Show HN: A tree DB to replace text based configuration when validation matters - <AUTHOR> http://eden.tuxee.net/org/tree <comment><USER2> Trees are awesome, but their usefulness is bounded by the human-friendliness of the UI.

For example, a lot of apps use a hierarchical config where you can specify everything as YAML. Elasticsearch comes to mind. This works quite well because any property can be referred to as dotted keypaths, e.g. "discovery.zen.minimum_master_nodes".

Kubernetes also uses YAML/JSON structures as a configuration interface. Kubernetes supports JSON Patch [1], a poor man's patching format for editing keys deep within a document, and it also supports JSONPath [2] for templating.

But what these don't do is treat the entire config as a big tree, and I think that's a good compromise. Kubernetes stores all its config in Etcd, but this config is considered an implementation detail — you're not supposed to edit it directly — and moreover, Etcd is like a file system, not a key/value tree; Kubernetes maps each path to a file, not a single value.

I like this approach, because individual objects can be validated separately by type. Kubernetes has a schema, which each object (YAML file) declares:

        apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
        kind: Deployment
        metadata:
          name: postgresql-master

This maps directly to the version of the API that changes need to go through in order to make the configuration persistent.

If you try to make one huge key/value tree, you're more likely to end up with something like the Windows Registry, a huge ball of spaghetti.

[1] [http://jsonpatch.com](http://jsonpatch.com)

[2] [http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/](http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/)

<comment><USER3> Interestingly, when I first saw this project I thought it would be useful to me for exactly this kind of small configuration files describing jobs. I was not considering merging all config files together though. Maybe calling this a DB is misleading as it suggest having a single big file, which indeed I would not recommend.

<comment><USER2> I don't know what your project is, but Etcd is excellent for this sort of thing if your project is distributed and you need resilience, and you can live with the external dependency on its daemons.

Etcd is also a hierarchical database, but you can use it like a robust distributed file system. A big benefit you get is liveness; you can respond dynamically to config changes by watching for change events.

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't etcd require to setup several servers?

<comment><USER2> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Though the documentation has plenty of introductory material and examples on how to use the code, it lacks on the "what can this help me solve" side of things. The examples in section 5 sort of get in to it but it would be nice to have that as part of the introduction to this project. Just from reading it it's not entirely clear what I could or should use this for.

<comment><USER5> What does this get you that etcd does not.

<comment><USER4> This would be simpler than etcd in that it's not a distributed key/value store but a local-only thing. It's also not a key/value store but more of a graph database and allows you to validate the configuration with predefined schema's (in its own terms), something etcd doesn't do for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You can open, read, validate and write a small text file in an atomic action already - there is no reason to use anything more complicated.

If your configuration is more than simple, then there are plenty of real dbs that implement everything explained in this article "properly".

This "tree db" is concurrent to read, not to write, doesn't bother with the hard parts of concurrency, ie. deletion of old data and uses an ad hoc json/pointer bs. system to write/read data.

</comment><comment><USER7> This looks pretty awesome as a simple, embeddable graph database; not sure the configuration examples are the best use case to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER8> So, a bit like Windows Registry? Because that didn't turn out to be such a good idea.

<comment><USER9> I think this project is more directly comparable to Augeas ([http://augeas.net/](http://augeas.net/)).

The most common criticism of the Windows Registry is that it is a per- user/per-machine database stored in an opaque format, thus making it harder than necessary to manipulate or version the data for individual applications. On the other hand, this project and Augeas focus on providing means to read and manipulate text-based configuration files that ensure the file contents' integrity is preserved. They do it by parsing the text into a tree first and serializing the tree afterwards. This lets you keep your individual configuration files as small as you wish and easy enough to version and compare.</comment></comment>


A preview of LightTable 0.5 - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/light-table-discussion/DP4BllY9Wcw/CxldwiB_HlYJ

<comment><USER2> Here's a video of the coolest new feature, "watches": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8-b6QEN- rk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8-b6QEN-rk)

I'm also really excited about the behaviors stuff. It means that the entirety of LT's functionality is described in a datastructure that you could reasonably modify by hand. Here's a gist of default.behaviors: [https://gist.github.com/ibdknox/6010853](https://gist.github.com/ibdknox/6010853) The :+ is there because it's stored as a diff, which allows other behaviors files to add and remove functionality based on the order they're loaded.

<comment><USER3> > It means that the entirety of LT's functionality is described in a > datastructure that you could reasonably modify by hand.

I'm confused. Emacs embraced this principle almost forty years ago. Would you mind explaining to me what's novel about LightTable's take on this old idea?

Is it "That, But Clojure!"? or "That, But With More Webkit!"? Each of these could be valuable in their own right... Or am I missing something more fundamental?

<comment><USER4> How about, "Turtles all the way down just like Emacs?"

I think you don't really have to come up with something revolutionary on top of the Emacs philosophy for it to be a very worthwhile pursuit. The things you mention plus the fact that it's as easy to get started as Sublime (or aims to) makes it a fantastic entry point for lots of new people into a tried, true and powerful way of working.

Sadly, it's not open source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's easy to spark interest in other developers by converting their Ruby/Python code to Clojure.

But LightTable has made it possible for me to recommend an editor that has integrated repl feedback and lets them hit the ground running with Clojure when they ask me how they should get started.

Since Lisps are so tool/workflow-dependent, it's just way too easy for a newcomer to dismiss it all after a bad experience because they simply didn't know about electric parens or they never discovered the tight repl feedback loop that makes us so productive. And it makes it frustrating for those of us as well that are trying to convince others to give Lisps a shot since we can't stand over their shoulders.

Sometime I'd like to make a well-planned gif (like that on the homepage of [http://www.sublimetext.com/](http://www.sublimetext.com/)) that gives newcomers a glimpse of a solid workflow to strive for.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like that gif too :) One of the few blog posts from jps (st devel) that isn't just a changelog: [http://www.sublimetext.com/~jps/animated_gifs_the_hard_way.h...](http://www.sublimetext.com/~jps/animated_gifs_the_hard_way.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi Chris,

Instarepl is an awesome idea.

If someone were to implement an insta-repl as an IntelliJ plugin, or an emacs plugin, what remaining advantages would LT have? Is there something about the architecture of existing IDEs that is incompatible with an insta-repl?

Say I'm writing a medium size webapp, like, say, Gmail, in clojure + clojurescript. I don't understand how integrating my app into LT is going to 10x my productivity, outside of instarepl. Or being able to on-the-fly extend my IDE. Emacs can do that, and its not exactly a feature i can't live without.

It just seems like all the things you're talking about on the list, like [commands, settings, threading models, plugins, UX] are previously solved problems.

<comment><USER5> LightTable's trajectory is a bit different than what you're going to get with a monolthic IDE and the Clojure plugin that does its best to wrestle with the IDE.

I also don't think LightTable's core offering is a huge boost in raw productivity unless your workflow right now is notepad.exe and manual repl reloads. - Just to point out two features from the post: "watchers" (live runtime feedback) and one big extensible datastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> can we please get paredit? I would probably use it if it had that feature, but until it does, it's basically useless for my day-to-day work.

<comment><USER8> +1. Clojure without paredit is painful. Its the only reason why I'm unable to use LT for more than a toy.

<comment><USER9> I actually disabled paredit when I was using vim and have done so again while using emacs+evil. The way I write code i typically simply do opening parens and at the end just jam parens until the rainbow-delimiters start to show up unbalanced (red in my case). If I need to pay attention because I'm not at the end of a top level form, I quickly glance to see which matched parens are flashing as I add each delimiter.

<comment><USER10> Honest advice: The power of paredit lies not in managing the closing parens. I found that the benefits of paredit show only when you use barf/slurp/split/join. Keep the paredit cheat-sheet around ([http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PareditCheatsheet](http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PareditCheatsheet)) for quick reference, and if you're anything like me and don't like the emacs- meta-ctrl-style key-combos, customize the keys, I've found the defaults to be quite lacking for vim/evil users.

Using paredit only for parens-matching feels to me like using only hjkl in vim. While you can use vim this way, you won't fully reap the benefits until you start to use the other movement commands.

<comment><USER11> Could you do a little write-up on your paredit workflow. Like the post you replied to I've found it mostly annoying to use in normal Emacs and nowadays with evil-mode.

<comment><USER10> I'll be honest with you: I'm maybe not the one to give proper advice on paredit. I'm using C# on my day job, and as such have no use for paredit (I do use ViEmu for VS though, which makes VS bearable) for most of my programming tasks.

Also, I've never done anything in clojure. I expect it to be a similar experience to CL, but the different types of parenthesis might have an effect on using paredit efficiently.

That said, I found that the following mapping really makes a huge difference when working with sexps & evil-mode:

C-l: paredit-forward-slurp-sexp C-k: paredit-backward-barf-sexp C-j: paredit- backward-slurp-sexp C-h: paredit-forward-barf-sexp

Your mileage may vary, of course. I mapped it this way because my fingers dictated it, and it plays well with vim/evil.

As to how to actually use these commands: Try them out on a few sexps, it'll be clear to you pretty soon. Also be sure to check out Emacs Rocks! ep14 ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6h5dFyyUX0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6h5dFyyUX0)), it's well worth the 3:40.

I actually find learning paredit to be very similar to learning vim: You start with almost nothing (maybe hjkl in vim, but even that takes a while to get used to), and slowly add new tricks to your tool belt. Also like with vim, everyone has their own style of using the tools.

