An Astronaut Accidentally Called 911 from Space - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsweek.com/astronaut-accidentally-calls-911-space-1276892 <comment><USER2> >The 60-year-old said that to reach the center in Houston, orbiting astronauts have to dial 9 for an outside line, followed by 011 for an international line.

I suppose it makes sense, but there is something jarring about someone in space having to dial 9 to get an outside line. I forget that, in some sense, the ISS is a workplace, and while the view is fantastic it still isn't immune from some of the banality plaguing the rest of humanity.

<comment><USER3> The women's room on the station is marked W and the men's room is marked M, and the doors are round.

<comment><USER4> I hope you're joking: there's hardly any other place where saving space is such a big priority. Surely there won't be separate bathrooms for men and women?? (And if there were, why would they be marked with the first letter of the _English_ words instead of using language-independent icons?)

<comment><USER5> It's obviously a joke. M and W on round doors in a location with not obvious up or down direction...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the mid-1990s I lived in a San Jose neighborhood with underground utilities. Sometimes water would get into the phone lines and cause short circuits.

After one bad rainstorm, our phone was unusable. If you picked up the handset you would just hear a bunch of clicks.

Then two police officers knocked on the door. They said someone had called 911 from my number, they called back and no one answered, so they were required to come out and investigate.

I told them no one had called 911 and we were fine. Then it dawned on me: the clicks!

I invited them in so they could listen to the phone, and explained how old rotary dial phones work: by opening and closing the circuit once to dial a 1, twice for 2, etc. And the phone system still supported rotary dial phones.

Sure enough, with random clicks all day, the phone circuit had just happened to detect nine clicks, pause, one click, pause, and one click.

<comment><USER7> That's exactly why the UK emergency number was set as 999. Needing those extra clicks meant it was harder for random events to trigger a call.

<comment><USER8> Well, part of the reason. They wanted to use a number close to 0 so that it could be dialled on a rotary phone without requiring visibility. 111 was rejected for the reason of random events or faulty lines, 222 because it connected to Abbey's local exchange: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/hist...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8675000/8675199.stm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > to reach the center in Houston, orbiting astronauts have to dial 9 for an > outside line, followed by 011 for an international line

> His comms slip-up set off a security alert at the Houston center, he > explained, with emergency staff to check the room where the space station's > line connected to Earth.

Dialing 9 and "outside lines" implies there's some sort of PBX system, which makes sense. What I don't get though, is if the outside lines are in Houston, why do you have to dial the international access code 011 to call Houston? I thought maybe there was a country code allocated to the ISS, but according to a Reddit thread, they just use Houston numbers [1]. I think the first bit from the article is just a mistake (eg he wasn't calling a Houston number, just _through_ Houston).

Aside, it's amazing how many (new) PBXs still use the "dial 9" requirement. If you dial a 10 digit number (in North America), it's obviously destined for an outside line. If you avoid assigning extensions that conflict with area codes, you can even use early dialing (where the call is placed as soon as a number pattern is recognized), but that's optional as the system will just wait a few seconds to see if you're dialing more digits or not. Already anyone with an extension that starts with the local area code probably already gets lots of misdialed calls since people forget to dial 9 all the time.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/56yxnd/til_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/56yxnd/til_the_area_code_for_the_international_space/)

<comment><USER10> How do you know he was calling Huston? He's Dutch. Maybe he was trying to call home?

<comment><USER11> Not sure why this is being downvoted, as I'm pretty sure that's the correct answer.

9 - gets him out of the internal exchange 011 - gets him out of the USA xx - country code (probably 31 for the Netherlands) then whatever other numbers are required inside the Netherlands

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > it is surprisingly easy to communicate with the Earth while aboard a space > station in orbit. He suggested astronauts can reach terrestrial phones via > satellites around 70 percent of the time

That SHOULD be surprising, but the real surprise to me is that I had never thought about it being hard.

We live in age with enough wonders that I take them for granted. I cant decide if that is amazing or depressing.

<comment><USER13> Low Earth orbit isn't really that far away. The ISS is only about a four hour's drive away, if only your car could drive straight up.

<comment><USER14> Actually, given that, why does the call have so much latency?

<comment><USER15> Never have I ever been in a call where the latency was dictated by speed of light, since about early 1990s when phone lines went digital. There's an awful lot of routing and switching along the (rather indirect) way, and each hop adds some ms to the mess. Even if the call was only Houston-transatlantic (or worse, transpacific for whatever peering reason)-Netherlands, you'd get pretty bad latency. Add the orbit-relay station-Houston leg, and I assume you'd have a bad time.

Ham radio, on the other hand - now we would be talking significant fractions of _c_!

<comment><USER16> In the 1970s (early 80s? my memory is not good) calls sometimes went via satellite in geosynchronous orbit. Those had a lot of latency and didn't last long for that reason. ISS in low earth orbit shouldn't have much latency so long as they have a connection back down to the ground that doesn't involve other satellites.

