as relaxed or productive on public transport than I could be at home - it's stuffy, limited space (leg room, anyone?), and you can't always get a seat. Account for the 6 months it took to get used to reading on a moving vehicle without feeling ill within 10 minutes, and I've lost even more time.

I enjoyed it for a while (I thought the time would force me to achieve something), but as I started using my spare time differently the commute became the biggest time suck of anything, and there was very little I could do about it (mostly due to infrequent and badly aligning public transport schedules).

</comment><comment><USER30> When I was offered a job earlier this year, the salary was substantially higher than my current salary, but that was not including the extra expenses I would incur.

My previous job I worked from home and traveled by air. My travel to the airport was covered by mileage reimbursement. Basically, I never paid for gas for work.

In my new job, I new I'd have a 25 mile (1-way) commute, coming to $160+ a month in gas. That took $2,000 right out of the higher salary.

On the same note, when I moved from the Bay Area to Denver, I stopped having to pay $140/mn in BART passes and worked from home instead, which was a nice savings in both money and time.

However, I did enjoy my time on BART. I had my laptop out the entire time working on code, except when I was unlucky enough to have to get on at Embarcadero and not get a seat until El Cerrito.

</comment><comment><USER31> In the recent past, I've spent a decent amount of time commuting by train. I've used Caltrain (which is fine), Bart (which is usually nicer) and even both (which is... less nice).

I've actually found the train ride to be _valuable_. It gave me an hour or two a day of uninterrupted time when I could focus on what _I_ wanted to do: either work on my side projects or read books.

In the recent past, I've been too busy to read much fiction; having time on a train which was "useless" anyhow let me get back into it. I enjoyed a whole bunch of fantasy and SF novels thanks to having a commute. This is where something like a Kindle _really_ helps: it's light and convenient enough to read even if I can't get a seat, and I can carry as many books at once as I want. It also let me re-read the Wheel of Time series on the train, which would not have been practical with hardcover (or even paperback) copies of the books :P.

If I did manage to get a seat--and, since I often travelled at off-peak hours, I usually did--I had other options as well. For one, I could work on my own projects. This was particularly nice because I had a very limited amount of time, say exactly 40 minutes. This helped me focus on specific tasks, like fixing some bugs, that would have been less interesting if I was planning to work for several hours at home.

Another option was reading non-fiction. I actually learned a good deal about theoretical CS, programming languages and type theory last summer. Partly, this was because I was working at an awesome startup; however, reading academic material on the train also helped immensely. Since the train had less distractions than virtually anywhere else I spend time, I was able to get through denser passages without any compulsions to do something else (like go on HN :P).

I've also found the train a good place to read CS papers; since the time I can spend on it is inherently limited, it helps me get a quick overview that is neither too deep nor too shallow. Given an unbounded amount of time, I tend to either quickly skim a paper and get distracted or spend far too much time thinking about particular details. Reading something on a train helps me get a holistic and useful first impression.

One thing I've learned from experience: if at all possible, avoid transfers. This is especially bad between different services like Caltrain and Bart, but even Bart's timed transfers are decidedly sub-optimal. Two 20-minute chunks with a five-minute break in the middle are _significantly_ less useful than a single 40-minute chunk. Also, knowing you will have to get up to transfer soon definitely creates more of an overhead for opening your laptop or getting a book out of your bag.

Anyhow, in total, I'm actually pretty happy if I can commute by train. Even though it does take up a fair amount of time, the time can actually be useful. I've even found the constraints make me more productive for certain things than just having that time at home.

</comment><comment><USER32> Consider taking up motorbikes, especially if you can legally filter / lanesplit. What would otherwise be dead time can be a whole lot of fun. Traffic makes it far more interesting.

<comment><USER33> "Motorcyclists were 35 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a crash in 2006, per vehicle mile traveled, and 8 times more likely to be injured."[1]

I'm all for recreational motorcycling but I'm not as convinced it is a great solution for commuting overall.

[1] [http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor- fac...](http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor-facts/motor- injuries-fatalities)

<comment><USER32> Life is a fatal condition; if there was no risk, it wouldn't be as much fun. I used to skydive, but I enjoy riding more. Horse riding is 20x more dangerous[1]. Riding my bike is the _most_ fun I have all day; YMMV.

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/03_march/23/riding.shtml)

Here's a SF commuter's perspective: <http://thesundaybe.st/cracks-in-the- clockwork/>

<comment><USER33> That video was a lot of fun!

Definitely if your commute is also your hobby, that's awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Yup. I've done the math. I think this math is a large determinant of the property values in dense cities (SF, NYC, etc).

For a few years, I took the subway (BART) from Berkeley to SF. In theory, I could have used that 45 min commute to do something useful. In practice, I spent most of it standing, packed in like sardines.

At first, it was hard to justify the huge increase in living expense by moving from Berkeley to SF. But the move decreased my commute from 45 min on public transportation to a 10 min walk.

Totally worth it.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is such a common mistake that it's even got a name: The Commuting Paradox.

<http://ftp.iza.org/dp1278.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER36> No, time wasted due to commuting definitely isn't just a Belgian phenomenon. What's most annoying about this is that this terrible waste of time could be alleviated so easily by having people work remotely. However, most employers still just don't seem to get how letting people work remotely has huge advantages for employers as well.

