Stories from my experiences learning Scrum - <AUTHOR> http://www.ericsink.com/entries/agile_2011_paper.html

<comment><USER2> Scrum is a decent place to start, but it really isn't the be-all of agile and in many cases, one could argue, it becomes the anti-thesis of "lean". On the bright side Scrum has done much to get agile into places that probably wouldn't have considered anything without a certification and consultant-based training attached to it. The bad thing about Scrum is that has also done more to facilitate cargo-cult agile than anything else.

Iterations? We don't sell iterations around here we sell software, software features specifically. Planning releases around iterations often results in more pain than pleasure I'm afraid, but it is still usually a step up from most traditional waterfall processes (on that note, most traditional waterfall shops really have no idea how to do waterfall either).

Stand-ups? Great when there is no more than 5-8 people, more than 10 and they quickly become a way to bore the entire team for 15 minutes.

Velocity? A useful planning tool, but often seen by managers who have "drunk the Scrum kool-aid" as a way to measure team performance. It's not, and in the end planning poker is simply another euphemism for task estimation, which in turn is a euphemism for performing magic tricks.

Scrum certainly has it's place, but it's important for teams learning it to treat it as just a few steps along a much longer path.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whenever I see people doing Agile/Scrum, I urge them to understand its limits, its purpose, and the agile Next[1][2], where, for instance, learning about products and users is more important than working code.

[1] <http://yfrog.com/h3qqxdij>

[2] [http://www.slideshare.net/HackerChick/lean-startup-how- devel...](http://www.slideshare.net/HackerChick/lean-startup-how-development- looks-different-when-youre-changing-the-world-agile-2011)

</comment><comment><USER4> It is nice to see people trying to learn Agile methods, and I'm glad these guys have found something that works for them. I think they've done a great job getting started.

But to set the context for others, this is adopting circa 25% of what I'd consider a serious Agile approach. That's fine to start, and many stop there. But I hope they keep at it, as there's a lot more benefit to be gained.

<comment><USER5> Your second paragraph is the kind of wording that gives me, as a developer, the heebie-jeebies. If a development group is improving their workflow and structure with the addition of a few thoughtfully chosen changes to what they had before (a morning standup meeting, shorter iterations, tracking burndown), then that to me sounds like a very pragmatic approach. Implementing even _more_ changes, merely for the sake of having a capital-A "Agile" designation, just sounds like cargo cultism.

<comment><USER6> Reminds me of a message I saw once on the "LuaForge Development" Google group. Literally 96 hours after the current LuaForge leadership and some people on lua-l decided to team up and create a new LuaForge, a buzzword-filled e-mail was sent to the mailing list entitled, "Request to use Agile Development Methodology." [1] Jim Whitehead responded, "You don't need agile development to have clearly defined roles, responsibilities and standards. A long time ago that used to be called 'project management' and it worked just fine =)"

[1]: [http://groups.google.com/group/luaforge- development/browse_t...](http://groups.google.com/group/luaforge- development/browse_thread/thread/d577b49ade8f33f5)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Speakerphones? Chat rooms? There are lots of tools that work better than that for Agile development, Scrums in particular.

<comment><USER5> For the daily meeting with developers in multiple locations? What are all these other "lots of tools"? If you mean Skype, iChat, etc., wouldn't those just be variations on a theme?

<comment><USER7> One is Sococo - a tool designed with Agile in mind. Disclaimer: I contracted with Sococo for 3 years, then joined them as Client Architect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Download Veracity here <http://veracity-scm.com> for anyone interested</comment>


Automatic Infrastructure Diagram Creation - <AUTHOR> https://arcentry.com/api-docs/create-diagram/ <comment><AUTHOR> You can use the API to create embeddable 3D views of your Architecture that you can include into your documentation or websites, see [https://arcentry.com/api-docs/embed/](https://arcentry.com/api-docs/embed/) \- here's an example [https://arcentry.com/blog/announcing-embeddable- diagrams/](https://arcentry.com/blog/announcing-embeddable-diagrams/) (or you can of course download your diagrams as jpeg or png).

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks great, but is there a way to generate diagrams for my documentation without using the app?</comment>


Update on Tuts+ Premium Security Breach - <AUTHOR> http://notes.envato.com/news/tuts-premium-security-update/

<comment><USER2> _I anticipate the service will be coming back online in the next 24 hours, with all passwords reset, hashed and individually salted (a best practice)_

Sigh.

<comment><USER3> In of itself, the statement isn't incorrect though is it? Are you sighing because you believe the statement implies a poor hash function will be chosen?

<comment><USER4> It's not incorrect, but it's somewhat telling that such a massive vulnerability that they were fully aware of "has been running for a long time" and rather than fork over $179.95 for the new version of aMember which would have completely fixed the vulnerability, they chose instead to let the vulnerability remain while they embarked on a greenfield project to rewrite their membership system from scratch. This rewrite would take an indeterminate amount of time whereas they could have paid a paltry sum for the upgrade and implemented it in less than 48 hours... as they just did.

I get that it's a prioritization issue. I've worked at places where legacy software had poor security practices and it's often a judgment call as to the risk of just letting it be vs. taking the time to rewrite whatever insecure portion remained. Often the decision is to leave it when it's a one-off project that will be shut down within a month, there is a limited attack surface involved, and the data being stored insecurely is very low value. On the other hand, security issues affecting the very core of a website (the login system that 100% of a company's revenue depends on) should get addressed as soon as the vulnerability is discovered. Additionally, they state that a server was compromised... it's not clear whether this was a SQL injection exploit that happened to display the users table remotely with no privilege escalation, or whether the server was compromised via a poorly chosen SSH password or similar and they may be dealing with a situation where rogue code is still living on one or more servers.

<comment><USER5> Do you happen to know what the new version of aMember uses for password hashing?

I saw some mentions of MD5 in forums and some handwaving about how other scripts use custom password security, but nothing definitive.

We looked at aMember for a project several years ago, before we switched to Django for all our development so I haven't kept up on what is available security-wise on PHP.

<comment><USER4> The Envato post says the passwords will be individually hashed and salted. The aMember forum has a few more details:

4.1.3 release: [http://www.amember.com/forum/threads/amember-pro- version-4-1...](http://www.amember.com/forum/threads/amember-pro- version-4-1-13-released.14476/) states "Removed user.pass variable from email templates. Plain text password in not available anymore."

4.1.6 release: [http://www.amember.com/forum/threads/amember-pro- version-4-1...](http://www.amember.com/forum/threads/amember-pro- version-4-1-6-released.13699/) states "Closes #448 - and do not save md5 passwords at all".

User issue: [http://www.amember.com/forum/threads/urgent- amember-v4-1-12-...](http://www.amember.com/forum/threads/urgent- amember-v4-1-12-encrypted-password-is-sent.14511/) "Unfortunately, in the email received by customers, the password comes out encrypted like $P$BkTNDykCkTfsOqHwsV4TT2/"

The hash format indicates it's using PHPass: [http://cvsweb.openwall.com/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/projects/phpass/Pa...](http://cvsweb.openwall.com/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/projects/phpass/PasswordHash.php?rev=1.8;content- type=text%2Fplain) which is based on MD5, but with the log of the number of rounds indicated by the first character after the $P$ prefix. In the forum example, it's "B" which is 11 making it 2^11 rounds. The remainder is an 8 character salt plus checksum. PHPass is authored by "Solar Designer" or Alexander Peslyak, also the author of John the Ripper and respected in the security community: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Peslyak> so is likely pretty solid.

<comment><USER2> Solar Designer is great. Here's what his PHPass page says:

 _The preferred (most secure) hashing method supported by phpass is the OpenBSD-style Blowfish-based bcrypt, also supported with our public domain crypt_blowfish package (for C applications), and known in PHP as CRYPT_BLOWFISH, with a fallback to BSDI-style extended DES-based hashes, known in PHP as CRYPT_EXT_DES, and a last resort fallback to MD5-based salted and variable iteration count password hashes implemented in phpass itself (also referred to as portable hashes)._

 _To ensure that the fallbacks will never occur, PHP 5.3.0+ or the Suhosin patch may be used. PHP 5.3.0+ and Suhosin integrate crypt_blowfish into the PHP interpreter such that bcrypt is available for use by PHP scripts even if the host system lacks support for it._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> NetTuts needs to mention which key derivation function they are using so the community can verify they didn't fuck up again.

