Ant mega-colony takes over world  - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm

<comment><USER2> What is the difference between a megacolony and a species? If I replaced s/ant/mouse/ and s/megacolony/species/, would there be anything surprising about their results?

<comment><USER3> The ants in a megacolony are all genetically related, which is quite different from the way in which all members of a species are genetically related.

Ants, along with bees and a few other species have a haplodiploid sex determination system, unlike the XY system in mammals. This has a variety of consequences that are hard to swallow at first sight -- males have no father, all workers in a colony are clones, and so on. This is what leads to their highly social behavior within a colony: the good of one is the good of all. I don't yet understand how supercolony behavior arises out of ant genetics, but I'm sure it somehow does.

It appears to me that this one of those evolutionary behaviors gone awry due to the rapidly changing environment. In the past, you could expect that ant colonies would migrate geographically at a fixed rate (on average); so with a constant mutation rate, you'd expect territoriality to arise from this behavior -- ants colonies in regions within (say) a 100- mile radius would be co-operative. Quite clever, actually. However, since humans are capable of transmitting the ants anywhere instantaneously (in evolutionary time), it has produced results that evolution didn't "intend."

BTW here's the original paper <http://www.springerlink.com/content/u081508512u7k421/>

More info. about the species in question: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linepithema_humile>

Also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploid_sex- determination_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploid_sex- determination_system)

<comment><USER4> The workers are actually 3/4 related (assuming a monogomous queen), not clones of each other. This is because they all have the same genes from their father (since the father has just enough genes for one set of chromosomes), but only overlap on half of the genes they inherit from their mother (like mammals).

<comment><USER3> Oops, you're right, sorry, forgot that workers are female.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "those living within each super-colony are tolerant of one another, even if they live tens or hundreds of kilometres apart."

Good thing. I'd hate to see ants fighting when they're that far away from each other.

<comment><USER6> They're talking about if you took samples from colonies hundreds of kilometres apart, the ants would consider each other family and part of the same colony. This is astonishing, since usually ants fight anything that is hostile to their colony.

<comment><USER7> Am I the only one who read the OP as sarcasm?

<comment><USER5> more playfulness (:

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This story is really misleading. It's not a "megacolony" -- it's several distinct colonies from around the world that don't connect in any way.

The meat of the article is that researchers collected specimens from around the world, and some of the ants from different colonies didn't try to kill each other on sight.

<comment><USER9> You sound unimpressed. But do you really feel you could take humans from all around the world and put them together without them trying to kill one another?

<comment><USER10> At age 2 or 3, absolutely!

What happens when they're older is anyone's guess.

<comment><USER11> Maybe as long as there aren't any toys in the room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, if the ants ever start causing significant damage to humans due to this genetic similarity (attacking crops or even, in a more sci-fi spirit, attacking people), shouldn't it also help eradicate them more efficiently due to them being one large monoculture?

<comment><USER13> I guess, but I would think that they would have to create a _lot_ of damage to make it cost effective to engineer something that would hit them at the genetic level (taking advantage of their genetic similarity).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I remember a beautiful sci-fi stories written by Simak, collected under book called "City". It also talks about ants that will inherit us on Earth.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_%28Clifford_D._Simak_novel...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_%28Clifford_D._Simak_novel%29)

<comment><USER13> As per (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=684376>), such large colonies are probably only maintainable with the help of humans (inadvertently transporting them around).

Even the large continental colonies probably need a certain amount of help with humans transporting new queens/males from one side of the colony to another side to help keep the genes similar. It's not like colonies that large only have a single queen. And with a large number of queens there is the possibility of genetic divergence from each other.

Unless the ants in those colonies have developed some sort of system themselves where they distribute new queens/males from one part of the colony to another... but I can't imagine that it would be easy for them to transport breeding ants (or for those ants to fly for that matter) 900km from one side of the colony to the other.

On the other hand, when it's time to mate, all the breeding/flying ants take to the sky. It's possible that each of the points of exit is close enough to other points of exit that somehow genetic 'stability' is maintained through this mingling. It just seems incredible that _just_ random chance and proximity of flying/breeding ants to others with the beginnings of genetic divergence are able to keep genetic divergence in check to a degree that allows for these HUGE colonies to maintain close enough familial ties to cooperate.

Edit: Sorry, this just kind of turned into me rambling on with your post as a starting point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> but.. but... I wanted to do that :(

</comment><comment><USER16> I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

<comment><USER16> Ouch. No one got the Simpsons reference?

<comment><USER17> Not the right place.

<comment><USER16> Really? It was an innocuous joke on a quite off-topic submission. Is HN the "right place" for this article?

<comment><USER18> From the guidelines (<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>): "Off- Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, _unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon._ "

From what I can tell, jokes are not tolerated here because they lower the signal-to-noise ratio. It's not that HN voters are humorless, it's just that they don't want HN to be a place people come for humor, because there's plenty of other spaces on the web for that. I'm starting to think of it as a college discussion group - you go to learn, not to hear Simpsons jokes.

Also the "overlords" joke has a long and tired memetic history in the hackersphere, which would explain the quantity of downvotes.

<comment><USER19> not _all_ jokes are frowned on here. we just have very high standards. repeating a catch-phrase you heard somewhere else is never going to fly.

also, jokes are ranked differently. if you make a non-joke comment that is polite but not very interesting, its score will probably stay at 1. if you make a polite joke that isn't funny, it's probably going to get downmodded.

that might seem cruel, but i'd say it's necessary. a joke that falls flat tends to drag down the level of commentary.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Liquid-in-liquid printing method could put 3D-printed organs in reach - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/liquid-liquid-printing-method-could-put-3d-printed-organs-reach <comment><AUTHOR> Vascularized tissues are hard to build up in traditional solid layer-by-layer 3D printing. Instead, researchers have used liquid polymers to create a stable membrane that do not shrink. [1]

[1] [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adma.2019046...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adma.201904631)</comment>


List of freely available programming books - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books <comment><USER2> There are several lists like this floating around, but this one is just amazingly comprehensive. Reading a subset of these books (and actually building stuff with the knowledge gained) will most likely provide one with a better education than all but the top-tier computer sci programs.

And the cost is $0. Now one might argue that a college cuts down on the time it takes to select courses, find and work with other students, get access to mentors, etc. But I doubt it. Whatever learning inefficiencies colleges address, other inefficiencies more than counteract those gains.

Consider that colleges also force you to spend more time on classes you could complete more quickly on your on, plus all the required coursework that might be completely unnecessary for your goals.

<comment><USER3> I never pursued a comp sci degree in college, and it's possible that you're right, their subject matter is so basic you don't need to actually take classes to learn the content. I guess you could further argue that sites like Hacker News are so good at helping you meet like-minded coders that literally living with people who have the same passions doesn't yield the same reward that it used to.

That said:

> plus all the required coursework that might be completely unnecessary for > your goals.

These were the courses I have become most thankful for at college. I've taken courses on religion, existentialism, the history of the Enlightenment, an analysis of film genres, a course on silent cinema, a flamenco course, and a number of other classes which each incidentally taught me a new way to look at the world. A liberal arts education is a valuable thing, and it's so much easier to grasp its meaning when you're guided there by a number of skilled, caring professors than when you try and read your way to the same goal. I have no doubt that one day people will create a virtual experience that duplicates or improves on what my college experience has been like, but so far nothing comes close.

In fact, one of my only regrets at college was that it _didn't_ make math or science courses mandatory. I'm regretting more and more that my science knowledge was a high school year of biology, chemistry, and physics apiece. I suspect that taking college courses in the sciences would have exposed me to teachers talented enough to make learning those subjects worthwhile. And it's difficult to search for books about rekindling your passions in the sciences; I find the field pretty obscure and not at all easy to navigate on my own.