</comment><comment><USER37> It takes me ~10 minutes to bike from home to work in central Auckland (NZ). I am planning on moving next year and I really don't know if I'm willing to give that up.

</comment><comment><USER38> Another person rediscovers "the commuting paradox".</comment>


The Internet's first general-purpose distributed computing project - <AUTHOR> http://www.distributed.net <comment><USER2> We shall remember distributed.net, it was the first large-scale distributed computing project, and simultaneously, it was a major "armed force" which leaded us to the victory of the first Crypto War for the security and privacy of all.

In the first Crypto War around the mid-90s, the U.S. Government initially repeatedly denied the insecurity of DES algorithm and refused to replace it with a new standard, and falsely claimed that data encrypted by DES was a threat to national security. This stance was not only a denial of privacy, but also a threat to enterprise infosec and e-Commerce. RSA Security, Inc., responded by launching the DES cracking challenge to demonstrate its insecurity.

The first challenge was completed by DESCHALL Project, an university project, but it mobilized thousands of volunteers and managed to bruteforce the 56-bit keyspace in 96 days. The distributed computing setup was an ad-hoc one, and people realized that an infrastructure was needed for more efficient coordination, and it motivated the creation of distributed.net.

The second challenge was completed by distributed.net in 39 days. Here's parts of the original announcement.

> _The correct key, 76 9E 8C D9 F2 2F 5D EA, revealed the words which we 've > been anticipating these past 39 days:_

> _" The secret message is: Many hands make light work."_

> _(If you ask me, this is a nice nod in our direction. Thanks, RSA Labs!)_

> _In addition to proving that 56-bit DES is no longer sufficient for > protecting valuable information, we 've now also proved that blind luck need > not be a factor in brute-force decryption attacks._

> _Prospective: If Keys were dollars, we could pay off the U.S. National Debt > in 6.25 minutes. If Keys were pennies, we could buy 536249385 Mazda Miatas > each day. If Keys were pennies, we could buy 256728249 Jeep Cherokees each > day! If you printed a single page to represent each key block as it was > checked and placed those pages in a stack, it would grow 12.83 inches taller > every minute. If blocks were liters of Dr. Pepper, we could produce 6381493 > six-packs each day. If Key Blocks were cheeseburgers, fries, and a large Dr. > Pepper, we could feed the entire city of Toronto, Ontario lunch each day._

Even after DES has been demonstrated to be crackable twice in a row, the FBI was still denying its insecurity and denying that the NSA was capable of breaking it.

> _" If we hooked together thousands of computers and worked together for > months we might, as was recently demonstrated, decrypt one message bit," FBI > director Louis Freeh told Congress. "That is not going to make a difference > in a kidnapping case. It is not going to make a difference in a national > security case. We don't have the technology or the brute force capability to > get to this information." _

And finally it was the story we all knew.

The EFF funded to build the DES cracker, and collaborated with distributed.net to crack DES again in 22 hours and 15 minutes, on January 19, 1999. The U.S. Government was forced to stop using 56-bit encryption as the public encryption standard, and forced to authorize the NIST to start the AES competition. The age of modern cryptography has came.

<comment><USER3> What a great story. Unfortunately, it's really sad that in the past few years, the RSA was complicit with pushing backdoored algorithms, i.e. Dual EC DRBG, and even setting it as the default RNG that rendered the entire cryptosystem crackable to the NSA.

There is no reason to trust RSA whatsoever today. In fact, they should be actively distrusted. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG)

<comment><USER2> The way I see it, is that RSA Security, Inc. funded the DES cracking challenge primarily because secure e-Commence was crucial to business interests, and it happened to be aligned with civil liberties and privacy issues, but the latter one was not their motivation. They are not a charity, it's just business. So it won't be a surprise to me that RSA introduced Dual_EC_DRBG in the latter days.

A faceless corporation is not something we put trust onto, although sometimes we can have some cooperation if we share common interests. RSA Security, Inc. should still be remembered for its role in removing DES and introducing Dual_EC_DRBG.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> BOINC[1] still alive, not sure how relevant though.

[1] [https://boinc.berkeley.edu/](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/)

<comment><USER2> SETI@Home was launched in 1999, BOINC was launched in 2002. I suspect distributed.net was an inspiration to both. And interestingly, GIMPS started searching Mersenne Primes in 1997, around the same time when the first DES challenge was active.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Plan 9 predates this by a good bit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs)

<comment><USER6> Plan 9 was a different kind of distributed that doesn't apply here. IF we used that kind of definition, then JES3 (a spiritual great-great-granddaddy of kubernetes) would be the first.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you do when feeling depressed? - <AUTHOR> Ask yourself. You're feeling really bad.
For whatever reason. E.g.: - your job sucks - your relationship sucks - sucks that you don't have a relationship - don't make enough money - unemployed - nobody around you gets you - etc...
What do you do? <comment><USER2> Depression is like a bad weather.

You're under it and it seems like nothing you can do - which is essentially true.

That is - it's hard to fix "bad weather" to change it to "good weather".

The universal truth about bad weather that eventually it is going to change to good weather.

Although knowing this doesn't help when it's pouring rain, cold and miserable all over.

The action plan - is the fact of bad weather presence does not mean that you need to stop living.

And it also does not mean that you need to stop doing stuff you were doing before.

And it also mean that you don't really need to change the weather but keep doing your best to keep going your way.