Of course, there's a ton of other things in paredit which can improve your efficiency which I haven't added to my muscle-memory yet. It's just that I found barfing/slurping to be the most bang for the buck, so I added them first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great to see things are coming along with LightTable. I was a bit surprised by this:

> Lots of things that were blocking the UI no longer are thanks to some > magical hackery (given the lack of threads in JS)

I thought WebWorkers where designed to alleviate these kinds of issues. It seems like Webkit supports WebWorkers so I'm surprised they weren't used - anyone know the rationale?

<comment><USER2> I can't do any kind of IO in a webworker, which means things like indexing the filesystem are impossible there. The vast majority of cases where I need to do background work I also need access to the host.

EDIT: I should note that I did start with webworkers for things like auto- complete, but what I'm doing now (spinning up another instance of node) is a lot more powerful and robust. As scary and sad as that may be.

<comment><USER13> Why to use node instead of Clojure then?

This seems just like hacking around a non-existing problem if JS wasn't being used.

<comment><USER2> because I wanted to use html/css as the UI toolkit and utilizing JS gives me a bunch of stuff for "free." I looked into using javafx and various other java-y things that embed webkit but they are _painfully_ slow, to the point where it wasn't practical to even try using them.

<comment><USER14> Would you be able to quickly explain LT's architecture from a mile above? node-webkit for an HTML based UI. How does clojure come into it? Or is clojurescript the workhorse?

<comment><USER2> See my "The IDE as a value" post which gives a good overview of how it all works: [http://www.chris-granger.com/2013/01/24/the-ide-as- data/](http://www.chris-granger.com/2013/01/24/the-ide-as-data/)

It's all ClojureScript all the time :) Clojure is only used for evaling Clojure and doing languagy things. Not much has changed since the above post except that behaviors are now added to tags outside of code in .behaviors files.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I use LT productively at the moment and really enjoy it, so thanks ibdknox!

I did see on one of the mailing lists that you had spiked up an integration with JSHint, and that might make it into LT 0.5. Is that still the case, or have you deferred that for implementing the plugin framework? I ask because I'd like to push it at work, but many of our developers rely on JSHint/SublimeLinter, and it's much nicer having that integrated into our editors.

<comment><USER2> Should be in there. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This looks great! I'm really trying to use it more, though last time it did feel heavier than sublime. I'm glad that was addressed. Can anyone point me to a good tutorial/example regarding clojure and clojurescript projects in lighttable for windows and mac?

</comment><comment><USER17> First of all, I use LightTable for all Clojure development at work (we use it for our tools) and I love it. One thing though, is there any chance of seeing goto-symbol like functionality in LightTable (thinking about goto-symbol in Sublime 3, super useful!)

</comment><comment><USER18> Offtopic: Why does google groups require you to login to view images?

<comment><USER19> It doesn't, check again in other browser or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very anal, but it seems like the title should be rendered as "Light Table", not "LightTable".</comment>


Offer HN: Free Web Design - <AUTHOR>

I am a freelance web designer (madebyargon.com) and I have some free time on my hands so I am offering a free web/UI design to HN members. I am doing this completely free of charge. Just email me your project, and I'll create a design that is (hopefully) more usable and appealing to the users.
Please email me at email@example.com and put "Offer HN" in the subject.
Note: From past experience, I may get more requests than I can handle. I will give preference to those websites/apps which are already active. <comment><USER2> This is a great idea.

I'd like to offer the same. Web/Interface design for HN members. Although I can only take on 1-2 projects.

email: email@example.com work: <http://mmhd.ca> twitter: @mmhd

</comment><comment><USER3> That's an awesome offer and you have a great portfolio. I wish my project were further along because I would absolutely take you up on it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice portfolio! I am going to launch my product and just whip up a website myself: <http://www.appsketcher.com> . I am no designer so took a simplistic approach. Would you be able to take a look and give me some advice? Thanks.

<comment><USER5> Some simple feedback from another designer:

\- Might want to have hover states on the other navigation buttons.

\- Too much text above the fold, in my opinion. If possible, I would highlight some short, bullet-points near the top (in larger font)

\- What is "appwork" in the top left logo and in the title? Everywhere else seems to call it "App Sketcher". I would try to be consistent or make the difference clear.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for your suggestions. These are all very good points. Regarding "appwork", it's my company name. Originally I wanted to call the product Appwork Sketcher but probably no one will know what it is. So now I call it App Sketcher. I will remove appwork except for the company name in the footer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I already have more requests than I can handle. No further projects will be taken on (unless you have a really cool site).

To everyone who emailed me, I will reply within 2-3 days.

Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, I am available to take on paid work. Mention HN for a discount.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice design work. Just checked out VideoLAN's website, though, and they have a bunch of broken images. Know anything about that?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not involved with their day-to-day website maintenance, so I cant really help. I know that they are constantly modifying and updating their website, so I'm sure any broken links will get fixed soon enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great stuff. How many are you willing to take on? 1 or 2?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll take on as many as my schedule allows. Maybe 4 or 5

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice work. Sent you an email. Thanks</comment>


NaN does not mean "I am not a number" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jashkenas/underscore/issues/406 <comment><USER2> I love the folks getting all snarky and superior at the guy who was foolish enough to suggest that "Not a Number" should not be a number.

There's probably some cutting insight into programmer culture here somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> This may be correct, but why name it NaN if its a number. I thought we were meant to write readable code. Poor naming like this in the specs really does not help.

<comment><USER4> > This may be correct, but why name it NaN if its a number.

It is definitively _not_ a number in the usual, mathematical sense -- hence the name, which comes from IEEE 754.

However, the isNumber function doesn't really check if things are numbers, it checks if they are of the Number type, which, potentially confusingly, includes things which are not numbers, including the accurately named value Not-a-Number (NaN).

<comment><USER3> So it's Not-a-Number but isNumber returns true?

That would imply then that isNumber is named incorrectly. So perhaps isNumber should read isNumericType?

Most of the time I want to test, is this a number I can use in a normal mathematical sense. As in, can I use it in subtraction, multiplication etc. I know now that I should use isFinite and isNumber, but wouldn't it be nice to have just one well named function for this?

<comment><USER5> It's consistent with the names of other type-checking functions. isNumber checks if a value is an instance of the Number class just like isDate checks if a value is an instance of the Date class. If it were isNumericType, they'd get questions about why the function doesn't follow the existing naming convention.

The only reason this is confusing for people is because they aren't familiar with IEEE 754 floating-point numbers and their representations. But since floats are used in almost every programming language, it's something that any programmer _should_ be familiar with. Once they learn exactly what NaN means in that context, then the confusion should disappear.

<comment><USER3> I really dislike this sort of reasoning. That its only confusing because you don't know enough. It's possible to word things in ways that are easy to learn and lead you to an understanding of the underlying mechanics.

Its confusing because NaN explicitly states not a number. Then the function explicitly states is number.

However the two are in very different contexts, yet this is not communicated when using them. It's intuitive to think of a date as a class and there for the context is implicit in isDate. I don't think this is the case for isNumber.

I think this is less about people understanding floating-point numbers more about understanding that a function starting with is implies some form of type checking.

<comment><USER4> > Its confusing because NaN explicitly states not a number. Then the function > explicitly states is number.

The problem is that "Number" is the name of a JS data type, and "number" is the name of a concept, the two don't match exactly, and when you are using camel-casing for word separation, you can't distinguish the two.

The function "isNumber" checks if the thing it is applied to is a JS Number, not if it is a number.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This discussion is ridiculous. NaN should obviously return true of isNumber, and probably just indicates you did something funky with your numbers and they exploded. They're still numbers, you're the one who's at fault (I never really saw NaN come by on purpose...). It's just that computers can't really represent some numbers and when that happens you get NaN and as much as you want languages to read as english or be perfect abstractions sometimes practical implementations details end up surfacing and theres nothing you can do.

<comment><USER3> But there is something we can do. We can make the context clear and resolve this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr: Guy suggests isNumber(NaN) should be false. But it's true because NaN is part of floating points as defined by IEEE.

My own interpretation? While programmers shouldn't care so much about this particular kind of semantics (instead they should understand the theory behind floats and never have to run into this issue) it might be better just to call NaNs something else, like "undefined number" or something.

<comment><USER4> > My own interpretation? While programmers shouldn't care so much about this > particular kind of semantics (instead they should understand the theory > behind floats and never have to run into this issue) it might be better just > to call NaNs something else, like "undefined number" or something.

Or, better, call the JavaScript type that represents IEEE-754 Binary64 format -- which includes the union of three sets (finite numbers in a given range, two infinite numbers, and two kinds of Not-a-Number values) something other than "Number".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't this what type systems are supposed to be for?

        1.0 / 1.0
        => Just 1.0

        0.0 / 0.0
        => Nothing</comment>


Eric Schmidt on the Verizon Deal (et al) - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/08/05/google-ceo-dishes-on-google-wave-verizon-social-strategy/

<comment><AUTHOR> _We have been talking to Verizon for a long time about trying to get an agreement on the definition of what net neutrality is. We're trying to find solutions that bridge between the hardcore net neutrality view and the telecom view. I want to be clear what we mean by net neutrality. What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another. But it's OK to discriminate across different types, so you could prioritize voice over video, and there is general agreement with Verizon and Google on that issue. The issues of wireless vs. wireline get very messy because of the issue of Type I vs Type II regulation and that is an FCC issue not a Google issue._

<comment><USER2> > _"What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don't > discriminate against one person's video in favor of another. But it's OK to > discriminate across different types, so you could prioritize voice over > video"_

Which sounds good, but completely falls apart upon examination.

