Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/08/gmail-blacklisted-by-spamhaus.html <comment><USER2> I work at Yahoo! and we've been blacklisted as well by Spamhaus. I wouldn't say it's entirely inappropriate because of the sheer volume of email that can pass through our (or in this case Gmail's) system.

Personally, I've tried to reach out to Google regarding security issues on blogspot which were affecting our property. There was an XSS vulnerability and we were getting thousands of posts on our blog linking to blogspot which would in turn redirect the user to some pharma site.

It's been months and they haven't really made any progress other than put me in contact with various people who don't respond to email.

If that's how they deal with an open XSS I can only imagine how fast they move to deal with spam like this.

Disclaimer: This isn't a post bashing Google and praising Yahoo - just the only experiences I've had to contribute to this post :).

<comment><USER3> If you blacklist the mechanism by which tens of percentage points worth of Internet users send mail, you are not part of the solution to spam.

<comment><USER4> I know the google fanboys will hate this, but the problem is letting _just anyone_ or just any _machine_ create an account and use your service. It's google's responsibility to can the spam coming from their domain. Google doesn't care though. If they make it harder to get a gmail account, then they make it harder to spam their "legitimate" users with advertisements and why would they want to do that?

If you are a company that provides spamming capabilities to anyone and everyone, then it is _exactly_ valid to add them to a spam list.

You could say, "Plenty of legitimate users use gmail." Fine, maybe so, but if you are someone who uses gmail, you are surrounded by a cadre of spammers and should understand your credibility is instantly devalued.

Birds of a feather flock together. The solution is to stop using gmail.com.

A VERY VERY high percentage of spam in my inbox comes from gmail accounts. If tens of percentages points of spam is sent from a domain, then it's valid to add them to the list of spamming domains.

<comment><USER5> > Fine, maybe so, but if you are someone who uses gmail, you are surrounded by > a cadre of spammers and should understand your credibility is instantly > devalued.

"My credibility"? When I send my mom an email, I expect her to get it. When she sends me one, I expect to get it.

>Birds of a feather flock together.

Yes, because I am a spammer.</sarcasm>

If gmail has a lot of spammers using their service, they should address this. But the suggestion that those caught in the crossfire should know better is one of the more frustrating things about black-listers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Spamhaus is the most rabid group of extreme anti-spammer teenagers out there (or at least they act like teenagers).

I've had various SMTP servers (for various companies) blocked by them, usually for very questionable reasons. You used to have to argue with them on their forum (and take a beating from all of the kids on that site) before they'd remove you.

The result is that SMTP admins get it from both sides: Spammers make your life hard, rabid blackhole lists combatting spammers make your life even harder.

<comment><USER7> Google are no better.

I can't send email to gmail addresses -- well sometimes I can and sometimes I can't -- because Google (sometimes) says of my server:

      Our system has detected an unusual rate of
        550-5.7.1 unsolicited mail originating from your IP address. To protect our
        550-5.7.1 users from spam, mail sent from your IP address has been blocked.

This is complete bullshit. We have SPFs in DNS. We don't relay, and have had this independently tested.

We send tiny amounts (3 or 4 a week) of mainly personal email to gmail addresses.

Who do I contact to sort this? Who knows? Google has no point of contact.

So I'm happy for Google to have a taste of their own medicine. And my opinion of them is a rabid group of extreme anti-spammer teenagers.

<comment><USER8> Did you contact using the delivery form at [http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=m...](http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=msgdelivery) and still get no response?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> ... but wholesale DNS-based blacklisting could never blow up in our faces. Noooooo sir.

<comment><USER9> What do you mean by 'wholesale DNS-based blacklisting'?

<comment><USER3> Paul Vixie has proposed an extension to the DNS that would have relay cache servers (the servers you ask for generic name lookups) store blacklists of evil domains. Anything blacklisted would, in effect, disappear from the Internet (for normal users).

<comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, what would a `smart person' have to do to get all the domains back if this ever took root?

<comment><USER11> An clean version of the DNS lookup table, of some sort.

An IP will do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like it might be biting off a bit more than they can chew.

Given the choice between the service Spamhaus' list provides, and being able to receive mail from what's undoubtedly one of the largest webmail providers in the world ( _the_ biggest?), a lot of people are going to can Spamhaus.

I'd hope that Google will react by doing something about the spam, but they could much more easily do nothing, put out some recommendation that people stop using Spamhaus, and a lot of people will be forced to do just that (or Spamhaus will blink and un-blacklist Google). They're the 800-pound gorilla in this particular match; Spamhaus isn't a lightweight but I wouldn't put any money on them in that fight.

<comment><USER13> Google isn't even close to the biggest email provider (by some sources both Yahoo and Microsoft are more than twice their size)... but your point stands :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Oh Spamhaus, everybody who's ever had the joy of operating an SMTP agent loves them.

<comment><USER15> Just a little anecdote about how good spamhaus really is. I used to co-locate in Toronto, right next door to a bunch of heavy duty spammers. It so happened that there was a class C split in to three subsections, two of them belonged to the spammer and a tiny 16 host range in the middle that belonged to us.

Spamhaus figured this all out by themselves and took great care not to cause any collateral damage while going after the spammers. Pretty impressive, especially since that would have been very hard to figure out from the outside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The report website at Spamhaus: <http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/sbl.lasso?query=SBL95011>

Some more (older): <http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings.lasso?isp=google.com>

</comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone know if this affects Postini?

We've switched once already this month - our new office was assigned an IP by C&W business that is in the same block as thousands of Virgin home cable- modems, so we got blacklisted by Spamhaus and others. Management got quite twitchy so I moved all the outgoing email to go via our Postini account which was previously only filtering incoming. Don't fancy having to find a third option now.

<comment> mike-cardwell Sounds like you got listed on the PBL. SpamHaus lets anyone delist their IP from the PBL...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yeah, this is why I don't use Spamhaus blacklists.

<comment> mike-cardwell Because of the existence of false positives? Please let me know of a spam filtering system which doesn't have them. Really. I'd like to add it to my filtering setup...

<comment><USER18> My Bayesian filters have much less of an agenda than Spamhaus.

<comment> mike-cardwell That doesn't really answer my question. Bayes causes false positives too... Yet is more difficult to maintain...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell SpamHaus has listed various gmail servers loads of times for short periods of time.

It's a good idea to maintain a local whitelist, or use DNSWL.org or <http://wiki.junkemailfilter.com/index.php/Spam_DNS_Lists>

</comment><comment><USER19> Such solutions as this is like you have a headache, and in order to cure the pain you cut your head...

</comment><comment><USER20> If I'm using Google Apps for my domain, does this mean I'll have worse deliverability on my email?

<comment><USER21> No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Spamhaus have listed the web servers for docs.google.com NOT gmail's outbound SMTP servers. Mail from gmail is not affected.</comment>


Ask HN: Creating a Twitter "@" Bot? - <AUTHOR>

I'd like to create a bot for the Hackers and Founders twitter handle (http://twitter.com/hackersfounders) so that the community can send replies to the name and receive updates automatically. Here are two examples: http://twitter.com/nytech and http://twitter.com/ycfounders <comment><USER2> Try the streaming API from Twitter.

<http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Streaming-API-Documentation></comment>


Google Street View blurred out photo of house at police involved shooting - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/maps/@38.5267456,-90.3406302,3a,75y,308.95h,70.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sz8a9o3ZEsieGnMznguYZVg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
http://www.ksdk.com/news/crime/officer-injured-in-south-st-louis-county/329479084
I am not 100% sure that this is the exact location of today's shooting from the story.
It does bring up some interesting questions though, if the exclusion from Street View and the active investigation are related:
* How does Google determine a need to blur photos of a given address?
* Is there a process for requesting exclusion from Street View?
* There is only one version of Street View photos available for that area and they are from 2009. Is there some functionality that limits photos to the oldest set when this exclusion process is activated for a given address?
* I know Google actively blurs faces and license plates. But, what reasons might Google blur out a house from Street View?  Examples? <comment><USER2> Any user can request to get their homes unlisted. That was big in Germany (and a reason Bing delayed driving around for their product). Just use the 'report problem' link. Years ago my whole apartment complex got blurred because one person requested it.

[https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7011973?hl=en&ref_top...](https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7011973?hl=en&ref_topic=6275604)</comment>


Out-Of-State Buyers Flock to Miami - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/out-of-state-buyers-flock-to-miami/ar-BBTbjSM <comment><USER2> Good. I don't understand why the federal government was subsidizing New York and California's insane tax rates.

<comment><USER3> California sends quite a bit more to the federal government than it receives from the federal government. In fact, in 2014 it was primarily Republican leaning states that received the greatest subsidies. The facts show that the federal government subsidizes not insanely high tax rates but rather tax rates that are too low.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-s...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which- states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/)

[https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on- the...](https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal- government/2700/)

<comment><USER2> This is referring to federal income tax. If anything, these states should have lower taxes because their taxable base is significantly higher hence the lower "ROI" from individual's federal income taxes.

<comment><USER3> Despite the evidence presented you continue to think that California, Minnesota, New York, etc. are not subsidizing states like Mississippi, Alabama, etc. Perhaps no amount of factual evidence will dissuade you from your current belief.

<comment><USER2> I didn't say that -- it's obvious when you consider that a large chunk of the federal budget is entitelement spending.