I would also recommend that they use this opporunity to teach their web developing users about proper password storage, but after reading their php hashing tutorial[1], I think it's best if their users look elsewhere. The tutorial eventually recommends bcrypt after listing multiple unsafe solutions. I understand that the author is trying to build up to the solution, but the correct solution needs to be in the first paragraph. The incorrect solutions need to be clearly flagged so a beginner skimming through doesn't see "md5" and stop.

[1] [http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/understanding-hash- fun...](http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/understanding-hash-functions- and-keeping-passwords-safe/)

<comment><USER7> There's no real way to 'verify' this. They would have to provide the source code in its entirety and several card-carrying, certified cryptanalysts/cryptographers would have to vet it and then publicly approve of it. That will never happen.

Users have to have some level of trust. Like everything else in life.

<comment><USER5> If they use a well-maintained standard library which uses a modern cryptographic hashing function, then I think they earn that trust.

There is no real disadvantage to saying which one and a lot of trust to regain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > I should also note that aMember had in the meantime released an upgrade to > their service which deals with the issue, though an upgrade with our heavily > modified system was a significant endeavour.

In the previous blog post:

> Our current Tuts+ Premium app makes use of a third party plugin that > unfortunately stores passwords in cleartext (i.e. unencrypted).

The previous post sounded like they were too lazy to change the authentication system to a more secure one. But they now said they had a "heavily modified system".

> I'd like to take a moment to be clear that this wasn't a failure of, or a > reflection of, the professionalism and integrity of our development or Tuts+ > teams.

I think any capable developer should find it easier to add BCrypt into the password field than the heavy modifications. Once they are familiar enough with the plugin (for heavy modifications), it shouldn't take more than a day to make it secure.

</comment><comment><USER9> _this wasn't a failure of, or a reflection of, the professionalism and integrity of our development or Tuts+ teams._

How is it not? There is NO excuse for storing passwords in plaintext, on any production site. From what I've read, they had this system in place for a while, and planned "to get around to" switching to a more secure password storage method eventually.

Sadly, it looks like a massive security breach was the catalyst they needed to realize that you can't put issues like user password security on the backburner.

Now, we get the same reactive "we're sorry, we should have known better" from the tuts+ leadership, and a promise that things will be better in the future. Why does it always take a humiliating security breach for companies like this to realize just how important user security, and by extension, your users' trust, really is?

<comment><USER10> If the team came to him and said, "Mr CEO, we have this glaring security problem we want to fix", and then Mr CEO replied, "We have other, higher priority things to work on right now, so no, please do not fix that."

We already know they didn't write it, but we don't have enough other information to make any other judgements (and the blog post at least implies the above may have happened).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> i fail to understand how any decent web company does not at the very minimum hash passwords in this day and age. More importantly - a company who teaches people coding and often runs 'best practices for XXXX courses' each month.

</comment><comment><USER12> At least give it to them for being straight forward and honest. Yes, they screwed up, but so have a lot of other companies that in my opinion hold much much more sensitive data about me.

Not saying it's right for them to not take security as serious as they should have, but unlike a lot of other companies, they disclosed it immediately, came up with a game plan, apologized multiple times and are refunding users and offering others free stuff.

I've changed my password on the other envato services I use as a just in case and I still plan on using them in the future. They've always put together great and in-depth tutorials and are a great resource for beginners, hackers and experts.</comment>


Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL - <AUTHOR> http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html

<comment><USER2> Mods: change the link to the real site: <http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html></comment>


3 Types of Programmers: Zerg, Terran, Protoss - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/12/3-types-of-programmers-zerg-terran.html

<comment><USER2> A facile and shallow analogy. Not very illuminating.

<comment><USER3> I think it's purpose was entertainment rather than illumination.

<comment><USER2> It's probably harmful to pigeon-hole people like that, It would be better (though probably just as predictable) to discuss how people fall into those categories, what these people have to teach each other, and what their next steps are to break out of their respective ruts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If Google is a company run and maintained by the Protoss, their servers are Zerg technology: weak individually (hardly able to serve one youtube video slice), short-lived (due to overheating) and controlled by a hive mind.

Microsoft is a company lead by Terrans, running on state-of-the-art Protoss servers, selling Terran technology to Zerg corporate drones from other companies.

Oracle are a bunch of Protoss mercenaries, selling Terran, Protoss, Zerg, Xel'Naga and Hybrid creatures to anyone else. IBM are like that, only they sell custom-made spaceships.

</comment><comment><USER5> Then you've got the Xel'naga programmers (e.g. Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Dave Winer, etc).

Richard Stallman is probably the Dark Voice.

Edit: "The Dark Voice (also known as the Fallen One) is a Void entity. It is the leader of the hybrids and seeks to remake all life in its image."

<comment><USER6> Wait, Dave Winer in the same class as Ritchie and Thompson? Really?

<comment><USER5> Haha I knew someone was gonna say something about that. How about we replace him with... Grace Hopper?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well butter my biscuit

<comment><USER8> You want a piece of me, boy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What happens when you infect a terran programmer?

<comment><USER10> Infected terran programmer: While they can still write code that works, the tools/processes required by the company slow them down. (someone higher up has to bless the project with creep before it can be started)

Before being infected, they completed many projects one after another without being exhausted. However, after being infected, the programmers mysteriously disappear after completing a project for the first time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I do wonder where Linus Torvalds would fit.

Terran? While getting shit done is usually fine with him, he also has a good sense of elegance and has been seen being vocal about code that looked bad.

Zerg? Yeah, no.

Protoss? While Linus' skills are high, I just can't imagine him being the rigid protoss, as he has his fair share of quick and dirty hacks aswell.

Also... what about the linux kernel developers as a whole? Are they like an infested terran-protoss hybrid, with Linus being the Overmind, and his leutenants the Cerebrates?

</comment><comment><USER12> so google is auir, bill gates is (was?) sarah kerrigan, and zuckerberg is jim raynor?

<comment> loup-vaillant Knowing the story, I'd say Arcturus Mensk fits Zuckerberg better. Jim Raynor probably maintains Debian.

Oh and don't forget Miguel de Icaza as Samir Duran (may not fit the person, but definitely fits the reputation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I play random and very much enjoy it, use C, Python, C++, (and now) Lisp for depending on the job, sometimes write the maths and/or algorithm(s) down beforehand, sometimes write test, sometimes unit tests, and achieve what's interesting. I would've stopped playing SC2 if it wasnt' for random. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER14> I had to Google for the terms, making me, I suppose a Trogdolyte programmmer....

</comment><comment><USER15> Pretty apt analogy. Nice one!

<comment><USER16> I liked the idea of categorizing things using Starcraft, but this didn't particularly resonate for me. In particular:

a) Shiny math and shiny languages are negatively correlated; the mathier a grad student is, the more likely he is to use Matlab and the less likely he is to actually know how to program. When mathier people write non-Matlab code, it is often (but obviously not always) very shitty. Now, there are ML people, but they're a small subset of mathy programmers.

b) The "Terran" description is closest to what you would think of as a normal hacker, but hackers generally care that what they make is good, and people who care about code being good are not usually characterized as "just getting shit done," since for example they rewrite code that works just because it's ugly.

c) Terrans, by which I mean hackers, can and do learn math and then become unstoppable. I imagine there's some Starcraft parallel here, but I haven't played it recently enough.

<comment><USER17> The math-Matlab correlation may not be as big as you think. In my university, we use Matlab for almost nothing in the degree (I used it in Signal Processing), and write all our math code in C (Newton's methods, ODE integrators, linear system solvers). Of course this does not mean "knowing how to program" (unless you learn all the missing stuff along the way), or doing non-shitty code, but this is unrelated to Matlab being present

<comment><USER16> I meant mainly grad students and the like on their projects, not languages for classes. Languages used for classes are mostly the professor either picking his favorite language for the course (very random) or letting his TAs pick the language (very random if the TAs are not his grad students, mildly correlated with the field if the TAs are his grad students).