<comment><USER2> I agree that these courses were some of the most valuable. For me a course in Eastern Religions was one of the most eye-opening.

However, there's nothing stopping someone from taking these courses later in life (I've known single moms working 50+ hours who make time for education "just for the sake of learning" so no excuses).

I think where we disagree is in requiring people to do one things (liberal arts learning) while their clear priority is to do something else (get a job to survive in this economy). I think that's unfair, even to college students, who can be an admittedly obnoxious bunch. Forced product bundling rarely has the effect it's intended to have. Sure, there may be some people who learn something neat from a class they're forced to take, but there are a lot more who learn nothing and are simply delayed in achieving their goals.

Why should students from poor families be forced to pay for something that economically secure college administrators insist is for their own good when all the student is trying to do is make a better living for himself than his parents had?

In that light forcing students to take these class is rather morally repugnant. It's tantamount to a tax inflicted on people to pay for more product than they want.

<comment><USER3> Good arguments. I'm extremely fortunate and have been able to attend a costly 4-year college without debt; I have a tendency to take my time here for granted, which I absolutely shouldn't. I feel that it would be wrong of a college that professes to teach a deeper education not to require a breadth of learning from its students, but again, my perspective is unfairly privileged and I'm not thinking in any sort of cost-efficient manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One free book that I like is "The Z Notation: A Reference Manual" by Spivey. You can get a pdf version for free at <http://spivey.oriel.ox.ac.uk/~mike/zrm/zrm.pdf>. I would say that learning Z Notation had a bigger impact on my ability to understand and model software than anything else. It isn't exactly programming but it will teach you how to be a better software engineer. I never used it to prove program correctness or refinement but rather to express the relationships between the parts of a software system. It made me better at object oriented modeling.

<comment><USER5> I've been looking for something like this for a long time - thanks. I'm also interesting in finding something that operates at a level removed from this - making diagrams of the creative process itself, as you go down routes and reach dead ends, and then fork from an earlier path. If readers know of anything like this please let me know.

<comment><USER4> I've been interested in precisely this same question. I don't know that there are any books that cover that. If there are, I'd also be interested in reading them. As far as visually modeling a creative process, mindmaps or concept maps are the closest. Tony Buzan has written a number of books on Mindmapping.

If you have an Android or iOS device, there are many apps for mindmapping and concept mapping available but I don't know if they are comprehensive in the way that you are looking for, especially for backtracking and annotating failures and routes to avoid. Also, many desktop diagramming software, like ConceptDraw, have templates for mind/concept mapping. Microsoft Visio is a possibility too, although it is more expensive.

<comment><USER5> Yeah I've got a notation that's kind of based on mind maps. I put 'standing stones' in the middle of a whiteboard to represent desired outcomes, and then try to create a path from the edge of the whiteboard into the stones.

It's useful to track where your dead ends are for further discussion. Someone else comes along and says "why didn't you just do this?" and you can't remember why, just that there was what seemed like a good reason at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whenever I see lists like this, I think:

\- why doesn't it read "list of _good_ programming books"? (the more the merrier, but how about quality?)

\- how can such a huge list help anyone? Certainly no-one will read a significant percentage of them.

I'm all for free quality content, but these lists seems to be just for collectors.

<comment><USER7> I guess someone could take the list, and put a rate up next to each book to see which ones people think are actually the quality books.

I still rate paper books over scanning through pdf for a solution or fix to a book. I'm definitely wrong though as the rest of the world values searchability over knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sigh... I guessed even before clicking the stackoverflow link that the topic would be locked/closed. It seems like every time I find something really interesting on stackoverflow I can count on it being closed.

I realize the moderators are trying to restrict things to specific questions with specific answers, but it's damn frustrating. Why can't they find a way to take advantage of the open-ended questions that you really want a community of programmers to answer?

</comment><comment><USER9> "Mining of Massive Datasets" and "Introduction to Information Retrieval" are both excellent college-level texts to their respective subjects.

Also, _the_ machine learning book is available for free, "Elements of Statistical Learning":

[http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/download.ht...](http://www- stat.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/download.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> <http://www.reddit.com/r/csbooks>

</comment><comment><USER11> In the spirit of freely available learning material, here's this <http://hackety-hack.com/>. It's a good guide for people who want to learn with a visual aid in real time, as opposed to reading rote literature off a screen. In that sense, it's good for rudimentary basics a beginning programming student would need to understand before they could visualize what's being said in the literature in more complicated manuals, without the visual aid. It's recent, so there aren't many lessons available yet, but the authors are updating more in the future. Thanks for this parallel. Very useful for learning other languages.

</comment><comment><USER12> Our educational system is so antiquated. If they could only teach kids how to be self motivated. I know when I was young, I didn't care about making grades, but to have the power to write video games was prety damn cool. Videogames 101, robotics 101, those should be a high school electives, kids would love it.

<comment><USER13> I remember having an excel class in high school as a required elective. Spreadsheets are important of course. It's amazing how many white collar office people still don't know the basics of it -- but how hard is it to fit in two weeks of simple scripting? I think kids learning even just the bare mechanics of programming could be better off

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great list. My office bookshelves are overflowing, with 4 large stacks also on the floor - about half are technical books. I would like to see which of my physical books I can toss because they are available online.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a lifesaver, just what I was looking for. I tried google searching for something similar, but some how I never found this list, and only found useless links. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER16> Brilliant! Scalable and modular CSS is a great read. Some good practices for anything where you're structuring files period, not even just CSS. Great list.

</comment><comment><USER17> See brief, older discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444890>

</comment><comment><USER18> Dive into Python

<http://www.diveintopython.net/>

<comment><USER19> That's already on the list, but thanks anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a nice compilation. Thanks!</comment>


Target IE6 and IE7 with only 1 extra character in your CSS - <AUTHOR> http://briancray.com/2009/04/16/target-ie6-and-ie7-with-only-1-extra-character-in-your-css/ <comment><USER2> I've never been a big fan of these sort of hacks. Conditional comments work fine and I don't mind the extra request on the part of the users who choose to use an inferior browser. I'd rather have my IE users load more data than have everyone load more data.

</comment><comment><USER3> So now, if I understand this correctly, we get to mix all the special treatment for IE6 in one messy stylesheet instead of keeping them in a separate one where we can jut throw them out all at once when that thing has died off? I don't think so.

<comment><USER4> I have to mantain a 1000-line CSS for a social network. I use this specific hack always followed by /* IE6* / , and only on cases of rendering discrepances (for example: checkboxes in IE6 have additional padding). I always try to solve rendering differences by altering the markup, not hacking my way in CSS, but there are a few cases where this is necessary.

This setup brings me these benefits:

* I can see at a glance where a particular attribute is tailored to IE6.

* When I have a problem with IE6, I just Inspect the suspicious element with Firebug on Firefox and look at the stylesheet. No need to open a different file and find the selector there.

* When this awful program dies, I'll just scan the file and delete all occurences of /* IE6* / (not many).

(Sorry about my broken English, it's not my first language) EDIT: Formatting -- my first time here :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't validate my CSS and could care less if there were a hack or two in them. But I use conditional comments because I find it more easier to maintain and debug IE's garbage than using embedded hacks. If I wanted to save on HTTP requests, I'd look at other things that most users would be hitting (images, scripts) than one or two files that only some users with inferior browsers would hit.

If the everything-in-one-stylesheet route works for you and you know what you're getting into, power to you. But don't start asserting that those who use conditional comments are wasting their time and clients money solely for some CSS zen bullshit. That's just a silly accusation...

</comment><comment><USER6> When i look at conditional comments, I at least feel comfortable knowing that everything is plainly laid out, And looks cleanly formatted enough for me to be comfortable.