You're confusing two separate concepts. The relative ROI of federal income tax has no bearing on the federal government subsidizing state income/property taxes. Both can be true: the federal government can be subsidizing the state budget while simultaneously taking more than it gives from taxpayers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Man, from where I stand, you'd have to be a hard-core climate-change denier to buy in Miami now. I guess if you plan on unloading in less than twenty years, but like a stock market options contract, seems like the value is going to go down as time to "expiration" draws to a close.

<comment><USER5> Once the problems in Miami get too big to ignore, residents will demand, and probably get, a huge engineering megaproject to fix the problem on the taxpayers' dime, because the alternative is abandoning a major city, which has never been done in modern times apart from major nuclear accidents. So (unfortunately) it remains rational to invest in Miami real estate even if you accept that it's going to be flooded in the next couple decades.</comment></comment>


"The key to selling is listening" here's what has Dan Pink's ear - <AUTHOR> http://delvenews.com/wonklens/dan-pink/

<comment><USER2> Key to selling is listening, is it key to reporting as well? Seems like Twitter's one way for writers to figure out WHAT to write, but can it help them report great stories?</comment>


Show HN: A database index optimized for custom scoring functions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pschanely/scoredb <comment><USER2> This is awesome.

Imagine you have a mobile app for viewing news articles, an API to drive it, and an aggregator to collect the content.

Now it's 2016 and you'd like your app to show today's "top" news about Bernie Sanders as a distinct category. So you query your database on:

\- full text search: "Bernie Sanders" \- category: politics (Possibly a tag on the site you scraped from, etc.) \- sort: inverse date

A SQL database can do this. And there are too many results to read. With strange ordering. Not useful yet.

Say you also get Twitter info on how often the articles are shared. You want scores to be boosted based on this. Also, you'd like to show at most one article per source website (or some threshold).

Now you want to expose those controls via your API. So your end users can choose two different definitions of "Bernie Sanders", depending on whether they watch CNN or Fox News.

How? Voila, that's precisely what scoredb does.

And it's simple, open source, implemented in Go.</comment>


Can We Please Have Jerry Back? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/can-we-please-have-jerry-back/

<comment><USER3> I'm confused.

Carol Bartz is not stupid nor a bad leader. In the early 1990's, Autodesk was failing. It was unfocused, undefined, and it was easy to see the atrophy of quality in its products. There was no leadership, and the young company was losing the faith of its own customers. It was basically a miniature version of where Yahoo was last year when Arrington was calling for Yang's head.

Bartz came into Autodesk and turned the company around. She cut products that weren't working, she focused the company's energy on AutoCad and other cash cow products, and she developed a pretty awesome culture that still exists today. She took risks at Autodesk, and pushed the company to explore products that seemed impossible to build. But some of those experiments turned into extremely successful features of AutoCad (many of them failed, too, but she developed a culture that encouraged failure with quick abandonment).

When Bartz went to Yahoo, I was expecting a repeat of her early days at Autodesk. But it hasn't happened. She just started cursing at the news media and firing people. She has not created a focused product strategy. She has taken a failing Yahoo culture and somehow made it even worse.

Given her track record, I don't understand why she has accomplished so little in time she has had. Something does not add up.

<comment><USER4> > Given her track record, I don't understand why she has accomplished so > little in time she has had. Something does not add up.

probably because Autodesk bought it's way into the market in the 90's, starting with discreet - and only then reshuffling a bit. You can watch the interview with Dan Drake (Autodesk cofounder) on NerdTV (we need that show back ASAP) - <http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/shows/> ... hear what he is saying, buying in to the market is a great way to do business. Autodesk is not favorite company amongst companies, but it sure can do business.

edit: everyone, be sure to watch that video even if you don't give rats balls about autodesk or anything. Guy gives some serious experience / advice how they went from startup to godzilla.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is all a shame. Yahoo has lost its soul aka focus on product and trying to be innovative. They talk about VCs having walking dead companies and Yahoo reminds me of that on a much grander scale. I grew up as a kid using Yahoo (like 96/97) and it has some sentimental value.

It also upsets me because they had awesome talent there in terms of product/engineering. They all left one by one. Here's just a small list of names I could think of off the top of my head:

Caterina Fake Joshua Schachter Stewart Butterfield Jeremy Zawodny Cal Henderson Bradley Horowitz Ian Rogers Jeff Bonforte Susan Mernit Salim Ismail Jeff Weiner

Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. There are countless others who have left, and probably it's even sadder that some awesome talent is still fighting the good fight there. Sadly, there's no real product focus worth a damn that they can make good use of their talents with. They could have also acquired other top tier talent if there wasn't such an exodus during the initial bid by Microsoft. I wonder what a group of 10-15 of smart product focused hackers+product guys from yc/hn would do to fix Yahoo! up. hmm, feel free to email me thoughts, could make for an interesting potential blog post/theoretical situation.

<comment><USER6> When I worked there two years ago, there was clearly a lot more non-brand name talent that you never hear about. With the people Yahoo had (some of which it still has), they should have been able to do great things, and they _did_ do great things from a technical perspective. It's been a tragic failure of leadership.

<comment><USER5> Yup, those are just the names that are well known. I'm sure for everyone of them there were/still might be 5 more. Things like Yahoo Dev Network, Hadoop, etc. are awesome initiatives and I always keep my fingers crossed that they keep them going.

<comment><USER7> "Things like ... Hadoop ... are awesome initiatives"

Doug Cutting left too IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Honestly, I don't get the whole "Yahoo has neglected products" meme at all. The new homepage is an improvement; the new SERPs are a huge improvement; the new Yahoo Mail is pretty good (although I still prefer Gmail); Yahoo Sports is awesome; OMG gets more traffic than TMZ; Flickr still rocks; and so on.

Could it be even better? Sure. I'd love to be the overall product czar at Yahoo (hire me, Carol; forget that Brad Garlinghouse fellow who cut and run), flitting about from team to team demanding polish on various bits and pieces.

But Yahoo does better at selling premium ad space than anyone else on Earth - and they're creating _more_ premium ad space than anyone else on Earth with their content investments in Sports, News, Finance, OMG, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not really sure why Techcrunch dislike Bartz.

Yahoo have been struggling with their position in search for years, and they have been losing marketshare. They have an inferior product, and they haven't been able to compete technologically with their main competitor. Their advertising platform isn't big enough to maximise their returns, since Google has most of the mindshare.

A partnership with Microsoft for search engine technology seems like a decent approach, since Microsoft are willing to put the investment in to ensure Bing's search technology is as good as Google's, and their combined single ad platform is going to advantageous to both companies.

Yahoo aren't giving up on search. They're still going to have a search engine, afterall, and Yahoo is still going to have their own custom interface with Bing's results being the backend. Ultimately, they're just giving up trying to compete technologically with Google. They've long been unable to do that anyway - no-one uses Yahoo for their superior results.

So what's next for Yahoo? Slimlining. Strengthening their core businesses - refreshing their main services (portal, e-mail, messenger) combined with an advertising push is good, as is their plans to expand into the Arabic markets. Closing dated, unpopular, or unprofitable services (are people seriously mourning the loss of Geocities, Yahoo Brief Case and Yahoo 360?). Getting rid of properties or partnerships that differ from their core business as a content provider. I honestly don't see what's so bad about that.

Were people expecting miracles in 8 months?

</comment><comment><USER10> back when carol was first hired, i asked how she was going to turn the company around. it's not just about running a good business, its about having a product/technology that's better than the competition and being able to monetize it. i think MSFT and YHOO can do it if they work together, but their cultures don't really get along all that well and both are fighting for the same piece of the pie.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=497570>

</comment><comment><USER11> "Yahoo is to tech what General Motors is to autos." - <USER2>

Quite possibly the most epic burn I've seen all month.

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems like a simple rule. Non-founder CEOs suck.

<comment><USER13> That's not true - there's been great non-founder CEOs promoted from within and great outsider CEOs in history. Actually, you really want one of those in a crisis that your current team hasn't been able to dig itself out of.

First to come to mind is Lou Gerstner, who turned around IBM. I read his autobiography about the experience - crazy stuff. He was up against so much built up gunk and bureaucracy, that only an outsider could've broken.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_V._Gerstner,_Jr.#IBM>

[http://www.amazon.com/Elephants-Dance-Inside-Historic- Turnar...](http://www.amazon.com/Elephants-Dance-Inside-Historic- Turnaround/dp/0060523794)</comment></comment>


Ten things the driverless generation will never experience - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160122-lost-in-automation <comment><USER2> 1) Speeding tickets, 2) Drivers Ed classes, 3) Getting lost, 4) Parallel parking, 5) Driver prejudice, 6) Fender benders, 7) Road rage, 8) Car theft, 9) Roadkill, 10) The Stig

At the least I expect that drivers ed courses will still be present for those who go off-roading, or snowmobiling.

Even in a regular car, I've been on the Bonneville Salt Flats and some driveable beaches, where there are no marked road, and of course events like Burning Man have their own street system and speed limits that won't be on any car nav system.

Regarding 7's "they will not drive too fast or too slow" \- I suspect passengers will be able to select how to optimize the route, as some people will want to minimize cost, rather than time, and have the car drive more slowly. Or a loaded vehicle may drive more slowly uphill than an unloaded one.