Edit: Initially I was talking about undergrad classes, but then realized you might have meant grad classes, so I changed it to say classes in general, which I believe is still true.

Edit 2: I set the delay so I can edit my post a bunch of times after I post it and not provide a moving target.

Edit 3: Clearly you are an exception, but then again you're reading Hacker News.

Edit 4: Where are you going to grad school that doesn't let you pick your own language?

<comment><USER17> I'm doing my PhD and do almost everything in C (I don't need to code a lot for my thesis, but for a paper I got in complex dynamics I did a few fractal renderers that needed to be fast, or at least as fast as I could get them to be). Sadly we can't choose the language as we have 3 courses on programming which are supposed to be C based. If I was to choose, I would pick Lisp... but this is only a dream ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yeah, this is stupid.</comment>


Sorting algorithms demonstrated with Hungarian folk dance - <AUTHOR> http://flowingdata.com/2011/04/14/sorting-algorithms-demonstrated-with-hungarian-folk-dance/ <comment><USER2> I have friends in Romania, I showed them this and they assure me that this is how CS is taught there. What a country!

</comment><comment><USER3> Omg, i just used O(n^2) time to watch that. Why could they do quick or mergesort.

(Parallel Mergesort as a dance would be pretty cool!)

<comment><USER4> You win my Comment of the Day award

<comment><USER5> five days ago

<http://programming.reddit.com/comments/glgrm/_/c1ofufz>

<comment><USER3> You got me, but the paralllel merge sort was my idea.

Edit: Damn somebody on reddit said that too but i didn't read it there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was thinking how painfully slow it was, until I remembered the adage: "make it work, then make it elegant, then make it fast."

It works, and it is certainly elegant.

</comment><comment><USER7> Fantastic, without taking away from the beauty of the performances: this is like Sesame Street for hackers!

</comment><comment><USER8> BTW, is there any Hungarian folks here?

<comment><USER9> Yes, but not living there.

<comment><USER10> neat, I'm not hungarian but I live in budapest :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I expected something like Algorithm March (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm_March>), but this is far more... algorithmic.

</comment><comment><USER12> I _knew_ Stallman was up to something.</comment>


Results from the Quantum Machine Learning Hackathon - <AUTHOR> http://cknowledge.org/dashboard/hackathon.20190127 <comment><USER2> They should provide a link to the challenge - I found it at the bottom of this page. Seems that the results are from the "3rd QCK Hackathon, Paris, 27 January": [http://cknowledge.org/quantum.html](http://cknowledge.org/quantum.html) .</comment>


ClearCoin  safer  bitcoin transactions - <AUTHOR> https://clearcoin.appspot.com/ This site is ran by Gavin Andresen, technical lead of the bitcoin project.
If you are buying something using bitcoins, ClearCoin makes your transaction much safer.
Create an escrow transaction, and then instead of sending bitcoins directly to the seller, send them to ClearCoin.
Then show the seller that the bitcoins are secure by sending them a link to the transaction's status page, and wait for them to send you the product or provide the service.
After you've received the product or service, one click will release the bitcoins and complete the transaction.
If you don't receive the product or service, or if you're unhappy with it and the seller can't fix the problem, then don't release them. When the transaction expires, the bitcoins will either be refunded to you or donated to charity (you can choose which when you create a transaction). <comment><USER2> It's clearly a brilliant idea to set up a charity escrow service. The buyers and sellers have no incentives to cheat after all as they can't gain anything from fraudulent transactions.

</comment><comment><USER3> As an aside, there are currently 6221100 bitcoins in circulation (not counting ones that were lost, I suppose) and they are currently trading at around $7.50, which means Bitcoin has an implied market capitalization of around $46 million.

Not enough to take over any banking systems anytime soon, but that is an awful lot of momentum for a weird crazy open source P2P thing.

</comment><comment><USER4> This escrow service is developed by Gavin Andresen, the lead developer of bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why do we need 'safer options'? Shouldn't the original method just be updated if it needs to be?

<comment><USER6> It's about layers of abstraction. The Bitcoin architecture provides an abstract, lower-level interface for higher-level functionality to be built upon [1].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_layer>

<comment> mike-cardwell Which is exactly the way it should be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So this give the option of chargebacks? This seems to be much less safe for merchants.

<comment><USER8> seems to work for paypal

in a large mainstream bitcoin economy there would be multiple escrow services, both the consumer and merchant can decide what services they will use

clearcoin has the option of donating the money to charity if there is a dispute, seems like an interesting innovation to me

<comment><USER9> Paypal, credit cards, etc. have dispute resolution services. They don't just allow the buyer to renege arbitrarily. To be useful, it seems to me that an escrow service needs to offer a more robust dispute resolution mechanism, which will cost money.

<comment><USER8> not sure what your point is, my point is that in a bitcoin economy you would have choice

for a large purchase either the merchant or the customer may insist on an expensive escrow service that deals with disputes robustly

for small purchases this might not be so important

I saw a comment on HN recently asking why startups never challenge the VISA/MasterCard hegemony, with a response saying it is simply to expensive to enter the market with a low ROI

widespread bitcoin use would lower the barriers for this kind thing, unless you like monopolies and cartels, I can't see how anybody would argue this is a bad thing (regardless of whether you think bitcoin is good, will suceed, whaterver)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, under "For Buyers", it says that if you don't release the funds, it gets refunded to you.

Under "For Sellers", it says that you get the funds unless they specifically block it.

WTF?

</comment><comment><USER11> And so the process begins to make bitcoin as user friendly as credit cards.

Escrow has never worked well for consumer commerce because sellers dont like it.</comment>


Scientists Develop Plasma Thruster That Could One Day Power Planes - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-08/emission-free-flying-a-step-closer-with-chinese-plasma-thruster <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23095701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23095701)

Publication: [https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0005814](https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0005814)

</comment><comment><USER3> Can someone maybe with lab experience in propulsion or comparable knowledge confirm that their method to measure the thrust of the plasmathruster is in any way comparable to proper thrustmeasurement / produces forcevalues correlatable to those measured with an unobstructed outlet and proper equipment?

<comment><USER4> Measuring low-force, high-temp flows like can be pretty difficult, especially in academic labs where researchers are typically pretty limited in terms of instrumentation. I don't have 1-to-1 experience in this field but have briefly worked in plasma physics and ion thruster propulsion.

Doing a quick scan of the group's AIP paper, I'm generally okay with the methodology and the results they've drawn from it. It seems like their results are mostly establishing a rough thrust value with a force ceiling on each measurement, not a high-precision continuous dataset. Assuming the quartz tube and sphere don't seriously deviate from one another, the equations and physical assumptions they're using check out fine. It's not something you'd want to doing a full characterization on a flight model or anything, but for lab-scale experiment, I think it works.

<comment><USER5> One question I have is this: would the point at which the hollow ball rattles possibly be dependent on the Reynolds number, which in turn is dependent on the temperature? And if so, would that not have to be compensated for when comparing plasma-on and -off measurements?

<comment><USER4> I don't think so--it doesn't look like the rattling of the sphere is caused by flow around the sphere itself, but rather by the rate of the displacement/return to equilibrium of the sphere over the opening of the quartz tube. I'm assuming (and I could be wrong) that the vibration patterns between plasma-on/off varies pretty significantly, so that rattling, as opposed to occasionally shifts only happens when the plasma flow is actually happening and that the force is significant enough to be consistently displacing the sphere rather than the long-period pressure cycling you'd otherwise see. I don't think that turbulence in the classical sense would play much into it.

Not sure if this is helpful, but based on the video I'd guess that rattling only occurs in the plasma regime (as opposed to the normal, standard temp airflow), at which point I'm don't think the physical basis of the Reynold's number holds. Plasmas, especially under an external magnetic field, are only quasi-stable and so their bulk behaviours don't necessarily track with those of classical fluids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can we stop posting reddit tier click bait articles about "REVOLUTIONARY THING WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING" based off one tiny study or speculation?</comment>


Kevin Rose regrets dropping out of school too early - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/ss/6-ceos-share-their-biggest-regrets#3

<comment><USER2> I think the real part of regret comes in the last quote: "Sometimes, I'll be sitting around on a weekend and think, it'd be fun if I could just write up a software app really quickly."

