The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/the-internet-of-things-is-sending-us-back-to-the-middle-ages-81435 <comment><USER2> The problem is software complexity. You can't really own anything you don't understand, and you can't be free in a world you don't understand. And we don't understand software.

Imagine a naive young king who doesn't understand how to do anything for himself. He will easily be controlled by those around him that do understand the world.

Of course, nobody before ever understood everything about the world. But different people understood different aspects in depth, and education gave literacy so people could share expertise.

Software is so complex that nobody really understands it. Nobody understands how a car works, nobody understands how a phone works, because they are both controlled by hopelessly complex software. Governments can't regulate emissions because the software changes the emissions controls based on arbitrary unknown factors. Security problems are just a small subset of the surprising ways complex software behaves -- surprising even to the software engineers who build it.

And the key is that this is all _new_ complexity that didn't exist before. Physics and biology were developed to understand pre-existing complexity, so we always made forward progress. But we are moving backwards now because we are introducing complexity faster than we are understanding it -- much faster.

Therefore this is actually worse than the naive king mentioned above. In that example, it's just an asymmetry of information, and that can be resolved through education. Software is so complex education can't hope to keep up.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. Not understanding how my car works is not a problem for ownership, so long as I can decide where to delegate all the maintenance etc that requires it to work. When I can choose my mechanic, I own it. When I have to take it to a dealership, because of all the DRM'd electronics inside, I no longer do.

<comment><USER2> "I disagree...When I can choose my mechanic, I own it."

I think we are in agreement here. You don't personally need know everything about everything you own. But someone needs to know enough about it that you can use their expertise or learn from them if you care to.

The myth is that it's about _who_ knows -- the right laws (or the right consumer pressure) will open up the right information, and freedom will supposedly follow. That's a minor factor, sure, but I believe it's more of a myth.

The real thing holding us back is that _nobody_ understands these complex software stacks, we are just building them bigger and bigger and understanding them less and less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some technologies empower, others disempower and if iot devices and things like self driving cars are not rolled out with proper systems of user control and privacy they will disempower people.

For many in the industry this is not a concern, a mere technology issue, an inevitability, an opportunity for profit.

Fortunately there is growing skepticism and awareness of the intrusiveness. And self congratulatory messages on technology forums belittling user ignorance - oh they are dumb so we will take control - as if everyone should be a technology expert will be seen for the betrayal of users it is.

Self preservation comes naturally to humans and given most technology folks are happy, even proud to work with deeply intrusive spyware companies, they are not going to be perceived as harmless as before. There is going to be a backlash against the so called 'nerds' involved in this one way transfer of power.

</comment><comment><USER5> Authored by a law professor.

It is Apple who pioneered this concept of the device that the user really does not own or control - the "smartphone". The computer that remains tethered to the manfacturer continually feeding back user data.

Manufacturer makes replacing the OS difficult. Manufacturer gets root. Manufacturer gets right to modify OS remotely. And no surprise, manuacturer gets plenty of data about users. Manufacturer did not ask for these privileges. They just took them. It was not always this way.

But users accepted it.

And so other companies followed Apple's lead. I find the company's official statements about how they protect privacy to be offensive to common sense.

Want to protect privacy? _Stop forcibly collecting any and all data._ (Not just "less than so-and-so".)

If users really believe that sending data to Apple will help Apple create the "best experience" then let them opt-in to collection and send it voluntarily.

The users own the device. If they wish untether from Apple's "ecosystem", then that is their right.

There exists at least one user who does not want a company to collect their data, put it on a networked computer and then purport to "protect" it. They want the company to stop collecting their data. Why? Because they have weighed the risks and decided it is not worth it.

IMO the "smartphone" is part of the IoT and was the first "thing". Because it was a thing where software was used to take away some of the control from the owner (control that owners had previously); owners only get partial control.

Going forward, if one is opposed to internet connected things one does not fully control, the solution is not to select the things that collect the least data or that offer the most control. ("I trust Company X because they collect less data than the other companies.") The solution is to _choose things that are not internet connected_.

<comment><USER6> Apple collects very little user data. Developers have complained about the limits Apple puts on collecting data and Apple News partners have been quite frustrated. Even the people who originally developed Siri were frustrated by not having access to more user data.

There are plenty of companies like Facebook and Google that have no regard for user privacy but I wouldn't include Apple in that bucket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree. Copy+pasting an old comment of mine from this old thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12683924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12683924)

> A general solution to IoT security would be for all IoT devices to only > communicate to your personally owned home gateway, which would run open- > source drivers for each device to provide the networking/external > communication functionality. The IoT device could even be assigned its own > isolated network link to the router (i.e. sandboxed).

<comment><USER8> This is a great solution to the ownership problem, but now each individual is responsible for patching and updating their 25 devices? Doesn't solve the security problem.

<comment><USER9> The home gateway could download the patches and send them to the devices. Its firewall will prevent them to phone home or somewhere else no matter what into those patches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> On the whole I agree with the author, but they have glossed over some things I feel should be addressed:

 _> The computer manufacturer Lenovo, for instance, used to sell its computers with a program called "Superfish" preinstalled._

Most "serious" users reformat the machine and re-install the OS to get rid of the OEM included crapware. Not something the average user does, sure, but you're still allowed to re-install the OS on a commodity x86 system like a laptop. It's a matter of inconvenience, not impossibility.

 _> This system means that a car company can't stop me from painting my car a shocking shade of pink or from getting the oil changed at whatever repair shop I choose. I can even try to modify or fix my car myself._

You cannot do this with a Tesla. Go look on the internet about people waiting months for Tesla to repair their cars, or people who have bought totaled Teslas and fixed them, only to be denied re-certification by Tesla.

I think we will see other electric car manufacturers moving in the direction of a more closed ecosystem than what we have now with ICE cars. Reason being that electric cars have a unique drive system (even more than ICE cars) and usually a proprietary HVDC battery (>60V) and battery management system. The manufacturer risks increased liability and bad PR if they let people modify these cars and then they end up in flames.

 _> Samsung cuts deals with lots of software providers which want to take my data for their own use._

Same deal as with Lenovo, but slightly complicated by the fact that ARM is not as standardized at a platform level as x86 (yet, I think this is slowly changing).

Pick a phone that comes without OEM crapware like Google Pixel, or a phone with good 3rd party ROM support like LineageOS.

 _> What is important is that we recognize and reject what these companies are trying to do, buy accordingly, vigorously exercise our rights to use, repair and modify our smart property, and support efforts to strengthen those rights._

Agree 100%, but this requires consumers to research products before they buy the cheapest one. We can encourage good behaviour by manufacturers, but it will mean educating our friends and family and collectively voting with our wallets.

<comment><USER11> _The manyfacturerer risks increased liability and bad PR if they let people modify these cars and then they end up in flames._

Car modding has gone on for around a century(!) and I can't remember a single instance where someone modified a car, was injured or killed, then blamed the manufacturer, and the latter was found at fault (instead of the modder or driver.) It's just the overreaching paternalism that seems all too common with companies today.

Electric cars are closing the ecosystem simply because the companies can exert more control (= profit) that way; the "safety" justifications are really to divert attention away from that.

Of course, Tesla can't stop you trying to paint your car...

<comment><USER10> _> Car modding has gone on for around a century(!)_

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but my impression is that people weren't as litigious in previous decades.

 _> and I can't remember a single instance where someone modified a car, was injured or killed, then blamed the manufacturer, and the latter was found at fault (instead of the modder or driver.)_

Sure, but for the past century we've had cars which run on flammable liquid and are powered by thousands of explosions per minute.