I therefore imagine there will still be road rage should a slow vehicle, especially one which is voluntarily going slower, should block someone who wants to go faster.</comment>


Blamed for Bee Collapse, Monsanto Buys Leading Bee Research Firm - <AUTHOR> http://www.realfarmacy.com/blamed-for-bee-collapse-monsanto-buys-leading-bee-research-firm/ <comment><USER2> This is nonsense. First a point the article pretty much glosses over, this happened back in 2011. The reason they acquired Beeologics was to create products to fight CCD. Monsanto knows a good source of money when they see it, so they pounced.

Here's[1] a more balanced article on the relationship between the two companies and the bee-keeping community.

1\. [http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682672/what-really-happened- at-m...](http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682672/what-really-happened-at-monsantos- bee-conference)</comment>


Peter Thiel believes the 'age of Apple is over' - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2017/01/12/iphone-innovation-peter-thiel-apple-interview/ <comment><USER2> Should be retitled 'Peter Thiel believes 'age of smartphone innovation' is over. It's a mature product category and you'll be seeing diminishing returns on future investments. Right now this seems like a reasonable statement as we've witnessed the pace of innovation dramatically decrease. Refresh cycles are lengthening and overall sales are slowing. Meanwhile Apple is making a _ton_ of money in that product category and are likely to remain doing so for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER3> I think it's the destiny of pretty much any device category.

If you look at laptops for instance, obviously what we have in 2016 is miles ahead of the first laptops in terms of performance, but fundamentally isn't different from a decade ago (even two). The most meaningful innovation may be touch screens and/or hybrid/detachable screens, but that's not redefining the category --more like expanding it to cannibalize others.

I'm not holding my breath for smartphone innovation either. Maybe we'll get foldable/telescopic displays (think: Nintendo DS, but better), but that's just added comfort (more real estate in as tight a package).

The fact is that with the advent of AR (or 'hybrid/mixed reality, however you want to call it), the smartphone category will simply fade away in favor of glasses/lenses, if it's more convenient.

Deep down it's all just computers in various formfactors. We adapt the apps and ecosystem to suit these interfaces, technology only being as good as its ease of use (philosophy: "tool", starting with the silex). The real question is what computing can do tomorrow that it cannot today (AI probably being the next paradigm in that regard), regardless of the formfactor. Basically function VS form.

This is precisely where I think Apple has been stagnating, compared to Google and MS and Amazon for instance. They improve the form (and that's debatable, thinner with shorter battery life may not be much of a "form improvement"), but the functions are disappointingly the same (e.g. Siri is the worst of all personal assistants, it seems like Apple doesn't really know how to do deep learning to a meaningful degree for the user).

It's not about smartphone or laptop or whatever. It's about what you can do with, nevermind the physical shape of devices. In this regard, I agree with Thiel. Hopefully the richest company on earth can prove innovative again, but #2 (Google) is so much better positionned in this regard (from Quantum computing to AI passing by real-world apps and services quality). Microsoft and Amazon as well, especially considering Jeff Bezos ventures in space etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Apple is not only devoting a lot of resources towards wearables research but is also very interested in a number of other areas, including machine learning, virtual reality and augmented reality."

Just like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.</comment>


Developing for the web is easier than I thought. - <AUTHOR>

I dont consider myself a hacker because I can't really program. But developing web apps has become increasingly easy due to open source, CMS, and the willingness of people to help one another via forums. What do you guys/gals think? <comment><USER2> I think this guy discovered the Most Important Hacker Lesson: Everything invented by man is easily understandable by man.

Seriously. Isn't that what makes hacking fun? The moment where you realize that _you_ could build everything around you?

To the OP: Yours is a healthy, and important hacking attitude! If you really get into hacking, then you should work your way down the stacks of abstraction. For example, hack the source to your web server.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you have not been doing this very long...

<comment><USER4> He says he is not a hacker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that sounds like somebody in the early 90s discovering Hypercard and saying "developing for the Mac is easier than I thought". The problem is what you can do without actually learning to program is pretty limited.

Hypercard was a RAD tool from Apple that was generally too limited to do anything interesting without adding external functions written in C. It was used (along with a lot of external functions) to create the first version of Myst.

</comment><comment><USER6> While current rapid development toolkits for the web shield one from having to know much about the details, as soon as an applications needs to go beyond a handful of users the details can no longer be ignored. The good news is that most applications don't have a large audience and this allows folks to put together prototypes and demos and once an idea gains popularity they can always go back and hire someone else to take it to the next level.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just depends on what you need to do. If what you need to do is in the confines of what's been provided by open source, CMS, and the knowledge of other people, sure. But if one of those three falters, then well, that's where it get a bit tougher.

And part of what separates hackers from the non-hackers, is who's willing to learn, dig deeper, and figure out how to do.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been developing web apps too long to be confident that I can say how easy it is to learn. Post a web app you've made and at least I'll have a little data.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think it's cool. The web is in a great place right now, and it seems to be moving forward.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, easier to make stuff but not easier to make stuff that people are willing to pay for.</comment>


Scope.watch - <AUTHOR> http://scope.watch

<comment><USER2> Something must be wrong, I get the Ubuntu default apache page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Former medical doctor seeking career opportunity - <AUTHOR> Hi all. I'm a former medical school graduate and resident physician who is looking for a career change into the tech industry. I'm eager to start at any entry level role by anyone looking to hire. Thank you. <comment><USER2> There is an official "Who is hiring / freelance post?" the fist day of the month. [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring)

Look there in case you find something interesting. Or you can perhaps post there in the correct thread. You may need to wait until next month.</comment>


Why I Tell Fortune 500 Companies to Stay Away from QR Codes - <AUTHOR> https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/qr-codes-are-dead-2015-1138076474.html

<comment><USER2> I don't see a compelling reason in this article saying QR Codes are bad or worthless. Maybe the ways people / companies have been using them are just poor.

We (my company) uses QR Codes all the time. They're on our business cards, theres one on our trade show banner. If a flyer we print pertains to a specific article or event on our website, the flyer gets a QR Code.

Anything that requires one of our users to goto an address on our site more complex then the base url basically gets one, and my target audience is post- grad students. No one has ever questioned what a qr code is or how to use it. If they ask how do they get to the site or article, they immediately correct themselves and say "oh, theres a qr code"

It's worked very well for us.

</comment><comment><USER3> What value _can_ QR codes deliver? There have been very few life situations where they seemed critical to me (as a consumer).</comment>


Adding Comefrom to LuaJIT - <AUTHOR> http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/adding-comefrom-to-luajit <comment><USER2> I recognize that this is just for fun, but can't help linking this anyway:

[http://www.freelists.org/post/luajit/Turning-Lua-into-C- was-...](http://www.freelists.org/post/luajit/Turning-Lua-into-C-was- alleviate-the-load-of-the-GC)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm disappointed that he didn't implement the infinitely more useful "PLEASE COMEFROM (LABEL) STEP (INTEGER)"

</comment><comment><USER4> Would using a macro system such as [http://metalua.luaforge.net/metalua- manual.html](http://metalua.luaforge.net/metalua-manual.html) be another way of doing this ?

This blog post reminded me of Lua's rather non-conformist older cousin Tcl. Shaping your own control structure is an idiomatic thing to do in Tcl thanks (or perhaps, but no thanks) to uplevel and upvar. I wish there was a standard goto (no pun intended) place exclusively reserved for creative hacks using those two. There probably is such a page on Tclers wiki, if not it very well deserves to be there.

<comment><USER5> I don't think metalua is compatible with LuaJIT. Or has this changed?

<comment><USER4> You are correct it emits Lua bytecode and not LuaJIT bytecode. Wasn't there a refactoring of metalua in progress to facilitate porting ? It would be tedious work but there should not be any fundamental blockers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > A return statement is only valid at the end of a block, which means if the > control flow introduces new blocks, they may not behave as such without if > true return end wrapping.

do return end

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there a "Cotton Eye Joe" reference here?

<comment><USER8> Nope, it's from INTERCAL[1], which is (obviously) an abbreviation for Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL)</comment></comment>


Hasta la Vista, Quora - <AUTHOR> https://raganwald.posterous.com/hasta-la-vista-quora <comment><USER2> I answered a question on StackExchange yesterday, and once I had Googled and read through some threads and dug up some answers with links to post, I noticed the question had been edited by a moderator.

Looking at the history, I saw that this neat and tidy question was originally a sloppy mess. Suddenly I felt cheated - here I was answering someone who had asked a sensible well written question ... except they hadn't.

I had a similar realisation that I wasn't answering to help someone, but to help future search engine results, which is less endearing.

<comment><USER3> Think of it this way: instead of helping one person who can't even phrase a question properly, you're helping thousands of people who will find your answer in the future by searching for the version of the question that was properly phrased (and the one you actually answered).

<comment><USER4> AND helping yourself, making your name known on the web

so that you'll be easier to be hired or funded! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Recently, one of my Quora questions was suddenly deleted.

The moderator answer I got was "Not a serious question". End of message.

Um, okay?

I'm sure Quora will make an interesting case study, once it's dead.

<comment><USER6> What was the question, if I may ask?

<comment><USER5> Eh, it was a little sensitive, and it would probably make the staff able to identify me. :)

<comment><USER6> No worries. I was just curious. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The first problem is your answer is condescending. To my reading your starting with probably some insider BS about what he's asking. He wants to know where he can find a capable or "rock star" developer. You interpret "Rock Star" as someone with bona fides of a whole different magnitude and then take the opportunity to bitch slap the guy in public. He's not thrilled and takes the opportunity provided to slap you back. There's not a lot of mystery here. Don't not answer questions in order to preen around in public by taking a shot at someones possible misuse of a term that might mean something different to an insider than someone trying to get in or in other words don't be an a-hole.