In other words - it sucks, but let it be and keep going.

The worst thing to do when weather is freezing - is to sit and wait for weather to change. We all know why.

So, let it be.

Keep going.

That's it.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are two things here to recognise and differentiate: depression (the clinical kind), and dejection (feeling down about things in general).

With the latter, you can work out a plan of action to gradually lift yourself out of misery. Since you're on HN, you're in a community of like-minded perceptive, intelligent individuals. There's an abundance of advice in previous threads on this subject.

The former is more complicated, and potentially dangerous. It's classified as a 'mental illness'. Professional assistance may be called for; other times one can recognise the effects, realizing that the cause is _within_ rather than _without_. If a good night's sleep doesn't cure it, seek assistance...

<comment><USER4> You might want to wait a little longer than one night before you seek assistance. Anyone that has ever ended a relationship or had a loved one die would be seeking help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Going outside in sunlight and walking to a park is my healthiest trick. But my most effective trick is going to a cafe & ordering a Large Chocolate Mocha with 2 or 3 shots of coffee. (Failing that, a chocolate ice cream sundae usually works too.)

When I was in Berlin, on the rare bad day, I would go to my closest train station, sit on a seat and watch the people go by. Inevitably someone would come up and ask me for directions. Helping someone even with my terrible German skills cheered me up.

These tricks aren't long term fixes (walking & sugary mochas won't help you earn more money), but they might give enough of a short term boost that you can get back to working on something productive, and thinking about how to fix the bigger issues (improving relationships, finding a better job, making new friends etc).

</comment><comment><USER6> You feel bad. It's perfectly fine, more than fine, in fact. Tell yourself it's _good for you_ to feel what you're feeling right now. Because it _is_. Now, what are you feeling like you want to do? Does it hurt other people? No? Then go do it. Or you want to sit here and do nothing? Then do that. Just be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some people still decide to become trolls. Or at least 'ranters'.

Just look at all the gifted child posts and their comments, it's super sad.

I don't get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Workout.

Also, pick up local news paper and take a look. You will find enough suffering and pain in them to make your life look like a walk in the park, or in short, philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER8> I recommend going to sleep if possible, or persevering with sleep in mind as something to look forward to. After waking, one tends to have a more harmonious frame of mind.

A sense of depression (and I assume you're referring to the emotion, not the medical condition) quite often has nothing to do with easily identified circumstances, the mind just tends toward the things it is dissatisfied with.

If you believe you have the medical condition, treat it like anything else: see a doctor. I know many people who have wasted years of their lives fearing a few moments of awkward discussion with their general practitioner. There's no rational reason to join them.

</comment><comment><USER9> A solid hour of cardio, followed by a cold shower and some rum afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been in quite the funk as well. None of the usual tricks seem to be working this time.

At this point, I'm just passing time with cigarettes and alcohol telling myself it's just Seasonal Affective Disorder and winter will be over soon.

I know this isn't very helpful, but maybe you can find solace in knowing that you are not alone.

</comment><comment><USER11> These always help: Get more sunlight (if possible) Eat whatever you like. Ice cream if you wish Talk with someone you like

For the specific questions, solve them. You are not married to your job, your boss, your girlfriend or your city.

</comment><comment><USER12> Smoke, drink and many other unhealthy things. I'm working on it, it's not going well mind you.

<comment><USER10> Same.

<comment><USER13> I'll try to work out when I feel down, but if I can't even gather that much will power, I'll binge on something. I try to binge on healthier things though; maybe watching TV shows or budgeted gambling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I take a walk and look at things to extrovert my attention (get myself out of my head/feelings). Bit of exercise helps as well (e.g. go for a run). After 30 minutes, I'm usually sweating and feeling much better.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am not joking I code or plan a new side project and serotonin flows

</comment><comment><USER16> Workout and hobby where you can see your results. You can touch them, eventually destroy.

You wouldn't believe how helping can be splitting wood with axe.

</comment><comment><USER17> Smoke j, Boxing, swimming... Talking to close friends.

</comment><comment><USER18> I get something to eat, or I exercise.

Then I shitpost.

Sometimes I game.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mh, so you like to rant?

<comment><USER18> I see you are unfamiliar with my work, sir or madam.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your nick speaks for itself. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I listen to music when I"m depressed and eat a lot. If it gets worse I simply go to sleep

</comment><comment><USER20> Get out of your cubicle, go where people go, watch people have fun, have fun yourself, keep staying among people.

</comment><comment><USER21> I read. Reading is the only constant in my life. No matter what.

It's amazing to see that despite the amount of reading I do to become smart, I'm dumb as a brick. Maybe I should do some reading about that..

I look in retrospect at all the hard times I have been through, recall the state I was in and remember that at that time I invariably said to myself that in a few days/weeks/months all of that will fade away. I have been right so far. Life goes on and whenever I'm in a tough situation, I know that it will either get worse and I should enjoy it before it does, or it will get better. It also helps to keep in mind the following: When all of this is over, would I have reacted like the ideal I'm striving to be would, or in a way beneath that ideal? I also live while a 100% conscious at all times that I could die right now. That's why death doesn't shock me. That's why I have always wondered how people are somehow "reminded" it exists only when someone dies.