I doubt it was the school that he misses. It was probably the free time to build whatever he wanted.

<comment><USER3> i'm not sure its the free time he is missing. i would guess he assumes that if he had completed his degree he would have the knowledge base to pick up a language and build quick utilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> According to Professor Neal Roese's research, regrets related to education are the most common form of regret: <http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/9/1273>

He also wrote a book about regret and counterfactual thinking titled "If Only": Delivering a reassuring, groundbreaking message, If Only describes two types of "counterfactuals," as these thoughts are known in psychology, and both "if only" thoughts can lead to a better understanding of yourself. One variety allows us to improve performance and learn from experience by comparing what we actually did to what might have been better. A second kind asks how things could have been worse, which makes you feel a whole lot better. Dr. Roese also reveals Americans' top regrets and shows you how to avoid them. And he shows how our brains erase regrets of actions (stuff you did that didn't work out) but let regrets of inaction linger. So his advice? Just do it.

<comment><USER5> I love that research, but one has to consider whether the people regretting education-related things are just saying "I should have finished my education" as an excuse for everything that's wrong with their life.

E.g., if only I had my degree, I wouldn't be stuck in this crappy job -- while, of course, there are many avenues to pursue for people who will make the effort, degreed or otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why can't he learn how to code?

Instead of Rock Climbing or getting blasted for DiggNation or going to tea houses/spots he could mess with coding until he "gets" it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I started skipping school at 13, and left permanently at 14. At first it was just black and white: I hated school, I didn't want to go, but it soon turned into severe anxiety (that's another story.) I'm 17 now.

I wish I could say it's not affected me much, overall I think I'm pretty bright, so I don't fear I'm not going to be technically qualified for the career I want, however it's the paperwork I'm worried about; I have no exam results to speak of, and when I finally get over the anxiety, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Collage? University? I have no idea where I stand, I just hope things don't go completely pete tong, and I'm still in the same situation at 30 or something, when I have far more responsibilities and cannot afford to complete my education. We'll see... :-)

Btw, this is a new account.

<comment><USER8> Suck it up. Go back to school. Suffer a little to save yourself a big headache.

<comment><USER7> I know, but easier said than done...

By "severe anxiety" I mean I've distanced myself from everyone I used to know, and I never go out much anymore. And a few years ago I woke up to 2 shrinks and 5 cops in my room at 9am, which ended in me being taken off in hand-cuffs under a mental health order. Thankfully they concluded after a few days I wasn't in fact mentally ill, but at that point it struck home, and I started to loose the weight I put on over the years, which is step 1 to "recovery" (so far, so good!)

Excuses, I know, trust me, if I could go back in time, I'd go back and "suck it up" earlier, to save myself a ton of headache thus-far. :-)

<comment><USER9> Having a teen-ager of my own who has severe anxiety when it comes to school (so much more than the typical "I hate school."), I can empathize with the "easier said than done." Honestly, I'd look at talking to a counselor and making a plan for moving forward. You are obviously bright enough that you can over come the challenges, but you don't have to do it on your own.

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Somtimes I start to regret dropping out of education early, until I really think about it and realise that dropping out was the best thing I ever did. I have no student debt, a profitable start up, interesting work, and gave myself a better education than I would have received had I stayed in fulltime education. I was also very bored and unhappy with it by the time I left so I probably kept my sanity too. Yet I still sometimes find myself regreting it.

</comment><comment><USER11> While Kevin's regret is pretty valid, I think the most interesting is definitely Gauri Nanda's - regretting going at the business totally alone.

I refrained from applying for YC funding in the past because I couldn't find a good partner, but now that I'm working on something with a good one I really notice the difference.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like a confusion of cause and effect, to me.</comment>


Photographing Radioactivity with a Webcam - <AUTHOR> http://www.randombio.com/webcam.html

<comment><USER2> > Although a webcam can detect high-energy particles without modification, > it's necessary to modify it by removing the glass protective filter on the > sensor to get maximum efficiency for low-energy particles such as alphas.

First, "alphas" are not necessarily "low-energy particles". Energy and particle type are orthogonal. You can have a 1 MeV alpha, beta, or gamma, or a 1 keV alpha, beta, or gamma.

Second, energy certainly contributes to how far particles can penetrate, but alphas have a massive charge (2+) which allows them to easily interact with materials they pass through. This means they are easily stopped by the glass protecting the sensor, as the electromagnetic forces occur at longer ranges than nuclear forces.

This is pretty cool though and reminds me of that video of the museum (in Germany, I think?) where you can see trails beta (or alphas?) physically zipping inside an "aquarium".

<comment><USER3> The Exploratorium in San Francisco also has a vapor tank that shows cosmic rays and radioactivity—it's mesmerizing.

<comment><USER4> They're pretty easy environments to make at home. The key ingredients are dry ice and alcohol. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_chamber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_chamber)</comment></comment></comment>


I will give you bank routing and account numbers of tax fraudsters - <AUTHOR> https://common-form.com/blog/modest-proposal-deterring-tax-fraud/

<comment><USER2> Just because there are two tax accounts at one address does not automatically make them fraudulent. Could it not be one person is filing it on behalf of others? Granted, it is absurd that this was not checked, but is this lunatic truly asking if it's a good idea to release bank information of people his company sees as fraudulent? I'm pretty sure this is satire, but wanted to make sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Despite my Jonathan Swift inspired title, it is unfortunately not satire. Here's an abridged list of criteria that caused us to flag the 2 returns I mentioned as obviously fraudulent:

\- Mailing address on account was bogus per Google Maps

\- 1st credit card charge attempt failed, 2nd one passed. Name on credit card did not match name on account (although both CCs passed Stripe's zip code and CVV checks)

\- Taxpayer claimed to live and work in California, yet W-2 didn't have any CA state tax info (boxes 15-20) populated

\- Every value on the W-2 was a whole number (no pennies)

There's more, but I don't want to give away our entire algorithm, which could help thieves navigate our system and others

<comment><USER3> I hope you're not serious, Bill. I really don't want you to go to jail. :)

The government is slow to act, that's often a good thing to keep it from reacting quickly where some discussion or just delay is the wiser course. I get the impression the IRS has proposals to add these types of identity checks, but the inherent delays in decision-making mean any real change is years away. Does anyone know of a plan for the IRS to improve validation of refund requests?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your concern :). I was motivated to post this after 8 years of frustration at IRS and other's failure to act.

I've contacted IRS numerous times on this subject and they've indicated to no concrete plan and timeline to act decisively.

In their defense - there are some quick and easy checks they could implement tomorrow, but the most definitive one is would be to check the W-2 the taxpayer enters vs. the W-2 they receive from the taxpayer's employer. The problem with this is - IRS doesn't receive the W-2 from the employer until after most refunds are issued. When they've pressed for it, small business owners and payroll providers push back hard, throwing out the "overreaching government" accusation.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hobbyists can plant hidden spy chips on motherboards for $200 - <AUTHOR> https://www.techspot.com/news/82320-hobbyists-can-plant-hidden-spy-chips-motherboards-200.html <comment><USER2> Correlating this to the blooomberg supermicro drama makes me mad.

Yes, this was always possible, nobody ever denied that. But this doesn't have anything to do with the claims by bloomberg. You could always tack on another chip and start messing with hardware. Bloomberg's claims were of some magical chip implanted automagically via a photo of a common mode choke.

Even the title makes me mad

>for $200

Bitch please, I could do it with a $5 ardiuno board and some time.