<comment><AUTHOR> You seem to be sincere, so thank you.

<comment><USER7> I am sincere. I think you could have handled this better by making the point you made and educating the person about your understanding of what a "rock star" developer is vs what you understood he needed in a less high handed manner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yep. "Not Helpful" really sends a negative message.

Interestingly, one of the Quora moderators did an experiment about three different ways of getting people to give more information on partial answers.[1] None of them worked well. Collapsing was the worst, leading to no improvements and provoking one "aggressive response". Nonetheless the moderator decided that collapsing was the approach to use going forward. Umm ...

[1] [http://www.quora.com/Does-asking-people-to-explain-their- ans...](http://www.quora.com/Does-asking-people-to-explain-their-answers-to- Whats-the-Best-X-questions-actually-work)

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't take it as particularly negative. The person flagging it explained that it would be more helpful if I answered the question directly. I agree with them: This type of answer is an Internet Cliché: Person asks, "How do I X?" and the first twenty responses are "You are an idiot for trying to X, you ought to Y instead."

<comment><USER8> Maybe "negative" isn't exactly the right word here. It devalued your contribution, and after you thought about it you decided it wasn't the kind of contribution Quora wanted, and that it wasn't the right site for you.

The way I look at it, your answer _was_ helpful. Sure, it could have been more helpful to more people if it had been different; and there may well have been other better answers. Calling "not helpful" focuses on what it isn't, not what it is.

<comment><USER9> _It devalued your contribution ... The way I look at it, your answer was helpful._

It's more useful to think in terms of signal to noise ratio rather than a binary helpful/unhelpful. It may have been helpful when considered in isolation but was it helpful _enough_ to be valuable?

Raganwald nails it with: _This type of answer is an Internet Cliché_

When the ratio of advice and/or opinions and/or theories is 10:1 relative to actual answers to the question being asked (which is common) it's not enough to say those non-answers might be helpful. They have to meet a higher standard. Because they have a built in noise-cost they need to have a signal- value that is very very high.

A individually helpful answer can have a negative value when viewed in the context of the whole system.

<comment><USER8> So you think that raganwald's leaving is more valuable than allowing his highly-rated answer that a moderator didn't approve of to continue to display on the site?

<comment><USER9> That's not why he left.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really appreciated this blog post. At first I thought it was going to be a Scoble-style 'I got my first moderatorial slap and now my blogger ego is bruised' blogger poutathon, but raganwald clearly delineates between the sort of bonding, community building social sites that he prefers (and might have acted as though he was using), and the content-focused, at times unprecious with other people's writing repository that wikipedia or Quora are aiming for. Quora is so much more obviously social than wikipedia, which I think gives a lot of people the impression that it's more like the former and less like the latter. That might be a problem for them. But I don't think that the inherent lack of sanctity for any given user's contributions is a problem. I think it's a feature.

<comment><USER11> I have avoided Quora because it seems to combine the drawbacks of Wikipedia with the drawbacks of social sites. It has the lack of respect for contributors of Wikipedia and the lack of respect for reality of social sites.

ADDED: My time is limited and I heed to apply it how I think it will be most useful. Since my major interest is in learning, I have been reducing my internet usage back toward books anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hate that people use Q&A sites as forums. If I ask a question on StackOverflow.com such as "how do i do x on the iphone", I'm pretty much guaranteed to get responses (in the "answers" section) which state that i shouldn't do that. Q&A sites are for questions and answers. How is "it won't get approved for the appstore" a relevant answer? Maybe I don't even care about the appstore. If you think this is a concern, but still have an answer, include it as a footnote. Or just list it as a comment, but it's not an answer.

This actually drove me away from heavily contributing on SO recently.

<comment><USER13> If you see answers on Stack Overflow that are simply noise, like "it won't get approved for the app store", _please_ flag them.

To some extent a "don't do it that way" answer is acceptable, but it's better if if also answers the question as written. See: [http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/8891/is-dont-do- it-a...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/8891/is-dont-do-it-a-valid- answer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is non-sensical: a similar response to a similar question was up-voted to the roof. It could be Not helpful because it wasn't as cheeky as expected (a hacker over-estimating his tact isn't exactly new), or because that question was trapped in a cluster of users that had negative feelings toward its answers.

I've been trying to make sense of the Question/Follower bi-graph on Quora. Based on very different reactions to similar, but unconnected questions it appears strongly clustered by normative takes, from narrow political frameworks to attitude to entrepreneurship, food, etc. I can't seem to have access to relevant data from outside, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, my answer did receive many upvotes. But that is really the point of moderation: to flag or steer the process when something is popular but nevertheless not in the site's long-term best interests, just as it is my duty as a parent to moderate the amount of candy my children eat :-)

<comment><USER3> The assumption you seem to be making is that moderation is perfect i.e. that a single moderator marking an answer as unhelpful means that it reflects some absolute, unified judgement of Quora and all other moderators.

We all know that it's not how it works: there's a difference of opinions between moderators. Not all parents deny candy to their children and those that do have different quotas.

So extrapolating from a single data point, like you did, is not really valid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you email email@example.com and ask for "the Full Blake Ross"[1], they will delete all your questions from the site and replace all references to your username with "User".

[1] [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=full%20Blake%...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=full%20Blake%20Ross)

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been a member of Quora for a while, but I never got around to participating. There was always something about it that struck me as strange.

I think the problem is that there is an assumption that asking a question and receiving an answer is somehow a valuable experience in itself, and for basic bits of factual information it is. But much of what constitutes "interesting" questions, like the one in this article, do not fit that pattern.

I teach teams how to be agile. For many, an honest question they have is: why do we need you? Can't we just read the book and know all we need to know?

It turns out the answer to that question is very interesting, because mostly no, you probably can't. At least not in the way you think. There is factual information and then there is mastery of a complex skill. I look at it this way: I can show you a movie of a great piano player, you can meet him and get his autograph, we can even read books on how to play the piano.

Will any of that make you a piano player? No, it will not. So when you ask a seemingly straightforward and honest question like "How come I can't play this Bach piece?" I'm unable to give you a straightforward answer that you are going to find helpful. It's going to sound something like "Because you don't know what you are doing. First you must do all this other stuff". Of course, you don't want to do all that other stuff, you want to play the Bach piece. And so there we are.

This touches on another problem -- not knowing what you don't know. When I learned to fly, I found a good instructor and told him about the things I would like to do.

"We're not doing any of that," he said, and then explained what we would be doing. You see, I didn't know what questions to ask first. I simply had some goal.

The worst problem I can see is folks getting answers they are not ready to process. For example, sticking with my agile coach example, somebody might ask me why a team takes so long trying to figure out what it's doing. The "answer" might be something like "Because you've restricted their machines and tools in such a way it's taking ten times longer than it should." but good luck in giving it to somebody in that direct a fashion. They'll throw you out of their office -- especially if they were the ones all along pushing for more controls and complexity. This is a case of wanting a solution to one thing, but having a second thing that cannot be touched. And of course, the second thing is directly involved in the first thing. In situations like this you have to help people figure out for themselves where their own internal model is flaky. Sometimes that takes a while. (Interesting side note: many technologists ardently refuse to believe they could be this way, saying things like "just tell me bluntly". I have found that these folks are the worst to deal with, because instead of seeing life as a journey, they are caught up in black-and- white reasoning. So they are the last people you want to treat that way, because to do so you're basically telling them their thinking is broken -- a concept many cannot process)

<comment><USER17> Comparing viewing a piano player and getting his autograph to learning from a book is not fair at all. It is a straw man constructed to ridicule all autodidacts.

<comment><USER18> No, he isn't comparing the two, he's grouping them together. Watching a piano player, meeting him and getting his autograph, _even_ read a book. (roughly paraphrased).

I think he's trying to point out that besides "just reading the book" (as was given in his example with his customers) there are other ways people think they can learn and master complex skills - talking to famous, successful people, or watching how they work. While there's certainly value in doing so, his point is that that is probably not what you really need to improve.

<comment><USER17> Let's take the quote:

"Can't we just read the book and know all we need to know? It turns out the answer to that question is very interesting, because mostly no, you probably can't. At least not in the way you think. There is factual information and then there is mastery of a complex skill. I look at it this way: I can show you a movie of a great piano player, you can meet him and get his autograph, we can even read books on how to play the piano. Will any of that make you a piano player? No, it will not."

Isn't that comparing learning from a book to watching a movie of a great piano player? This "we can even read books on how to play the piano" is just a minor addition. It should be the main point, but it is not because the other example is more ridiculous and scores more points. He puts forward an obviously stupid example of learning on your own and insists that it explains why learning on your own in general is stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I agree with your main point, that sites like StackExchange and Quora are _not_ about discussions. From the get-go, Stack Overflow have made it very clear, through their writings and policies, that it is about answering questions, not talking.

Having said that, I disagree with your example. Oftentimes, when people ask a question, questioning their motives _is_ a good idea. I know that when I ask a question, I often discover that I'm trying to solve the wrong problem.

A very common pattern on SO is that the accepted answer is a practical solution to the problem, and the highest-rated answer is a longer talk about whether this is something the questioner even needs to do.

</comment><comment><USER20> Oddly enough, I just posted a enhancement request to HN asking for comments to be required for down voting. I can tell that I said something that wasn't appreciated, but I don't know why - style, phrasing, bad phase of the moon, just "not helpful"?