That's also why when I party, I do so like I'm both ephemeral and eternal. And why I hug the loved ones. That's why I look at the sea like it's the first time, every time. It's why I'm happy to wake up; because I'm not dead yet and when you die there probably aren't good books and showers. Though it's also why I'm sad, because I could die without yet having achieved anything of importance having wasted so much organic matter and emotional investment from others, and no contribution in the slightest to entropy to even deserve to die. But then again, all the more reason to live another day and try to do just that.

Some people also go for entertainment. Here's a quote from Blaise Pascal's "Pensées" (it's an amazing read. A brilliant mind.) where he addresses entertainment:

>Whence comes it that this man, who lost his only son a few months ago, or who this morning was in such trouble through being distressed by lawsuits and quarrels, now no longer thinks of them? Do not wonder; he is quite taken up in looking out for the boar which his dogs have been hunting so hotly for the last six hours. He requires nothing more. However full of sadness a man may be, he is happy for the time, if you can prevail upon him to enter into some amusement; and however happy a man may be, he will soon be discontented and wretched, if he be not diverted and occupied by some passion or pursuit which prevents weariness from overcoming him. Without amusement there is no joy; with amusement there is no sadness. And this also constitutes the happiness of persons in high position, that they have a number of people to amuse them, and have the power to keep themselves in this state.

>Consider this. What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, first president, but to be in a condition wherein from early morning a large number of people come from all quarters to see them, so as not to leave them an hour in the day in which they can think of themselves? And when they are in disgrace and sent back to their country houses, where they lack neither wealth nor servants to help them on occasion, they do not fail to be wretched and desolate, because no one prevents them from thinking of themselves.

PS: When I was 17, I became aware of what Gauss did when he was my age. I've been "depressed" and doing that ever since. Now cheer up, you could be me!</comment>


When Einstein Was Bohemian - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/when-einstein-was-bohemian/ <comment><USER2> I've been listening to the audiobook version of Walter Issacson's biography of Einstien.[0]

If you're looking for a book, I can recommend this one.

Bonus: Read "The making of an atomic bomb" by Richard Rhodes [1] before reading the Einstien biography. This book sets up the context and several key characters really well (and Einstien lurks in the background).

Also - Randall Munroe's explanation for the general theory of relativity[2] is a must read.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Life-Universe-Walter- Isaacso...](https://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Life-Universe-Walter- Isaacson/dp/0743264746)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes- ebo...](https://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes- ebook/dp/B008TRU7SQ)

[2] [https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the- spac...](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-space- doctors-big-idea-einstein-general-relativity)

<comment><USER3> This was great. Something that bugs me about relativity is, how is speed measured relatively? I can imagine how it looks if both objects are on a straight line, one moving away from the other. What about objects in a plane, where one moves but never intersects the other?

Sorry if this question sounds nonsensical. I'm having trouble explaining a very graphical question.

<comment><USER4> It's not nonsense, but remember that speed is absolute so we just find the change in distance between A and B for a very small amount of time.

If you want a test without an abstract definition of length, then the Doppler effect is a way.

<comment><USER5> > _speed is absolute_

That's some thing to say...

<comment><USER4> What I meant was that speed is the magnitude of velocity, rather than a vector.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 'bohemian'[1] and 'Bohemian' are two very different cultures.

[1]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people#Exonyms](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people#Exonyms)

<comment><USER7> From the article:

> I do not mean the disheveled unconventionality often ascribed to him—I mean > "Bohemian" with a capital B.

<comment><USER6> The article doesn't really explain the difference merely saying Bohemia is a historical kingdom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> i read this title as Bohmian!! (as in David Bohm)

<comment><USER9> So did I. If I remember correctly, Einstein was interested in De Broglie's ideas that Bohm later expanded on. It would be an easy association to make.

<comment><USER5> An easy one and something that would perhaps make a more interesting read (than Einstein being a "Czech" for a few months).</comment></comment></comment>


Why switch is better than if-else - <AUTHOR> https://mortoray.com/2019/06/29/why-switch-is-better-than-if-else/ <comment><USER2> And languages with multiple function definitions for different arguments are even better

        def(arg = value_0) { ... }
        def(arg = value_1) { ... }
        def(arg = value_2) { ... }
        def(arg) { ... }

Example: Elixir.

<comment><USER3> I agree. General purpose pattern matching in both expressions and function dispatch is a great feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author says, regarding if-else, "We aren't certain here whether we mean to cover all possible values, or only these values in particular". I don't really get what that means.

I never feel confused when looking at an if-else statement which values I'm targeting. Do they just give a bad example in this post?

<comment><USER5> The proceeding lines make that clearer for me.

In my mind a switch statement is like "here is an execution path for every state this enumeration can hold" (like the author says, compiler or ide may warn you about missing cases) while an if else is a bit more general than that. With an if else you might only be checking for a few specific conditions.</comment></comment>


Boris Johnson gives green light for Huawei 5G infrastructure role - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/28/boris-johnson-gives-green-light-for-huawei-5g-infrastructure-role <comment><USER2> This is... strange...