So, it's not entirely news worthy when a car which burns stuff catches fire. For a car which runs on electricity it's not immediately obvious to people that there are still components inside plenty capable of producing fire when damaged or used incorrectly.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure which I'd least like to be near a burning tank of gasoline or a burning lithium ion battery.....

<comment><USER13> Frankly, the battery. Gasoline fumes aren't nearly as toxic, and neither is likely to explode. In either case you have to run away ASAP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The problem is that hardware manufacturers want to keep collecting income after they have sold the product. Imagine if when you bought a car and paid it off, you still had to pay a fee to the manufacturer for every mile you drove. And ditto anyone you sold you car to. That is what is basically doing on today. Rent-seeking anyone?

</comment><comment><USER15> Credit where I think it's due -- Bruce Schneier was one of the first to introduce the metaphor of feudalism in this context:

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is in part why supporting the FSF and other bodies that seek to ensure that choice and transparency are promoted. The only real way to compel companies to comply is to support viable alternatives to the dominance of a vendor controlled market.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wasn't the Roomba sharing maps thing already debunked?

<comment><USER18> Yes. From [http://lifehacker.com/tell-your-roomba-to-stop-sharing-a- map...](http://lifehacker.com/tell-your-roomba-to-stop-sharing-a-map-of-your- home-1797238670):

> _To clarify, iRobot has not formed any plans to sell data. iRobot is > committed to the absolute privacy of our customer-related data, including > data collected by our connected products. No data is sold to third-parties. > No data will be shared with third-parties without the informed consent of > our customers. If a customer had already signed up /opted in, iRobot will > delete the data from our servers if a customer requests it. This is > retroactive._

> _Clean Map Reports are not shared with third parties. If a Roomba owner does > not want to share data with a third party such as Amazon (for example, to > enable voice control from Amazon Alexa), the owner can simply disable the > skill in the Amazon Alexa app._

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fun twitter feed:

[https://twitter.com/internetofshit](https://twitter.com/internetofshit)

</comment><comment><USER20> Just wait for full on AI, then you'll see some real digital serf action.</comment>


On being a member of the "dumbest generation" - <AUTHOR> http://patrickthomson.tumblr.com/post/3428958709/on-being-a-member-of-the-dumbest-generation

<comment><USER2> Ironic - the cover of the book he's reviewing explicitly states "How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans."

The review then goes on to say "Perhaps most importantly, it is the members of this "dumbest generation" who have the courage to resist tyrants and dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and now Libya."

I find this highly ironic.</comment>


Covid-19 Data Landscape – Sources going beyond just cases/deaths - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@craigdanton/the-covid-19-data-landscape-59131a47b947 <comment><AUTHOR> Good question pranade. Yodlee I believe is a potential source (though definitely not free). Neither Uber/Lyft have made data potentially due to what it might say about their business. But the credit card receipts or email receipts data (returnpath) can be good for monitoring the transactions from the rides.

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting, thanks for putting this together. Curious – have you found good sources of granular data for credit card spending and movement patterns, perhaps from traffic/ride-sharing/mobile (that's anonymous/protects user privacy ofc)?</comment>


Google Launches Mortgage Shopping Tool in California - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/23/google-launches-mortgage-shopping-tool-in-california-more-states-coming-soon/ <comment><USER2> Surprising they're working with Lending Tree, which is very nearly a scam site. When you sign up with LT, your information is sold immediately, your credit is pulled multiple times (making it harder to get a mortgage), and you get an endless torrent of spammy calls. See CreditKarma reviews of LT: [https://www.creditkarma.com/reviews/auto- loan/single/id/Lend...](https://www.creditkarma.com/reviews/auto- loan/single/id/Lending-Tree-Auto-Loan)

Edit: A question about the mathematics of mortgage brokers. From what I've read, mortgage leads are sold for ~$30 and have a conversion rate of ~1-3%. This means that the purchaser of the lead has to recover ~$1500 per closed loan to pay for buying the leads. Doesn't this mean that loans from a broker site like this will cost you a lot more than working with lenders directly? My mortgage (from a direct lender) was a much better deal than I ever found on Bankrate.

<comment><USER3> > your credit is pulled multiple times (making it harder to get a mortgage)

That's a myth. All mortgage credit queries within a 14 day window count as a single query. Lenders have _not_ biased the system to penalise you for shopping for a good deal - they want to make offers to people who show good financial sense by doing that.

<comment><USER4> Also, when I signed up for Lending Tree I did not provide permission for hard inquiries. Every interested lender had to contact me and get my permission for a credit pull.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > To power this tool, Google partnered with Zillow and LendingTree.

I hope Google isn't just pulling in LendingTree data and using their backend. I just moved 4 months ago, and thought I'd give LendingTree a try. I singed up, and the only real "offer" I received was from Quicken Loans, which I suspect was actually just a blanket offer/advertisement in the system. I also got a lot of bad credit-fixing "advice" that actually wouldn't help me at all - Get another (better) credit card! Take out a personal loan! Reconsolidate student loans! (when all mine were already consolidated at a low rate with EdFinancial). Overall, a bad experience that were clearly just ads/referrals that made me never want to use LendingTree again. Who knows what they have done with my personal and financial data.

In the end, I went with a local bank, and secured a mortgage with no hassles at a much lower rate than the only LendingTree "offer" (ad) for Quicken Loans gave me.

If you're shopping for a mortgage, just call a few local banks and credit unions. You will most likely get a much better deal there.

<comment><USER6> Mmm, the HN affluent community with 820 credit scores and dual-six figure incomes probably won't see much value from this as it stands. But, I see it as jumping point - one more layer of transparency that Google can potentially offer us. Previously, shopping around for car insurance was a pain. Now, I don't have to deal with some guy who's making commission (which isn't bad) on some products but not others (which is bad). I can go to Geico, Progressive and a few other sites-- immediately get quotes-- compare them, and in under 30 minutes I'll have a car insured. Every step of the process was transparent, and I didn't have to deal with a salesman.

My parents walked my sister and brother-in-law through the process of getting a mortgage underwritten for their condo as a wedding gift. It involved so much BS such as documentation of employment despite the fact that my father has been receiving faculty checks from the same institution in Cambridge direct- deposited to _same bank_ for more than two decades. Hopefully Google will "Geico" this up and by the time I decide to purchase a condo or home, I don't have to deal with the same tedium that they did.

That being said, I hold my personal money at a credit union (Alliant, it's the New INGDirect![1]) because hey, I'd rather support them than Bank of America. The business house bank is with a local bank, again, because my co-partners and I would much rather keep a balance with a small-ish business rather than a conglomerate who exploits poor people and college kids with ridiculous compound overdraft fees.

[1] [https://www.alliantcreditunion.com/](https://www.alliantcreditunion.com/) Post CapitalOne360, INGDirect has been on a steady decline. I'm now a happy customer. If you happen to be :cough: a former employee of any of the companies within the co-op, you can make an account. Support them or your local CU.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for the Alliant recommendation. I story my money at CapitalOne360, and although I still like it, I worry what will happen to it after the acquisition. I think I'll switch to Alliant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This feels like Elon Musk opening a Denny's restaurant. You do other stuff, why get into this business, especially if they're just rebranding the Zillow mortgage feed.

There's a lot of money to be had (a well qualified mortgage lead is worth ~$90 a pop), but it seems inappropriate for google.

<comment><USER9> Google is likely doing this to quantify your buying power. Advertisers will pay Google premium CPC for targeting buyers with deep pockets. Google can do the math backwards and estimate things like buying power and income provided an applicant can afford a mortgage of X per month. google.com/compare/autoinsurance serves Google's ad targeting in the same fashion.