Getting no feedback other than a downvote doesn't help me adapt to the community. I may not agree with why my post wasn't accepted by the community that is HN, but at least I'll have more information to work with.

<comment><USER21> There are two cases. The first case is if your comment deserved a downvote. In that case, yes, one downvote on one comment makes it difficult to adapt. But if the behavior that caused the downvote appears in other posts, those will get downvoted, and you should be able to discern a pattern in what is not appreciated.

The second case is if your post did not deserve a downvote. This happens, particularly as our community grows. Some people downvote comments merely because they disagree with what the person said. We don't want it to happen, we (the community) try to correct for it when it does, but it does happen. And in large threads, such posts can get "stuck" at the bottom in a place where no one sees to correct it. In that case, don't worry about it. It happens to everyone.

How do you know which case it was? Keep posting and you'll be able to find out.

<comment><USER20> Thank you, this makes sense, and is appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sounds to me like your answer should have been entered as a comment. At least on stackexchange sites (sorry, don't use Quora, but I notice there is a comment option) I like to leave comments that are not going to be directly answering the question. Looks like in Quora there you can't vote up a 'comment' though, pitty.

</comment><comment><USER23> I was hoping for link to the discussion. But clearly the issue was not your answer it was the way you answered. The answer is clear from your opinion: to find rockstar developers, you also need to be a rockstar entrepreneur/business/marketing/money guy.

I do not think that in this case it is about Quora Though I find it difficult to participate effectively there. But that is not a effective or valid reason to argue that discussion can not occur there. It can, and does. But you need to follow its own style. Much like stackoverflow.

dissent is not about escaping the system. It is about participating in order to change the system.

Of course, I am already hoping you take this frustration and build something better.

</comment><comment><USER24> The boilerplate comments from moderators are kinda creepy, too, like shibboleths uttered by cult members.

 _Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Unhelpfulness is futile._

</comment><comment><USER25> Personally, I love sites like SO and Quora. When I'm digging into something outside of my experience/expertise (which is almost daily in my current job), I'm consistently landing on pages that have answers written to my questions. That's great.

What's NOT great, is having some esoteric need, landing on a bunch of pages, and finding that most of them have an "are you sure you want to do this?" response with no effort made to answer the question, ahm, in question.

The author is right in this respect. You are NOT just answering the person who asked the question. Stuff on the internet STAYS. For YEARS. That means that you're answering EVERYONE who EVER asks that question, and chances are that a lot of them DO know what they are doing. All they lack are the mechanical steps to take, which you have denied them by your second guessing of intentions. And that is MASSIVELY frustrating. Sites like Quora understand this, thus the "not helpful" button.

If you must question the judgment of the person asking, do so AFTER answering the question. Otherwise your answer is, in fact, NOT useful. Oh, it may be useful if you've successfully guessed the intentions of the asker, but for a great number of other people who will land on that page in the years to come it is nothing more than condescension.

I participate because I find it a godsend whenever I get stuck on some esoteric API or poorly documented technology, or I just want to use something in a way that it's not actually meant to be used BECAUSE I HAVE A DAMN GOOD REASON TO DO IT. And I want to extend the same courtesy of answering without prejudice so that some other soul can be similarly helped by my answer.

</comment><comment><USER26> This might be a coincidence but either I remember seeing that question on Quora, or it simply gets asked a lot.

I also remember the answer about how things didn't work like that and I thought to myself "hmm, I agree, but he's not really answering the question though" - It might also be because the answer came off very negative and degrading

So I actually flagged the answer as "not helpful".

I'm guessing more people did, so it wasn't any single person.

Personally, I'm pretty happy with how these Q&A sites work. I don't feel that it's just to serve the search engine results. I think they genuinely help people.

</comment><comment><USER27> _Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself._

 _Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes._

I guess Quora suffers fools gladly.

</comment><comment><USER28> Though I agree with you on that even Quora did not get social Q/A thing right it feels like making stunts about deleting accounts is catching on.

</comment><comment><USER29> What the author said is true, Quora and Q&A sites in general are more about accumulating knowledge than helping individuals. So, trying to help someone with an XY problem can get you penalized.

One service that I really liked was Aardvark which for a long time did not have public Q&A pages. Also, connecting people through IM allowed for a very personal and instant help.

</comment><comment><USER30> @raganwald -

I commend you for your decision. Quora should not even have a down-vote button -- the best answers will go to the top anyway through up-votes. Also, I think there is just as much (if not more) intellectual value in answers that are funny or slightly off-topic. If I wanted purely factual answers, I would ask Google.

</comment><comment><USER31> Quora assumes a world full of absolutes. It's not.

</comment><comment><USER32> You answered a question with a question, its a QA site, not a philosophy course.

</comment><comment><USER33> If I want to feel like I've helped someone, I'll volunteer at a soup kitchen. If I want to spread knowledge, I'll write it in my blog. If I want to increase ad revenue by generating content, and fool myself with a false sense of socialization, I'll go to a Q&A site.

<comment><USER34> But what do you do when you want a question answered that you can't google?

Isn't that the idea that all the Q&A sites stem from?

I feel roughly the same as you. But I have actually asked questions both at StackExchange sites and Quora (and answered others in return for the help I received). And it certainly has it's uses to me.

<comment><USER35> Since the stuff I work with is generally software, this is quite easy: either read the source code, or ask the person who wrote it on IRC.

Admittedly, this approach has the downside of not producing something that others encountering the same issue can find by Googling. Unless I blog it, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Scoble agrees that "not helpful" is not helpful: [http://www.quora.com/Robert- Scoble-1/Youre-not-helpful-Quora...](http://www.quora.com/Robert- Scoble-1/Youre-not-helpful-Quoras-worst-designed-feature)

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't go to Scoble for an insightful take on Quora.

<comment><USER37> After all, he thinks it's a blogging platform...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you can't take criticism, don't post in a public forum designed for exactly that.

<comment><AUTHOR> How is it that I can't take criticism? I thought about the response and I agree that my answer was not helpful. How much more accommodating should I be?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> For one flagged answer you quit...that's good...it shows you how big your ego is and how perseverent you are. Good "qualities"... I had answers collapsed there in the beginning...but I persevered and now I am a quite power user. You should try that sometime...

<comment><AUTHOR> The post specifically says that one flagged answer prompted me to think about _why_ the answer was flagged, which led me to think about the difference between HN and Quora, which led me to deactivate my account.

I've said plenty of unpopular things here on HN, yet I persevered. And if you really want to see negative responses to things that I have written, you should look at the comments on my old blog. If you want to present a theory that my character can be determined from my response to downvotes or flagged comments, I suggest your theory be amended to explain why I persevere with HN and blogging, but not with Quora.

And congratulations on being a Quora Power User.

<comment><USER40> Got the same vibe from the article: the whiny quitter.It's not constructive and not even interesting (who are you and why does your opinion on Quora even matter?). All-in-all HN is lot more unwelcoming to users than Quora is. Here people downvote because they don't agree, even if it is a thoughtful quality reply.

What struck me the most was your wish to delete all your content. Taking your ball, and going home. That shows how you approach the community: with ego over sharing knowledge.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Absolutely my ego is involved, it always is, even when I claim that it isn't.

2\. I only answered one question, and as that one answer was flagged, I don't actually think it was still visible on the site to other users. And even if it was, everybody (especially myself) seems to agree that it was not helpful. So what would be the harm if I had the option of deleting my account?

3\. Who am I and why does my opinion matter? I can't answer that. I blog. You like it, you don't like it. You upvote or you don't. There are no rules about who is and who isn't fit to opine about anything at all. That's the beauty and the hideous reality of the Internet. I would never suggest that I have any particular qualification for writing words except that I do write. The same goes for software.

4\. I have no problem whining about how Quora isn't a community in my blog. And you have no problem whining about my blog post in a public forum. We seem to have a lot in common, maybe we should be friends.

UPDATE: I should make something clear: I have nothing against Quora. I am not predicting its demise. From what I have seen of SO, such sites have a lot of potential and perform a valuable service. All I am saying about Quora is that I realize that I am looking for a social experience, and Quora is looking for answers to questions. That's not a bad thing, just not the same thing.

<comment><USER41> You answered a question with a question, possibly a wise question, but nevertheless an obtuse reaction to the questioner's want of tactical knowledge. You were downvoted once and decided that one person's lack of appreciation of nuance meant the service as a whole has none, and that it wasn't for you.

I quickly conclude from this that you are quick to conclusions. I've found many topics on Quora which have accreted answers which encompass a range of nuance and even questions in kind. I may have even downvoted some of those answers, but I didn't do so in hopes that anyone would stop using the service.

In re: whether you just don't want to be on Quora or you are predicting its demise, the title of your post does allude to a certain implacable finality...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building the initial team for seed stage startups  - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/09/14/building-the-initial-team-for-seed-stage-startups/ <comment><USER2> Most of the points are valid and it is always very important to get quality people for a seed start up more then any other stage because people is the most important part of the business where none can be wasted vs. corporate world. However getting T-shaped people who can carry many hats might not solve the problems. Most of the time is is hard to find specialist who can do something else without compromising on what they are expert in(if you do find one - they tend to be expensive) so I would rather go for specialist especially if it is tech star up and hire another general; person who can ware many hats.</comment>


Ultra-Orthodox Jews to Hold Big Meeting on Internet Risks - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/nyregion/ultra-orthodox-jews-will-meet-at-citi-field-to-discuss-internet-dangers.html?_r=1&ref=technology

<comment><USER2> Setting regulations you want your own community to abide by is fine and dandy. That sounds like what they are doing. The minute you try to expand those on everyone else is when you need to shut the fuck up. Just stay away from that line ultra-orthodox jews and you will be fine.