<comment><USER3> The title is misleading. Their subheading is $190 in tools and a $2 chip.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What API do you use instead of Rapportive? - <AUTHOR>

I used to use this script to pull data from rapportive: https://github.com/the4dpatrick/find-any-email.
It seems like the Rapportive endpoint only works within Gmail now.
What API do you use instead of Rapportive? Is it free? <comment><USER2> We use Full Contact [http://www.publicapis.com/fullcontact/fullcontact- person](http://www.publicapis.com/fullcontact/fullcontact-person)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've used Rapportive, but I definitely prefer [http://discover.ly/](http://discover.ly/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Fliptop - not free though

</comment><comment><USER5> Full Contact or Clearbit</comment>


Ask HN: What should I learn next? Python or Ruby/Rails? - <AUTHOR>

I have been doing PHP for a long time now. I know some C/C++ through college.
I have started dabbling in Python but was told by many that I should instead consider Ruby/Rails
One important note: I do intend to, at some point, learn both of them. Just wondering which one you would recommend I start with.
Thanks :) <comment><USER2> I find Python easier to get started with, because there is much less syntax to learn when coming from another language, particularly the ones you have been working with. Ruby does more out of the box for webapps, and does more with less characters, but only marginally, and it has a slight perl aftertaste that makes it a tad annoying at times when you're starting. In summary, I'd recommend you start with Python because you can learn essentially all of the language in very little time from the basis you already have. Ruby is definitely more hyped right now than Python, and it is awesome for web stuff, but starting with Python and then learning Ruby should be easier than the other way around. Or maybe it's just so for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> You should start with Perl.

Then think about doing Python or Ruby.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why Perl?

<comment><USER3> Because Perl is the "glue" or "duct tape," if you will, of the internet.

<comment><USER4> That was succinct observation in its day, but I hardly think it applies now. Things have changed a whole lot. That's not to say perl can't be used today, but its relative value has decreased. "Duct tape" is no longer the ambition to admire.

<comment><USER3> Perl is the most resilient language. Even if things have changed, it will be back. With a vengeance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That depends on why you are looking to learn a new language.

For most web development projects, PHP is fine. If you are looking to learn something totally new, why not go for something like Smalltalk, Erlang, Lisp or some other language that's quite different from Ruby, Python and PHP?.

If you are looking to learn something that will help your web development skills, then make sure you are very strong with Javascript and a framework such as Jquery before looking to other languages.

</comment><comment><USER6> Each language is relatively easy to get started with, and there are numerous free tutorials available on the web. Why not take two weeks and try each one out for a week? See how far you get building something and decide which is the best fit for you right now.

If you've written a PHP app, maybe it's a good candidate for rewriting in these languages. Having a problem space that you're intimately familiar with can reduce the variables to just the languages or frameworks themselves.

</comment><comment><USER7> Both are good languages. I would suggest Python if you're going to be doing any scientific computing for its excellent library support (numpy/scipy/matplotlib especially), and Ruby if you want to being doing web application programming.

</comment><comment><USER8> When you were advised to consider Ruby over Python, what reason were you given?

Also, you may not be aware but this is an almost daily question on StackOverflow so I would advise looking there also.

<comment><AUTHOR> That Ruby is much more popular right now and used more than Python.

Everyone has said Python is simple, simple, simple, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> either is fine. they have much more in common than they are different. choose which ever makes most sense practically (for examples: if you know someone who would give you help + support, use the language they use; if you already use a certain host and they only support one of them, use the one they support)

</comment><comment><USER10> As a fairly experienced Ruby on Rails developer I am receiving a couple of phone calls a week from recruitment companies (in Sydney). They are desperate for people.

That should tell you all you need to know. Web is where it's at. Django has much less penetration. Rails is still fairly rare but it's gaining momentum in business (finally) and IMO it's a very good thing to know right now. Your PHP skills will be a big plus, too.

That said, I have nothing against Python, it's a great language, so if you're not doing it for employability reasons, why not. It just seems to me that the Rails hype has made it a big deal for businesses currently. Get on that train and you'll be well-compensated. Python .. love it, but doesn't pay as well, simple as that.

<comment><USER3> Rails is ok for now, but it's just a fad.

You gotta go with Perl. You'll thank me later.

<comment><USER10> You might as well suggest learning COBOL. Yes, it's lucrative maintaining all those old apps. But where's the satisfaction?

And really, companies are going to look at you strangely if you say "1 year Perl experience". They'll think "why on earth is someone learning Perl in 2009". No, go with one of the newer languages - python or ruby.

<comment><USER11> By your logic, we should not learn C because it's older than Perl and Python (why on earth is someone learning C in 2009).

<comment><USER10> No, C is different.

Look, Perl was "the" fad language back in the 90s. No-one is building anything new with it today. So if you learn Perl, expect to be hired to maintain others' crappy sites.

C is different because it's the foundation everything else is built on.

I'm not trying to dis Perl here or anything; I'm just trying to state the nature of reality as I see it, so lower your spear, friend ..

<comment><USER12> Perl has great potential. The reason Rails and other newer languages are getting attention is solely because they're new. Rails is easier to start programming in by people who'll never understand the difference between a constant and a variable in their life. Other languages are invisible to them.

Does that mean Rails is bad? No! Every language has its merits and demerits. It's easier for a programming to learn them all than fight for a single language.

Perl has its own strong points, just like any other language.

"No-one is building anything new with it today."

Generalizations. So easy to make, and so imprecise nevertheless.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Darpa wants to speed up computers by over 1000 times while using less power - sahin-boydas https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/08/darpa-wants-to-speed-up-computers-by-over-1000-times-while-using-less-power.html/amp <comment><AUTHOR> I expect that they will invest in Mill Computing which is designing a CPU which will be most likely faster than Xeon and uses 10x less power.</comment>


Schlumberger is building a proprietary OS for its oilfield services - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/09/08/big-oil-schlumberger/ <comment><USER2> I interned there last year. They use a Windows 7 image that is preloaded with drilling software built in-house. Most of the newer software seemed to be written in .NET.

They have some really awesome tech, especially from an electronics point of view. Some of their newer MWD (measurement while drilling) tools have state of the art sensors for every physical phenomenon known to man. The drilling operator can therefore "see" everything. The electronics systems that go downhole can withstand insane temperatures (125C), shocks, and RPM.

<comment><USER3> I left SLB few months ago , and during my stay there I was exposed to most of their MWD tools. I worked both in the maintenance and field engineering organization. Please note that all MWD(D&M) tools are expected to withstand 150 degC however some high temperature tools could get up to 170 degC. But this is just industry standard (Baker, Halliburton, and others have such).Their electronics technology has been around for decades, however SLB started off(recently) making incremental improvement and at same time incorporating new technologies. Please don't use the word "see" because there is nothing radical here or new. MWD tools are just sensors.. magnetometers, accelerators, strain gauges , FPGA and some basic electronics power system. In some cases you may have transmitters and receivers oriented to a particular frequency range. MWD tools have sensors in the same family as what we have in a smart phone.

<comment><USER2> How about density, porosity, resistivity, and so on? I saw some LWD tools that used different sonic-based techniques, nuclear sources, and others for formation evaluation. I'm thinking of the PeriScope, EcoScope from LWD, and the TeleScope from MWD. The point-the-bit tech in the Xceed is also amazing!

I didn't get to read up on the details, as they prevented interns from accessing technical documents, but from what I saw some of the sensors were quite advanced. Granted, I don't have that much exposure to state of the art sensor tech, so I could be wrong.

<comment><USER3> I wont like to discuss SLB technology here because that is the duty of their salesmen, however I will pick on "point-the-bit tech in the Xceed" technology to illustrate a bit. Xceed is modeled after an MWD tool called PowerPulse(TeleScope predecessor), it copied about 90% of that technology. However to the uninitiated it may look like something from the outer space. It has resolver(motor), that means you have angular position, and throw in magnetometers, accelerators , and sensors into the play. Presto!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's the wording about the OS:

 _This new operating system will be able to analyze everything happening on a rig in real time, boosting both efficiency and safety. It also serves to lock customers into a single ecosystem that the company hopes will act as an incentive to use Schlumberger services and (now) equipment for all their drilling needs._

So their requirement is real-time. Their real requirement though is vendor lock-in. They're really just looking for a way to lock companies into their platform so that the cost of switching is prohibitive. That's a way of decreasing safety and efficiency. I think the real-time requirement is just a cover for them to increase their customer retention through the worst way possible.

Offering a little "extra" to the client in the form of lock-in is despicable.