<comment><USER10> do you have a source for this idea that they take your inputs and use it for further ad-targeting? i don't see this specifically mentioned in the privacy policy for this auto-insurance product: [https://www.google.com/compare/autoinsurance/form?p=privacy-...](https://www.google.com/compare/autoinsurance/form?p=privacy- policy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is the inevitable fate of all lead gen IMO - Google - between Adwords and analytics - has absolute visibility into the cost per lead metrics and, in many cases, backend close rates for every search category in the world.

<comment><USER12> Next up: Google Mesothelioma Attorneys

<comment><USER13> Right. Instead of stopping search spam, Google has figured out how to monetize it. Search for "credit card". Instead of spammy sites being at the top of the search results, you get Google's own spammy ads.

Ten years ago, there was a Web Spam Squashing Summit.[1] Google was a sponsor. The next year, Google was a sponsor of Search Engine Strategies, the web spammer convention. That was the moment Google turned to the dark side.

[1] [http://www.sifry.com/alerts/2005/02/web-spam-squashing- summi...](http://www.sifry.com/alerts/2005/02/web-spam-squashing- summit-2242005/)

<comment><USER14> I am not disagreeing with you but google flights is really good and google hotels is somewhat ok.

<comment><USER15> Does it matter how objectively good it is when Google gets to just put it on top of the search results? Personal opinion's aside, I'm convinced that Europe will answer, "No." Google will be the next Microsoft of our time, trying to split the company in order to get their own products listed in their own Search. Perhaps we've already seen the groundwork being laid for just such a split with Alphabet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Article link is useless wrapper around [http://adwords.blogspot.com/2015/11/introducing-google- compa...](http://adwords.blogspot.com/2015/11/introducing-google-compare-for- us.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Google had a mortgage-finding tool quite a few years back, but I think they killed it for legal reasons.

I remember it, because I found a good rate on a re-finance. The mortgage company was in Pennsylvania and I'm in Texas, so we did the whole thing remotely.

<comment><USER18> The UK mortgage comparison tool was launched in December 2012¹. Possibly the market for comparison tools is more developed in the UK — there are high- budget advertising campaigns from comparison websites encouraging people to switch energy provider, ISP, insurance etc.

The service isn't run by Google: "Google Compare, the trading name of BeatThatQuote.com Limited..." ²

² [https://www.google.co.uk/compare/mortgage/qs](https://www.google.co.uk/compare/mortgage/qs)

¹ [http://www.which.co.uk/news/2012/12/google-launches- mortgage...](http://www.which.co.uk/news/2012/12/google-launches-mortgage- comparison-site-305516/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is just an example of ad networks moving down the supply chain. Lead gen, customer retention systems, even support services are a possible evolution of core ad networks services. The reason for this is quite simple: ad blocking.

</comment><comment><USER20> Google is turning more and more into a lead gen company every day. They have been testing something similar with insurance, hotel bookings and solar. Soon enough search results will be dominated by Google's lead capture pages/forms and those leads will be sold to 3+ companies.

If Google is confident about being able to capture the leads, they can make a lot more money from this approach vs what they make from a click.

If they continue to go more into this direction, would that make them more of a marketplace vs a search engine?

</comment><comment><USER21> I... don't see a way to search by type of loan. You can't just say "I'm interested in a 30 year fixed" or whatever. That seems a bit crazy to me.

<comment><USER22> Once you have a list, there's a dropdown to filter by type of loan (defaults to 'All')

<comment><USER21> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Google's relationship with the real estate industry has a history. At one point, you could see foreclosures on Google Maps. The real estate industry hated that, and Google took it out.

</comment><comment><USER23> I tried their auto insurance comparison tool [1], and the UI is pretty decent/simple for comparison. Just wish it allowed for some better comparison - i.e., my current policy has comprehensive for my older car but all the recommended policies don't so prices will of course be off...

[1] [https://www.google.com/compare/autoinsurance](https://www.google.com/compare/autoinsurance)

</comment><comment><USER24> Will they offer lower rates than Amerisave? I thought there was no room for improvement beyond them, but it would be interesting to know otherwise.

I refinanced through them and I check them from time to time to see current rates. I own a two-family house, and it is convenient that their web-site has an option to take this into account (rates slightly higher).

</comment><comment><USER25> "M" is for mortgage?

<comment> enahs-sf "M" always has been, and always will be, for money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I was part of the BeatThatQuote.com acquisition back in 2011. We built Google Compare UK and then the team eventually moved onto to building the US comparison products also. Great to see this progressing forward.

</comment><comment><USER27> The service will be for like 500 people who still can afford (and are stupid enough) to buy real estate in California.

</comment><comment><USER28> 5 years ago Google had a very similar service, which was canceled in 2012. I wonder why they decided to resurrect it.

<comment><USER29> Yes - was based on acquisition of UK based [http://www.beatthatquote.com](http://www.beatthatquote.com). It is still in operation under Google's brand.

[http://www.google.com/compare/mortgages](http://www.google.com/compare/mortgages)

[https://www.google.com/compare/autoinsurance](https://www.google.com/compare/autoinsurance)

[https://www.google.com/compare/creditcard](https://www.google.com/compare/creditcard)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> They did this for solar lead generation with project rooftop.

</comment><comment><USER31> I noticed the website is not using a secure connection!</comment>


Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil" - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Paul. Since you are the person at Google who came up with the "Don't Be Evil" motto, could you please explain what that means? I am genuinely curious and have no intention of badgering you about this. Thank you.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure if this is right or not, but in philosophy class, I was taught that Google's motto was a manifestation of negative consequentialism: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism#Negative_consequentialism>

Basically, the ethical decision is that which avoids a negative outcome. The professor mentioned a number of interesting implications of strict negative consequentialism. The following actions would be morally wrong:

\- For someone to stave off starvation by stealing a loaf of bread from Bill Gates.

\- Any type of self defense that involves harming others. Ie: using pepper spray to prevent rape.

\- Sacrificing one person's life to save the lives of a million others. Ie: killing Hitler before he started WWII.

<comment><USER3> The 3 points you describe sound more to me like deontology than negative consequentialism. According to the entry you linked to, deontology judges actions based on the actions themselves, while consequentialism judges actions based on their consequences. Negative consequentialism, then, involves avoiding actions which produce consequences that are overall negative. In each case you described, the actions are typically considered deontologically wrong, but the overall consequences of those actions are not negative, so they don't seem to me to be wrong by negative consequentialist standards.

Getting back to the topic of the submission, I always presumed that the comment basically meant, "Don't be like Microsoft." Many people call Microsoft the "Evil Empire", so this falls in nicely with that theme. By aligning themselves opposite Microsoft, Google is able to attract that population of hackers which does not appreciate Microsoft's business tactics (things like the FUD campaign that is going on right now in regards to patents). Whether Google is actually committed to moral business practices or not is debatable, but the motto is a nice way to appear "hacker-friendly".

<comment><USER2> You're right - my examples (and google's motto) sound more deontological, or similar to the golden rule. Maybe someone who knows more about this can clarify.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure it was just about not being Microsoft (and their anti-trust problems), using popup ads, or spamming, the things that were major problems that were ticking people off 7 or so years ago when that motto came about. I don't think it's very much beyond that.

Don't be evil was a competitive advantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about the whole NLP thing that NEGATIVE injunctions are ignored by the unconscious/subconscious brain.

In other words, this directive really serves to state "Be Evil" at the deepest level of our core consciousness?

<comment><USER5> ie because of this phrase, Google has become associated with (the word) "Evil" in a way few others throughout history have (ie with the possible exception of Hitler et al)

<comment><USER6> thats hilarious

edit: and probably not correct. The phrase has been thought about so much and repeated so often that I would think the negative would no longer be ignored, although on the first read it may have an affect of a Be Evil command. I never did get around to reading nlp books.