<comment><USER3> The hasids are definitely against integration with society as a whole. Here's a recent example about putting signs up for women and men to NOT be on the same side of the street. [http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/41/dtg_hasidicsidewa...](http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/41/dtg_hasidicsidewalks_2011_10_14_bk.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To understand what the ultra-orthodox have against the internet you must first understand the ultra-orthodox. (I am NOT ultra-orthodox, but understand them well.)

1) Time waster: Ultra-Orthodox Jew's believe that it's Gods will to study Torah for as much time as possible. \--Internet usage very easily turns into a a huge time waster. How many times have you found yourselves hours later in the same spot reading a blog or youtube video which you had no intention to see when you sat down at the computer? "Just one more link...", "Just one more video..". 2) Smut: Ultra-Orthodox Jew's aspire to purity of thought and vision. \--Fact- The Internet is FULL of easy to access smut from the privacy and anonymity of your home. 3) Womens attire: Have you ever seen how Ultra- orthodox women dress? That's right, they cover their hair with a hat or wig, wear long skirts, stockings and long sleeves even in the summer. Ultra- orthodox Jews believe it's inappropriate to gaze at women especially if they are not dressed according to their standards. \--News flash- women of the world don't dress like that. The internet is full of pictures, and unsurprisingly, the women in them are not blurred out. 4) Values: Ultra- orthodox are very insular. They stubbornly attempt to maintain their traditional values and educate their children with those values, many of which are not in tandem with the values of society at large. \--The internet is place where ideas and values are freely expressed. While generally thought of as a good thing- Ultra-Orthodox Jews see this as a risk since it is a place where they cannot control the education given to their children.

Of those points I think only point 4 could be the basis for a strong counter- argument. An alternative solution would be to expose their children to all freedoms of expression the internet has to offer and to explain why they feel their own point-of-view is correct. But to do that they will still need to figure out how to address points 1-3.

As the article stated the idea is to make people aware of the risks that unrestricted access to the Internet poses both to adults and to children. And to give them tools and ideas how to live with (or without) the internet in a effective and safe way. Internet addiction is a real thing as are the risks to children (not just Ultra-Orthodox Jew's children.) The purpose here is not to limit internet usage in the world or to impose a national censor but to protect their own community from the risks they see as evident.

</comment><comment><USER5> Something interesting to think about:

The Amish not only heavily restrict their member's Internet access, but commonly eschew the Internet altogether.

According to the 2010 census, there were 249000 Amish in the USA [1] and their population is doubling at the rate of about every 14 years. If you suppose that they will maintain that birth rate (which it seems likely to me that they will because they maintained about that birth throughout the past 100+ years of societal and technological development), and you simply extrapolate that out (which has its own merits and demerits, I know), you get about 1.6 billion Amish by the end of the century [2]. Regardless of whether or not the Amish grow to be just that large of a group, it seems to me that they will substantial demographic in the USA during the latter half of the 21st Century.

What will a voting block that big in the USA do with things like Internet regulation? How soon until Google Translate supports Pennsylvania Deutsch as a language option? When will we see HN discussing startups targeting the Amish market?

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

[2]Year Amish Population

2010 249000

2024 498000

2038 996000

2052 1992000

2066 3984000

2080 7968000

2094 15936000

Edit: Updated for formatting

<comment><USER6> I find it extraordinarily unlikely because of the Amish's lifestyle.

The Amish do not eschew technology because they think it is evil. They have, actually, adopted some modern technology in their communities with restricted access. They eschew technology because they rationally recognize that adopting it will significantly change their lifestyle.

The kind of population increases you're talking about would require them to have cities - they would need communities with greater density. Individuals would also have to start specializing in much the same way modern cities do. That's the sort of thing they do not want.

Something would have to give. If such an expansion of their population happened, they would not be recognizably "Amish" anymore.

<comment><USER5> At first glance, my reaction was also, "No way, not happening."

But, I know some Amish and former-Amish personally and can attest that they think it is part of their Christian duty to "be fruitful and multiply." I also know that they are busy establishing new colonies in unconventional locations like Alaska. Additionally, they are branching into non-agrarian businesses like construction and furniture in order to support their large families.

With the population of the USA mostly moving to urban areas, the prices of farmland and rural real estate has been dropping. In some regions, the Amish are already scooping that up.

What I wonder is if the Amish will continue to let us "English" develop whatever technologies that we want or if they will impose restrictive regulations.

It could be very strange if Kurzweil's Singularity comes in 2050, but a large chunk of the population is living as if it were 1850 and just ignores the Singularity.

<comment><USER6> Very interesting, and I admit I had not considered it. But I still feel that once their communities grow that large, they will become less "Amish" in nature. But, we shall see.

<comment><USER5> Ha! So, I can't count apparently. That was 15 million as the final number in the table.

The Amish don't get to 1.5 billion until 2186.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's fine that they want to figure out what the internet means for them, as long as they are not going to try to impose those positions unto others.

Given that they haven't even managed to will themselves into basic decency towards their own women I have my doubts here.

<comment><USER8> > as long as they are not going to try to impose those positions unto others

I got the impression they had figured out what the internet means for them for the most part. This meeting is to figure out how best to "help" those poor people suffering from too much free speech and information.

The statistics showing a strong inverse correlation between access to information and church attendance/religious belief has not been lost on church leaders of all faiths. What can be done about it is a pretty major subject of discussion right now (What should be done is already decided, whatever needs to be done to stop people leaving churches, there are souls at stake, all else is secondary)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some people are scared of information, scared of facts and ideas. While I think the internet is filled mostly with petty arguments and cat pictures, this lends to the evidence that the internet is a source of power.

<comment><USER10> I agree. I also think the internet is dangerous, if you haven't got good information hygiene and a proper information immune system going. I'm serious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a good thing that with the Pirate parties growing across the world, people are going to be better informed about the importance of freedom in information exchange.

</comment><comment><USER12> Anyone here who self-identifies as an ultra-orthodox Jew who can explain concerns about the internet in the context of his own belief system?

</comment><comment><USER13> lol jews did wtc

<comment><USER14> This is a racist and vile comment that has no place in civil society or hackernews. Please leave.

<comment><USER11> This is exactly the kind of censorship we are talking about. Attack the comment, not the man

<comment><USER14> What? Who is we?

HN is not a "say what ever you want" zone. There are community guidelines. If you don't like it, this sit itsnt for you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fixing a Bug in an 18 Year Old Shockwave Game - <AUTHOR> https://mattbruv.github.io/ccsr-bugfix/ <comment><USER2> Shockwave was generated by Macromedia Director (the spiritual precursor to Flash) and had a lovely IDE with a fantastic debugger and excellent 3D, video and audio support. You could make "proper" games in it, I once hooked it up to some hardware tilt sensors to make a Joust clone you could play by flapping your arms.

The scripting language Lingo was a little bit gumby but perfectly serviceable. The main engine limitation was IIRC you could only have 256 sprite channels. I was always disappointed that Flash took hold instead of the more powerful Shockwave platform.

To this day when programming Ruby I always mistype "puts" as "put" thanks to Lingo still burned into my fingers.

<comment><USER3> Macromedia Flash and Macromedia Director were both powerful and interesting products.

I played around with Flash years ago, back when Flash was still "in vogue" — made a couple of animations and wrote a rudimentary graphics editor that I didn't finish.

I have fond memories of playing Flash and Shockwave games in elementary and middle school. One Shockwave game in particular that I remember was a 3d car game where other cars were chasing you through a city. The gameplay was rather simple and the 3d was quite low poly but it was an impressive game nonetheless.

I also installed Director at some point I think but it was a bit too complicated for me to understand at the time.

I recently picked up a few books on Director and Lingo that the library at my university had decided to get rid of. Flash and Shockwave are dead but the editors had something to them that I think is worthy of investigation, thought and revival. Perhaps some day we can have a Flash/Director like tool for developing interactive Canvas and Canvas3d (WebGL) content.

<comment><USER2> Director had depth and power, while Flash was very accessible to illustrator/designer types. That era saw some amazing net.art demoscene type pieces that have no modern equivalent (Joshua Davis / flight404 etc). Haiku.ai is doing some interesting work in that space.

I wonder if WebAssembly can bring back this classic art aesthetic. The key is a great IDE with strong graphics asset management.

<comment><USER4> I've wondered recently if it would be possible to convert flash or shockwave to WASM and preserve some of these old relics.

<comment><USER5> That's one of the goals in a discord I'm a part of. The concern is whether or not WebSockets is adequate enough for this too. There will likely be a need for JavaScript in any regard. It's interesting that Director did support JS in some form for a while too, but everyone always writes the decompilers for the Lingo syntax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for this lovely write up, it reminds me of the joy of reverse engineering. It teaches us a lot, it is how I got into the industry.

Nowadays it can be a bit more challenging - at least for high budget productions as the games can be a lot more complicated, and there are anti piracy measurements in some which means it requires a bit more effort into seeing the information - for example all strings would be encrypted. Modifying anything at all could mean the game will not start or it will crash on purpose. Similarly for multi player games, with anti cheat protection. Nothing is impossible though ;)

Indie games should have relatively low barriers to entry, however :)

<comment><USER7> > It teaches us a lot, it is how I got into the industry.