E.g. Is a video-call _video_? or voice? Is it a new type altogether? What if a new videochat service uses a new protocol with different encryption/compression/etc? Is that a distinct "type" with distinct 'management' profile?

Given the largely arbitrary distinction of bits into "types" of communication, being able to decide what is or is not a discrete "type" and priority essentially gives the power to decide whether a new service sinks or swims.

And, as many new service types are effective competitors against old service types, getting to decide whether the new type is discriminated against is functionally equivalent to deciding whether to discriminate against arbitrary competitors _within_ a service type.

The only improvement of discriminating by type over discriminating by source, is that you can still have competition among those who use an entrenched protocol -- to the extent that competitors are free to use said protocol.

Because --to be perfectly clear-- there's absolutely nothing stopping that sort of "compromise" being followed by a patented, proprietary google/verizon video chat protocol that they will not license, while they simultaneously throttle FaceTime/Fring/etc.

EDIT: (some punctuation/grammar)

<comment><USER3> We're quickly going to be in a world where all phone calls are VoIP and I don't think it's unreasonable to allow QoS tiers. I don't want to have my phone not work because my neighbors are torrenting. Hell, I already do this on my home network. Google just wants to make sure you don't have to pay to get in a QoS tier.

<comment><USER2> Again: that sounds good, until you think it through.

What happens when an upstart wants to compete with Verizon on VoIP? Say they roll out an innovative new protocol that offers far better quality in a still- reasonable footprint. Or offers some sideband feature that existing VoIP doesn't. (say, streaming file transfer, letting you send data bits during a call while on the call directly to the person you're talking to. no need to open a mail client or sftp and negotiate a second connection)

Why wouldn't Verizon decide that this new competitor is a new flavor of VoIP that needs to be in its own QoS tier? It will have a different traffic profile, so you can't very well argue that they shouldn't be able to "optimize" it separately on technical grounds.

But now it's a new "type" and Verizon is free to kick it into the QoS round- file tier to either blackmail payment or simply hamstring adoption.

Maybe they only do that until they catch up and offer similar features. Or maybe they launch their own next-gen VoIP protocol in _yet-another_ QoS tier, where the upstart is still not allowed.

Once you open the door to QoS by type --and leave type classification in the hands of the ISPs who directly profit from how these largely arbitrary lines are drawn-- there's a vanishingly small difference between QoS by type and by source.

<comment><USER4> Your example doesn't make any sense. For purely technical reasons there would be no reason to send a VoIP call along with the "sideband feature" over the same connection.

Even if your VoIP application offers a feature like streaming file transfer, you wouldn't actually implement that by sending that data over the VoIP connection, because the VoIP data requires real-time performance (the call starts breaking up if packets are delayed) but your streaming file transfer does not. It would be silly to let your multi-gigabyte file transfer DoS your VoIP call.

If you simply opened a second, non-VoIP connection for the file transfer, everything would work fine.

Would Verizon have an incentive to cheat by favoring its own services? Maybe, but that seems to be what these Google talks are all about in the first place. I think Google is aware that any agreement would need more teeth than trusting the goodness of Verizon's heart to comply.

<comment><USER2> > _"It would be silly to let your multi-gigabyte file transfer DoS your VoIP > call."_

1\. _I_ think it would be silly to assume a reasonable person would propose sending _multi-gigabyte files_ down a VoIP connection. You might want to consider _asking_ people if there was a miscommunication before _assuming_ they're unreasonable or ignorant.

2\. I thought the qualifier that it would remove the need to _open a second app_ was sufficient to indicate that I was talking about _opening a second app_. Ergo "connection" meant the human-process of mapping a VoIP contact to a data-transfer app/credentials, opening second app, sending file, etc.

3\. No, a second physical connection for the file stream doesn't necessarily mean "everything would work fine". Anything that requires a new protocol/extension would make classification of the product/feature/service game to be, well, _gamed_ , by the ISP, for profit.

As the VoIP connection itself would need to _at least_ be modified to signal/establish the physical data connection, you'd necessarily have a protocol variant - even if the file transfer itself was, say, ftp.

4\. The whole point of the example is just "New product that extends old protocol, thereby giving ISP chance to QoS-round-file new product rather than compete". Focusing on the example itself is just wasting our time.

> _"I think Google is aware that any agreement would need more teeth than > trusting the goodness of Verizon's heart to comply."_ I think Google is > doing nothing more than hedging against the possibility that legislation > will undercut the FCC's net neutrality kick; particularly given legislative > power being likely to tip back to the strongly pro-corporate side.

I sincerely doubt they're negotiating with Verizon over treatment of any traffic that does not come from Google.

<comment><USER4> > You might want to consider asking people if there was a miscommunication > before assuming they're unreasonable or ignorant.

Your entire argument is based on the assumption that Google is being unreasonable or ignorant. You're posing completely trivial scenarios of Verizon gaming the system, and assuming that Google is negotiating an agreement that is vulnerable to such trivial gaming.

Furthermore, your only evidence whatsoever about these non-public negotiations is an extremely vague and misleading NYT article, and a paragraph blurb from Eric Schmidt. You know next to nothing about these negotiations (as do I), but you're completely confident in asserting that it "completely falls apart upon examination."

> I sincerely doubt they're negotiating with Verizon over treatment of any > traffic that does not come from Google.

Did you even read what Eric said? "What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another." If what they're negotiating only applied to Google, it would be the opposite of the principle Eric is describing.

<comment><USER2> > _"Your entire argument is based on the assumption that Google is being > unreasonable or ignorant."_

Absolutely not. It's based solely on Verizon and Google operating in their own financial best interests. In fact, as far as my argument goes, Verizon and Google are placeholders for any ISP and any content company. The argument would be the same if we were talking about Verizon/NBC, Sprint/Microsoft or AT&T/Time Warner.

I'm not arguing against some hypothetical secret terms of a specific rumored agreement. I'm arguing against the line of logic I quoted in my original reply. Who it came from is irrelevant. It's a very common justification for QoS-by-type and it's a wholly misleading simplification.

I only referred to Google's interests because you brought it up. It's not in their best interests for them to argue for terms from Verizon that benefit more than Google itself, because that would necessarily weaken any concessions they could get for themselves. It would be _un_ reasonable to expect Google to go toe-to-toe with Verizon behind closed doors and sign a binding agreement for the benefit of the entire internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I also thought this was interesting (re: Android)

"Remember we make the majority of our money on advertising and the powerful browser that is in Android when people search — they click on ads and that revenue goes to Google. _And trust me that revenue is large enough to pay for all of Android activities and a whole bunch more._ "

</comment><comment><USER6> It's funny that a lot of this would not be an issue if Verizon, et al, actually had the ability to deliver the speeds they quote you on any sort of consistent basis.

Most consumer-grade networking problems can be solved with "QoS via excessive bandwidth". But, what the carriers want to do is oversell their backbones by 10,000%, and then charge extra to deliver the kind of service you would have expected to receive in the first place.

Wholesale bandwidth to a Tier 1 provider is ~$15/Mb these days (monthly). This doesn't include loop charges of course. But still Verizon, Comcast, etc. should be able to deliver a symmetrical 5Mbs pipe to an average residence (ie: in a populated suburb) for $60/mo. without the end user every really worrying about running up against capacity for any practical application.

The ISP's are worried about being reduced to "dumb pipes", yet they could easily differentiate based on speed, uptime, customer service and other things that don't rely on packet tagging and prioritizations.

<comment><USER7> >Most consumer-grade networking problems can be solved with "QoS via excessive bandwidth". But, what the carriers want to do is oversell their backbones by 10,000%, and then charge extra to deliver the kind of service you would have expected to receive in the first place.

While this argument sells to the crowd, it's facile and doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

<comment><USER8> Can you be more specific?

I'm really quite a layman in this area, but I've heard the overselling argument quite a lot, and I'd be interested in hearing why it might not be a valid one.

<comment><USER7> Look at the prices of unmetered commercial connections to understand the economics of overselling and burst connectivity.

I have a 15Mbps home connection, which serves me brilliantly when I need to grab an ISO or watch a couple of videos. I have no illusions that this is equal to a business 15Mbps connection, which would be significantly more expensive. A T3 runs $3000 a month, best case. I pay $45 a month.

The original point that I disagreed with was the assertion that everyone should have a unmetered 6Mbps connection. Firstly, I don't want a 6Mbps connection -> I want a 15Mbps burst connection that best accommodates a normal user. Secondly that's enough bandwidth that if you filled it at Amazon's AWS, you'd be paying some $240 a month, and Amazon is at the crossroads of a number of primary connections, pretty much the cheapest place to possibly origin data.

Joe Homebody is many nodes down, through a lot of infrastructure and choke- points, and the cost for throughput is significantly higher: My neighbourhood has a large number of cable modem subscribers, and to aggregate the total sum up through each junction would lead to enormous bandwidth potential.

In the mobile space the situation is vastly uglier. I don't think most people realize how incredibly crowded the data space is.

<comment><USER9> The price of unmetered commercial connections has more to do with competition (or lack thereof) among broadband ISPs and willingness to pay than technical reasons. Broadband in Japan costs 15x less and runs about 6-7x faster than in the U.S:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6900697.stm>

<comment><USER7> [http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/39209/20100728/internet- spee...](http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/39209/20100728/internet-speed- akamai.htm)

I would love to know how much of the Japan rhetoric is actually based in reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related:

 _Verizon has also moved to dismiss the story. "The NYT article regarding conversations between Google and Verizon is mistaken," the company said. "It fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect."_

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/05/gogle- denie...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/05/gogle-denies- verizon-deal-net-neutrality)

</comment><comment><USER10> Sure sounds completely and utterly different from "Google and Verizon in Talks on Selling Internet Priority." Thanks for failing us NYT.