Slapping these one star hacks into my css everywhere would start to look very very messy.

</comment><comment><USER7> Validating css (or html, rss for that matter) is a bit more than idealistic bullshit. It is testability and professionalism.

</comment><comment><USER8> Specifying per-browser CSS is hardly the problem.</comment>


An Example of the Beauty of Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://gregorulm.com/an-example-of-the-beauty-of-haskell/

<comment><USER2> This isn't a language difference, it's a coding style difference. There's nothing to stop you writing it in java as

        public int[] seriesUp(int n) {
          return range(1, n).concatMap( x -> range(1, x));
        }

(assuming a suitable range function and concatMap method, which is a library question rather than a language issue)

Java won't allow the special [1..n] syntax, and method application is a lot more explicit, with a more rigid argument order than Haskell. But to my mind both these differences are places where Java is the more consistent, readable, and yes, beautiful language.</comment>


Which Y Combinator company would you fund? - <AUTHOR> http://www.asoftwarestartupguy.com/2011/03/which-y-combinator-company-would-you.html

<comment><USER2> moki.tv - It takes the best of all worlds (Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, etc.) with respect to online video and spins it with IMDB and Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER3> AppHarbor. I can't wait till I've got some spare time to go play with what they're doing. I suspect they're going to be ridiculously big even if .NET isn't very popular in these parts.

<comment><USER4> What is the reason to use them vs. Microsoft Azure? (I know very little about .Net, Azure, or AppHarbor, but Microsoft seems to position Azure as the .Net hosting solution). I agree that if that isn't the case, they're the top of this YC batch; otherwise idk.

<comment><USER5> (Not knowing much about .NET myself, I can only repeat what they said in their pitch). They apparently use a standard stack, whereas Azure runs on a heavily customized stack that requires extra work to make a standard .NET app run on it. Think Django vs. Django on AppEngine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This list (allthingsd list) isn't complete. I'm not sure if there is a reason why some are missing, so I won't spill any names.

<comment><USER7> The other companies were "off the record". This is journalist lingo for stuff you can't write about. It's an agreement between YC and the press in attendance that they won't write about companies that don't want to be 'outed' as being part of YC (or haven't announced their existence at all).

Sure, someone could go and write about those companies anyway, but they wouldn't be invited back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Grubwith.us is really appealing to me. I've wished for something like that for some time now. If I could make it, I'd be grubbing with them today..

I also think the concept is very appealing to restaurants as well. Adding value for everyone seems like a sure win to me.

</comment><comment><USER9> All of them. Yuri Milner style. Diversifying your investments in YC's portfolio would be better than an index fund, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER10> lanyrd.com - I know nothing about any of them, but I like the idea.

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe convore? I am not sure, they sure got a interesting community

<comment><USER12> Convore was fantastic during pycon</comment></comment>


Rails is the best thing that ever happened to Python - <AUTHOR> http://antoniocangiano.com/2008/03/04/rails-is-the-best-thing-that-ever-happened-to-python/

<comment><USER2> I think that picture of a stack of books is very telling.

2006: <http://www.garbett.org/files/books.jpg>

2008: <http://antoniocangiano.com/images/rubyandrailsbooks.jpg>

<comment><USER3> The 2008 one needs an update as of.. yesterday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a coincidence this article shows up. As of today, I've been researching why I should drop Rails in favor of Django (or any other Pythonic framework) for an upcoming project. Can anybody help shed some light on this for me?

<comment><USER5> You've ruled out all other Ruby options?

<comment><USER4> I'm open to anything. Rails is still the framework of choice; I need a good reason to move to anything else.

<comment><USER6> Why are you looking for a reason? Something must be making you uncomfortable if you're actively looking for a reason to jump ship. Chances are you shouldn't switch. Ruby is a good enough Python, and Python is a good enough Ruby.

Unless there's something specific you dislike or have a strategic reason to switch you should stick to what you know best (either Ruby=>Python or Python=>Ruby).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is anyone surprised that Pylons doesn't get enough credit. I prefer it to Django for most projects.

<comment><USER8> How do you like it better than Django? I've been wanting to try it out for some time now but haven't found the time.

Sometimes I think the included apps in Django too heavyweight. I get a lot of "just because it's included doesn't mean you have to use it" and "don't re- invent the wheel"/NIH responses from the mailing list.

<comment><USER9> "Just because it's included doesn't mean you have to use it" sounds like a pretty good argument to me. The Python standard library has hundreds of modules that most people never touch, but no one complains that it's too heavyweight. Django tries to take the same "batteries included" philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I must admit that Ruby was the reason I started looking at Python as well as other web frameworks. I've ultimately decided on Python/Django as my start point.

</comment><comment><USER11> Does this mean RoR is a gateway drug?

</comment><comment><USER12> Although I'm certain that Django lets you be agile, does it let you be more agile than with Rails (in terms of both team and solo development)?

Answers to that may change the game somewhat (both can be made to work, but which one lets you work better?)

<comment><USER13> They're both absolutely brilliant at the things they do best, which seem to be slightly different. For other things they have varying degrees of difficulty but still tend to be, in my experience, pretty good.

If you need a quick database driven website (less of a webapp) then Django is perfect, I find the included admin is a real timesaver.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used to hang around the Python community in the past, the chat rooms read the mailing list, always check the website for updates.

And here is what I think went wrong:

1\. White Space, syntax does matter and so many people where turned off just by the syntax choice of white space, its just annoying

2\. Zope, this framework always had a popularity of being too complex, Zope 3 was a rewrite to fix the problem with Zope 2, Guido worked for Zope for a while, I thnk he left, if start looking at Zope and see it was rewritten from scratch, you become warry, Zope till today have the reputation by being too complex and forcing you to learn new zope specific languages

3\. Twisted Matrix, it also had a reputation of being too complex and it didnt serve a common need anyway, what the heck is event driven networking anyway! And their community, sooooooo exclusive

4\. The community, a lot more interesting ppl use Perl and Ruby, do you know of any cool blog by a pythoneer? do you know any cool pythoneer? even Matz is cooler than Guido, and Matz isnt even cool! Open source project need people considered to be cool in their community, Dan Short was the only cool Python I remember, he disapeared I dont know what happened to him

Zed Shaw also occasionaly drop a good word for Python but trust me, if he digs deeper into Python, he will backlash.</comment>


Show HN: askgoose – a search engine for your online wingman needs - <AUTHOR> https://askgoose.com/ is a search-engine that lets you search through a public repository of text-based images . You can search for something like "the office" or "trebuchet memes" and get results across millions of images where these phrases were used. What we do differently than our competitors is provide rich snippets of the text within images. We believe this massively improves the image search experience as users don't have to sit and read through hundreds of text filled images to find what they are looking for. We also benefit from being a niche search-engine that lets us make strong assumptions about the data we index thereby allowing us to cater to the needs of our users more efficiently.<p>As of now we index data primarily from the r/tinder subreddit, but we are working on incorporating content from other meme based subs and to provide specific functionality for each of them. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://askgoose.com/](https://askgoose.com/) for a clickable link.

</comment><comment><USER2> Always wanted to make this. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome!</comment>


MBA Mondays: Outsourcing - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/09/outsourcing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AVc+(A+VC) <comment><USER2> I think you can outsource much more than accounting as a startup: graphic design to 99designs, html/css to CSS Ninjas javascript to oDesk coders. HOWEVER, you should be able to edit your html/css/javascript in house, so you should know how to write it and make sure you don't get funked inflexible frameworks. However, you should write the backend in house otherwise you have no idea what you're getting.