Absolutely. I played a lot of games and often prolonged their attraction by simply digging into their data files and fiddling with them. I remember writing a terrain editor[1] for "4D Stunts" after looking at the data format in the 3 existing terrain files. Or discovering a dragon in the original "Quake Test" release after reverse engineering the MDL file format and writing one of the first viewers for it. It was certainly a huge motivation seeing the visual result of your work in action. The relative simplicity of the games really helped with that, just like you said.

[1] Here's a screenshot I just took after running it again in DOSBox for the first time in probably 20 years: [https://i.imgur.com/z7ZSM0J.png](https://i.imgur.com/z7ZSM0J.png).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of my concentrations in college was Multimedia Programming in Shockwave. I build a 3D, multiplayer version of Spy Vs. Spy with randomly generated levels.

The host would generate a 2D array of objects and locations and then transmit to the client. I felt so smart back then.

The 3D engine was pretty easy to work with. I hand-coded and hard-coded every single animation, since it was faster than learning how to animate.

I miss working with Shockwave, it provided a wonderful combination of power and accessibility. I've found Unity to be the closest in features, but don't get the same thrill from it.

Ah college.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ah geez, I remember Cartoon Cartoon Summer Resort like it was yesterday! I'd leave the desktop running for 30 minutes while it loaded because dialup was sluggish as hell.

I really enjoyed your writing style and it's definitely inspired me to have a poke around some other games too!

Thanks :)

</comment><comment><USER10> I actually remember this one! Several hours went into that.

Wonderful write up for a strong piece of nostalgia.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice work and the best way to learn about programming

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe some day Adobe will free up the shockwave player again. So much excellent creative work is starting to become inaccessible without VMs.</comment>


Double-checking Dawkins - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2007/12/double-checking-dawkins.html

<comment><USER2> And most impressive of all is that the Apple computer came about by chance over millions of years. Both hardware and software evolved at the same time and in perfect step with one another to create the CPU, RAM, I/O etc to make this beep function. Evolution is amazing.</comment>


A big, successful trial of probiotics - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/at-last-a-big-successful-trial-of-probiotics/537093/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Here's the nature article (paywall): [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature23480.html)

"The special mixture included a probiotic called Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC-202195 combined with fructo-oligosaccharide (FOS), an oral synbiotic preparation developed by Dr. Panigrahi." (from [https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-probiotics-sepsis- inf...](https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-probiotics-sepsis- infants.html))

Decrease in other infections (respiratory and nasal) is particularly interesting to see.

Now I want a HN MD to weigh in.

<comment><USER3> Pediatric MD PhD. These are exciting results.

Sepsis among neonates is a major concern, even in the developed world. Babies new to the world have very weak immune systems, particularly with regard to antibody response which is initially almost entirely composed of waning amounts of transplacental IgA. This paper points out the the developing world has even higher rates of infant mortality from bacterial sepsis. So this is a big problem and impactful solutions have been tough to come by.

This is a large double-blind placebo controlled trial. They gave eligible babies 7 consecutive daily doses of either placebo or the study agent. Table 1 shows that both study groups are very similar, so we should not be too concerned with confounding variables. Table 2 shows the striking data re: sepsis death rates, with this "synbiotic" (probiotic bacteria + bacterial food) reducing death from sepsis by almost half(!). Table 3 looks at all causes of death and importantly, significant differences in other causes of death were not observed between the two groups--it wouldn't be all that helpful if this synbiotic group seemed to get some other serious problem as a side effect. It is a pretty straight-forward study and no major flaws in their methods or conclusions jump out at me.

While exciting overall, the authors point out some important points at the end. I think the most interesting is that they used this particular species of lactobacillus after studying babies in India about 20 years ago and finding differences in the rates of colonization with this and other probiotic species. In other words, they didn't just throw any sort of "good bacteria" at these babies--they had strong evidence to show that it actually colonized them and therefore _could_ , in theory, have an effect on rates of sepsis. If they had used lactobacillus GG (one of the other species that they found had low rates of colonization), it would stand to reason that they wouldn't have gotten such an impressive effect or maybe none at all. Then the media would say, "probiotics don't save babies from sepsis." Basically I'm just applauding their careful selection of this bacterial species.

One final important note is that this result should not be generalized to other populations without future studies showing similar effects. The gut microbiome is influenced by geography and other environmental factors and interacts heavily with out immune systems, large parts of which vary by genetic background. To put it another way, just because this bacterial species works well in rural India does not mean it will work well in Peru or anywhere else.

<comment><USER4> Outstanding comment. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want to try L. Plantarum yourself, get the strain 299v if you can. There's one by Jarrow (not affiliated, just made good experiences with it). AFAIK, most other strains of L. Plantarum produce D-lactic acid, while 299v produces L-lactic acid (I've even seen a paper where they used 299v to treat acidosis). D-lactic acid can be hard to metabolize and can lead to acidosis. Probiotics-induced acidosis is a thing - not good, most people with this end up in hospital and need infusions and some kind of intervention for the long term.

Acidophilus generally produces D-lactic acid, while e.g. L casei shirota (Yakult) does not. It pays to take a hard look at the strains in a probiotic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just did a quick online search, and it seems that D-lactic acid might be responsible for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome too. This is something I'm going to read up more in the next few days.

Are there any good resources on this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find the word probiotic to be inherently problematic. It includes any and all microorganisms that have a single positive health benefit, whether or not they're detrimental in other regards. That if a bacteria were to penerate gut epithelium (very bad), it would still be a probiotic if it reduced constupation.

Even if the research supporting the health benefits of a supplemental bacteria is sound, a single study always has a restricted scope.

It's saddening that 'probiotics' have found their way to products such as baby formula, while there is pretty much no regulation governing their sales and use (at least in Europe).

<comment><USER7> In my opinion, the word antibiotic is even more problematic.

In a recent survey, 13% of practitioners admitted to having used sedatives or antibiotics as placebos:

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081023195216.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081023195216.htm)

To me, antibiotics are an example of dangerous superstition rearing its nasty head right there smack in the middle an institution that prides itself as rational and superior.

I think pre-med and med school students should be required to take courses in chaos theory and ecology, as well as open minded primers on alternative and preventative medicines, not so much to advocate or practice them, but so they can have a better sense of medicine as an artform.

<comment><USER8> Or maybe just have Jeff Goldblum tell them that they're so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think about whether they should. And that life finds a way.

<comment><USER7> Yeah they should be required to watch Jurassic Park (the original ONLY though the new one is garbage propaganda)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The 9% placebo and even the 5% treatment sepsis rate seems very high. According to [http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/978352-overview#a6](http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/978352-overview#a6) the US rate of neonatal sepsis is around 2/1000 live births so around 0.2%.

Given this, I wonder how applicable these results would be to neonates in the US.

<comment><USER10> The US generally has clean water. The third world, and India in particular, frequently do not.

That said, the other immune boosts are interesting here. And what would be doubly interesting is to figure out probiotics that prevent allergies.

We've known for years that a child who is exposed to real illnesses in a dirty environment may die from that, but won't generally go on to develop asthma. In the developed world we have a lot of health problems coming from the immune system looking so hard for threats that it starts attacking your own body.

There is very, very good reason to believe that the right probiotics would solve this problem. However discovering what those probiotics are is not so simple...

<comment><USER11> Hygiene hypothesis hasn't been proven yet.

<comment><USER10> It may not be conclusively proven, but there is strong supporting evidence. See, for example, [http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(15)01193-8/abst...](http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749\(15\)01193-8/abstract).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They initially planned to include 8000 babies, but stopped early. With only a week of treatment they already found a significant decrease in sepsis rates. They stopped because they thought it'd be highly unethical to deprive the other babies of a life-saving treatment. This is a heartwarming example of when humanity and science conflict, but I'm glad humanity won

<comment><USER13> That's standard procedure for clinical trials.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Aside from preventing sepsis, it also reduced the risk of infections by both the major groups of bacteria: the Gram-positives, by 82 percent; and the Gram- negatives, which are harder to treat with antibiotics, by 75 percent. It even reduced the risk of pneumonia and other infections of the airways by 34 percent. That was "completely unexpected," says Panigrahi, and it's the result he's especially excited about. It suggests that the synbiotic isn't just acting within the gut, but also giving the infants' immune systems a body-wide boost._

I don't know why they are so surprised. Given that some sources say the gut constitutes up to 70 percent of the immune system, it should be fairly obvious that improving gut health will have such effects.

Furthermore, you can infer a fairly direct relationship between gut health and lung health based on what happens in the body at altitude: You start urinating more to compensate for the thin air reducing your ability to exhale wastes. The body starts clearing them out of the blood by shunting them to the kidneys.

<comment><USER15> But a single strain of bacteria can do that? I would say that's pretty surprising and if so a major discovery. I don't currently have any such magic pills that I'm taking...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The trial looks to be exceptionally rigorous and the sample size is very large. This is exciting science to say the least!

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting. I was skeptical of probiotics but the evidence seems to be suggesting otherwise.

This kind of builds on meta-analyses showing that probiotic use cuts rates of antibiotic-associated C. difficile infection.

Young children have very unstable microflora systems, so the results make sense from that perspective also.