<comment><USER11> >But it's OK to discriminate across different types, so you could prioritize voice over video

Sounds like selling Internet priority to me. In fact, if you can prioritize voice over video you can likewise prioritize http over bittorrent, smtp, or xmpp. And if a competitor's video is going over xmpp while yours is going over FaceTime, that sounds like it's legit depending on how you define 'data type.'

<comment><USER10> You're arguing that they consider video types different when you have no idea what their talks entail - it may be so general as video, voice, web, mail, and other. Schmidt's comments were ambiguous to protocol and yet you're adding xmpp, smtp, FaceTime, and bittorrent. What NYT was suggesting was that Google be given priority over Bing, for example - grossly different from this situation. QoS is already in place for most major large corporations (and small!), but most ISPs have not gone down the avenue of implementing quality of service for their networks.

Here's the headline on NYT's site: Google and Verizon Near Deal on Web Pay Tiers

And a quote from the article: "...allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content's creators are willing to pay for the privilege."

Does that sound like what Schmidt said at all?

<comment><USER11> The way I see it, there are only two possible ways to implement that kind of speed throttling:

1\. Protocol filtering. This is basically the status quo with wireless. Voice/Text is separate from Internet data.

2\. Deep-packet inspection. I'm sure that Schmidt wasn't advocating this, for a variety of moral and practical reasons.

How exactly do you do what Schmidt is describing without favoring a protocol? How do you favor a protocol without locking out third-party protocols? ISPs have no way of classifying the data sent on a third party protocol.

<comment><USER10> You are prescribing to one protocol versus another though. Whereas Schmidt is saying ALL video protocols be treated one way and ALL voip protocols be treated another way. For example, RTMP+MMS+RTSP+others may be considered "video," whereas SMTP+SMTP SSL+POP3 SSL+IMAP+IMAP SSL+others would be "mail," H.323+SIP+others will be "voice," and HTTP+HTTPS+FTP+FTPS+SFTP would be treated as "web." That is very different than pitting MMS against RTSP and saying MMS wins because Microsoft pays more.

<comment><USER11> From a legal standpoint that makes sense, but from a technical standpoint I just tunnel whatever I want over $SECURE_PROTOCOL and at that point all they've done is specified data latency/speed tiers.

Unless they're specifically looking at discriminating based on protocol, I don't see why they just don't talk about realtime vs. streaming vs. download data priority tiers, which seems a lot simpler from an implementation standpoint, and a lot easier to stomach from a net neutrality standpoint. Maybe that's all they're talking about. But the way it's phrased it sounds very dependent on protocol, which I would say is very non-neutral, because it's only possible to implement if you have a whitelist of protocols, and it's pretty much impossible for the established players to fairly arbitrate which protocols are which. What is streaming video over http? https? What if I've got a VOIP app running over https? Web-based email? Pigeonholing a protocol into a data priority tier just doesn't make sense.

Unless you're deliberately trying to lock out innovative protocols.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So the sky isn't falling, Google isn't evil [yet]. Amazing how quickly people jump to conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER12> Doesn't anyone think that we elect politicians to decide precicley such things as whether there should be net-neutrality or not, rather than leave it to massive corporations to decide in their own interest.

All it takes is one sentence

No content should be prioritized by any internet service provider.

Hmm, maybe someone should make a Facebook page with that sentence. I hardly use Facebook myself, but seeing as this issue is quite in focus, it would probably get traction with some promotion and then you can get a newspaper saying 24,000 people have joined a facebook group called...</comment>


Useful Links for JavaScript Developers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yuandongzhong/useful-links-for-javascript <comment><USER2> This is not a valid Show HN. Please read the rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html). (I've taken "Show HN" out of the title now.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Dang, thanks for the comment. I read the rules twice, and I will avoid the same mistake next time ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> While I appreciate the intent of the post, I would encourage the OP to be at least a little more thorough before sharing -- this list is... sparse at best, and more accurately plain insufficient to be on the front page of HN. I certainly encourage everyone to collect their own curated list of critical resources at some point, (helps to find the ones that are most critical and specific to YOU) However in the meantime an actual good start for JS developers would be [https://github.com/sorrycc/awesome- javascript](https://github.com/sorrycc/awesome-javascript) or any of the other more specific awesome lists to be found on Github.

</comment><comment><USER4> Thought it was a gag on mobile.

All I could see was:

Google, Stack overflow, and GitHub.

(the list is longer once expanded ;))

<comment><AUTHOR> haha, did not try the mobile page...made my day though :)

<comment><USER5> I suggest you remove the 'Popular' section altogether. I'm sure no js developer no matter how noob needs to know where to find google, so or github. Having that section just signals "I'm more or less clueless". Not a good advert for a links resource..

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, it is going to be removed :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shout out to Frontend Masters with regards to Javascript and web development in general. Lots of high quality material from industry veterans and the content keeps getting updated frequently.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the idea. Fronted Masters is added to the list ;). If you have more good ideas, you're welcome to submit in the issue session on the Github page.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, if you have more good links to share to all of us, please consider to submit them in issue session of the Github page, since it is easier to manage everything there :)</comment>


Intel Officially Unveils NUC 9 Extreme Kit - <AUTHOR> https://wccftech.com/intel-officially-unveils-nuc-9-extreme-kit-the-ghost-canyon-nuc/ <comment><USER2> Offtopic, but slightly related: I'm looking into building a budget DIY all-in- one system by mounting a small form factor PC to the back of a monitor. It needs enough GPU power to run Zwift, and enough CPU power to be usable in Lightroom.

My plan:

* get a second hand 27" IPS monitor that has an unobstructed VESA mounting point

* Get ASRock DeskMini A300 chassis. It already comes with a STX motherboard and a power supply

* Put Ryzen 3200G, 8-16GB of SO-DIMM RAM and an appropriately sized SSD in it

* Mount the A300 to the monitor, done

Are there better / cheaper / more performant options?</comment>


Tell HN: Restyaboard versions to be codenamed after legendary music bands - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/RestyaPlatform/board/issues/1859 <comment><AUTHOR> Restyaboard is an open source alternative to Trello. Initial announcement [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9777199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9777199)</comment>


Arun Sarin on Leadership - Haas School - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMNIq-hb0B0

<comment><AUTHOR> This is by far one of the best talks on leadership I've come across in a while.</comment>


Scaler's share their tips on how they cracked the Google Coding Interview - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUjaofUW4Fk <comment><AUTHOR> Scaler Academy Alumini's Naman and Swapnil both had dreams of working with leading technology or product based companies. Here in this video, they talk about their journey and share useful tips on how to crack coding interviews at top product based companies.</comment>


The Long Tail of Dog Names - <AUTHOR> https://observablehq.com/@yurivish/the-long-tail-of-dog-names <comment><USER2> The "Googly Eyes" button is a work of art.

<comment><USER3> I didn't know how much I needed that laugh just now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My family had a German shepherd named "Duke" and a labrador named "Hershey". We're so predictable.

</comment><comment><USER5> Very cool. I've always wanted to do this analysis with our company's data set but never got around to it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting how the Shibe Inu's have Japanese names

This is all New York data so why do you think that is?

Seems more likely that people interested in Japan related things are buying and naming these dogs, less likely that it is Japanese owners, and nobody else is choosing these?

<comment><USER7> I think the simpler observation is that it's a Japanese breed name, so they pick a name that fits that. If you look at many of the other breeds, the most common name is clearly a riff on the breed:

Boxer -> Tyson

(Chocolate) labrador -> Hershey

Blue heeler -> Blue

Jack Russell terrier -> Jack

Chihuahua -> lots of Mexican names

King Charles spaniel -> Charlie

Pug -> Pugsly

Dachshund (weiner dog) -> Nathan (brand of hot dogs)

Boston terrier -> Buster (guessing this is because it's similar-sounding)

<comment><USER8> You missed English Bulldog -> Winston

<comment><USER7> Ah, good one!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "brooklyn"?!!! i'm guessing that one was the result of a very sparse data set rather than there actually being more than one dog named "brooklyn".

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking at the 2016 data, there are 203 registered dogs named Brooklyn. Curiously, only 90 of them live in Brooklyn.

Brooklyns: [https://gist.github.com/yurivish/326f64c439176f6d55f8d5528f1...](https://gist.github.com/yurivish/326f64c439176f6d55f8d5528f17b9dc)

You can find the full dataset here: [https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Health/NYC- Dog-Licensing-Datas...](https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Health/NYC-Dog- Licensing-Dataset/nu7n-tubp)

<comment><USER9> wow, okay, i'm surprised :) seems like a weird dog name, even for a new yorker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is broken for me in both Firefox for Android and Chrome for Windows. Any ideas what might be up?

<comment><USER11> The entire article is embedded external content with only a script tag -- all embedded in an iframe -- for some ungodly reason. The embedded page doesn't render when opened in another tab, even though I'm not blocking any of its Javascript.