I worked for a startup that got someone to build their site fast and cheap, and they got stuck with a php QCubed framework. We spent the next 3 months deciding whether to re-write or if we could live with it. I think they are still struggling today. Would have been much easier/cheaper/efficient to get it right from the start.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm working on a semantic web related startup and I've lavishing a lot of attention on web interface for ordinary (non-mobile) web browsers. At some point I think I want a mobile app and I'd ~seriously~ think about outsourcing that.</comment>


Divining encodings on the Web - <AUTHOR> http://nikitathespider.com/articles/EncodingDivination.html

<comment><USER2> This article and the algorithm in it is pretty weak. The trouble is that encodings are commonly misrepresented in the metadata for documents, and that many documents are encoded in ways that aren't quite right.

For instance, it's frequent to find web sites that contain mostly US-ASCII text with a smattering of ISO-Latin-1 and UTF-8 sequences for characters with codepoints > 127\. This happens because, with many toolchains, text can get combined in different encodings.

</comment><comment><USER3> The web is a wonderful thing, but I don't envy the lot of browser makers. Every once in a while whenever I have to replicate some portion of the whole HTTP/HTML stack, like cookies or in this article content encoding detection, it becomes apparent what a disaster certain things on the web evolved into.

</comment><comment><USER4> Mark Pilgrim's chardet library is great for dealing with unknown uncodings - it uses statistical analysis to figure out the encoding, based on code back- ported from Firefox/Mozilla:

<http://chardet.feedparser.org/>

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're going to use the BOM despite it not being in the HTTP spec, why not ignore the spec entirely for encoding? The spec is pretty brain dead in that it says the HTTP header should override explicit declarations within the document itself.

When I've written this sort of code I've found it most practically effective to look at any explicit document declarations (meta tags), then the BOM, then any XML declarations (XHTML was big once upon a time), then the HTTP headers. Far more people have control over their HTML docs than over their HTTP server configuration and I think it's insane to look at the former and ignore the latter. (Actually, there was one case in which I did so: When the BOM and the HTTP headers agreed, I would ignore meta tags, which are downright wrong more often than you would think. For some reason there are a lot of pages out there encoded in UTF-8 but with meta tags declaring Latin-1 [not vice versa like you might think]. This seemed to be correlated with ColdFusion.)

That said, it's impressive that he's thought through different paths for text/plain and application/xml. The last, most comprehensive function I wrote to do this assumed HTML or XML, which obviously isn't comprehensive, and I missed the text/xml wrinkle.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder why he makes a distinction between the MIME types application/xml and text/xml.

An XML document of the former type is parsed for the <?xml encoding="..." ?> tag, but the latter isn't?

I always thought that application/xml and text/xml could be used interchangeably. Is my assumption wrong or is his process flawed?

<comment><USER7> What you're missing is that text/xml is specially handled (some might say, 'broken') by RFC 3023: <http://annevankesteren.nl/2005/03/text-xml>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "the fact that text/xml documents default to US-ASCII surprises a lot of people (including me), but the HTTP spec is very clear about it."

it's a [s]man's[/s] American world :) :(

<comment><USER8> thanks upvoters. just think, Americans never ever saw quotation or square marks in their documents or on the web, to the contrary to Russians and others ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake#Russian_and_other_Cyri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake#Russian_and_other_Cyrillic- based_scripts))

this is sortof deserved, though :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> At web scale, this won't work very well (although it's a good start). For example, I found this one the last time I was doing encoding detection work:

<http://www.nextthing.org/archives/2007/03/31/microsoft-web></comment>


Some of Us Are Haunted by Washington Phillips - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/some-of-us-are-haunted-by-washington-phillips <comment><USER2> I'm reminded of John Jeremiah Sullivan's essay on the blues, "Unknown Bards", where he talks about the album "Pre-War Revenants":

"We're talking about strains within strains, sure, but listen to something like Ishman Bracey's 'Woman Woman Blues,' his tattered yet somehow impeccable falsetto when he sings, 'She got coal-black curly hair.' Songs like that were not made for dancing. Not even for singing along. They were made for listening. For grown-ups. They were chamber compositions. Listen to Blind Willie Johnson's 'Dark was the night, cold was the ground.' It has no words. It's hummed by a blind preacher incapable of playing an impure note on the guitar. We have to go against our training here and suspend anthropological thinking; it doesn't serve at thee strata. The noble ambition not to be the kind of people who unwittingly fetishize and exoticise black or poor-white folk poverty has allowed us to rmain the kind of people who don't stop to wonder whether the serious treatment of certain folk forms as essentially high- or higher-art forms might have originated with the folk themselves."

His discussion of writing about blues, and the writing about writing about the blues, is pretty interesting.

([https://ourblues.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/unknown_bards.p...](https://ourblues.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/unknown_bards.pdf) but all of his essays are great, I especially recommend the collection 'Pulphead')

</comment><comment><USER3> The article doesn't make it very clear, but many of the links are to YouTube uploads of the actual songs. Here's one - the instrument he uses to accompany his voice is indeed unique and rather haunting: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoOX9-kcv7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoOX9-kcv7g)

(N.B. to journalists: in a world where embedded multimedia is easier than ever, make sure that if you're writing an article about audio, you make it easy for someone to listen to said audio without leaving your page and giving someone else your advertising eyeballs!)

<comment><USER4> THere's a audio player embedded at the bottom. And I'm quite fond of the idea that should serve the reader by making the best use the structure of the web, i. e. ny linking to primary sources and other related material, instead of ignoring it or trying to recreate everything on their own site.

<comment><USER3> While hypertext is theoretically the "best use of the structure of the web," it does not immediately follow that this is the best UX for the consumer. Some middle ground exists between _copying_ all multimedia to one's site, and simply making the most crucial pieces of information (namely the audio that is essential to the "why" of the article) an <a> tag that looks like all other <a> tags (and adding the cognitive overload of leaving your site to a foreign one with entirely different design and controls!). IMO embeds (inline, not just appended to an article) strike that middle ground quite effectively.</comment></comment></comment>


I am writing a book about event-driven serverless apps: AWS Lambda in Action - <AUTHOR> https://eventdrivenapps.com <comment><AUTHOR> You can read the first chapter for free, and there is 50% off today using the code "mlpoccia"</comment>


Artify: The Newest Online Editor - <AUTHOR> https://www.artify.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Artify it's a web-based design editor with a huge library full of icons, illustrations, and more.

Maybe you are wondering: "When will I need a design editor like Artify?", well let me show you:

Save time, choose our ready-to-use illustrations.

With Artify you do not have to create your own illustrations from scratch, we have a large library with over 28+ categories of ready-to-use illustrated scenes, objects and characters.

Don't go anywhere, you'll find everything you need in Artify.

Over 2 million icons and a library full of fonts, abstract forms, vectors, 3D elements, editorial compositions and more. All that in our editor.

Constantly updating our library

Every week we add new illustrations and elements that go with the trends of the moment.

Hope you like it!</comment>


U.S. Spy Satellite Reportedly 'Write Off' After Failing to Reach Orbit - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/09/576661046/u-s-spy-satellite-reportedly-write-off-after-failing-to-reach-orbit <comment><AUTHOR> If I were launching a spy satellite this is exactly what I would report as soon as it was launched.