 _Old-school operators in the energy space are all about going with "the best in breed" equipment and service providers. They have deep relationships with salesmen in certain companies and tend to be very loyal to them, so it will be hard to sell many of them on the idea of buying from just one source._

Oh I see, they're exchanging gifts at different levels and if you lock yourself into one vendor you won't be able to get a wide variety of gifts for closing a sale.

I wonder how "best of breed" is measured, if it's measured at all or if it's just based on marketing and sales brochures.

<comment><USER3> There is nothing new here ..... They already have the technology but fragmented .. They have been streaming real-time data to clients and their support centers for over a decade now. Now they want to package all that as one... pretty business strategy. But I guess they would not fool anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if this is an operating system, or what a laymen would potentially call an operating system, maybe some sort of full screen application. I would guess the latter.

<comment><USER6> The way it actually worked in 2004, I would be amazed were it any different now:

* it's a complicated vertical market with _buckets of cash_

* there are two main providers, Landmark and Schlumberger

* you buy most of your stuff from one or the other

* the software, at $10k/seat/year, is the _second cheapest_ part, the cheapest being the beefy box with top-of-the-line 3D graphics to run it on. the highly-paid geologist or petrochemist or whatever to sit there running it is the third-cheapest part.

* the software is unbelievably shoddy for how much money goes into it. X applications in 2004 that would refuse to run in 24-bit, demanding you restart in 8-bit, that sort of thing. Hence my rule of thumb that "software quality is inversely proportional to ticket price."

* OH MY GOD THERE IS SO MUCH MONEY SLOSHING AROUND. So it was nice to sysadmin somewhere that would just spend money to do stuff properly.

* I daily wanted to stab FlexLM in the face. And it's the least-worst option on dongleware.

So maintaining their own complicated system of stuff that runs on Windows 7 is already what they do, and is relatively cheap compared to how much money is in the vertical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They could go with Lisp :)

Ada or ATS-Lang would be good for such mission-critical applications with various modules needing to keep it safe. The DoD and aerospace already use Ada for such purposes. Just please don't use C! (Maybe BitC, but too immature). Then run Erlang (Elixir or LFE - Lisp Flavored Erlang) on top of the OS for distributed computing, robustness, hot-swapping, and all else where Erlang excels.

<comment><USER7> What's wrong with the suggestion of Ada or ATS-Lang? Lisp was used on space missions. Relatively new to the whole karma, upvote and downvote on HN. I would like a rational reason on why this was downvoted to better understand what was off about my reply.

<comment><USER8> HN in general does not appreciate comments that can be construed (or miss- construed) as language fanboyism. Bear in mind that when using written communication the onus is on the writer to convey their meaning accurately.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for taking the time to try and explain. Given I mentioned 4 languages with different reasons also puts some onus on the reader to have an aptitude for comprehension as well. How can 4 languages be fanboyism? I will, however, bear this in mind, although, it does come across as a little pretentious or guarded on the downvoter's side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> the phrase "Operating System" here is being used in the sense of "software to manage resources"... _not_ the resources of the computer, but the resources of the whole system. It is not referring to a replacement for Linux, Windows, VxWorks or uCOS, rather incorporating individual subsystems running those OSs into a whole oilfield-management-system.

</comment><comment><USER10> "It is similar to an operating system used on your mobile phone,"

Well that's the technical bits out of the way :)

</comment><comment><USER11> We already know that software doesn't need to be run on the same OS in order to work together.

</comment><comment><USER12> Whats wrong with just helping Linux ?

I always find it funny when people try to create "proprietary" stuff in 2015 - its like people learnt nothing from windows.

I remember reading about how investment bankers tried to create their own language and it looked like a crude version of C.

Its not easy to compete with open source. You just cannot spend 1 billion dollars making an OS. Who is going to fix bugs for the next 20 years ?

<comment><USER13> For one, Linux isn't an RTOS and never will be. The many rejections of real- time patches into the Linux kernel tree have shown that the kernel devs favor performance to precision, so it would be a fool's errand to try once again to push a real-time patch just to get it patched. At which point, you'll end up having to do a lot of your own OS development anyways to backport kernel features you need. There are quite a few situations where Linux will delay interrupts for milliseconds, and quite a few situations where milliseconds can mean millions of dollars.

For your last question, 20 years of support will certainly not Linux developers. While MS offers extended support for Windows XP, neither earth nor the heavens will make Red Hat provide extended support for RHEL 3. The Open Source world has a lot to learn from proprietary companies about support still.

<comment><USER14> According to Cyph0n, they are using a Windows 7 image, which is also not a RTOS. Can just as well use Linux in this case.

<comment><USER8> If they are writing their software using .NET then windows would seem to be obvious choice (for now).

<comment><USER14> True, although mono might be an option.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Machine learning algorithms - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rushter/MLAlgorithms <comment><USER2> I think it was a cop-out that he didn't implement the grad function in his gradient descent routine :(

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be nice to have a few pointers to descriptions of each algorithm to understand the concept.

</comment><comment><USER4> let's say I wanted to learn the grammar of/how to parse a context-sensitive grammar from a 100 or thousands of valid examples -- what's the best approach?

<comment><USER5> First I would suggest you do your own homework assignments. ;)

Currently recurrent neural networks are the best language processing ML algorithms. Here is a relatively new paper on recurrent neural network grammars and it references many of the recent papers:

[http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/N16-1024](http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/N16-1024)

<comment><USER4> it's not a homework assignment :) thanks for the link. I'm looking to parse a simple but unknown configuration file format deduced only from known good examples.

<comment><USER5> I'm not certain, but to do that optimally I think is an np-complete problem. If you put some restrictions on it: all files are the same format or only N fixed formats or context free grammars then it's manageable. Otherwise it boils down to natural language processing and imperfect, but useful algorithms in that domain will probably help.

Are you sure it's context sensitive grammar rather than a collection of N context free grammars? Many file format standards can be expressed as context free grammars.

If you are trying to figure out something like "what is the unknown XML structure" based on an example file or files then you are firmly inside natural language processing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hidden Features Of Perl, PHP, Javascript, C, C++, C#, Java, Ruby, Python, Others - <AUTHOR> http://beerpla.net/2009/06/21/hidden-features-of-perl-php-javascript-c-c-c-java-ruby-python-and-others-collection-of-incredibly-useful-lists/

<comment><USER2> I just eyeballed Ruby and C, and I think you're better off not knowing a lot of this, and just keeping a whiffle bat next to your desk to use on any teammate that uses them.

For instance, the highest-ranked Ruby "hidden features" are one-liners that aren't faster than their multiline equivalents, but are incomprehensible if you don't understand obscure syntax.

The highest-ranked C features include Duff's Device, which, if one of your teammates tries to bust it out, go find a real bat. Others are GCC-specific. One overloads the preprocessor to define domain-specific languages for FSMs.

<comment><USER3> _For instance, the highest-ranked Ruby "hidden features" are one-liners that aren't faster than their multiline equivalents, but are incomprehensible if you don't understand obscure syntax._

This is why they say Ruby is the new Perl.

<comment><USER4> No, they say Ruby is the new Perl because of the "TIMTOWTDI" paradigm.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some of these are pretty scary. In particular, the c++ analog literals <http://www.xs4all.nl/~weegen/eelis/analogliterals.xhtml>, multidimentional to boot.

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought that the C# list was pretty good. There's lots of little tips in there that you might not pick up without experience (so it's a good read for those learning the language).</comment>


Baker is burnt on Groupon cake offer - <AUTHOR> http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3950684/Baker-is-burnt-on-cake-offer.html

<comment><USER2> I'm sick of hearing stories about how Groupon is so awful because they ruin businesses. Here's a tip: don't offer coupons you can't honor. Here's another tip: don't offer coupons that will lose you money.

Seriously, 75% off a box of cupcakes? 75% off is what you offer during a fire sale. It's what you offer when you want to ditch the product. It's what HP offered to get rid of their stock of Touchpads. In rare cases, it's what you offer as a loss leader. If that's your only business, that's your fault. There could have been some good from this. She could have gotten repeat business and raised her profits back up. But running to the press to complain that you have too many customers? I would never go back. It's just whiny and self-serving, and gives the company a bad name.