</comment><comment><USER18> I can recommend [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus_reuteri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus_reuteri)

"Similar results have been found in adults; those consuming L. reuteri daily end up falling ill 50% less often, as measured by their decrease use of sick leave."

</comment><comment><USER19> Why the use of a placebo in a trial involving babies? Surely they would be immune to any placebo effect?

<comment><USER20> The researchers and their parents won't be though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My issue isn't on the faith in probiotics side...the problem is which ones do I buy.

It's near impossible to know you're getting the good stuff so to speak.

<comment><USER5> It really depends on what you need. I would be careful around soil based species, and avoid D-lactic acid producers (which eliminates a whole lot of probiotics), but apart from that you can just get what you need. E.g. if you have a problem with histamine intolerance you could go for strains that eat/reduce histamine. If you want better mood, you could try L Plantarum 299v or Bifidobacterium Longum or L casei shirota.

<comment><USER22> If you want to lose weight, _Christensenella minuta_ is worth examining. The research[1,2] is preliminary, and I wouldn't trust any commercial preparations without validation, but it is compelling.

1\. [http://www.ctl.cornell.edu/events/celebration15/posters/Wate...](http://www.ctl.cornell.edu/events/celebration15/posters/Waters.pdf)

2\. [http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(14)01241-0](http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674\(14\)01241-0)

<comment><USER5> I'm intrigued by what mechanism this happens. Would be great if it changed the "fat set point" in the hypothalamus by reducing inflammation there ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14932541](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14932541)).

Last time I tried a strain from the clostridia family (butyricum) I had an adverse reaction, so I might not be able to use this. But, everybody's different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does yoghurt have the good stuff?

</comment><comment><USER24> The study was done on newborns just starting breastfeeding, but doesn't say whether only vaginal births or if C-sections were included.

<comment><USER25> 99.8% and 99.7% of the births were vaginal for those receiving the placebo and the probiotics, respectively.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23480.epdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23480.epdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> All the products containing Lactobacillus plantarum may see a boost in sales.

<comment><USER27> This strain is in milk kefir, no? Easy to cultivate at home.

See also: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38800977](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38800977)

Water kefir is also available :)

<comment><USER28> Anecdotal: I recently started taking Milk Kefir and it has been a life changer. I never thought I had any problems till they were resolved by Kefir. Seen great improvements in energy levels and anxiety. It even fixed the minor IBS I had.

<comment><USER11> Factory produced Kefir has very few probiotics. They were removed intentionally. So maybe just placebo.

<comment><USER28> I actually make it at home as Kefir isn't sold in my country :). I couldn't yet take a call on whether its a placebo or not. My partner says its placebo effect too but I don't think so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Gotta be done:

[https://xkcd.com/1471/](https://xkcd.com/1471/)

</comment><comment><USER30> I've been using General Biotics 115-strain pre- and probiotic product called Equilibrium [1]. You can find more info in the Science section [2].

[1]: [https://www.generalbiotics.com/orders/new/](https://www.generalbiotics.com/orders/new/)

[2]: [https://www.generalbiotics.com/science/](https://www.generalbiotics.com/science/)

<comment><USER31> But 115-strain is not the strain mentioned in this study, isn't it? So your point of bringing up this product is??!! I meant, isn't one major point of this study is "not all probiotics are the same and finally someone found one is actually very helpful to new born babies"?</comment></comment>


Eight Ways to Say No with Grace and Style - <AUTHOR> http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/11/eight-ways-to-say-no/

<comment><USER2> 9th way: say "no," say what you think, and continue whatever else you're doing.</comment>


So you completed the official React tutorial. What's next? - <AUTHOR> https://goshakkk.name/next-steps-official-react-tutorial/ <comment><USER2> Do the Angular tutorial so you can put both on your resume. Joking, but sadly I've met a few people who think like this.</comment>


Go vs. Node vs. Rust vs. Swift on Ubuntu Linux 15.10 - <AUTHOR> https://grigio.org/go-vs-node-vs-rust-vs-swift/ <comment><USER2> The "use cases and opinions" section is pretty nice, and I agree with it.

I would expect Rust and Swift to have the same execution performance on Fibonacci. In fact, I'd expect them to generate essentially identical LLVM IR. The fact that they have differences in performance leads me to believe that it's some sort of "LLVM IR optimization didn't trigger because of a bug" sort of issue—perhaps the optimization pass that converts recursive functions to loops.

I have to say, though: Beware of Fibonacci as a benchmark. I believe it's vulnerable to a compiler that optimizes it to the closed form solution [1]. I don't think compilers do this optimization today, but if you popularize a Fibonacci benchmark you will create market pressure for them to implement it and ruin your results. :)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Closed- form_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Closed- form_expression)

<comment><USER3> "Beware of Fibonacci as a benchmark."

It seems to me one of the dangers of its use is that people tend to think that it measures "math speed" or "execution speed" or something. But the fib calculation itself is done with small integer addition, things that will be about one cycle in any compiled language, and which is also what I've called "easy mode" for a JIT before. Since the calculation under test is so tiny compared to the overhead, the benchmark is _really_ measuring the overhead, and due to the simplicity of the test, very vulnerable to special purpose optimizations skewing the results vs. what you might expect for real.

This isn't "useless", because that overhead can matter, but unless you have a program that is going to spend an irreducible and large amount of its time being forced to make static function calls only to do tiny amounts of work per function call relative to the function overhead, the information is only a quite tiny part of understanding the performance characteristics of a language. If one has optimized even a half-decently compiled language's program down to where the function call overhead is your biggest problem, one is to be congratulated on some fine engineering, and I expect that you'll know what to do next if you need more speed as you've already demonstrated significant competence.

You want to have a bit more fun, benchmark the local equivalent of "dynamic" dispatch. That'll spread the languages out quite a bit more. For fun, toss in Python or something too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's a quite small sampling of microbenchmarks, but still interesting.

One thing you failed to note is that only Rust and Swift aren't garbage collected. That means that only Rust and Swift should be considered for applications where deterministic performance is required, in other words soft or hard real time.

Many games, for instance, have soft real time requirements.

<comment><USER5> I believe Swift does reference counting (ARC). Isn't that a form of garbage collection? With reference counting object lifetime management cost is just spread more finely over time. With GC the cost is paid in periodic "time chunks".

Other than that, nothing prevents one from writing the performance sensitive part in C/C++/Rust/etc. and then using whatever other language for the non- performance sensitive portion, which typically represents the bulk of code.

<comment><USER4> Reference counting is a form of GC, the difference being that the programmer has full control over when it runs. Most real time systems preallocate everything and never deallocate.

One typical problem with GC systems is common patterns and library code cause allocations, which cause the GC to run - consuming cycles and causing jitter even if nothing is freed.

(Note that even calling malloc() is non-deterministic and best avoided in real time code.)

<comment><USER6> You certainly do not have "full control" over when reference counting runs. You have some _illusion_ of control at best.

Fact is, that in a reference counting scheme, functions have to call pointer->drop() or whatever (maybe dropping a reference implicitly, thanks to smart pointers or refcounting being built into the language) all over the place, without having any idea whether that action decrements 15 to 14, or whether it decrements 1 to 0, triggering cleanup, and additional decrements on objects behind that object.

You only have control in a certain well-defined circumstances, like when you have the entire lifetime of an object (or object aggregate) in the same scope, or a closely related set of scopes. In other words, in situations where you could quite probably do manual memory management (and effectively _are_ doing that, just through the refcounting calls that you are still forced to use).

<comment><USER4> "You certainly do not have "full control" over when reference counting runs. You have some illusion of control at best."

If I use the factory pattern with pre-allocated object pools, and keep references to the objects in the factory, I have absolute certainty that ARC will never reclaim the objects. Used properly, ARC will contribute negligible overhead at runtime.

"You only have control in a certain well-defined circumstances, like when you have the entire lifetime of an object (or object aggregate) in the same scope, or a closely related set of scopes. In other words, in situations where you could quite probably do manual memory management (and effectively are doing that, just through the refcounting calls that you are still forced to use)."

Wrong across the board.

<comment><USER5> > If I use the factory pattern with pre-allocated object pools, and keep > references to the objects in the factory, I have absolute certainty that ARC > will never reclaim the objects. Used properly, ARC will contribute > negligible overhead at runtime.

Weird you'd say that, _exactly_ same applies to any garbage collected language.

<comment><USER4> No, the GC still periodically runs, polluting cache, consuming cycles and halting the rest of the program until it's done. The only exception is if you completely avoid allocations, which is generally next to impossible in GC based languages.

With ARC, there is exactly zero overhead unless a new reference is created or destroyed. In that case there's an integer add or subtract, not a global "stop the world" kind of event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
        Golang: to enable all the cores, you have to put in your code runtime.GOMAXPROCS(num of cores you want to use)

This is no longer true. With Go 1.5 and higher GOMAXPROCS is set to the number of CPUs available by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I've read somewhere it should be the default behavior in Go 1.5, but currently it isn't, at least not in my system.

If I don't specify it all the computation use just one core

<comment><USER7> This hasn't been my experience... You can also set that value using an environmental variable (GOMAXPROCS). You might want to make sure that isn't set in your environment. Otherwise, you might be experiencing a bug that you should probably report.

Reference: [https://golang.org/doc/go1.5](https://golang.org/doc/go1.5)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> here is the source, all the tests seem quite the same [https://github.com/grigio/bench-go-rust- swift](https://github.com/grigio/bench-go-rust-swift)</comment>