Who made this design decision? This is awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tangent: pet licensing data (which basically means dog licenses), particularly names and breeds, is always something I've wanted to analyze for fun, especially across jurisdictions, but always ends up being a huge data wrangling exercise. But MuckRock has a nice collection of completed public records requests for cities across America:

[https://www.muckrock.com/foi/list/?q=pet+license&status=done...](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/list/?q=pet+license&status=done&user- autocomplete=&agency-autocomplete=&jurisdiction-autocomplete=&projects- autocomplete=&tags- autocomplete=&has_embargo=&has_crowdfund=&minimum_pages=&date_range_0=&date_range_1=&file_types=)

For example, Houston's data is a 90MB Excel spreadsheet with more than a million rows, and includes columns like pet color and vaccination dates:

[https://www.muckrock.com/foi/houston-113/houston-tx-pet- lice...](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/houston-113/houston-tx-pet-licensing- data-40240/)

</comment><comment><USER13> The breed names don't render in Firefox for some reason.

<comment><USER14> I sent Yuri a suggestion to fix this. (The problem is that Firefox doesn't resolve relative links from the textPath to the path element because of the page's base element, so you need absolute links instead.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just merged — thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> TLDR: kids name dogs</comment>


Uncoiling the spiral: Maths and hallucinations (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://plus.maths.org/content/uncoiling-spiral-maths-and-hallucinations <comment><USER2> Similar to the book titled "Psychedelic Information theory" (PDF available for free)

>Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason is an analysis of the physical mechanisms of hallucination, shamanic ritual, and expanded states of consciousness. By deconstructing systems of perception and memory, Psychedelic Information Theory quantifies the limits of expanded consciousness and describes the methods by which psychedelics alter consciousness, create new information, and affect human culture.

>By presenting these methods in physical terms, Psychedelic Information Theory offers a rational and objective model for shamanic transformation and therapy in modern clinical practice. Written by James L. Kent.

[http://psychedelic-information-theory.com/](http://psychedelic-information- theory.com/)</comment>


Don't Take Angel Investments From VCs - <AUTHOR> http://billburnham.blogs.com/burnhamsbeat/2010/02/dont-take-angel-investments-from-vcs.html <comment><USER2> the only way to stop this is to name the VCs</comment>


Three Management Pressures That Drive Poor Development Decisions - <AUTHOR> https://articles.buildbettersoftware.com/three-management-pressures-that-drive-poor-development-decisions-feb1d2bbbfd7#.135tsw55g <comment><AUTHOR> Describes what I deal with every day at work!</comment>


Lawsuit targeting MLB's blackout policy to proceed - <AUTHOR> http://sports.yahoo.com/news/lawsuit-targeting-mlb-s-blackout-policy-allowed-to-proceed-015544096.html

<comment><USER2> _"The antitrust lawsuit aimed at blowing up Major League Baseball's lucrative television-rights territories and forcing the league to abandon its antiquated blackout policy will proceed after a federal judge Wednesday affirmed the claims that MLB's media structure is anti-competitive."_

Wait, doesn't the MLB have some sort of a bizarre blanket exception on anti- competitive acts? Is the U.S. government finally looking to overturn that?</comment>


WhatsApp just dropped a bunch of hacking group NSO's IPs in their latest filing - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1253502213353361412 <comment><USER2> Interestingly, the NSO Group claims to not operate at all in the USA. I can imagine the geopolitical optics of why they might make that claim, but isn't it worse than that? With that claim as a pretext, this sounds like it meets every element of espionage, other than the requirement that the spying be detrimental to the USA's national security, and we don't know yet what data NSO Group was collecting or who they were targeting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22968839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22968839)

</comment><comment><USER4> (We changed the URL from [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1253502213353361412.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1253502213353361412.html))

<comment><USER5> How come? Was that not more readable?

<comment><USER4> Users are split on which they prefer. Also, the site guidelines call for original sources: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).</comment></comment></comment>


The 'Glass Floor' Is Keeping America's Richest Idiots at the Top - <AUTHOR> https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/the-glass-floor-is-keeping-americas-richest-idiots-at-the-top_n_5d9fb1c9e4b06ddfc516e076?ri18n=true <comment><USER3> "According to his LinkedIn profile, he is now an analyst for the private equity firm Blackstone. He is 22."

What does "he is 22" have to do with anything? He's joining as an analyst at the age that people join as analysts, right out of college. And the thing about his only experience being his family wealth fund is not correct - <USER2> his linkedin, he did a 3 month summer internship last year _at blackrock_ and presumably got a full time offer at the end of it. I don't understand how a rich kid getting a job as an analyst as a PE firm after doing a summer internship there is the most compelling example of people "failing up," especially in the context of the examples the rest of the article brings up (nepotism in the white house). This article is just so poorly written. An analyst position is an example of everything wrong with american capitalism? The fact that a guy that went to USC (maybe we should focus on how he got into university), the fact that a guy who went to university and interned at a firm then got an entry level job at the firm - that's a "glass floor?" The article acts as if it's shocking that someone with "two failed ventures" ends up as an analyst. If you have a successful venture, you're not going to start as an analyst! That's the bottom of the ladder! That's like an 85k base salary in NY + bonus - that's not a glass floor for a billionare! People make more money in their first year coming out of state school in tech jobs in NY, you ahve to move up the ladder to make real money, and blackstone isn't going to move him up the ladder if he doesn't do a good job. Yes, he always has his wealth fund to fall back to, but "rich people have intergenerational wealth to stay not poor" is not as compelling a headline as "rich people are stealing our jobs" I guess.</comment>


Show HN: IHazSpam – Temporary disposable email - <AUTHOR> https://ihazspam.ca <comment><AUTHOR> Long time reader here. I wanted for a long time to build and publish something, so here it goes.

I built a temporary disposable email service. The backend is coded in C# (.Net Core 1.1) and runs on a small Linux VPS. The database is Postgresql. I did not bother using Entity Framework as it was too much for this small project. I ended up using the Dapper micro-ORM. Everything is static with some Javascript for the dynamic parts. The content is served statically to keep resource usage low. I also coded the SMTP server myself.

The web is fronted by nginx which act as a static file server and proxies dynamic requests to the Kestrel app server.

Unlike similar sites, my service runs well on mobile browsers and supports embedded pictures and file attachments.

<comment><USER2> Very cool and fast.

Why not publish the code (or some parts)? You could increase the trust in your service.

I'll use it next time I need to register somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment.

I'll see for the source code, it is something which I've been thinking. I may eventually push it to github but I've not yet made my mind over this.

<comment><USER2> > I may eventually push it to github but I've not yet made my mind over this.

The code desn't have to perfect. Just to add some content about free software in your site.

Tweeter might help you too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You know, this is something that could be built as a "serverless" app for almost no cost using AWS services like SES, S3, Lambda, and DynamoDB. I'm sure that the VPS doesn't cost much, but it's a cost whether anyone is visiting the site or not.

Edit: Didn't mean to sound negative, so I hope it doesn't come across that way. Good job on building something! I've been struggling with that myself and these types of posts motivate me to _just build something_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Possibly yes; but I'm really not familiar at all with Amazon's multiple services. I wanted to be up and running as fast as possible. Day job is old school ASP.NET WebForms stuff so I was already familiar with .Net tooling.

The VPS cost 5$ per month. If this gets some traffic, I might put some ads on it or use the same VPS for other things.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should I learn to be competitive in the next five years? - <AUTHOR> About me: I've been working for the last 7 years for a Fortune 400 off-shore after completing my degree in computer science. It's been a smooth time, I guess I have been good in my position; my time has been spent developing C#, .net websites, little bit of Javascript, TSQL and PL/SQL (although it's getting rusty). On my time I got into the "I'm going to get rich developing for iPhone" wagon but it did never materialize on a successful project, I did also built an EFI around the Arduino with custom shields, maybe one of the projects I've like the most even tough "it's not my field".
What I like to do: Creating the shields, playing with Eagle CAD, learning the basic electronics, and get into a challenging project would describe what I would like to keep doing.
Why do I ask:
I were interviewed for another position within the company but the "new" tendencies of IT are not something I am proficient at, I have liked more frameworks, creating APIs and back end development. Should I jump into learning all the "new framework"-javascript, htmlX, <insert any new framework>, should I keep working on improve what I already do/like?
Language? Framework? Area of knowledge (math, physics, law??).
Thanks! <comment><USER2> > Should I jump into learning all the "new framework"-javascript, htmlX, > <insert any new framework>, should I keep working on improve what I already > do/like?

You may learn other things, but stick to what you know and specialize.

\- You know C#, probably you could learn game development with Unity as it also uses C#. Game development has been in the churn due to VR. That's something that might be good in the next 5 years.

\- You could push your JS knowledge a bit further then learn TypeScript, a superset of JS that eerily looks like C#. In addition, WebAssembly (imagine binary executable payloads over the web) is in the works - which means you can use any language (as long as it compiles to web assembly) to make stuff.

\- If you go the electronics route, JS is also in the hardware and IoT (internet of things) business. There's the Tessel, a JS-powered hardware platform similar to Arduino.

I suggest not diving into hype-driven stuff. Go for the stuff that sounds very impossible at the moment, learn, and master it. That's what happened with JS during my time, calling it a "toy language". Look where it is now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Learn to be less competitive, "go through the big gate around the side nobody seems to notice, instead of trying to squeeze through the small door everyone is vying for."

Be different. Watch Peter Thiel. Competition is for losers, don't you know?

</comment><comment><USER4> Any details about your EFI (I'm trying to figure out what that is). Sounds like you like the hardware side of things, IoT is (I think) a risky place to be right now, but everybody says that is going to change in the coming years.