<comment><USER5> Is there a way to measure (via Google or some other publicly accesible technology) how close two terms are related, in the public discourse and on the Internet? (I'm sure there's some stupid easy way to do this, but I forget what the best way is.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Roguelike of Choice? - <AUTHOR> Speaks for itself, really.
I prefer Nethack myself, followed by crawl, then Angband, then DF (adventure mode is okay, but not great. DF kills it in fortress mode - one of the best games you can actually play over SSH - but in that mode it's not a roguelike). <comment><USER2> My two favorites are Brogue ([https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/](https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/)) and Dungeon Drawl Stone Soup ([https://crawl.develz.org/](https://crawl.develz.org/))

<comment><AUTHOR> Why Brogue? I haven't heard much about that game.

<comment><USER3> I came here to say "Brogue". It was just an easy one to get into. Its pretty for a roguelike too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Http://10rogue.com

<comment><AUTHOR> ...You seriously made an account just to post a joke that awful?</comment></comment>


I'm a Developer. I Won't Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-kids-to-code-creativity-problem-solving.html <comment><USER2> It's not like there's any correlation between practicing a complex learnt art/skill when you are young, and your aptitude and ability for it later in life, after all.

Otherwise all the best footballers would save themselves until they'd paved their way to learning how to play by baking cookies and taking pride in it.

Or violinists. Or opera singers. Or mathematical prodigies. Or chess players. Or engineers.

<comment><USER3> I've been a software engineer 10 years. There is in fact no correlation between age started programming and programming aptitude, if taken for granted that the person can code at all in adulthood. (There is a great correlation between never coding as a child and never coding as an adult). I'll admit that I'm talking about people who are over 30 today, so that when they learned as children, it would have been of the calculator project and lighting DELs in basic variety, and maybe kids today can learn some of the higher level more directly work-relevant frameworks like React.

But still. Some of the best people I know when it comes to making up algorithms for cutting edge problems, had definitely reached their adult height when they first learned what a compiler was.

(I will grant I don't know any really good programmer who started coding at e.g., 40. But there are relatively few people who change careers at 40, so my sample size is very small. )

<comment><USER2> Obviously I'm not saying that you absolutely _need_ to start young, but I suspect there's a very strong correlation between people who discover and stick at programming when they are young and those who are good at it.

I also suspect that if you flex those particular muscles hard from a relatively early age, they will become stronger relative to someone who doesn't. The original author believes that programming requires a unique combination of skills/abilities which is why he is fond of it. If that's genuinely the case you're better off starting practicing that earlier than later, surely?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These kinds of blog posts are always awful. "These cash-grab books about teaching kids to program are bad so teaching your kids to program is bad." Throw in some anecdotal evidence about how the author is doing it right and then show off to the internet.

It's not like there isn't a better underlying point that could have been discussed (forcing STEM on kids) but the author didn't.

<comment><USER5> Totally agree. Teaching a kid to code is like teaching carpentry. Both are skills that can be used to accomplish certain things and can be outlets for creativity.

<comment><USER6> Most importantly be observant of your child's natural interests and support them in learning & improving in that direction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This author makes a few good points about teaching children to solve problems , but, there is an unnecessary dis and a click-baiting title about not teaching kids to code.

Teaching kids to code is not about turning everyone into a software engineer/programmer/developer . It is about providing a key skill required to work in whatever field in a world that is becoming more "software defined" .

Kids who grow up with these skills will have an advantage over those who need start later in life .

Magazines like Slate should not be posting incoherent opinion pieces when the whole industry is trying to up-skill the populace with job oriented skills.

<comment><USER6> YES ^

Absolutely teach your kid (if they are actually interested) to code. It doesn't matter that they'll write horrible, barely functional code. That's how we all start.

They don't have to learn "proper" long-term coding etiquette - if they choose to do it professionally they would have plenty of time & opportunities to learn that.

Just get them started _anywhere_ so that that kindling of interest can grow and they can make their mistakes and learn from them in a safe environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am teaching everyone to think. Everyone should read this [1] article by James Somers. Code is a problem not the solution, in my experience we have a huge lack of creativity and domain knowledge. Cultivate those, and please don't rob your children of their childhood with STEM. Like Papert, the computer should be a tool FOR education, not the goal.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/savin...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving- the-world-from-code/540393/)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for an article with a relevant and related point to make. It sure made me think about what I'm doing, and gave me a glimpse of a possible future.

"..a software developer's proper role [is] to create tools that removed the need for software developers."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes, I totally agree that for young children nurturing curiosity is far more important thsn mastering any particular skill. Only reading has the same impact on the development of children. But programming can be a lot of fun, too. When I introduced my son to programming, I started with something visual and has direct feedback like Scratch. Such environment frees children from the tyranny of the syntax so they can focus more on the problem at hand and have fun. Nevertheless, you can teach them a lot of computational thinking using such visual environment. And I think the key issue is computational thinking, not learning some particular languages or knowing how to solve a specific problem using some specific features. I would not buy coding books for my son when they present problem solving like a recipe book, even though one can get inspired from some of the problems in such books. In my experience, combining programming activity with other fields like maths, gaming or robotics can be very rewarding. Children will understand that programming is only a tool and not a purpose for itself and they will start looking for connection between different subjects. Once they start to reflect on their activities, they will learn a lot more than just doing it.

</comment><comment><USER11> "You're teaching them the world is full of interesting things to discover. You're showing them how to be passionate and look for that ephemeral sense of quality in everything they do."

"Good coders don't just get something to work. They want it to be good.

That feeling of quality is the hardest thing for many developers to master. Well-designed code feels good to work with, and ugly code will make developers involuntarily cringe. [..] Learning to trust that aesthetic feeling is as much a part of development as any algorithm or coding pattern."

Some comments were about how the author says that people should teach problem solving, but he actually proposes to teach an appreciation of quality and deep inspection.

Another commented

> Next up, "I won't teach my kids arithmetic, and neither should you."

And this would apply depending how you teach arithmetic (also most people will never need to code, everyone will need to do a lot of basic home finance) if you want your child to become a mathematician then teaching multiplication tables and long division are very inefficient focuses.

<comment><USER12> Arithmetic, carpentry, and coding are tools that enable you to solve certain problems. In order to solve most problems, a person needs to pay attention to detail, which was the author's point, but the author fails to understand that paying attention to detail is orthogonal to the choice of tools to equip a child with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The last paragraph ("You're teaching them the world is full of interesting things to discover. [..] Adults can learn syntax. Only kids can learn to embrace curiosity.") is why teaching some of the basics is probably a good idea, I think. Just as teaching/showing the basics of _many_ things is a good idea.

I agree with this article that some organisations (and parents) are _too_ focused on practical programming skills at a far too young of an age, but that doesn't mean that showing _some_ basic stuff isn't a good idea. Ideally I'd like my kids to be exposed to many different experiences, including the experience of making a computer "do stuff".

I wrote a brief article on this last year: [https://arp242.net/weblog/kids- programming.html](https://arp242.net/weblog/kids-programming.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> While I generally agree with the point that teaching problem solving is valuable in itself, my life would be far different if I didn't know how to write code. I have a number of friends that are exceptionally good at problem solving, yet they're struggling in dead end jobs that don't pay enough. Software engineering, while certainly frustrating and occasionally tiresome, has given me the financial flexibility to do more or less whatever I want in my off hours. Hell, it's given me the flexibility to even have "off hours". Programming isn't for everyone, but it's certainly not a bad thing to have at least a little experience with.