It's not news when someone makes a bad business decision. This is only "news" because it tangentially related to Groupon.</comment>


How to Know If a Startup Is Promising? - <AUTHOR>

Like when there's a friend of your working on his startup idea and asking you to join as a cofounder. At this stage there's nothing to gauge (not even a company yet). <comment><USER2> You can't. Otherwise all of us would be billionaires.

There is a ton of risk not matter. We hear from a lot of people who "always knew they had it." But there are a ton of failures who also believed "they always had it" before failing.</comment>


Just curious...are most founders coders? or business type folks? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Old coders with leadership skills I would wager.

I'd even say you could take away coder and use the term subject-matter expert with leadership skills and apply your question to any type of business 'startup'.</comment>


Woman says her son couldn't afford his insulin – now he's dead - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mother-fights-for-lower-insulin-prices-after-sons-tragic-death/ <comment><USER2> This sounds like an issue with medical/financial literacy or possibly mental illness, which are also serious. The self-pay price is discounted and can get really low with the manufacturer coupons/rebates or the one pharmacy chains scan for you if you're uninsured. Generics are available; they are not as error-proof as, e.g., Tresiba, but they would have saved his life. Switching from pens to vials saves money.

Please be kind if you reply; I am diabetic and have spent time trying to save money on a really high prescription copay. I've caught myself doing what this person did, rationing or going without when there were ways to get medicine. Thankfully I didn't live alone and someone snapped me out of that thinking. I would like to see the FDA stop the stair-step method to keep generics from being widely prescribed but if you're waiting for that, please don't — there are temporary solutions in the meantime.

<comment><USER3> I had this problem during six months of self-employment. I found that the cheapest way to get good insulin (Novolog) is to fly to Bangkok / Chiang Mai and hit up all the pharmacies until you have a year's supply. If you're not unlucky, you shouldn't have a problem at the airports.

I think it cost ~$25-35 USD for several pen cartridges of Novolog.

<comment><USER4> You don't even need to go that far for cheap insulin. I'm a type 1 diabetic in Seattle, and I've gone to Canada a few times for ~$25-$30/vial USD of Humalog (Novolog is also available) insulin. It's over the counter there, and I've never had an issue with US customs bringing up to a year supply back home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Clicked on the link thinking it'd be the article about my cousin who went through the _exact_ same thing about a year ago.

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6415921/Mother- says...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6415921/Mother-says- diabetic-son-32-died-rationing-insulin-afford-supplies.html)

RIP Jesse.

</comment><comment><USER6> Practically free in Belgium, I really think Europe is 3 steps ahead in healthcare

<comment><USER7> Even in Brazil, a third world country, you can get insulin for Free.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This story is absolutely heartbreaking. This young man died alone, trying to ration his $1300/mo insulin.

Does anyone know if there are startups trying to tackle this specific problem? I would be curious about learning more about them. I don't understand why a company doesn't just come in and massively undercut the competition.

<comment><USER8> It's also not as rare as it should be. In my area recently, a man died because he couldn't afford the oxygen supply he required.

<comment><USER9> That's just so sad. These medicines should be more available for people. We're living in yr 2019; shouldn't be this way!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Uncontrolled type-2 diabetes is no joke. I had a Danish neighbor growing up who worked for Spectra-Physics and had an RX-7 (Wankel) back in the day. After he retired, he got diabetes but didn't take insulin with uncontrolled blood sugar over 400-700 mg/dL. He lost his vision, feet and went from mildly unhealthy to dead under in two years. He was never obese that I recall.

If someone were broke as in the story, but determined to get life-survival medication no matter what in the US: get rid of all of their property and assets except one vehicle and one house, and get Medicaid. If someone became disabled from a non-work-related condition, there is Medicare SSDI... and they may also qualify for Medicaid. The reason to get rid of property are two-fold: there are maximum qualification limits and bankruptcy would take it. A bankruptcy lawyer costs $2000-4000 FYI.

<comment><USER11> Type 2 is non-insulin-dependent.

Metformin is an excellent drug for NIDDM and is ridiculously cheap even in the USA (less than $3/month at Costco uninsured price).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could someone in this situation steal insulin & claim self defense?

</comment><comment><USER11> When you drill down to the detail story (click the name link), you see that Alex _chose to go without insurance altogether_ despite his state (MN) having an ACA exchange with fully subsidized plans.

Neither mentions where he got his prescription from after being off the parents plan, if he pursued one at all.

</comment><comment><USER13> One thing worth trying if you are in this situation is to go to a university or research hospital and volunteer as a research subject, if you can find someone who is researching your particular problem. This worked for a friend of mine who needed anti-psychotic medication when he was uninsured.

</comment><comment><USER14> In Greece is free. Even for uninsured people.

</comment><comment><USER15> Blame republicans. This is all by their design. Every other country has figured this out and the conservatives in those countries mostly support universal healthcare. America needs to vote out republicans for a generation and get America caught up to the rest of the developed world.

<comment><USER16> Just a little life pro-tip: Even if you view 'the other side' as horrible murderers for profit, you should tone down your viewpoint when talking publicly because you will not convince anyone of your viewpoint by saying these people are horrible murderers for profit.

<comment><USER17> reality stings

<comment><USER16> Sure, but my advice was only on how to better persuade people, not how to better bash the truth into their skulls.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are you learning right now? - <AUTHOR> Can be anything. What are you currently learning? <comment><USER6> How to run a bootstrapped startup as a single founder. I don't have a problem with the tech etc. and those that see it and experience it, love it.

However, that cliche stands true - marketing and sales are hard. 'Cold emails' feel extremely spammy to me, as I know when I'm on the receiving end they get deleted almost straight away. I'm working on content marketing (blog posts etc.), but that is a slow burn that doesn't provide any returns for a while, or at least that is how looks to me from the outside.

At the same time, it's a great experience and I'm loving that fact I get to talk to strangers about tech and security almost daily, it is certainly a great new way to look at things.

<comment><USER7> I feel my cold emails are spammy when the value I'm proposed is not a good deal for the reader. Either a still bad product or a overpriced offer.

<comment><USER8> Cold emails are spammy no matter how good the deal is.

Fifteen years ago you might have got away with a well targeted message but that well has been poisoned now. If you send me unsolicited mail I'm going to assume you aren't the sort of people I want to work with.

<comment><USER7> Right but if you send me a 100 dollars I would love this "spam".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lot. I'm in college, so Stats, Japanese, Communication, and History there. But that's just the surface.

I'm also reading a lot of eBooks (mostly nonfiction books: Deep Work, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Models: Attracting Women through Honesty.) I also want to read Wilson's new translation of The Odyssey.

Finally, I just realized I had feelings for a friend of mine when she started dating someone else. I decided that it'd be healthier for both of us if I wished her the best and moved on. We're on good terms, so that's good. So I'm learning a lot about myself and relationships there.

<comment><USER10> If you are reading Mark Manson I would also suggest: As You Are by Nick Sparks

Good on you for being honest with how you felt, it's something I still struggle with.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out.

Yeah, it's a goal of mine to be both confident and vulnerable, and being honest with myself and other people is how I do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the most general sense, way too much to list here. But in terms of specific classes or something...

1\. I'm taking 3 different Neural Networks related courses on Coursera right now (why 3? Well, I accidentally signed up for one I didn't mean to, but since I already have a Coursera subscription, and since you can keep switching sessions, I just decided to keep it). The three are: Geoffrey Hinton's original NN class, the first class in Andrew Ng's new Deep Learning specialization, and Introduction to Deep Learning, the first course in the Advanced Machine Learning specialization from the Higher School of Economics.

2\. I'm taking the first class in the GIS specialization on Coursera.

3\. I'm taking the 4th class (Bayesian Statistics) in the "Statistics with R" specialization from Duke on Coursera.

Outside of that, I'm trying to find some time to spend reading _Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach_.

</comment><comment><USER12> React Native and its suite, including Redux/React.