<comment><USER2> It is not cold war and people have telescopes with high quality cameras, you need damn good masked satellite to hide and i'm not talking about other governments space agencies... It is better version that this is "secret" satellite diving experiment</comment></comment>


The AdTech Industry Is Ruining Web Push Notifications for PWAs - <AUTHOR> http://vancelucas.com/blog/the-adtech-industry-is-ruining-web-push-notifications-for-pwas/ <comment><USER2> It's not just AdTech, it's the sites that put it up unreasonably also. I visit a site once, I'm not sure I'll ever go back, so of course I'm going to block notifications. If I've taken the time to sign up to a site, THEN is the appropriate time to ask me if I want notifications.</comment>


Google's first self-driving car user is Steve Mahan, a man who is 95% blind  - <AUTHOR> http://dcurt.is/googles-first-self-driving-car-user

<comment><USER2> I was sold when I saw the guy eating his taco and enjoying the view while driving.</comment>


Ask HN: What app or service should I use to write a technical ebook? - <AUTHOR> Requirements: Export to Markdown, PDF, ePub, HTML. Internal and external hyperlinks. Embeded code snippets. Support for tables. Simple editor (Markdown or similar). Platform: Web or MacOS. No need for mobile access.<p>Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Seems like writing is too individual a task for general recommendations, but, fwiw, I wrote my latest book [Data Visualization with JavaScript]([https://www.amazon.com/Data-Visualization-JavaScript- Stephen...](https://www.amazon.com/Data-Visualization-JavaScript-Stephen- Thomas/dp/1593276052/ref=asap_bc)) natively in Markdown. No need for a special app or service. [Pandoc]([http://pandoc.org](http://pandoc.org)) was able to covert it to `.docx`, which was my publisher's preferred format, and also to interactive HTML so that I could publish the full book on my web site [jsDataV.is]([http://jsdatav.is/intro.html](http://jsdatav.is/intro.html)). My favorite Markdown app at the moment is [Typora]([https://www.typora.io](https://www.typora.io))

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. The more I research it, the more I come to realize that plain Markdown is probably the way to go.

I must have evaluated about 10 different Markdown editors so far though. Every one seems to be missing at least one key feature I need. I was getting quite frustrated.

But Typora looks fantastic! It hits on all the requirements (code fencing with syntax highlighting, tables, table of contents generation and internal hyperlinks that work in generated PDF's) that have been hard to come by. I've already started playing with it and I'm very impressed!

I really appreciate your answer, you actually made my day. And your JS book looks very well written. Very approachable and concise. Kudos!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Mysterious occurrences? April 15, Location: SF Bay Area - <AUTHOR>

Some strange occurrences today.
-----
A friends group text seems to have "seeped out".
The had a group text with ~6 members.
The messages have clearly been "leaking" to other numbers.
How we know this: two people who some (>5) of the group text messages were "leaked" to replied, stating their confusion.
This cannot be explained as a trolling effort, as if one of the original group text members started a new thread and included "random" people, all other members of the group would know.
The "random" people were only brought to the attention of the original group when they replied (and thus a seemingly new group text was created with this "random" individual).
Other individuals may be being included in this group text without our knowledge - it will only become evident if they reply.
<comment>--
Another occurrence:
I rode in two UberXs today.
At 1.35pm, I got in my second ride.
My driver informed me that he had been driving since 5am, and that I was only his second ride. Something had been malfunctioning with the Uber app where he was not receiving requests. He had received one request around 8 or 9am, however the caller cancelled the request.
Then, the next call he received was at 1pm, followed by me at 1.35pm.
This entire time, he was driving around waiting for other calls.
He claims that other Uber drivers he know also had the same issue.
-----
Anyone experienced similar occurrences? </comment><comment><USER2> I went to the fridge today to get a Diet 7Up, and took it upstairs to my office and opened it up and drank it and it was _Diet Root Beer_. Also my iPhone turned into a cat.

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's snow crash baby. Ain't I glad I live in the woods.</comment>


Starship SN5 150m Hop - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1HA9LlFNM0 <comment><USER2> Is the engine supposed to be on fire like that?</comment>


DBHub.io: SQLite database storage "in the cloud" - <AUTHOR> https://dbhub.io <comment><USER2> What's the use case for this ? I understand that most users are using embedded SQLite in their apps. Not sure how a cloud edition would fit here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, there are a _lot_ of people using SQLite embedded in things. That's probably not a use case for DBHub.io. :)

Some things which _seem_ like a good fit are:

* People wanting an easy way to sync a SQLite database been multiple devices. Effectively, a SQLite specific dropbox. :)

* Once version control is in place (eg tags, releases, similar concept to GitHub) then anyone wanting to publish data (eg scientific results) could find it as a good resource. eg "version 1.0 is the data from our FOO study on 2016-Aug-07". Central reference point thing for traceability, sharing, (etc).

* Simple database access for Serverless apps.

All of these are mainly just possibilities. We'll start building it out and getting something people can use, then see what falls out and take it from there.

Probably the biggest thing in our favour is sheer download numbers.

People already download the "DB Browser for SQLite" GUI 150k+ times a month. We'll add some basic (optional) integration in that soon, which should help get people testing and trying it out.

Based upon feedback and conversation from that, we can determine where to put time & effort.

Does that make sense? :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Btw, if anyone has questions about this, feel free to ask. :)</comment>


About hiring programmers and Asperger's syndrome - <AUTHOR> http://www.leaseweblabs.com/2014/09/hiring-programmers-aspergers-syndrome/

<comment><USER2> Not all programmers are aspies. Not all good programmers are aspies. Not all senior programmers are aspies. Not all good senior programmers are aspies.

I'm not saying you shouldn't hire people with Asperger's. Just that it isn't an either/or choice.</comment>


Getting Started with Emscripten - <AUTHOR> http://www.davevoyles.com/getting-started-with-emscripten <comment><USER2> It is way better to use 'emrun' command than python server. It supports: observe console output, you can pass command line arguments to your application. It creates server automatically.

<comment><USER3> I didn't realize that. Great point, I'm going to check it out, then update the post!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What benefit does the word "transpile" confer over just saying "compile"?

<comment><USER5> Too new for the dictionary, but typically "transpiling" is compiling where the source and target are at similar abstraction levels.</comment></comment>


Doc Martens's vegan boot business is thriving - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/quartzy/1686773/doc-martenss-vegan-boot-business-is-thriving/ <comment><USER2> Meanwhile it appears that leather is piling up unused:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-09/america-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-09/america- s-obsession-with-beef-is-killing-the-leather-industry)

The cows are still being slaughtered for their beef, which appears to be profitable enough for the practice to carry on even if the leather hides are now just dumped on landfills:

"Cattle hides, an obligatory byproduct of beef and dairy consumption, will be around as long as Americans like cheeseburgers, steaks and ice cream. And while dairy producers have been under pressure from declining milk demand and dairy alternatives, the rise of meat substitutes has yet to dent America's taste for the real thing."

The implication would seem to be that products like these boots might have less environmental benefits than one might think.

<comment><USER3> But this is an expected consequence of any attempt to reduce demand for farmed cattle. It isn't feasible for consumers to reduce demand for all cattle products in perfect lockstep.

Consider an alternative scenario: demand for beef falls, but demand for leather doesn't. In that case the price of beef would plummet, and stock would pile up and eventually spoil, but the supply of cows continues unabated because of the existing leather demand.

In both the real and hypothetical cases, the reduced demand for one material should result in an increased price for the other material, since the price of producing a cow is independent of the sale price of its byproducts. This would eventually reduce demand of the popular product (to a degree depending on how elastic its demand is), which eventually reduces supply of cattle all on its own, which--in the case of people who already avoid meat _but_ are now additionally avoiding leather, thanks to popularized alternatives--was the original intended objective.

[Disclaimer: I eat meat and am wearing leather right this very moment, but I've been slowly reducing my demand for each for a few years now.]

<comment><USER4> I mean, it depends on ratio of usage.... this is kinda like optimizations in programming. It might be the case that as you optimize one thing, a new thing becomes the bottleneck... but it also might be the case that the one, current, bottleneck is such an outlier that it is STILL the bottleneck, no matter how much you optimize.