I imagined the relatively conservative party would only want to play ball with known "similar" groups like US companies. Then again there may be some crazy internal ""sales pitches"" going on inside the political party. The US really needs to step up it's "lobbying" game if they want to compete</comment>


Amazon Created a Version of Alexa Just for Kids - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/mathonan/amazon-alexa-for-kids <comment><AUTHOR> I can see this paired with the kid version of the Kindle Fire, becoming the primer from Diamond Age.</comment>


GitHub Issues client built w/ Cappuccino, Atlas, NativeHost and Node on Heroku - <AUTHOR> http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2010/05/13/github-issues-cappuccino-app-desktop-and-web/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome, in part because the GitHub issues tracker -- while okay -- can be pretty frustrating when used at volume. If someone adds label/tag support to this client, I'll never look back.

Would Atlas be required to make that change, or can it be done from a plain- ol' text editor?

<comment><USER3> You could do it with a plain old text editor afaics. It looks like a regular Cappuccino project. (edit: that is, if you only want to deploy it for the web. I don't know about building a desktop version)

Btw it does support labels, they're just not displayed in the list. If it showed labels in the list, supported filtering, and showed label colours I would use it for github issues 100% right now.

It's a really cool app but I'm more excited about it being open source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, it's absolutely lovely. Feels like a desktop skin of GitHub.

</comment><comment><USER5> Whoa, that title looks like it was SEOd to death to maximize buzzwords.

But in all seriousness, this looks fantastic.

<comment><USER6> Hah, yeah, we realized as we were building it that the number of new fangled tech products in use was off the charts. There were a lot more we couldn't fit in the title :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Scrolling with the mouse wheel is painfully slow but everything else is awesome.

<comment><USER8> I think it's a cardinal sin for Cappuccino to replace native scrollbars and native scrolling. Maybe your UI gets to look a teeny bit more unified, but scrolling is almost as primitive an interaction as mousing. It is carefully tuned on every operating system and changing its behavior for one part of my screen always sets off my nerves. This non-native feeling is the sort of thing that Flash usually gets flak for.

Would you use a website if it messed with your mousing speed or your cursor? You would you grind your teeth. I feel similarly about non-native scrolling.

The only exception I will grant is for people developing fling scrolling for webapps on the iPhone and iPad, because that is carefully tuned to mimic one operating system on one kind of device. Anything for more general web browsers, however, can make no assumptions and should leave my scrolling alone.

<comment><USER9> There's a good article by Tolmasky addressing this here: [http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/11/04/mockingbird- cappucc...](http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/11/04/mockingbird-cappuccino- and-what-really-matters/)

Bottom line is that the scrolling is beautiful and works well, why would users not like it?

<comment><USER8> I've already read it. The _scrollbar_ itself is pretty, but you cannot exactly capture the precision of a mousewheel or in my case, a two-finger scroll event. For me, the two-finger scroll speed is disturbingly faster than other windows that scroll, which makes navigating Cappuccino apps unnatural compared to normal pages. For the git issue browser, where long lists and comment threads are everywhere, it distracts from my ability to use the app.

You won't be able emulate scrolling fully until there is a standard for mousewheel events that includes full X/Y delta information instead of uniform discrete steps. I haven't seen any plans for this in HTML5 or elsewhere. And at the end of the day, anything done via JavaScript events is just not going to match the reponsiveness of the browser scrolling the element natively; for such a fundamental operation, the cosmetic benefit of a reskinned scrollbar just does not outweigh the UI friction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm guessing you guys at github didn't start out as Objective J developers... how was transitioning to the framework? Any lessons to share with us?

<comment><USER10> Oh, I thought that it was Cappuccino blogging about a Github client written by Github guys (I think because it uses the Github mascot in the UI) but now I see it was actually built by experienced Cappuccino guys. I think? I'm not sure anymore. So... I guess the question should be expanded to:

Hey anyone who has switched to Objective J (but not originally coming from Objective C background)... how was the transition for you? Any lessons to share with us?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hash signalling (history support) seems not to work?

<comment><USER6> can you be more specific?

<comment><USER12> Clicking the back and forward buttons in Chrome 5 beta doesn't work.

<comment><USER13> Same on Safari (4.0.5, Mac)

<comment><AUTHOR> This feature is simply not implemented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, this is great. I have few questions, is the per-item url now part of Cappuccino or something custom for this app? With this in place would it be difficult to add back button support?

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks awwwwesome. Why do the rotated pictures look a little aliased?

<comment><USER6> it's using the native browser's css transforms, which unfortunately don't always look so hot.

<comment><USER15> Ah, cool. I'll have the Chromium guys get right on that! :)

Nice work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's so much going on here my head hurts a little. :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> That is the most buzzword compliant thing I will hear about today.</comment>


How to 'Completely' Test Your Website - <AUTHOR> http://www.labnol.org/internet/design/completely-test-website-errors-html-standards/2673/ <comment><USER2> In regards to browser testing, a screen shot isn't enough to ensure complete compatibility. You need to make sure things interact accurately (ex CSS Drop- downs, or javascript). To do a 'complete' test, you should install all major browsers on your machine.</comment>


Show HN: Simple animated drawing app and discovery of people nearby - <AUTHOR> http://teejik.com

<comment><USER2> nice idea! wondering whether the power of sketching demands an outside app like teejik or is something whatsapp, line, wechat could implement next to their stickers - sort of make your own stickers.</comment>


An Invisible Woman Taught Me German: amazing free online language course - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2012/01/learning_german_online_for_free_the_amazing_courses_by_deutsche_welle_.html

<comment><USER2> Great find! I really wish I could find simmilarly engaging language courses in other languages.</comment>


Simple Web iFrame based surfer / obfuscator - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/iframeobfuscator/iframeobfuscator/ <comment><USER2> What is the point / function / utility / novelty of this? And where does obfuscation come in to it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Point / function is it loads a website every x seconds. The obfuscation comes as it's utility, as it loads in an iframe in your browser you have the full pull of the site inc js etc, which if you wanted to could be used to semi obfuscate your surfing. i.e. creates a bigger haystack to find the needles of your surfing.