I think it is going to be incredibly valuable for companies to have somebody that can span both the software and hardware engineering, and it sounds to me like that is where your interests lie.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a side project I started because I couldn't get the carburetors on my gs500 to work properly... so I said how hard can it be? The project consist of a set of shields to interface with the electronics; a harness to connect the shield to the different components and the Arduino program that control delivery of fuel to a engine as well as reading a lambda sensor, controlling a fuel pump and read the throttle sensor. Right now even when I got it to work reliable I stopped the project momentarily due to a gas station that filled my tank with bad gas killing the lambda sensor. It's on my bucket list to get it to work with industrial quality.

"I think it is going to be incredibly valuable for companies to have somebody that can span both the software and hardware engineering, and it sounds to me like that is where your interests lie."

You may be right, it's kinda difficult in my case due to market limitations on my country (Guatemala) but I think I would like on that environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do what you are interested in.

</comment><comment><USER6> Find out what problems worth solving is better approach than what technology to pick up. So what problem what you like to solve in 5 years, and start solving it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Pretty simple, you should have the ability to learn and reinvent yourself.</comment>


The Decline of the English Language - <AUTHOR> http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/its-only-language-mangled-language/#more-8

<comment><USER2> How does a natural language _decline?_</comment>


Pod Bay Doors - Super simple sliding divs - <AUTHOR> http://experiments.rodriguezcommaj.com/podbaydoors/index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Fairly new to Javascript and jQuery, just scratching an itch for some sliding divs on my own. Everything (all 33 lines of it) written by me. I may eventually develop it into a full jQuery plugin, but with some more experience under my belt first.

<comment><USER2> The github url is mistyped. should be <https://github.com/rodriguezcommaj/PodBayDoor>, not <https://github.com/rodriguezcommaj/PodBayDoors>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the catch, updated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd like to see this without the jQuery dependency.

<comment><AUTHOR> Still new to some of this stuff, but I can take a crack at it. Would definitely be excellent practice to figure out what's going on in vanilla js. I'll post it if I can do it.</comment></comment>


New CO2 Sucker Could Help Clear the Air - <AUTHOR> http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/01/new-co2-sucker-could-help-clear-.html?ref=hp <comment><USER2> 1\. What's its carbon footprint?

2\. How do these artificial trees compare to natural trees?</comment>


Launching BSDjobs.com (with a job post from Reyk Flöter) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bsdjobs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've just launched the site and—what a coincidence—Reyk Flöter has started looking for a developer for a new project (in Zurich, non-remote). Please contact Reyk, if you're available or can recommend a friend.

Thank you!</comment>


Firefox Add-on Enables Web Development Across Browsers and Devices - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/09/firefox-tools-adapter/

<comment><USER2> Kudos to Mozilla for tackling a huge pain point (having to learn three sets of dev tools because each browser speaks its own protocol sucks).

I'm most familiar with the WebKit/Chrome Dev Tools, and found this awesome project via Mozilla's post:

[https://github.com/google/ios-webkit-debug- proxy](https://github.com/google/ios-webkit-debug-proxy)

If it works as advertised, it'll let you connect to iOS browsers from Chrome Dev Tools. Honestly, I'm surprised they don't have a version of this compiled into Chrome for iOS.

<comment><USER3> If you're on Windows I've been able to do this with Telerik's AppBuilder ([http://docs.telerik.com/platform/appbuilder/debugging- your-c...](http://docs.telerik.com/platform/appbuilder/debugging-your- code/debugging-on-device/prerequisites-for-debugging#ios-requirements))

It opens up a Webkit Dev Tools that are pretty close to the latest Chrome version and lets you interact with Safari on iOS. Even highlights elements the same as desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a port of ios-webkit-debug-proxy for Win32:

[https://github.com/artygus/ios-webkit-debug-proxy- win32](https://github.com/artygus/ios-webkit-debug-proxy-win32)

So in theory, the Firefox Tools Adapter should also be capable of debugging Safari iOS in Windows

<comment><USER5> Thanks - we're definitely interested in Windows support and will take a look at this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know I'm probably the only one but I really wish they'd have Dev Tools that you can use on the device instead of remote debugging. Especially on Tablets and Set-top boxes.

<comment><USER7> If you have a Mac, you can use the remote web inspector for iOS, it works pretty well.

[http://moduscreate.com/enable-remote-web-inspector-in- ios-6/](http://moduscreate.com/enable-remote-web-inspector-in-ios-6/)

<comment><USER8> I think you misunderstood what he is asking about. He wants to debug locally on a tablet or a set-top box. The method you mentioned is remote debugging, something he explicitly wishes not to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been working on something similar this year ([https://www.entomic.com](https://www.entomic.com)) that helps developers build cross-browser, responsive sites.

As an editor, all changes update immediately on all connected browsers and devices as they're being made to help see when things start going wrong.

Although it doesn't support javascript yet, all HTML and CSS changes do get pushed instantly to connected devices without the need to host a local server.

<comment><USER10> If you don't mind me asking, why did you choose to use a subscription model instead of a license that allows customers to own the app and just pay for updates if they need them? The subscription fee makes me hesitant to even try it. I like owning my tools, not renting them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If this was the Chrome dev tools I'd be very very happy.</comment>


Every Death on Every U.S. Road 2004-2013 - <AUTHOR> http://metrocosm.com/map-every-fatal-traffic-accident-in-the-u-s-2004-2013/ <comment><USER2> By the way, this looks exactly like a population map.

<comment><USER3>
        You may be thinking this map shows the same patterns you would see in
        a population density map. And you'd be right. But more details appear
        as you zoom in.</comment></comment>


Cubic SDR – Cross-Platform Software-Defined Radio Application - <AUTHOR> http://www.cubicsdr.com <comment><USER2> Worth noting that while it's cross-OS, it's not cross-SDR. At the moment it only supports RTL-SDR. If you have a HackRF or Airspy or the like you're out of luck.

Definitely cool though, it's great to see work on something nicer than Gqrx that'll actually run on platforms other than Windows.

<comment><USER3> Progress for all devices is currently being made on the "soapysdr-support" branch -- which should now work with everything supported by GrOsmoSDR plus my new SDRPlay driver and additional modules like Ettus USRP and BladeRF supplied by pothosware. SoapySDR supports using any of these device remotely over a network as well and SoapyRemote has reached a usable state.</comment></comment>


Academic Drivel Report: Confessing my sins and exposing my academic hoax - <AUTHOR> http://prospect.org/article/academic-drivel-report <comment><USER2> This reminds me to kick in with my own achievement: Three years ago I published a hoax article that was accepted _and published_ in one of Thomson Reuters indexed journals.

For a good laugh, take a look at the copy freely available here: [https://www.scribd.com/doc/167706815/EVALUATION-OF- TRANSFORM...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/167706815/EVALUATION-OF- TRANSFORMATIVE-HERMENEUTIC-HEURISTICS-FOR-PROCESSING-RANDOM-DATA)

I wrote a serious analysis of that hoax (including motivation) and published it in a proper journal. Unfortenately, it is behind a paywall, but that is what sci-hub.io is for: [http://link.springer.com.sci- hub.io/article/10.1007/s11948-0...](http://link.springer.com.sci- hub.io/article/10.1007/s11948-014-9521-4)

<comment><USER3> My favorite part is the pictures.

<comment><USER2> Damn youngsters! Nobody reads the text anymore...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If the true purpose of academic hierarchy is for wealthy elites to compete through the status of affiliation, especially with whomever has the most fashionable, progressive opinions and presents them in the most esoteric and obfuscated way yet can still have others call it "art," then most of the bad behavior of this post seems to just be rational business on the part of the academics.

As much as we like to _talk_ about rewarding academics for actually making breakthroughs that have positive effects in the lives of most others, that is all just talk. Want we really want is to collect academics like they are elusive Pokemon cards ... the more obscure their abilities, the better, as long as they can be plausibly connected to whatever cause, regime, or attitude is favored in the in-group where that academic's works wield influence.

<comment><USER5> As an academic trainee in the life sciences, I am curious to know if you are positing this question across all disciplines.

<comment><USER4> My personal belief is that it is a significant effect across all disciplines, but that the objective nature of some disciplines offers occasional ways to combat it.

My own academia experiences were in machine learning and image processing, and even there it was a heavy competition for demo ware. All ideas were basically vetted for their plausibility of leading to a TED talk or a conference keynote demo. If you proposed something or showed passion for something, but it wasn't clear that you could talk it about it while wearing a black turtleneck, then it got rejected pretty quickly. Little if any time was ever given to whether the fundamental questions were good ones or whether their answers constituted value-adding directions for humanity to move in. And don't even get me started on teaching. I once got yelled at by an adviser because I spent the time to write up my recitation notes for my probability students in TeX, instead of just scanning my unreadable hand-written notes. Good luck convincing them that investing time into _how_ to teach something is worthwhile.

The process of moving past qualifying exams did include some objective hurdles of study (sort of quality control for the university's or department's brand) but it largely consisted of convincing certain key status figures that you were On Their Team and would be a good spokesperson for the sorts of positions and ideas they most wanted to affiliate with.

It will surely vary by discipline, geography, political climate, etc. But I think this is the dominant reason why we have academics at all. I do not think that the well-worn stories about funding fundamental research for society's benefit are even remotely true.

<comment><USER6> I can assure you that many others are toiling away in areas that could not plausibly lead to a TED talk. It's not all show-and-tell prestidigitation, but some areas are heavier in that regard than others -- like machine learning, for instance.

Your response is rational, however, in its critique of many fields and forums. I'd like you not, however, to denigrate the incredible sacrifices being made by researchers in all fields of study. Of course, the snake-oil rules the day at the moment, but those are just the most vocal and observable of workers, and they cast the rest in an unfortunate and undeserved light. The startup world, in many ways, shares a large responsibility for this perniciousness, as institutions all vie with press releases for investment and donation money more now than ever before with the goal of reaping short-term profits in the marketplace.