<comment><USER15> I have made more money in my lifetime with Excel than I ever have with code. Datapoint of one.

<comment><USER14> It's certainly not the only way to make lots of money, but it's _a_ way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Next up, "I won't teach my kids arithmetic, and neither should you." Because arithmetic is useless without problem solving.

</comment><comment><USER16> I liked the article well enough, but based on the title I was hoping for a more thorough treatment of how the jobs of the future will not depend on coding the way they do today. In pushing kids to code, we are "skating to where the puck is" — not to where it will be.

What will the jobs that exist in 20 years require? Probably not as much coding as some people think. It's still good for people to understand how code/computers work, but I see too much focus on coding these days (I work in edtech).

</comment><comment> BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 In ye old days programmers psychoanalyzed domain experts and attempted to manipulate bytes in a way that met the desire of the domain experts (hopefully without their manager mangling the specs).

Nowadays with Excel & SQL people off the street can get a lot done in the application space.

</comment><comment><USER17> You can teach your kids to problem solve, sure and more emphasis should be put on that. So once children choose to start programming, they will already have the knowledge to think critically and will have a much easier time resolving issues. That is what is so good about critical thinking. It can be applied to any field. Hope what I said makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER18> Kid brains are a sponge. I don't get why the author is either or in his mindset. Sure problem solving and curiosity are more important than syntax, but there is ample room for both.

</comment><comment><USER19> Teach your kids how to write. Short and long essays.

</comment><comment><USER20> TLDR; post is without much of clear systematic argument. It seems author is saying it's better if kids are not forced to practice _syntax_ and instead spend their time in problem solving with physical activities.</comment>


Non-Hacker News - <AUTHOR> In order to help alleviate the perceived problem of off-topic posts here, I've created a slinkset at http://nonhackernews.com . (And yes, I realize this post is contributing to the problem, but I promise it will be the only one.)
Despite the name being the opposite of this site's you are all very welcome there. My goal is to bring the same level of discourse that this site has to general interest topics. It's a lofty goal I realize, but I think it's possible.
Topics like economics, health, etc. is what it is designed for. The stuff that a lot of people seem to enjoy here, but a lot of other people seem to want to be off-topic.
This is totally a public service on my part, and I'm not putting up ads or trying to capitalize on it in any way. And please don't take this as an attempt at some sort of great schism of the audience here, it's not. I'll still surf this site no matter how popular NHN gets. I'm only trying to make another site that I (and judging by the votes many "off-topic" posts get here, many of you) like to read.
I'm also looking for a few more people to be moderators (I've already got 3 other than myself) since I don't have a large amount of time to put into it. The goal is to keep the the discourse intelligent, civil, and balanced, and without trolls, press releases, spam, and pictures of kittens. I have a feeling that a little moderation will go a long way toward that. <comment><USER2> I have a biz/financial news site that used to be for my personal use but everyone's welcome to sign up and use it. It's running Arc + HN forum soft. It's still heavily beta as I use it as a testing ground for some AI/NLP stuff that I'm writing in Arc.

I dig out a ton of great links but only a fraction are god for HN, hence a new site for biz & finance. In my past life I used to work in finance so I'm still attached to that field. I am also trying to round off some of my business knowledge as well and there's really no good business sites out there that have stuff that's past the 'news' category.

Enjoy: <http://www.newmogul.com/>

<comment><USER3> I am patiently waiting for a network to grow here. So far it's mainly nickb and I've had a post.

I don't think there is an equivalent to this, but the name might be a turn off for some. There are many great minds not totally interested in turning into a mogul. They might see themselves as already being moguls and thus think this site is a place for n00bs.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. It's a shitty name but I had the domain for a while and it was supposed to be used for something else. When I started looking for a domain to bring the site up, I couldn't find anything so I ended up using this. Oh well.

<comment><USER3> I think bear.com should be free soon. Maybe lehman.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Two suggestions - totally personal, so curious what other's think: 1) get rid of the front page dominating "welcome", I think it's unnecessary and annoying - people will click on the link and read more if they want to.

2) make the interface _exactly_ like hacker news. For instance I think the bold titles is a bit distracting, esp after navigating over from hn.

3) one of my favorite features of hn is that I can often just type "n" into my browser address bar and the browser autocompletes to news.ycombinator.com. This is particularly useful on my mobile. Would be cool if the name of non-hn had some similar sort of name that leveraged autocomplete.

<comment><USER5> Firefox has a (to my knowledge -- undocumented) bookmark keyword feature which allows assigning keywords to bookmarks. These keywords can then be typed into the location bar and firefox with automatically load the bookmark. The keyword input box only pops up when you right-click on the bookmark and go to properties. This along with the search keywords probably account for ~40% of my speed when surfing. (tabs account for a lot of the remaining 60%).

<comment><USER6> I assigned the letter 'b' to my corporate bugzilla. Now my coworkers wonder why I seem almost psychic when it comes to remembering the details of a given bug.... typing 'b 17084' is a fantastic way to pull up bug 17084. I've got shortcuts for wikipedia and google as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The creation of a non-hacker news site seems a bit knee-jerk. Would it not have been better to have waited a few days to see how the recent debate has affected the quality of submissions?

<comment><AUTHOR> The recent debate is just one out of a number of posts/comments that have been ongoing for months. (I actually like the quality of submissions here.)

<comment><USER7> Agreed - on both points. I guess I took the removal of Prakash's submission from the front page to mean: point taken, let's move on.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually almost did this a month ago, but for whatever reason it slipped my mind. That just kind of reminded me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't mind about off-topic posts since what i'm looking for mostly is short, witty / insightful comments

for example, pg may not comment on obviously "hacker" stuff like php thread, but he might on 'non-hacker' posts like healthy food, stock market, etc

that's why i avoid (skimming) posts with php, python, ruby, windows, linux, gnu, oss, fsf, mac, osx, apple since the probability that i get great comments is approaching zero [over time]

Yes, there's a "comments" link up there, but i still have to manually search

My suggestion is that hn to have an alert icon where the list of my favorite "thought leaders" comment on the post - think about gmail's star

so if a post has a star next to it, then maybe pg and some thought leaders comment on it ... that post could be interesting

"always take the harder path" ... commenting is harder than upvoting

</comment><comment><USER9> I think it's a cool idea. Hackers tend (IMO) to take a gestalt view on the world which makes them naturally interested in much more than just programming and startups. If HN isn't the place to satisfy those needs, I don't mind seeing someone else give it a go.

</comment><comment><USER10> Slinkset rocks! This is a perfect application of a totally amazing piece of software.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am most impressed at how easy it is to set up. I'm having some problem with the domain names, but it might by my fault or dynadot's.

<comment><USER10> Wait 24 hours and it should be all kosher. DNS is always a PITA.

<comment><AUTHOR> It wasn't DNS, since I'm using the registrar's and just doing a CNAME entry, so I never changed nameservers. It actually had something to do with a cookie apparently. Now it all seems to be working fine.

There was something about the redirect looping. I have so little clue about that stuff. Either way though, it's not a slinkset problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> According the FAQ, anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity is on topic. Does this mean that on-topic for nonhackernews is anything that does not gratify one's intellectual curiosity?

<comment><AUTHOR> I meant off-topic in the way that most people who claim things are off-topic mean it, hence the quotes.

<comment><USER11> I was half joking, I actually did read the FAQ. Personally I would go the other way. I would rather keep the intellectually gratifying articles from the NYT magazine, salon, TED, the new yorker, marc cuban's blog, edge.org, etc. and get rid of the esoteric programming articles and cliche business advice. To me what makes hacker news boring is all the front page articles about erlang libraries and cloud computing.