It could be the case that leather usage is such a small fraction compared to beef that even if you reduce beef consumption 90%, you still have excess cow hides.

I don't know the actual numbers, but your scenario won't always be the case is my point.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, if there's a name for Amdahl's Law but generalized to bottlenecks in general then it would be in play here. Having real numbers would allow us to better understand the potential benefits (or lack thereof), although I think in this case it's profit that we specifically want to measure, rather than usage or popularity (since, after all, as long as profit is non-negative then it shouldn't result in unsellable/wasted product).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also note that Doc Marten's are reasonably priced compared to many Vegan shoe/boot leather alternatives that are socially acceptable.

If you have $500 to spend on boots, it's probably easy enough to find whatever you want. If you have $100-$200, doc martens pull away quickly for the vegan crowd.

<comment><USER6> Yeah there's a lot of garbage vegan clothing out there. Good shoes typically set you back a few hundred unless you can get them on sale. Novacas is a great brand but you can only find them at resellers really Mooshoes has a pretty good selection but they are definitely going to be higher end shoes. Totally I find myself looking for the all man made materials on the label

<comment><USER7> Wills Vegan Shoes is good, but not inexpensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Was it Tesla that started this trend? Re-branding pleather as "vegan leather" is brilliant marketing.

<comment><USER9> no kidding - anyone truly surprised that their plastic boots sold at a vegan premium are very profitable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The favorite pair of shoes I ever owned in my life were a pair of Doc oxfords with light-brown _hemp_ uppers, I tried to locate a pair years later only to find out that they were a limited production run in the early 90s. A new run would make a good marketing pairing with the pleathers; they both have that granola/crunchy feel, and pot's gone mainstream now. I'd love to own a pair again.

</comment><comment><USER11> Synthetic materials also make automation easier. I wonder if leather handling is one of the most expensive parts of shoe manufacturing. I've suspected that's why Nike (and probably other companies as well) seem to have fewer and fewer shoes with leather components.

<comment><USER12> There's another facet to this. Some athletic shoes have recently started using advanced "3D" knitting machines for the uppers. With traditional shoe making, there's waste when cutting the components of the upper from a sheet of material. But a knitted upper has essentially zero waste material, because it's created to the precise target shape.

I.e. it's an additive manufacturing process like a 3D printer rather than a subtractive process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I looked at Doc Martens a long time ago (a decade+) when I was looking for steel-toe non-leather work boots, but none of the vegan Doc Martens boots have steel/composite toe protection. I just checked again, and I think that's still the case.

I've been rocking Bogs Turf Stompers for the last five years or so, but they've been discontinued I think (at least the steel toe version has been).

Anyone else have good luck with non-leather steel/composite toe lace up workboots?

<comment><USER14> I had Vegetarian Shoes boots once, wore them almost daily for 10 years. Solid boots. At the time, they had Doc Martens as well, I was under the impression they had licensed the brand and model.

Here [https://www.vegetarian- shoes.co.uk/unisex/airseal_10_eye_boo...](https://www.vegetarian- shoes.co.uk/unisex/airseal_10_eye_boot_smooth_black/17955_p.html)

<comment><USER15> Wearing them as I type, have been for at least 10 years, will likely wear them til I die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Slightly off topic, but are there any "vegan leathers" that replicate the properties of leather (durability, strength, toughness, breathability, etc.) rather than just the appearance?

<comment><USER17> The great thing about leather is when the surface gets trashed you can polish it again and it's as good as new. You can wear a pair of boots for weeks in the mountains and then polish again to a mirror finish (meaning perfectly waterproof.) With all synthetic leathers there's some kind of surface which once it's broken that's it it's ruined and there's no way to repair and they need to be thrown away.

Ask anyone who's ever tried to get way with plastic 'patent leather' boots and regretted it with the first scratch they get!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For small values of "thriving". "Its vegan line, first launched in 2011, rose to 5% of its global footwear sales in its fiscal year ended March 31."

</comment><comment><USER19> I owned my first pair of Doc Martens when I was 15. I was in high school and saw that Eric Clapton wore a pair and I just loved the look. Now, 42, I own dozens of pairs of Docs and I still have the original ones from when I was 15.

I own Vegan Docs and I love them. Every bit as good as the leather versions. However, I thought I was helping save cows but it turns out they are dying anyway. Sad.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have a pair of 1980's made in UK leather Doc Martens that I just recently realized are valuable. They've been made in China since 2002 and the quality isn't great. I'd be wary of 'vegan' meaning el cheapo uppers materials to save money

<comment><USER21> When DMs were originally made in the UK the work was contracted out.

The company that originally made them for Doctor Martins now sells direct under the name Solavair [1] made in the same original factory.

I have no connection to the company but I have a pair of their monkey boots and they're great.

Oh and I _think_ they might make DMs "made in the UK" specials but I'm not 100% on that.

1\. [https://www.nps-solovair.com/](https://www.nps-solovair.com/)

<comment><USER22> That's great information, thank you. And they have a vegan model!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pleather has been around forever, as an inferior product that does not last nearly as long. Let's call it vegan for a win.

also: [https://www.vocativ.com/281599/vegan-leather-isnt-as- ethical...](https://www.vocativ.com/281599/vegan-leather-isnt-as-ethical-as- you-think/)

<comment><USER24> Re: your link, I agree that we would do well to find better ways to produce non-animal-sourced clothing that doesn't produce the number of pollutants some of our current options do.

But I take issue with this quote:

> The holy grail of sustainability is a closed-loop system. "With leather, > nature has created its own sort of closed-loop system," says Hustvedt. "The > carcass of an animal can decay in the ground and nurture plants that are > eaten by the next generation of animal."

Yes, and that's great for the environment if you look past all of the environmental harm created by raising the animals needed for that leather. But CO2 and methane production, deforestation, runoff from factory farms... all of these consequences take a serious toll on the environment.

There are a lot of bad choices for clothing - cotton is notorious for requiring a lot of pesticides to grow as well. And that many clothes are made in sweatshops in poorer countries, not uncommonly made with child labor. And it's all shipped across the ocean using fossil fuels.

It doesn't have to be this way though.

<comment><USER25> The question is, are these animals being grown for food or leather? Afaik, leather is mostly a byproduct of the beef industry, and if it's not used it'll just go to waste. I could maybe agree that buying leather is a bad net choice _if_ beef was the byproduct, but until I see that, I have no qualms about buying leather products, especially since they last longer than synthetic versions.

<comment><USER24> Even if 0% of livestock was raised specifically for their hides, we have to globally reduce our animal consumption to stave off climate change as much as possible.

It's not just a simple "Oh, it's a byproduct." It's a byproduct of an industry that is seriously contributing to climate change.

And market interest in non-leather clothing will drive companies to make better non-leather clothing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is It Time to Regulate Social Media Influencers? - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/is-it-time-to-regulate-social-media-influencers.html <comment><USER2> What's really creepy is how a lot of marketing companies are paying students in medical school to recommend their products. Apparently doctors recommending things is a technique that doesn't work anymore so any group that still has "credibility" in the public's mind is apt to be persuaded to be an "influencer".

Another disturbing example from recent memory...Doris Kearns Goodwin, the esteemed Harvard historian pitching (ever so slightly) for Goldman Sachs via ads on the site Axios

<comment><USER3>
      Doris Kearns Goodwin, the esteemed

I'd choose a different adjective.

[https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/01/doris-kearns- goo...](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/01/doris-kearns-goodwin- liar.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good rule of thumb is to not believe 80% of what you read on the internet. If you don't have enough information on a topic, defer coming to judgement because its so easy to be misled by the authors point of view. If you do have enough information, employ some critical thinking skills. Information has become the new fast food, it is tasty and you can consume a lot but it is really of low nutritional value. Ironically the best way to thrive in this new world is to limit the use of technology, and spend more time in reflection.