<comment><USER4> While some fields have higher-end media outlets like TED talks or infotainment-style demoware, or like Richard Thaler's role in the recent movie _The Big Short_ , other fields might have less sensationalist outlets like a Senate subcommittee hearing, a scientific press release, or inclusion in a documentary film or important literary outlet -- and any of these can lead to follow-on speaking engagements or invitations as an academic adviser or dignitary in various circumstances. And even in the case of Senate hearings, it's often _not_ about accuracy or objectivity, but instead about Supporting The Correct Team.

The point is not what is the maximum media exposure of a given field. The point is that in _any_ field, there is a small elite class who mostly controls (as cultural gatekeepers) the ability for lower-status and aspiring researchers to advance, much like party politics. They form networks of editorial boards, committees for awarding tenure, and have nebulous connections through upper management of academia, corporate boards, endowments, politics, and celebrities. Yes it can vary by field, but you see the same pattern either at a big scale or a smaller scale.

I certainly believe many researchers enter the research profession with pure motives. But it is the ones who quickly learn to sublimate their desire for intellectually rigorous research and social betterment in favor of political skills who naturally rise to the gatekeeper positions.

Sadly, the pure and highly impressive research labor of a lot of these lower- status academics is just pure waste. I don't mean to denigrate the academics for this -- their motives are pure; they are just operating in a rigged system where the only means to significant success is to "wise up" and realize that the best "product" you can provide is to sort of auction off the ability to affiliate with you by sublimating yourself to someone's coalition in exchange for resources and notoriety provided by that coalition.

<comment><USER7> > it is the ones who quickly learn to sublimate their desire for > intellectually rigorous research and social betterment in favor of political > skills who naturally rise to the gatekeeper positions.

Nevermind just academia. Sadly, what you've just described neatly sums up modern work life in most _organizations_ (companies, non-profits, open source, etc.) that I've been a part of.

Startups may sometimes be an exception to this rule, but they often come with their own set of problems (frat house atmosphere, ageism, zero diversity, expectations of 80+ hour weeks, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _I assume the panel was successful, although I never heard from the > organizer or any of the other panelists inquiring why I didn't make it._

It would be interesting to know what the organizers themselves thought of the abstract, because the editors' response to the Sokal article was quite amazing [1, 2].

[1] [http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/SocialText_reply_LF.pdf](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/SocialText_reply_LF.pdf)

[2] [http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/reply.html](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/reply.html)

<comment><USER9> I've read about this incident before, and as someone who transitioned from the 'hard' sciences (specifically semiconductor engineering) to the 'soft' or social sciences (specifically education and economics) it has been a bit disquieting.

First, for Dr. Sokal, I am a bit...bemused or surprised I guess I would say...at what seems like a quite childish simplification and overall process. This was not a peer review journal, as is implied in most coverage of the incident. Further, I strongly suspect (as I have seen from my former colleagues when I discuss my new field with them) Sokal showed an enormous amount of hubris (as Robbins and Ross note "What Sokal's confession most altered was our perception of his own good faith as a self-declared leftist...On the other hand, we recognize that professional scientists like Sokal do feel that their beliefs and their intellectual integrity are threatened by the diverse work done in the field of science studies"). To attempt to speak ill of a field you know little about and yet still find to be trivial or unrigorous is puzzilingly tactless and embarrassingly presumptuous. It is a bit as if Sokal found himself laughing at the naked emperor, unaware that it was a mirror.

Second, I have always wondered what about what this incident, and its references, says about other disciplines understanding and approach to social sciences and fields like philosophy and psychology. We tend to have a natural search for truth as scientists...one of the fundamental questions though is what is meant by truth and, further, what is the interrelationship between a truth and the context in which it is observed? Engineering colleagues I have look at the fact that things are rethought, changed, dismissed, in conflict, can't be confirmed, etc. is seen as a flaw whereas I see it a reality. Much of the social sciences is closer to the quantum domain. True social experiments are difficult or legally/ethically untennable. When they are conducted, they are often conducted in ways that try to minimize outside variables...but reality isn't that simple. Human beings don't share a universal 'ground state' from which decisions or behaviors emminate.

<comment><USER10> This is symptomatic of the postmodernist nonsense that Sokal pointed out.

1\. Politicising what ought to be science: "What Sokal's confession most altered was our perception of his own good faith as a self-declared leftist".

2\. Claiming that people outside the field are unable to understand that it's drivel: "To attempt to speak ill of a field you know little about and yet still find to be trivial or unrigorous is puzzilingly tactless and embarrassingly presumptuous".

3\. Pulling up the smoke screen that truth is subjective: "We tend to have a natural search for truth as scientists...one of the fundamental questions though is what is meant by truth and, further, what is the interrelationship between a truth and the context in which it is observed?"

4\. Using scientific terms in a nonsensical way: "the social sciences is closer to the quantum domain"

Postmodernism is a blight upon the human intellect that is not only destroying the social sciences but increasingly also politics.

<comment><USER11> I have no love for postmodernism, but this seems at least mildly unfair. Sokal's initiating action was entirely political. Responding by saying that Sokal hurt himself more than anyone else is a decent strategy, and might be true too, but it's not a symptom of postmodernism.

Claiming that people outside a field don't understand is a symptom of academics, and of most groups of humans, but it is not something in any way unique to postmodernism.

<comment><USER12> Further, claiming that any field you don't understand is worthless gibberish is also pretty common.

<comment><USER13> Claiming it with the rigor that Sokal has is not common.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is always going to be a fringe where bad papers get published and bad conference admissions accepted. Regularly the CS colloquem gets speakers who do not know what they are talking about and should not be there.

The CS people are really polite, the only people who will ask them hard questions are the refugees from the physics department. Even though we are not speaking terms anymore sometimes I team up with the meanest physicist in the world to methodically disassemble such a speaker like two crabs on a starfish.

Your story shares a lot with the "imposter syndrome" in that you are failing to internalize the achievement because it is fake, you are a fake, etc.

L Ron Hubbard wrote some crazy books and managed to wreck the lives of millions. Donald Trump could be president. There are far worse scandals than anything here

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of a winner of the World's Worst Sentence award:

>"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power."

<comment><USER16> Can you translate this for me? What in the hell is this about?

<comment><USER17> Sure. This is actually a pretty standard summary of the shift away from structuralist social theories.

Social structures tend to be pretty stable: the same people and forces stay in power for a while. How should we think about that stability?

One way is to imagine that society is like a building: a solid structure that preserves those people and forces in power. It's stable because it's rigid, and time doesn't affect it much.

But there's a second option. Think of a standing wave in a river, like the kind that whitewater kayakers like to surf on: it's not rigid at all, but it's still "stable," welling up continually at the same spot.

So is our society structured like a building, or like a standing wave?

If we go with the standing wave idea, that brings up a lot of new questions. We start wondering about dynamics, flow and motion. We also start wondering about the river bottom: is there a big rock under there causing the wave, or does it just happen to emerge from the otherwise random arrangement of smaller rocks?

<comment><USER13> 2000 years on, and we are still arguing over the _Ship of Theseus_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice that not turning up was the perfect way to deliver a talk "On the Absence of Absences."

<comment><USER19> Yes, I loved this quote:

        I even allowed myself to ponder the possibility
        that all of them were absent

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> i commented on the scihub article(o) posted earlier today by suggesting a possible solution to the issues that research publication is facing right now

the idea is to build a marketplace for peer review around an open publication, alike arxiv.org, that confers reputation and encourages multiple reviews

if a person hires a peer reviewer to review their work or someone else's, but you are skeptical of the review, you can hire a reviewer that you respect to do an independent review, one which could uphold or dispute the original review, or even illuminate some further clarification

such a community would address the issue of these 'hoax' and convoluted papers directly

(o) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11177957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11177957)

</comment><comment><USER21> A lot of this could be due to a poor diet. The author or anybody in a similar situation should look into this as well. Eat less carbs to avoid insulin swings, etc. It's amazing how a better diet can affect your mood.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's a Glass Bead Game. [1] One of my favorites.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game)

</comment><comment><USER23> Here's a direct link to Sokal's original paper, which is an incredibly amusing read if you get his references: [http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2...](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html)

<comment><USER13> If anyone is only familar with Sokal for his _Social Text_ hoax, you owe it to yourself to check out his book _Fashionable Nonsense_ (originally published in French as _Impostures Intellectuelles_ ).

While Sokal's hoax exposed inadequacies in _Social Text_ (and similar journals), his book is _far_ more damning. In it he exposes numerous French philosophers/'intellectuals' for the misuse and abuse of scientific and mathematic concepts and terms to obscure the meaning of their texts. The examples he presents range from plausibly the consequence of well-meaning ignorance, to inexcusable outright quackery. Some of his examples may seem like pedantic nitpicking of flowery poetic language, but much of it is truly damning.

Excerpt from the introduction:

> Some readers will no doubt think that we are taking these texts too > seriously. That is true, in some sense. But since these texts _are_ taken > seriously by many people, we think that they deserve to be analyzed with the > greatest rigor. In some cases we have quoted rather long passages, at the > risk of boring the reader, in order to show that we have not misrepresented > the meaning of the text by pulling sentences out of context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The tech world is not immune from such drivel too. YCombinator is likely inudated with half baked startup ideas, a copy of a copy of an existing app, or a group of 20-somethings trying to slve another trivial problem of 20-something existance.