<comment><USER12> _I would rather keep the intellectually gratifying articles from the NYT magazine, salon, TED, the new yorker, marc cuban's blog, edge.org, etc. and get rid of the esoteric programming articles and cliche business advice. To me what makes hacker news boring is all the front page articles about erlang libraries and cloud computing._

This is the direction the HN front page seems to be heading. Maybe you have a lot of kindred spirits!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I appreciate the effort you've expended to setup a new news site but, I'm unlikely to ever venture there. If in fact, this act betters Hacker News, I'm even less likely to venture there.

</comment><comment><USER14> Would all of this "off-topic" go away if there was a reddit like check box for topics in the settings, HN & NHN that users could turn on/off. That way, a user can just turn off all NHN.

Sealing these two off with two different sites seems a bit much. Are strictly HN people so offended by NHN that they want it of there GD site altogether.

</comment><comment><USER15> not nonhacker news

(I've been waiting 580 days to say that.)

</comment><comment><USER16> Reddit?

<comment><AUTHOR> But with the very key addition of moderation.

<comment><USER16> I actually wish someone just throw up a vbulletin install for all the off- topic discussions. That's really what people want. All these Ask YC/HN stuff, people wanting profiles or avatars, etc.

<comment><USER17> done... <http://www.thehackerforum.com/>

<comment><USER18> I actually wish someone would create an OS as nice and user friendly as OSX, with the market share of Microsoft, and completely open source.

Also, that I had a pony.

<comment><USER17> done: <http://www.ubuntu.com/> (ok not really)

and done: <http://www.hasbro.com/mylittlepony/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Pretty smart, I think this effectively solves the problem. Now, you get the HN readership without the risk of attracting people who just want to knee jerk vote and promote their pet causes.

I also volunteer for moderating.

<comment><USER19> Would it work to make NHN a superset of HN? Then people going to NHN can still participate in HN easily. Otherwise, you might create a migration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like the mix of hacker and non-hacker stuff on HN. I would hate to see it become all technical - I mean, we do tech all day long, its nice to venture out and read what else is going on.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think it's a good idea. It'd be cool to see the same people here express their views, share ideas, etc. on topics other than programming/business.

I have time to moderate. My email is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you sign up an account there I'll upgrade it.

<comment><USER21> I'm in.

Btw, are you raising any capital?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, not for that site. It's just for fun. Slinkset may be though, I don't know. And if we become a burden on them, I might toss up a donation jar and/or some unobtrusive ads to cover their expenses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _"... I've created a slinkset ..."_

Tried it but having trouble putting a non-hackernews article. Also noted if you have a slinkset login, you should be able to login straight away.

</comment><comment><USER23> Thank you. I have found myself in an odd spot, enjoying the economic and political discussion but trying not to lower the S/N by fueling the fire with submissions.

</comment><comment><USER24> Great! Now when someone feels that a submission here is not Hacker News, they can submit it to nonhackernews and reply to the submission here with the link.

</comment><comment><USER25> My attempt at taming HN <[http://pipes.yahoo.com/lunatech/hackernews>](http://pipes.yahoo.com/lunatech/hackernews>);

</comment><comment><USER26> Checking it out.. But why are the contents of the welcome post on the front page itself?

Ps. I can be a moderator if you still need another one. Id: Anant

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure. I thought it would put the link there and then the text once you clicked it, but that's how it behaved.

At least it should be gone soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Not" doesn't have much appeal. Good luck, though!

</comment><comment><USER28> I would be willing to be a moderator.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done. Thanks :)

<comment><USER28> emkay is my non-hacker news account.

<comment><AUTHOR> I noticed. It's now a mod.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Now this is what I was hoping for!

 _registers_</comment>


Is there an open Health/Fitness Api? - <AUTHOR>

Hello Hackers.  I'm a long time reader, first time poster with a question: Is there an open health and/or fitness tracking api?
Obviously with the rise of wearable technology, fitness tracking has become very popular.  And many a company have created systems for tracking, storing, and analyzing the data.  These include the forthcoming Apple Healthkit and Google fit, but also include Microsoft Healthvault, Nike Plus, Fitbit, and RunKeeper HealthGraph to name a few.  But all of these are limited to what the technology company allows you to store/retrieve and require you to put your health data on their servers.
Therefore, I am wondering is there a such thing as an open health/fitness api.  This would like be a combination of open source, platform agnostic and self hostable. <comment><AUTHOR> anyone? please.</comment>


Scientists create quantum sensor that covers entire radio frequency spectrum - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-03-scientists-quantum-sensor-entire-radio.html <comment><USER2> Related Paper:

Assessment of Rydberg Atoms for Wideband Electric Field Sensing

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.00646](https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.00646)

Mentally replace the word "Electric Field" with RF when you're reading it, and you'll get it.

Also, according to the paper at least, in theory, laser interferometers can be used to sense RF... which leads to the idea that perhaps the entire RF spectrum, viewed as a single point in time snapshot, looks like an interference pattern of all sorts of waves at all sorts of wavelengths...

From a series of those then, Fourier Transforms, ran over the whole dataset, could be used to extract individual waves...

Also, there's some kind of vague relationship here with holograms too, because holograms are in effect, interference patterns of two beams of laser light...

</comment><comment><USER3> Any radio hams here have predictions for the use of this technology in amateur radio?

<comment><USER4> Not a ham, but this is at the "further research is needed" so I predict more papers and grant money.

</comment></comment><comment> m-p-3 Imagine having access to this instead of your regular software-defined radio.

Now I suppose this device is only able to passively listen to a signal but it cannot transmit on its own, right?

<comment><USER5> Technically you would have a software defined radio with this as an antenna, and a wideband LNA. /pedantic

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Got to appreciate the usage of Lego in that image.

</comment><comment><USER7> This seems like it could be useful for UWB communications or a very precise radar. Is it easy to generate an EM impulse with similar bandwidth? I guess the difficulty is to do all signal processing in the optical domain, since it's impractical to digitize all of that spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER8> Would this be applicable to SETI?

<comment><USER9> No. Any signal that reach here from other star system will be too faint, and you need a huge antena to recollect enough power to detect the signal over the noise. The discovery is very overhyped in the press article (as usual).

Also, the detector is small, but it need to be cooled to very low temperatures, so the whole system will be not as small as the article describe.

<comment><USER10> A simple dish or antenna can collect the signal. Size it to your purpose. A sensor is just the last step of what you do with that signal.

Think of putting your smart phone camera up to a telescope eyepiece.

<comment><USER11> Antenna geometry restricts the effective frequency range.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like a key component we would need to make a real tricorder.

</comment><comment><USER13> rydberg atoms? why they dont tellyou the exact element

<comment> Tuna-Fish The exact element does not actually matter here.

What matters is that the atoms in question have some of their electrons in ridiculously highly excited orbitals. This dramatically changes how the system works, and in fact if you have one highly excited electron and many tighly bound core electrons, you can approximate the system by modeling it as hydrogen, regardless of what element it actually is, due to how well the core electrons shield the outer electron from the core.

<comment><USER14> > approximate the system by modeling it as hydrogen, regardless of what > element it actually is

That's fascinating. I found corresponding statements in a Wikipedia article:

> Rydberg atoms have a number of peculiar properties including an exaggerated > response to electric and magnetic fields, long decay periods and electron > wavefunctions that approximate, under some conditions, classical orbits of > electrons about the nuclei.

> The core electrons shield the outer electron from the electric field of the > nucleus such that, from a distance, the electric potential looks identical > to that experienced by the electron in a hydrogen atom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Neat! Sounds energy intensive though.