</comment><comment><USER3> Regulate? Probably not.

 _Ignore_? Absolutely.

</comment><comment><USER5> Guess I'll stand alone in condemning it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Any time you start with "is it time to regulate..." The answer is always NO.

<comment><USER7> I dunno, if the headline was "Is it time to regulate ISPs" I think the answer would be a resounding "yes, please".

<comment><USER8> ISPs are heavily regulated.

<comment><USER9> That doesn't mean they are regulated enough.

<comment><USER10> Enough is the wrong qualifier. Effectively and in a way that protects individual liberties is better.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Managing weekly income with monthly bills just got easier - <AUTHOR> http://forecashapp.com/ <comment><USER2> The forecast sounds good but why not monthly salaries too?</comment>


Philip Roth's Terrible Gift of Intimacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/being-friends-with-philip-roth/609106/ <comment><USER2> 'He was genuinely puzzled by gossips. "All the fun of a secret is in keeping it. Why blab?" Maybe he took this view because he'd been more victimized by gossip than other people have been.'

There is a splendid bit along those lines in _Zuckerman Unbound_.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh, I hadn't realised he was dead :(

<comment><USER4> NYTimes did a nice obituary that was frontpage a while back: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17131431](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17131431)

It was a nice overview of his career.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Freelancers - what do you use to generate quotes and invoices? - <AUTHOR>

I'm doing some freelance work for the first time in a very long time, is there a 'go to' service for making pretty quotes and invoices easily?<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> I created my own Invoices (using OpenOffice) and saved them to a free Google Drive Account. When I need to send an Invoice (or a Quote), I just create a copy of the Invoice (using the Customer's Name), fill out a few fields, convert the file to PDF, and E-mail it to the Customer (cc'ing myself). When I need to look up an Invoice to verify something or do Taxes (or whatever), it's all saved and searchable on Google Drive (and backed up on my E-mail Server). It's paperless, simple, and free. You could do the same thing (or similar) with Dropbox, Box, or another similar Service.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use [http://www.paymo.biz](http://www.paymo.biz) and although they're mostly known for pm & time tracking they have some nice invoicing options: estimates, expenses, invoices & reports.

I'm suggesting it because although I use a paid version, there's a free one too, as I freelancer you should keep your expenses down at first am I right? :)

</comment><comment><USER4> My personal favorite one used to be: [http://invoiceomatic.io/](http://invoiceomatic.io/) I have however moved on to: [http://invoiceable.co/](http://invoiceable.co/) as it saves a copy of your invoices online.

</comment><comment><USER5> Similar thread (for invoices) I started a while back. Some useful services are mentioned there. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6353270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6353270)

</comment><comment><USER6> You should check out the self-hosted (open source) solution - [http://www.fusioninvoice.com](http://www.fusioninvoice.com) \- I used it from quoting to invoicing to keeping records.

</comment><comment> workhere-io For invoices I use [http://tradeshift.com](http://tradeshift.com), but I'm not sure they handle quotes.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a huge fan of [http://www.freeagent.com/](http://www.freeagent.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Curdbee. I'm using the free tier and have no complaints.

</comment><comment><USER9> freshbooks.com

planscope.io

<comment><USER10> I second Freshbooks.com . At $19.99/month, it's a great deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> orgmode with org-invoice.el

</comment><comment><USER12> freshbooks</comment>


Speak. Don't Tweet - <AUTHOR>

I have been vigorously developing SpeakBin - http://www.speakbin.com - we are one of the only services that allow you to easily record to our site through your smartphone. You then can post it either on your Facebook wall or Twitter feed. We are developing the iPhone app and have released version 1.3 of the Android app. Simply put, what do you think of my startup? Can you see Ochocinco making speaks instead of tweets? <comment><USER2> I'm not going to pretend to be typical (I've been resisting Twitter until just today), but I find audio to be highly inconvenient (you need to be able to hear it, you need to not be disturbing others when you play it, it doesn't random access or search well, etc). As far as I can tell, a large part of twitter is the convenience of broadcasting and receiving. The two don't seem very compatible to me. What misconception or mistaken premise is stopping me from seeing how this works?

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://audioboo.fm/>

Sorry to be a spoilsport, but am I missing how this different/better than the above?

</comment><comment><USER4> On the surface, this seems similar to <http://www.jawbone.com/thoughts>

</comment><comment><USER5> easy to click link: <http://www.speakbin.com></comment>


Lojban - The Logical Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Lojban%20Introductory%20Brochure#intro

<comment><USER2> ObXKCD: <http://xkcd.com/191/>

For reference, I became reasonably fluent at reading and writing lojban. I think it's fantastic, but in the end there were few people to communicate with, no decent reading material, and too many other calls on my time.

I have a couple of ideas for web apps to help bootstrap lojban, but again, no time.

Shame, really. I like it.

<comment><AUTHOR> _"I think it's fantastic, but in the end there were few people to communicate with, no decent reading material"_

These only really matter if communicating with others and consuming content were your primary goals. If so, obviously a more mainstream language would be preferable.

But there are other things that you could do, such as create Lojban content yourself (ie. write articles, books, poems, etc..), or help others to learn Lojban (increasing the number of people to communicate with), or figure out ways to use Lojban to communicate with computers, or help improve and shape the language.

<comment><USER2> For several years I tried all those things. I couldn't get anyone interested in learning with me, there wasn't enough material at the right sort of level to get really fluent without years of rewardless work, and when I tried writing anything it tool literally months to write a few paragraphs to a standard that was regarded at the time as acceptable.

Maybe things have changed, but my ideas for generating large amounts of interesting entry-level material were ignored, so I finally gave up. When you work hard to produce material that no one reads, it becomes hard to care.

I have a lot more to say, but despite trying to be helpful, it will probably just come out as complaining, so rather than potentially damage the movement, I'm better leaving the enthusiasts to just get on with it without me.

<comment><USER3> Have you read Ben Goertzel's Loglish idea to combine the Lojban grammar with the English vocabulary? This could address the issue of adoption. <http://www.goertzel.org/new_research/Loglish.htm> <http://www.goertzel.org/papers/lojbanplusplus.pdf>

<comment><USER4> this is good idea. i wonder if there is such adapted texts for other languages. it sure would make learning experience better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The thread is about Lojban (I remember interacting a lot with one of the main promoters of lojban on Usenet in the 1990s), but since there is also mention of Esperanto in the thread, I'll mention one of the best online resources about Esperanto:

<http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/>

I have studied a great variety of natural languages, from several different language families, and made my living for several years as a Chinese-English interpreter or translator. Conlangs are fun hobbies, but they have not enjoyed conspicuous success at solving any of the real-world problems for which they are proposed as solutions.

A good general site about conlangs is

<http://www.zompist.com/kit.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> Lojban illustrates perfectly that logic is not the most important feature of a language (since no one wants to, or perhaps even can, learn it to fluency). Arika Okrent deals with this in her (truly excellent) book In The Land Of Invented Languages.

<comment><USER7> That seems a highly tenuous line of reasoning. There could be any number of other reasons for its lack of adoption so far, mostly involving the lack of other people who speak it.

<comment><AUTHOR> There was once a lack of other people who spoke Esperanto. Yet it flourished.

There was once a lack of other people who spoke Klingon, and yet it flourished.

There was (at around the turn of the 20th century) a lack of people who spoke Hebrew, and yet it too flourished and now there's a whole nation of people who speak it.

Lack of people who speak the language is always a problem for any artificial language... at first. Some manage to overcome this problem. Others don't. The interesting question is why this is the case, and what can be done about it.