</comment><comment><USER25> Chicken chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken _chicken_ chicken chickens.

[https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf](https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf)

<comment><USER26> Chicken: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This reminds me of Neal Stephenson's description of "War as Text" in "Cryptonomicon" just a bit too much.

</comment><comment><USER28> TIL "agnotology", "the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt".

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

</comment><comment><USER29> "I not only wanted to see if I could fool the panel organizers and get my paper accepted, I also wanted to pull the curtain on the absurd pretentions of some segments of academic life."

He really should have added "...within my sociology department." He has a high opinion of himself if he thinks he can speak for academia in its entirety. Also, obviously this guy takes his academic reputation, job and profession not seriously at all:

<comment><USER30> No, not obvious at all. If you took the trouble to confront the points he makes instead of hand waving you might have something to contribute to this discussion.

"<<Most>> of their attacks are off-base, but there is a <<grain of truth>> in their claims. Academics who believe in the mission of higher education—teaching, research, and public service—need to defend academic freedom, but <<some>> of our colleagues have to clean up their acts, because it is difficult to defend the indefensible."</comment></comment>


Blogs for Online Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://freelancefolder.com/20-must-read-blogs-for-online-entrepreneurs/

<comment><USER2> This type of stuff gets voted up here all the time, and I don't really get it. If you need someone else to tell you how to be an entrepreneur, you're doing it wrong.

Imagine Ty Warner trying to find online gurus to guide his cloth animal business, sold through mom and pop stores...

<comment><USER3> You're comparing apples to oranges. If this really is the case, then Jessica Livingston would have never written "Founders at Work" - a fantastic read for any online entrepreneur

When it comes to the specific group of online entrepreneurs, the ideas may be different, but the EXECUTION has a lot of similarities - from funding to coding to hosting to design to monetization..........there's a lot to be learnt from those who went before us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lost some credibility putting ValleyWag on the list - especially alongside Dharmesh Shah, Fred Wilson, Eric Ries, etc.

<comment><USER5> Also, would you call this site a blog?

<comment><USER6> No, I would call this a news aggregator. The two-way communication that characterize blogs is a big improvement over traditional media. But blogs still have two classes of participants: a few people with permissions to post and comment, and everybody else who can only comment. This site is more of a small-d-democratic facilitator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can we have a tighter criteria for voting up posts that are just lists please.

There's actually a sentence in there where he describes a blog as "very financially, technically."

<comment><USER7> I should note that the author must be reading this since #15's description has been updated

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Though they have mentioned ycombinator, I would say PG's essays is one of the best resource.

</comment><comment><USER3> Where is Techcrunch?

Even worse, why is valleywag on this list? If anything, this site does more harm than good for startup founders (by spewing baseless venomous hatred about them)

</comment><comment><USER9> I slowed when I got to Guy Kawasaki (interested in startups but with no direct experience, contrary to popular belief) and cringed when I saw Scobleizer (same story as Guy), and stopped flat when I got to Seth Godin. Seth's got interesting things to say on occasion, but to real startup work, he's all but useless.

And then -- ValleyWag? Seriously?</comment>


Develop a Form in One Minute - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@danielwxx/develop-a-form-in-one-minute-1b2b16fcad95 <comment><USER2> "Optimize the gender field: _pick one of two_ , the best choice is radio"

Risky design choice in today's environment.</comment>


Linux Journal at 25 - <AUTHOR> https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-25 <comment><USER2> I've sadly not kept up with Linux Journal, but for the stretch of a couple years when I was in grad school and during my first job it was immensely helpful. It used to be you could get buy the print copy in New York's Penn Station, and I would get it going back home on the train after an evening spent at the CS lab. LJ helped expand my awareness about Linux and the free software.

Congratulations, and thanks to putting together such a great resource!

</comment><comment><USER3> Not quite 20 years ago, but finding Linux Journal at the local bookstore proved to my boss that "Linux was legit"

</comment><comment><USER4> Happy birthday! I wonder what the economics of a publication like this are. Are reader numbers and ad prices still good enough?

I guess we'll never get back to the days of Amiga Format's crazy high reader numbers but I'm hopeful that there's room for a magazine resurgence.

Paying for content that doesn't track you or have intrusive ads ... where you're less likely to find content marketing ... really appeals to me. I greatly value my Economist subscription.

<comment><USER5> > I wonder what the economics of a publication like this are. Are reader > numbers and ad prices still good enough?

They were in very bad shape just a little over a year ago. They had decided to cease publication, but got rescued by the parent company of Private Internet Access:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15826220](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15826220)

I wonder if they've made changes since then and if those changes have helped increase profits.

<comment><USER6> I subscribed to them since the mid 90s but stopped once they went digital only. Not sure how many they lost doing that but for me at least having it on paper was the one thing that made it valuable to me as a subscription. High quality articles on different subjects regarding linux have been available online for free for quite a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Our next big change came in 2011, when we moved to all-digital publishing, because newsstand bookstores were dying (goodbye Borders), and the cost of printing became impossibly high.

Gah. That brings back bad memories. When I moved to this area in 2011, there were _five_ Borders within a 20 mile radius of me. They all closed within six months of my moving here. B&N and Books-a-Million are pale imitations.

<comment><USER8> In recent years, across Europe I have seen large bookshops, even the flagship stores of once-serious chains, become largely empty. Where once densely packed shelves lined the walls and formed aisles, now there are half-empty shelves along the walls with just a handful of books scattered on them. The space in between is dedicated almost entirely to what I would call hipster accoutrements: vinyl records, Moleskine notebooks, fancy teapots, Kikkerland products, etc. Personally, I don't get how these shops stay profitable. They seem to be renting a huge amount of space, presumably expensive, and not actually using most of it.

In any event, going back to the topic here, those bookshops have often done away with magazines entirely. Thus, Linux Journal couldn't have sold their mag in bookstores even when some bookstores are still around.

<comment><USER9> Flagship stores don't really make money. They're there as advertising that hopefully pays for itself. Making money in retail is determined by the efficiency of distribution and supply chain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Stumbling across the December '98 issue of Linux Journal in the Tower Records store across from the UT Austin campus was kind of a transformative moment for me. :) Resubscribed just for that sense of nostalgia alone.

<comment><USER10> And now, having looked through the online archives you get access to as a subscriber, I realize my memory was faulty. It was the November issue with Guido on the cover!

 _nostalgias in intense greybeard_ The other holy shit moment I had with linux was installing slackware from a pile of repurposed AOL floppies. Ah, good times...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Happy Birthday - Many fond memories of reading Linux Journal on holidays when I was younger (early 2000's) which was formative for my career (even if my family thought it was a bit strange at the time)

</comment><comment><USER12> My ten year subscription is going to end soon, while I'm not really reading LJ much these days I still plan to renew to show the support.

I also hope LWN can produce a monthly PDF/mobi/epub for its subscribers. I will click it from my inbox as there are too many websites to visit daily.

It's hard to make everyone happy, is LJ for beginners? sys admins? experienced users? At the moment it is trying to get everyone some info useful.

</comment><comment><USER13> My career as a technical writer began 15 years ago with an article that I wrote for Linux Journal. I'm glad that they were able to work out their financial issues and find new sponsorship to sustain them.

</comment><comment><USER14> I unsubscribed when the editor in chief was replaced in around 2000 (can't remember the exact year). It became more "political" and "business" and less "hacker"

</comment><comment><USER15> I wish them all the best... Unfortunately I kept in a year after they stopped print publication. Though may give it another shot with my tablet at home.

</comment><comment><USER16> A happy subscriber here. Happy birthday!

</comment><comment><USER17> Happy Birthday, I have been a subscriber since the early days, thanks for lessons learned.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is the very first issue available online somewhere?</comment>


Ask HN: Sources of historical HN-type discussion during past tech bubbles? - <AUTHOR> I am interested in reading raw, unedited "intelligent" tech discussion similar to HN during past events such as the dot-com bubble, for personal interest and education. I want to get an idea of the genuine state of discussion during these events without any kind of hindsight bias - what predictions were being made, how were people justifying valuations, were people warning about overvaluation, etc. What interesting sources are there for this? <comment><USER2> Aside from slashdot, various Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists. May not seem obvious but AOL had a number of moderated discussion areas, as did CI$ and Fidonet. Not sure if any of those are archived.

If you're looking for finance (valuations and business models) discussions I'd look into Yahoo Finance and other day trading boards of the era.

A lot of the trade publications vaporized in the resulting implosion, including their archives. Industry Standard was the best business of technology magazine, maybe Wired but it was more fanboi. Internet World wasn't too bad but started imploding early (maybe 1999).

</comment><comment><USER3> Slashdot is the only big one I can think of that would still be around.</comment>


Show HN: Duoscreen – Your Laptop's Missing Half - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1740411623/duoscreen-your-laptops-missing-half?ref=nav_search

<comment><USER2> What the actual... Either have multiple displays on your desk or take your laptop with you. I really enjoy not to take tons of stuff with me every day.</comment>


Ananasa - Home for Handmade - <AUTHOR> http://www.ananasa.com Shop for custom & unique handmade items from the Middle East. Support the local, aspiring community in the region by purchasing directly from aspiring artists/designers & crafters. Discover all those handmade gems at a click of a button. <comment><AUTHOR> Shop & Browse... what are the funkiest e-commerce site you've come across?</comment>


"Facebook knew my Modem router admin password." - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/fdo494/facebook_knew_my_modem_router_admin_password/ <comment><AUTHOR> Going through the comments, I didn't find any explanation other than "facebook monitors your clipboard."</comment>