It's been a journey. Once I had to upgrade RN to use RNFirebase on Android side, all the dependencies started falling like dominoes. Right now - <USER2> with RN not building production, and RN+Android not creating JS bundle correctly.

On the bright side, it's bound to stabilize, and I'm learning a lot about how RN works internally.

<comment><USER7> > On the bright side, it's bound to stabilize, and I'm learning a lot about > how RN works internally.

Exactly! I'm having a lot of troubles the last month (been working professionally for 2 years). I don't mind because I hope it will fixed soon and React 16 was an important move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How to have fun after 10+ years of depression. I'm finding it…tricky.

<comment><USER14> Stick with it, it's worth finding it. I wish you well!

<comment><USER15> +1 on XOPJ.

Long time depression is something which changes you forever. Once you find joy you'll love it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm learning how to interview well and face rejection. I'm graduating this year and I've been rejected at the final stage from numerous "big 5" companies and some startups, and it's hard to keep going, but I know that grit is important, so I'm learning :)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm currently learning React Native [0]. It's interesting that it is in such active development, as the course I'm taking (from a few months ago) already has some outdated lessons.

However, I've enjoyed the experience so far and look forward to building other apps with React Native.

[0]: [https://github.com/zanedb/learning- rn](https://github.com/zanedb/learning-rn)

</comment><comment><USER18> CAF (C++ Actor Framework). I plan to use it to compete against Facebook.

<comment><USER17> Are you interested in building a Facebook competitor? If so, I'd love to hear when it launches.

I know many friends/family members who use Facebook despite my repeated attempts to explain Facebook's business model.

If your competitor respects user privacy, I'll certainly look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Screenprinting. I have an online t-shirt store where I fulfill via on-demand DTG printing, but I want better final product and quality control. Planning on getting a press next spring and setting up in my garage. I also just like the feeling of making stuff by hand.

</comment><comment><USER20> Re-learning C++. Took a layoff package from my previous co (product manager), and it's damned tough to find a similar gig without relocating. Besides, it's taking me back to my roots.

<comment><USER15> Been there, found a gig remote. Good luck with your search.

<comment><USER20> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Elixir and OTP. Really enjoying it and writing some blog posts about it. My latest [1] was an experiment in creating my own simple supervisor.

I am working my way up to having an Elixir application spread across many containers where the processes can pass messages to processes in other containers.

[1] [https://medium.com/@tylerpachal/let-it-crash-creating-an- exa...](https://medium.com/@tylerpachal/let-it-crash-creating-an-example- supervisor-in-elixir-using-otp-36ea4236b02b)

<comment><USER10> What is OTP?

<comment><USER21> OTP comes from Erlang (which Elixir is built on) and it is a framework that is used for creating distributed applications (it originally stood for Open Telecom Platform). It has databases, a test framework, and debugging tools to help.

Down in Elixir land you mainly see it in the form of GenServer (generic servers that are essentially actors) and Supervisors for supervising those GenServer workers and other tasks/processes/

<comment><USER10> Cool thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Data structures and Algorithm. I am a self-taught developer with experience with serverside programming languages but right now I sell myself as a front- end dev.

</comment><comment><USER23> \- OpenGL programming in C++

\- Unity development

\- General game development (with... a dozen or so VS subprojects converging vaguely towards an MVP at some point)

\- Webassembly, maybe. I have the portable SDK and finished a Hello World but that's already a lot of BS on my plate.

And in more abstract, non-tech terms, how to deal with being 40 and officially "old."

</comment><comment><USER24> Trying my best to learn how different investment charts are drawn. The information out there is harder to find than it should be. Currently reverse engineering others around and using investopedia as a reference but I really wish there an educational resource for programmers.

</comment><comment><USER25> To build my first app. I have been learning React -> Redux -> and currently learning React native to finish my mobile application. So happy I decided to learn it. I am a backend engineer and the concept of redux is what a joy

</comment><comment><USER26> Doing Lego. Just bought a set of Lego City, and will try to build it. My plan is to move on to 1000 piece puzzles or some Lego stuff.

I was never good at "building" and maybe this can improve my creativity a little more.

</comment><comment><USER27> The C programming language, classical guitar, Olympic weightlifting, music theory, and how to play Overwatch better.

I'm thinking I should try to pare this down a bit, but I feel awful when I have free time that I could be using to learn something.

</comment><comment><USER28> Dead bait river pike fishing - I am done with carp fishing for the year (water too cold), so I need something to do in the mornings before everything freezes and the ice fishing starts :-)

</comment><comment><USER29> Metallurgy, orbital mechanics, and rocket propulsion. Been bitten by the physics bug!

</comment><comment><USER30> Let's Build a Compiler by Jack Crenshaw [0]. I'm using Scratch for this because why not?

[0]: [https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/](https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm learning how to turn my life around. Much harder than OOP, believe me.

</comment><comment><USER32> Philosophy, Business/startups/entrepreneurship, psychology and how to actually get things done (not the framework, in general)/acomplish goals and not giving up in the try

</comment><comment><USER33> Crossing the Chasm (Moore)

<comment><USER34> That and _Hard Thing About Hard Things_ are the only business books I can recommend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Distributed systems and their architecture

\- Samza, Kafka and interesing approach to data modelling \- Terraform spin up Kubernetes clusters with a few MAC addresses \- Raft

</comment><comment><USER36> Clojure + going through all of the problems on 4Clojure. It's brining a bit of fun back into programming after years of C++ and Python.

</comment><comment><USER37> Azure (esp. function, queues, tables), git-flow & friends (to try and optimise our processes), brushing up on ASP.NET and Selenium.

</comment><comment><USER8> Python, not sure where I might use it other than a few odd utilities but it's quite a nice language.

</comment><comment><USER38> 1\. Survey Analysis - <USER3>

2\. Survival Analysis- class

3\. GLM- class

4\. Tree base classification algorithm (currently reading QUEST) - <USER5>

5\. Scientific C++ - <USER5>

6\. Folklorico Dance

7\. Salsa (Not doing well... =/)

<comment><USER34> > 7\. Salsa (Not doing well... =/)

If you have the basic step down you may want to try rueda which will take some of the pressure of leading away. You still have to lead the move but you don't have to choreograph at the same time as that's done by the caller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I am learning python so our team can build a microservice for predications and analytics for our SaaS product!

</comment><comment><USER40> Angular 4 for Ionic 3. A little bit of VueJS on the side and hoping to start working on my Cantonese again.

</comment><comment><USER41> Density estimation techniques and parts of an optics design software I didn't know.

</comment><comment><USER42> Bayesian machine learning for neural networks. Currently learning PyMC3 and Edward.

</comment><comment><USER43> distributive systems! hoping to get a solid grasp on that then parallel programming & concurrent programming. i have an idea i want to toy around with dealing with a distributive system on mobile devices

<comment><USER44> You may like [https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/](https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> ES6 and React :)

</comment><comment><USER46> gRPC, Kubernetes and in a little bit will start on linkerd/envoy (not sure which one yet)

</comment><comment><USER47> Idris (programming language).

</comment><comment><USER48> Assembly, radare2, C :)

</comment><comment><USER49> Violin.

(It's really, really hard)

</comment><comment><USER50> I am learning Go.

</comment><comment><USER51> learning about messaging-queues.

</comment><comment><USER52> Calculus!

</comment><comment><USER53> Go :-)

</comment><comment><USER54> Right Now I'm Learning How to Learn by [https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to- learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)</comment>


Making Hulu, BBC iPlayer Worldwide | Is It Time To Overhaul Territorial Licensing? - <AUTHOR> http://www.webtvwire.com/making-hulu-bbc-iplayer-worldwide-is-it-time-to-overhaul-territorial-licensing/ <comment><USER2> Back in the VHS days, copies used to be difficult to obtain and poor quality.

Now, copies are easier to obtain (instant download, no-DRM) and equivalent or better quality...

Some will point at iTunes, but I can't get much of what I want at iTunes. Equally, iTunes limits the devices I can play back on. It's not a bad model, but it's a walled garden and will always be limited by that.

Basically - it's broken - territorial licensing aside.. there is going to reach a point where distributors need to take a completely different tack, or simply sink.</comment>