<comment><USER2> wat</comment></comment></comment>


Practopoiesis: How life fosters a mind (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002251931500106X <comment><USER2> proctopoiesis: life is whatever crap gets thrown together</comment>


Userfly: Capture and playback user interaction on your web site - <AUTHOR> http://www.userfly.com/ <comment><USER2> Wow! That is really amazing. How big is the javascript file you use to run that? I would be concerned with slowing down a user more on an already javascript heavy site.

However, what I found really amazing was that in the playback you are able to show javascript modals, so i assume that also means that all ajax responses will be captured by userfly.

Really cool.

I assume you see this being used more in user testing than in capturing the daily usage of a site? I would think that capturing daily usage would be be too time consuming for anybody to actual go through all the videos.

As far as the look of your site, I do find the yellow on white a bit hard to read, and it doesn't stick out much.</comment>


Show HN: LearnSearch, Built with Firebase's New Firestore DB and VueJS - <AUTHOR> http://www.learnsearch.xyz <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks! I just spent the past two days building LearnSearch, a web app where you can share learning resources and upvote the ones that help you or are valuable in someway. I asked a lot of people what they wished they knew when they started self teaching or learning something new, and the feedback was always that they wish they could tell the good resources from the ones that lead them astray, and that others were vital in letting them know about this. I wanted to make this same interaction scaleable, so I built LearnSearch! LearnSearch is still in its early, early infancy, and I'm going to continue to build out different feeds, comments, and other cool features. I'd love for you guys to take a look and let me know what you think!

I haven't slept all night, so gonna take a quick snooze ;)

<comment><USER2> Nice!

Will you be adding something like a categories tag?

Any initial feedback on using Cloud Firestore you'd want to share? [Good | Bad]

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yeah, I'm going to be adding a lot, I really just wanted to get something out there to stay motivated and get people's feedback. I'm actually probably going to add a roadmap or feature suggestion component soon. It's my first time building something like this, so I'm pretty new to managing user interest LOL

Dude, Firestore is pretty sweet. It can be opened with a realtime connection, and works just like Mongo. The only thing is that the way the queries are handled is a little weird, and they don't necessarily return static data. The query options may return some methods that you have to call, and really read the documentation in order to wrap your head around how to grab what you thought should have been a simple JSON object.

That being said, it is in Beta, so I knew there would be documentation issues going in. I think it will be a fantastic tool going forward, and its worth building something small on it to play around with right now.

TLDR: [GOOD], but needs some improvements

Thanks for your feedback by the way, I really appreciate it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very cool! Congrats on delivering! Firestore sounds cool, I might have to give it a try too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! It was really heartening to build something and get it out to people, my first time doing something like this. Firestore is very cool, worth looking at. Be wary of the query syntax, though, can be weird at first

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice idea! Seeing that you mention the technology stack, is the product open source? Also, what's the privacy policy (for example for the email addresses collected)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Thank you, I really just wanted to get a super minimal version up so I can hack on it and build something people want, its not open source yet, but I'm thinking about open sourcing it.

The only user data being collected is the emails, as part of Firebase's innate auth system. They won't be used for any other purpose and are completely siloed from each other. Honestly this is my first time building anything really, so these are all considerations I'm going to have to make, and I'd love any pointers you could give me!

<comment><USER4> Super! Launching it minimal was the right thing to do imho. Congrats for the launch and keep us posted! As a side note, I'm a big fan of vue and I am looking into using firebase in the future too. Which component/style framework did you use? Bulma/vuetify/quasar/hand-made?

<comment><USER4> just a quick "bug" report: in the link submission form, the placeholders don't get selected/erased when you start typing.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks panta! I'll fix that asap. By the way, I used Vuetify, its clean and sharp, and was easy to drop into the project

<comment><USER4> I'm using it too for my current projects. Was a bit undecided between vuetify and quasar though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Have Mainframe Skills, Will Travel - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Have-Mainframe-Skills-Will-Travel-62526.html

<comment><USER2> There's no question that you can make a good living learning to program dinosaur machines in COBOL, but then you would have to spend your life programming in COBOL.

Good coders want to use the best tools, because using good tools are part of being a good programmer. Unless things have changed radically, those tools don't exist on mainframes -- or at least, what most people consider the best tools don't.

Taking one of these jobs is more or less the exact opposite of starting your own company.

</comment><comment> ten-seven Some corporations made hefty investments in big iron. That doesn't make them economically viable today. I still believe that performance, energy conservation, space utilization, HVAC optimization, etc., etc. are reasons for updating to the latest hardware and the operating systems that they run. From a strictly hardware standpoint, the old stuff gets hairy to manage and maintain.

You can keep driving that 1979 AMC Matador, and you can keep rebuilding the engine, and patching the rust holes. But after you've spent thousands on the upkeep, you could have bought a new car that gets better gas mileage and won't strand you on the freeway half-way to work on a rainy morning. Any corporation that didn't look to the future, is the corporation where you'll find the dinosaurs. And that doesn't say much for corporations like State Farm.