<comment><USER2> Esperanto is so similar to any other romance language it's almost trivial to pick up. I can decode a page of it fairly easily. Klingon had a huge body of enthusiasts.

Lojban has no entry level material that is actually engaging. We need a large number of articles about interesting things, but written at the language level of a four year old. With nothing interesting to read, and no other reason to learn other than "it's interesting" it's having a hard time growing.

It needs entry level interesting material.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, agreed.

In fact, the strongest headwind Esperanto constantly faces is Spanish. There's already a romance language with absolutely systematic spelling, easy pronunciation, simple grammar, and few irregularities. It's already the second most widely spoken language on the planet, it has mountains of interesting and elementary material, and there are lots of interesting people whom you can meet only by speaking it.

It's hard for any rationalized romance language to gain traction against that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Once upon a time I translated "The lake island of Innisfree" to Lojban.

<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/message/19725>

Lack of reading materials is a problem, but I found that I enjoy writing or translating as much as reading.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would have liked to see more explained samples and less philosophy. The draft version of the book digs right in and starts explaining how it works.

[http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter...](http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter2.html)

</comment><comment> loup-vaillant It just hit me that Eliezer Yudkowsky's Methods of Rationality's Parseltongue bears a resemblance to lojban: its limited vocabulary force its speakers to describe complex concepts with simpler terms, which makes the whole extremely readable.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there any resources such as an IRC channel, or chat room to train and use lojban.

Its most definetely a exciting concept, and one which I would consider pursuing.

<comment><AUTHOR> #lojban on freenode

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "How to learn Lojban

Write to The Logical Language Group, Inc., and we will be happy to provide information"

Yup. That's gonna work.

<comment><USER12> It gets better:

"To get started, you will need to begin reading one or more of the Lojban Books"

Seriously. A Book.

<comment><USER13> Available online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if a project like Andi-Land, or another similar game or even a Zorklike, built around natural language parsing would be the right way to teach a language like Lojban.

edit: Oh, someone's already done Colossal Cave.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen I mistakenly assumed this was a programming language; it's actually (for now) a human language.</comment>


What Is JAMStack? - <AUTHOR> https://time2hack.com/what-is-jam-stack-why-you-should-care/ <comment><AUTHOR> Above post is general introduction on JAM Stack and Jargon related to it.

Though I got to thinking that there is a part of community which does not prefer to use JAM Stack.

Please share your dislikes or complications about JAM Stack</comment>


Hello darkness my old friend - <AUTHOR> http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/08/12/year-of-what-now <comment><USER2> I completely sympathize with Mark. I was an Apple hater for years, and was ecstatic when I discovered Linux (Ubuntu 7.04) and could move away from Windows as well.

Then a good friend of mine convinced me to get an iPhone. I was hesitant at first, but after trying one I decided to go for it.

Then I got a job where my choices were a MacBook Pro or a Dell with Vista. Three guesses which one I took (the first two don't count).

I must admit OS X is really nice, and full Unix compatibility is a huge plus. Still... _sigh_

[Edit: missing period]

<comment><USER3> Full unix compatibility without easy, comprehensive & working BINARY package management (like debian, or archlinux) is still a big pain in the ass. Setting up something like the mysqldb library, mod_python, apache, and django can be a 1 hour production vs. the 5 minute production that it is on linux.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, package managers are a godsend. That's why there's <http://www.macports.org/> and <http://www.finkproject.org/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't modify the firmware image in my Bosch engine ECU, even though doing so could significantly improve the performance of my car. Mark is right. Nobody gives a shit.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> iPhone owners who do care about Freedom 0 will just jailbreak the thing though.

<comment><USER4> ... and Apple will do whatever they can to brick those phones, and in the arms race that follows, it's a coin flip as to whether Apple will win (like DirecTV did) or lose (like Microsoft did with the first Xbox).

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think Apple is as pressed to fight this war as DirecTV was.

Also you can jailbreak the thing without additional hardware which wasn't possible in the DirecTV scenario. I doubt that we'll see jailbroken iphones going away anytime soon, the process is becoming effortless even for non- hacker types and the benefits are obvious (even if you've never heard of Freedom 0).

<comment><USER4> I don't know if Apple feels pressed. It's hard to say if, long term, you'll need hardware to jailbreak an iPod. I'm just pointing out that there is a bit of hubris in the jailbreaker mentality --- it is not, from a CS perspective, an unsolveable problem to make jailbreaking more effort than it's worth. Apple's got a lot of smart people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ....

</comment><comment><USER6> Haha

Awwwwww</comment>


Ask HN: How do you apply for remote developer roles? - <AUTHOR> What sites do you use, what tactics if any. <comment><USER2> I get most of work through networking. Otherwise, I've found Reddit and Facebook to be extremely helpful. Far more than LinkedIn or dedicated job boards.

How do I go about?

I introduce myself, mention relevant experience, list references. And, mind you, I'm not a dedicated opensource contributor. Hell, even my public GitHub repo is dated and not that rich. Again, my target market are not tech companies per se. I prefer being the tech guy in a non-tech company.

Mis dos centavos.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that to have a good opportunity to get hired for a remote role you should have a very good personal brand, your code quality and your contributions to open source projects. Some times I receive job offers from people that looks at something that I made on GitHub.

So I can say: "My tactics is to love what I do, share knowledge with others and contribute to open source projects"

<comment><AUTHOR> The projects of yours that catch eyes of employers, are they industry relevant? I've had attempts at simple things like lexers for interpreters, stack vms, but I always get the feeling that's too esoteric.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Are you a talented developer in the Bay Area? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a talented technical co-founder in the Silicon Valley/ Bay Area to join my team to work on product development for a consumer-facing web startup over the next few months (June-September).
I've been developing an intriguing idea for the past month or so, and based on the significant interest that I've gotten from student incubators and other individuals with whom I've been discussing the concept, now am extremely confident about its viability. I am convinced about the short and long-term potential of this business to change a market that I (and millions of others) are passionate about -- sports.
While I won't go into detail here, we will seize on emerging social media trends to deliver a great communication platform to sports fans. At the same time, I've conceived an effective monetization scheme that goes beyond the traditional Web 2.0-throw-some-advertising-on-the-site tactic.
My tech background is significant enough to where I'm not just another "business guy" with a half-baked idea -- engineering student at an Ivy League, work at a top tech blog (rhymes with "ElecMunch"), work at an early-stage venture capital firm.
Based on what I've seen and read, I believe that it would take no more than a few weeks (rough timeframe) to build and release an alpha version of the product. While this is, by no means, a trivial stage, the real work would begin there.
Trust me when I say that I understand the importance - rather, the essentiality- of great developers on a team. You'd come on board as an equal member and receive significant equity in this startup. Once an initial proof-of-concept is developed and funding is raised, expect to receive a competitive salary and benefits. I understand all the odd roles that a startup requires of its founders; I'll ensure that all you have to worry about is focusing on good problem-solving and coding (and drinking good beer!). Ideally, you are comfortable working in the LAMP stack, have an understanding of database technology, and have experience using languages of your choice to build robust, scalable web applications. While experience isn't necessary, ability is.
Please contact me via email at firstname.lastname@example.com or give me a call at (408) 802-2008 to discuss this further. If you think you even MIGHT be interested in being involved in this high-potential project, get in touch -- I'd love to hear from you! Win, lose or draw, this will be a great experience for all involved! <comment><USER2> Sounds like PR bull, sorry. The best "recruiting" posts on HR/YC are the ones that have wit, humor, and most of all, go directly to the points.

You do lay out you're qualified, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> older advert by the same folks: <http://programmermeetdesigner.com/listing/view/2490>

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice. A Harker grad.

</comment><comment><USER5> People are voting this up? wtf?</comment>