<comment><USER16> It's noted that the sensors would be "very small". Doesn't size translate to energy efficiency?</comment></comment>


The humanist left must challenge the rise of cyborg socialism - <AUTHOR> https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/04/humanist-left-must-challenge-rise-cyborg-socialism <comment><USER2> I'm pretty logged into leftist currents and I'm pretty sure this strain of thought isn't as popular as this article makes it seem.

> "fully automated luxury communism"

This is literally a meme (a pretty dank one in my opinion). Its provokes thought and laughs more than enunciates a political program.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it is a meme. But my feeling is that the idea behind it is quite popular on the internet: [https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable- business/2015/mar/18...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable- business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment)

<comment><USER2> That article cites the very same person the submission does!

Popularity on the Internet is a subtle thing, especially in the realm of leftist memes. There's certainly a "haha only serious" flippancy to it.</comment></comment></comment>


Dropbox Passwords: Store and sync passwords across all devices - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/product-tips/new-dropbox-helps-manage-work-and-home <comment><USER2> Beyond Dropbox Passwords, for which I care yes and no, they are finally introducing a Dropbox Backup solution AND a dropbox family plan! Finally :)

</comment><comment><USER3> No links to technical information about the design/specification of the feature --> trash bin.</comment>


Interpreting Hip-Hop for the Deaf (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/interpreting-hip-hop-for-the-deaf-is-more-complicated-than-you-think/ <comment><USER2> The n-word problem isn't just about deaf-signing. Its a problem, like it or not. as is the b-word. I don't know how to confront what I think about it, let alone confront it, as a first class problem.</comment>


Ask HN: book recommendations for linux server admin? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an experienced developer, but have never done any significant server administration.  I can use vi and navigate the filesystem, but that is about it.
We are moving our low latency trading application from Windows to linux.  I'm not becoming a server admin, but we're a small company, and I'll likely be managing the performance lab machines.
I'm looking for book recommendations given the following: + We're going to use RH or SUSE (not yet decided) + We may end up running a realtime version: RH/MRG or SLERT + We have ~50 servers + We're interesting in tuning network performance to improve latency and may want to adjust process priorities. + We won't be running a window manager + Our servers are not connected to the internet: we aren't handling email or web traffic
Thanks! <comment><USER2> As a sysadmin who wishes he'd discovered this book earlier, I have no problem with recommending "The Practice of System and Network Administration" as a _great_ resource: <http://everythingsysadmin.com/aboutbook.html>

It's definitely an OS-agnostic book, so if you're looking for "how do we do task/process/design A with OS B?", it's not the right fit. It'd still be worth it if you're expecting to have to do anything except the very shortest-term systems administration.</comment>


Studio History - Delta Versioning in JS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Studio182/Studio-History

<comment><USER2> When i first saw it, I wondered why they didn't just use google's awesome diff-match-patch library - <http://code.google.com/p/google-diff-match-patch/>

Then, I looked at the source code and saw that it actually was just a thin wrapper around diff-match-patch.

:(</comment>


React Router: Declarative Routing for React - <AUTHOR> https://reacttraining.com/react-router/ <comment><USER2> The new API looks quite a bit like the API we've been running in React-Router- Component since 2014 ([https://github.com/STRML/react-router- component](https://github.com/STRML/react-router-component)).

Of course, RRC is not as battle-tested as React-Router; it's more of a "works for us" project I took over from @andreypopp as we had already committed to the router before React-Router became stable. And given the many backcompat- breaking changes to React-Router, it seems to have been a good idea.

React-Router does great work though; RRC doesn't even pretend to do React Native and the Environment selection we do have (pathname, pushstate, etc) isn't quite as nice. RRC also can't do some of the more interesting features, like Recursive Routes. All of the children of the router have to be `<Location>` objects.

Edit: React-Router's docs are awesome! Nice work @ryanflorence.

<comment><USER3> > backcompat-breaking changes to React-Router

We had breaking changes from 0.13 to 1.0.

Then complete BC from 1.0 to 2.0

That's two years, one breaking upgrade.

Don't confuse a libs "changing API" with "people use the development branch as stable".

<comment><USER4> Always felt kind of scummy that the same guys maintaining this library - complete with frequent breaking changes - are selling training around React for 1.8k a pop.

In other industries, we call this a "conflict of interest". "Same guys writing the building code for 2017 (featuring many changes from the 2015 code) are selling in-person workshops on the 2017 building code!" Take it out of the context of software and it immediately feels dirty.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry I fail to understand how this is different than tutoring, say, a coach who's developed a training program selling DVDs and also getting paid for personal training on his own program.

This happens all the time, in many industries, where's the dirt?

Anyway, I'll take this chance to thank Ryan and Michael and Tim and Jimmy and others I forget for their hard work.

<comment><USER4> False analogy - RR is a de-facto standard in the web development community, hence my comparison to a building code.

<comment><USER5> No, RR is the de facto standard for the React community. And they're not doing training just on RR.

Claiming that because they made the most popular routing library for React it's shady to provide tutoring about it for profit is very much of a stretch in my book. Care to explain where exactly is the conflict of interest? Does that mean it's also shady to work as consultants? Where is the line drawn?

Do you really believe that noone is going to call them out if they started doing things deliberately to maximize profit (i.e. breaking changes without actual improvement, harder to understand than necessary APIs, etc)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ironically we typically spend less than 5% of a workshop talking about the router. So saying that we make breaking changes to sell tickets to our workshops is just naive. I can see how that's a gut reaction though, so no judgement on my end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The docs are super good. I love the "embedded browser" that shows how it works.

Shameless self plug: our book [1] has a whole chapter on Routing in React with this new v4 router. After you've finished reading the docs, if you want a tutorial style walk-through of this router v4, we build a Spotify-type clone over the course of 75+ pages.

[1]: [https://www.fullstackreact.com](https://www.fullstackreact.com)

<comment><USER7> Over the last month (or so), I've been reading and reviewing React books on my blog [1]. I liked Fullstack React, but there is one big thing that keeps me from recommending it: most of the examples still use the createClass from ES5. For learning React in 2017, I (just my opinion) expect the book to fully embrace ES6/7 in all the examples.

[1]: [https://medium.com/@jmcunningham/](https://medium.com/@jmcunningham/)

<comment><USER6> Yes, we're fixing that as we speak. It will be up to date shortly.

<comment><USER8> I am considering buying this for an engineer that works for me to get up to speed on React in the very near future. I only want to start him on ES6+ syntax though. How long do you think until it will be up-to-date?

<comment><USER6> The first chapter has already been updated to use ES6 class syntax, and we explain how it works there. We're converting the rest of the book to use ES6 classes (and removing createClass) over the next week or two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Link to v4 branch: [https://github.com/ReactTraining/react- router/tree/v4](https://github.com/ReactTraining/react-router/tree/v4)

^ helped me understand what changes are coming.

</comment><comment><USER10> Could someone comment about how this compares with other projects like: [https://github.com/react-community/react- navigation](https://github.com/react-community/react-navigation) and [https://github.com/facebook/react- native/blob/master/docs/Us...](https://github.com/facebook/react- native/blob/master/docs/UsingNavigators.md) ?

Awesome docs, BTW!

<comment><USER11> react-navigation will supersede all existing navigator solutions in React Native core (Navigator/NavigationExperimental).

React Router v4 is building a react-native integration to show that it is capable of working on Native. It's centered around URLs so it's attempting to make Deep Linking into your application easier, as well potentially re-using the same navigation on the web.

That being said react-navigation can do both of those things as well and is fully supported by react-native core contributors.