<comment><USER3> Mainframes still do a lot of heavy lifting. Like processing the world's credit card transactions in real-time.

VisaNet is four strategically-located mainframe supercenters for financial transaction processing. 3000 transactions/second. 50 million LOC. Uptime and five-second-transaction time crucial.

"Authorizing..."

<comment><USER4> There's badass large-scale neural network implementations like Visa's fraud checking, and then there's maintaining 100 KLOC of spaghetti shit.

Hint: the leet Visa mainframe programmers are not the ones who write the systems that are the reason even simple things at a bank take a business day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As Paul Graham has pointed out, there is a salary premium associated with work that sucks the life out of you one day at a time.

Forget about working on open source stuff at night after work. You'll be too burned out and depressed.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would like to learn how to use a mainframe? does anyone know if any of the mainframe os's (z/os and os/400 off the top of my head) can be run in a virtual environment? so I can learn them?

as an admin, big iron turns me on :D</comment>


LiveWB – satellite weather image background changer for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/skarmoutsosv/LiveWB <comment><USER2> Is there a sample of the generated background image available somewhere?

<comment><USER3> The URLs can be grabbed from the config directory ([https://github.com/skarmoutsosv/LiveWB/tree/master/config](https://github.com/skarmoutsosv/LiveWB/tree/master/config))

The three types are, for example: [http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/latestImages/EUMETSAT_M...](http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/latestImages/EUMETSAT_MSG_IR108EColor- westernEurope.jpg) [http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/latestImages/EUMETSAT_M...](http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/latestImages/EUMETSAT_MSG_RGB-12-12-9i-segment4.jpg) [http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/latestImages/EUMETSAT_M...](http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/latestImages/EUMETSAT_MSG_MPE- centralEurope.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neat! However it could be great if EUMETSAT allowed open access to the Rapid Scan High-Rate SEVIRI data, allowing us to have 5-min, hi-res updates. [http://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/Data/MeteosatServices/R...](http://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/Data/MeteosatServices/RapidScanningService/index.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> As you have asked, I created a webpage which includes some sample images at [http://skarmoutsosv.github.io/LiveWB/](http://skarmoutsosv.github.io/LiveWB/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I was about to fork this for KDE but then realized it strictly uses EU satelite images, hence _EU_ METSAT. The US pictures aren't ideal.</comment>


Conway's Game of Life in Brainfuck - <AUTHOR> http://blinkofcode.com/5594ee5dc57dd42a71f0c82c

<comment><USER2> I would rather see the reverse: BF interpreter in Game of Life.</comment>


YouTube Comments Powered by Google+ - <AUTHOR> http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/09/youtube-comments-powered-by-google.html <comment><USER2> I still don't get it how Google can ignore the fact that people have multiple Google accounts, yet insist on everyone having one true Google+ account. I've decided that I want my Google+ "identity" to be based on my company's Google account. Which for example does not have support for logging in to YouTube. What then?

<comment><USER3> Like many of us, you'll have multiple G+ accounts.

<comment><USER4> Doing this in conjunction with Chrome's multi-user features (settings -> users -> add new user) has made this setup a lot smoother.

<comment><USER5> There's also a command line argument that lets you specify a different profile subdirectory, for even more separation. (I believe this was also available before Google added the multiple user support and/or made it on by default.

<comment><USER2> Can you share a link about that command line argument thing?

<comment><USER5> From the mouth of Google / Chromium project:

[http://www.chromium.org/developers/creating-and-using- profil...](http://www.chromium.org/developers/creating-and-using-profiles)

[http://www.chromium.org/user-experience/user-data- directory](http://www.chromium.org/user-experience/user-data-directory)

A couple of other takes that look useful for some (e.g. screenshots and a bit more context about data bleed) -- apologies for any spamminess I missed/ignored while quickly skimming these (e.g. IIRC wikihow does not have the most sterling reputation).

[http://www.wikihow.com/Create-Multiple-Google-Chrome- Profile...](http://www.wikihow.com/Create-Multiple-Google-Chrome-Profiles)

[http://www.labnol.org/software/create-family-profiles-in- goo...](http://www.labnol.org/software/create-family-profiles-in-google- chrome/4394/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm really surprised by the comments here. I came in expecting to see "oh thank goodness; now maybe 'YouTube comments' will stop being the gold standard for the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory."

<comment><USER7> is there any evidence at all that forcing real names in Internet comments improves quality? Its a sentiment you hear parroted a lot, and it's a justification for a lot of pretty damn user unfriendly moves.

For instance Facebook comments are far from the height of civility and well thought out discourse.

<comment><USER8> Our local paper (stltoday.com) uses Facebook comments on its stories and the discourse is notoriously bad. Either these people don't realize their real names are attached or they don't care.

<comment><USER9> Are you sure those are real names? I've had around five fb accounts, only one or two used my real name.

<comment><USER10> I think in most cases the average user will only have one account, with their real name attached.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The most interesting quote from this article:

Just because it's powered by Google+ doesn't mean that you'll lose your YouTube identity, though. "You are still allowed to use pseudonyms," said Janakiram, whether you're "a Syrian dissident or SoulPancake".

Made me wonder, who is Janakiram? Article says: Nundu Janakiram, product manager at YouTube.

Wonder if his views are indicating a shift at Google proper? or just YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER12> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6440009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6440009)

</comment><comment><USER13> It has little to do with the quality of the comments, but a greater initiative of a _Single Identity_ online. For better tracking, control, and ad coverage. The goals that also align well with the government.

First, they got a hold of our data with trendy cloud computing. Now they gradually lock in our identities - _for our own good_.

</comment><comment><USER14> Time to stop using youtube... sigh. Google sure knows how to destroy services.

<comment><USER15> So you actually comment on youtube?

<comment><USER16> He's upset that the comments section might show him more than one comment worth reading. Good comments are a huge time sink!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> huh, I prefer to keep this gamer tag and youtube acct "smtddr" not connected to my realname on g+.

<comment><USER18> Good luck. Google's adamant about using its position with search and YouTube and other products to get everyone to use Google+, and there's no room for anonymity on Google+.

<comment><USER19> "to get everyone to use Google+"

To which I say: good luck. :-)</comment></comment></comment>


What a 4am haircut taught me about hackathons - <AUTHOR> http://news.mlh.io/what-a-4-a-m-haircut-taught-me-about-hackathons-06-30-2015 <comment><USER2> Read this article hoping for some insights about hackathon culture.

Actually, its just an excuse to promote a friend's app followed by some vague platitudes about tech/innovation. Yawn.

</comment><comment><USER3> So who is willing to risk their barber's license offering this service...?

There's a reason we require licensing of that profession...

<comment><USER4> I was curious so I looked up the regulations for California[1]. A barber license requires a 2-year full-time apprenticeship, classroom instruction, a written test, and a practical test. In my opinion, those requirements are way too stringent for someone who is just going to be cutting my hair. I've had family members cut my hair and I still have all of my ears.

What are the legitimate reasons for the current license requirements? Are there any, or is this a law that is a relic of a past which did have reasons for it? It seems like the market could solve the issue of under performing barbers.

[1]: [http://www.barbercosmo.ca.gov/applicants/index.shtml](http://www.barbercosmo.ca.gov/applicants/index.shtml)

EDIT: From reading this page, it looks like the service described in the article is illegal because in-home services are only available for "anyone whose illness or other physical or mental incapacitation prevents them from visiting a licensed salon or barbershop". And, of course, it still requires a licensed barber.

[http://www.barbercosmo.ca.gov/consumers/inhome_srv_factsheet...](http://www.barbercosmo.ca.gov/consumers/inhome_srv_factsheet.shtml)

<comment><USER5> The requirements reassure the public that the person cutting hair isn't an idiot who's just bought some cheap clippers. They've cut hair - hundreds of hours worth of hair cutting - and they know how to sterilize the equipment. And if you're going to have chemical hair treatments you're not going to be maimed by someone who doesn't know how to use the chemicals.

I agree that 1,500 hours does sound a bit long though.

<comment><USER6> You could probably get an idea of how inflated that requirement is by looking at what percentage of the 1,500 hours is spent on issues relating to safety and hair cutting. Browsing the syllabi of barber schools, I see subjects like career networking, public speaking and small business management.

You could also compare states. In New York, the requirement is set by the school and I found one school that requires 288 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uber for X services thrive on high retention something which is low for hair cuts. How often do people get them? Also, hair styling can be subjective making it hard to quantitatively define quality- which makes it hard to scale.

<comment><USER8> > Uber for X services thrive on high retention something which is low for hair > cuts.

I think, more specifically, they thrive on high _repetition_ rate, high _platform_ retention, and high commoditization (or, equivalently, low _provider_ retention.)

Hair cutting/styling, AFAICT, has fairly low repetition rate for most users, and low commoditization / high _provider_ retention (and that's even _more_ true among the segment of the population which _does_ have a high repetition rate), and so the utility of the market _platform_ seems pretty low for most users and providers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "What I love most about hackathons is that failure is everywhere. When you're not afraid to fail, you're not afraid to push your limits, and that's an attitude everyone can benefit from."

Truth!

<comment><USER10> Yeah, one of my favorite things about them is that they're a risk-free creative environment when compared to school or work. It lets people get outside their comfort zones more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would absolutely use this, and kind of realize in this moment that I've been waiting for this kind of service for quite some time...

</comment><comment><USER12> As I read this I couldn't help but think of PG's essay on Growth. "The constraints that limit ordinary companies also protect them. That's the tradeoff. If you start a barbershop, you only have to compete with other local barbers."

He might have to rewrite that paragraph if this goes big!

</comment><comment><USER13> Y'all watch Barbershop the movie? It's great.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would totally use this</comment>


Predictions for SEO in 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://www.seomoz.org/blog/8-predictions-for-seo-in-2010

<comment><USER2> Though SEO generally does not get a lot of respect here on HN, the article does contain some good observations about where search is heading.</comment>


Tinfoil hats actually amplify mind-control beams - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2012/10/01/tinfoil-hats-actually-amplify.html <comment><USER2> How unsurprising.</comment>


Minus snapshots - Capture web screenshots - <AUTHOR> http://blog.minus.com/2012/01/30/take-website-snapshots-screenshots/

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear some feedback on this feature. Please give it a try on <http://minus.com/explore> -> Choose Upload from Header.</comment>