<comment><USER12> Out of curiosity, why was the decision made to build a completely new router (react-navigation) vs collaborating on better native support to the existing react-router? (which is working towards that anyway)

<comment><USER11> Difference in opinions about what could be accomplished via react-router vs what native paradigms needed to be crafted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have a list of these native paradigms anywhere?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I definitely like the way they decided to move in the latest version. I never was comfortable with the previous API -- it just didn't feel right, and it was kind of restrictive.

<comment><USER3> Neither were we >.< but we were learning React along with everybody else! You'll love this version.

<comment><USER14> In my experience, loving the new version is not an understatement. Great work, and thank you. It's been a pleasure to see React and the ecosystem around it mature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Will there be a way to access query / search parameters? The URL Parameters example could benefit from a such an addition, if it's already possible. Something showing how to get the genre out of `/netflix?genre=mystery` would be lovely.

<comment><USER16> I believe what you're looking for is `location.query` which can be accessed by children of your router (via `this.props.location.query`)

<comment><USER15> Thank you, I'll give that a try. The closest I saw in the current docs was via the `history` object, which I'd then have to provide to `<Router>`, which seemed sad. Using the props makes more sense! It looks like I want to use `withRouter` to get access to the location prop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> i like the power of the new API but i'm not sure i'm entirely sold on the declaration syntax. adjacent <Route/> tags which specify things that may appear in the same place depending on the route seems a bit strange conceptually to me. i'll have to play around with it on a real-world project to see how it feels in practice.

i didn't see it mentioned in the docs, but does the new version fix the awkward handling of scrolling and history?

<comment><USER3> browsers are handling that now [https://majido.github.io/scroll-restoration- proposal/history...](https://majido.github.io/scroll-restoration- proposal/history-based-api.html#web-idl)

<comment><USER3> also, not every app wants to do it the same way. Now that we're Just Components™ you can handle scrolling however you'd like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I look forward to the next API revision. Churning your API frequently turns me off as a developer who would rather not be deprecated out the gate.

<comment><USER19> I look forward to the day where people can improve upon their project based on gained knowledge without passive aggressive comments about the lack of back compat.

This is how software improves. You are not forced to upgrade to the next version.

<comment><USER18> I look forward to the day when people can criticize a product for churning an API twice in one year without receiving the obligatory "if you don't like it, don't use it" cliché remark.

Improvement or not, to buy into a product that has churned twice in one year is a bad investment and for those who are lucky enough to not be caught in the middle - should be warned.

edit: I've used V4 and it's a vast improvement, but I stand by my remark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Been using V4 since they released alpha and it really is a great piece of software. Great work Michael and Ryan.

<comment><USER21> React Router V4 has been a pleasure to work with for me as well, and I've used it in a couple of projects that have some fairly complex routing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is a huge step forward in react routing. I'm still on v3, but very excited to switch. I love that I don't have to separate my thinking about routes vs normal components.

Ex. If I want to lazy load a route vs something below the fold, I can use the same HOC for both.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you want to use React as the V in MVC you can always use a MVC router instead: [https://github.com/rajeev-k/mvc- router](https://github.com/rajeev-k/mvc-router)

</comment><comment><USER24> The website is broken on mobile - elements overlap and content is not visible.

<comment><USER25> Slightly off topic, but do you find that docs really need to be mobile friendly? I'd personally rather the developer focuses on the actual project and all those concerns rather than a perfect responsive docs page. Esp when assuming most of these docs are eventually translated into markdown on github which are then mobile friendly.

<comment><USER26> I tend to do exploration on my phone when I have downtime while being out and about. Mobile friendly docs are a sure way to keep my attention on your project if I stumble upon it during these times.

Of course, I do plenty of research from my desktop as well, so if it's a choice between getting a new release out on time or having a perfect mobile experience, I'd suggest library authors prefer getting timely releases out myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The code has 1 font with no backup:

            font-family: Monaco;

I don't have Monaco on Windows so it's using Times New Roman :\

</comment><comment><USER28> I was going to complain about churn and such, but we've all heard the JavaScript framework fatigue story a thousand times.

I'll summarize it to this: don't _expect_ a solid, stable, boring library to come out of someone's hobby project.

React itself bloomed under Facebook's stewardship, while all the other libraries in the ecosystem are bouncing all over the place without anything to keep them in place, especially after they lose their initial shine and geek points.

Kudos to the authors for their achievements. I don't recall you promising anything to anybody, so any code you put out contributes something to the world, even if you get bored and change the API from procedural to declarative and back three times a day.

<comment><USER3> Following stable releases we had one breaking API change in 2 years from 0.13 -> 1.0. 2.0 was fully BC, 3.0 removed 1.0 API 8 months after 2.0 was released. People shouldn't install beta/alpha like its stable and then complain to us about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I couldn't find it on the website, is there a detailed list of the changelog for this beta? Looks like some really great changes were made, but would love to see specifics.

<comment><USER3> We're working on an upgrade guide, but in short, it's a completely different library. Major difference is that routes are actual components that are actually rendered, where before they just had their props stripped and plugged into the routing machine. Now your routing is composed like the rest of your react app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Will there be a way to prevent transitions when clicking on a link that isn't hooked into react router?</comment>


Why The New iPad Doesn't Have Siri - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/151935/why-the-new-ipad-doesnt-have-siri/ <comment><USER2> Because Siri has been getting dumber the longer it has been in beta and is currently worthless.</comment>


Bad Smells Make Memories Stronger - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/bad-smells-make-memories-stronger-320945 <comment><USER2> In 1913, French author Marcel Proust highlighted the link between smell and memory in a very eloquent-if-wordy way in his famous (and lengthy) work, Remembrances of Things Past. Here's a good snippet:

[http://ww3.haverford.edu/psychology/ddavis/p109g/proust.html](http://ww3.haverford.edu/psychology/ddavis/p109g/proust.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I couldn't find explicitly if bad smells make only bad memories stronger. I mean, from the first caption from the first image: what good it does too remember a beautiful beach if it will evoke a bad feeling from the bad smell from the trash bin?

<comment><USER4> Anecdotally, it doesn't work that way. I've never thought about a visual experience and had it evoke the memory of a smell. I'm not sure I've ever had anything (other than a smell) evoke the memory of a smell. But every strong smell evokes a cascade of experiential and visual memories. Whenever I smell burning garbage, I think about various places I've traveled, particularly India (this isn't a dig at Indian sanitation per se; it's just that there are small piles of burning garbage all over the place in India, and the memory is strongly attached).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I believe it, I remember some subway trips from years ago very vividly.

</comment><comment><USER6> IIRC any intense emotions and strong feelings cause strong memories.

</comment><comment><USER7> This recalls the Black Mirror episode Crocodile, where smell is used to jog memories. That was one of the less realistic ones.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can get behind this theory. Some of the most memorable code I've seen is also the smelliest.

</comment><comment><USER9> So...eat cheese the night of your study cram? (Bad idea if you're lactose intolerant)

<comment><USER10> You might need to bring the cheese with you to the test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder what if eating fish increases memorising ability comes from fish smell.

<comment><USER12> You're assuming fish smells bad. Fresh fish smells delicious.

<comment><USER13> Depends on the time. In the early morning, not so much.</comment></comment></comment>


Madoff Trustee Seeks $19.6 Billion From Austrian Banker - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/madoff-trustee-seeks-19-6-billion-from-austrian-banker/

<comment><USER2> Makes me sick when I read of the greed. Hope the trustee has a solid case and can retrieve the funds in whole.</comment>


QVC to Acquire Zulily for $2.4B - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/qvc-to-acquire-online-shopping-site-zulily-for-2-4-billion-1439813202

<comment><USER2> That is under the IPO price, and well under their once marketcap of $6B. Another classic example of a hot startup (one of the hottest in Seattle) hitting a brick wall once going public</comment>