<comment><USER15> That's a big _if_ , its orbit can take it pretty much anywhere. But even given a direct downlink, much of the telephone call latency is an artifact of call routing on the ground.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> We had similar things happen at a previous $work, where you needed 09 to dial out, but one of the largest cities closed by had the prefix "0911". Here in Germany, our emergency lines are 110 and 112, so if you called any "0911 2<something>" number, and forgot to add the 09 prefix, you'd be calling the fire department.

But of course, this not being from space, it's not that news worthy :-)

<comment><USER18> Similar situation here where you had to dial 9 then the number. Many employees with fast fingers who dialed long distance would find themselves accidentally double tapping the 1 and calling 911. After numerous emails and meetings they changed the dial out number to 8. No more incidents. Not news worth at all!

<comment><USER19> That brings back painful memories. 8+ years of dialing 9 to get an outside line and only 1 person had made that mistake (while trying to dial 411!) at a previous company. Then new management comes in and it happens twice in 2 days. Supposedly a huge fiasco and they started pushing to change the dial out digit immediately. Such a headache.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Reminds me of how Indian graduate students from New Delhi accidentally call 911 because India code is 91 and Delhi area code is 11.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why would there be a lag in the call? I don't think other satellite phones have much perceivable delay.

So the question is...do astronauts get 10 spam calls per day like the rest of us?

<comment><USER22> They use IP telephony, bounced through geosynchronous satellites like their other Internet traffic. So the best-case signal roundtrip is already close to 150000 km. I'm not sure whether standard satellite phones would work on the ISS.

BTW, is the spamcall/robocall thing a US phenomenon? I mean, I haven't heard anyone talking about those except Americans. I only get regular human telemarketers every now and then, but I generally don't answer calls from unknown numbers anyway.

<comment><USER23> UK gets huge numbers of spam/scam calls: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/06/bt_call_scam/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/06/bt_call_scam/)

<comment><USER24> Yeah I'm in the UK. I don't even bother answering the landline anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Something similar happened to a friend of mine in a hotel back in the days of dial-up. His laptop dialer was hiccuping, and instead of dialing 9-1-(access number) was dialing 99-11-(access number). After a couple of tries, a couple of cops showed up at the room wondering what was going on.

<comment><USER26> Growing up I had a SO whose phone number had the pattern: XXX-XX9-11XX. I also had a hidden landline in my room for when my parents would take my phone at night. One night, around 2AM, my call redirected to an emergency dispatcher as if I had dialed 911, and I promptly hung up the phone (out of fear). When I redialed the number I was again redirected, and such a conversation ensued:

ME: Sorry, my phone seems to be redirecting my calls. I apologize for disruption. Please don't dispatch an officer to my home.

DISPATCHER: We are definitely sending over an officer.

ME: Please don't. I'm going to get in a lot of trouble.

DISPATCHER: ... Okay, now the officer is going to check your home and verify with each member of the family that everything is alright.

My parents were not pleased to be woken up by a police officer at 2AM to check if they were okay. I got in a lot of trouble. I then called my ISP and had them add the troubled phone number to a list of non-redirecting numbers.

I believe the cell number I was calling was issued before ISPs started redirecting numbers with 911 to emergency dispatch. The redirection of my call was probably a result of my ISP implementing the redirection.

<comment><USER27> Wait what , any number with 911 will be redirected ?

Does that for a 10 digit phone number out of 10! all possibilities, 8! are gone ?

Can there only be 3588480(10! - 8!) safe phone numbers ever ?

<comment><USER28> Nope. It's fine to have the substring "911" in your phone number. This guy must have experienced a hiccup in the system somewhere. What I want to know is how he managed to get a secret landline installed in his parents' house.

<comment><USER29> > What I want to know is how he managed to get a secret landline installed in > his parents' house.

I'm assuming the poster had a secret extension to the existing landline, not an entirely separate line.

<comment><USER30> Or they just had a spare phone they plugged into the socket their parents didn't know about (the phone not the socket). I'd be surprised if OP has gone and spliced an additional line instead of their just being a socket in their room already.

<comment><USER31> _I 'd be surprised if OP has gone and spliced an additional line instead of their just being a socket in their room already._

I wouldn't. This is how the nerdier of my friends got their computers online in the 80's.

In early modem days, a lot of people bought modems without thinking the whole process through. Once they got it home, they realized that either the room with the computer didn't have a phone line, the phone jack was inconveniently located, or after spending $300 on a 150-300 baud modem, they didn't realize they'd have to spend another $200 on a phone line + $50/month for the jack + $xx for dialtone.

Splicing phone lines and fishing them through the walls with a coat hangar became an art. And if it wasn't practical in your house, you sometimes ran a phone line through the trees to your buddy's house.

It was all very educational.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My screen stopped working on my iphone a few weeks ago, and I was trying to get it to reset to see if it fixes it, and I hit the side button 5 times, triggering the call to 911.

When they answered, I said something like. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to call, my phone screen stopped working and i was trying to reset it and .."

"Sir, you need to call your phone provider, not emergency services." _click_

<comment><USER33> Long-press is the standard "alt use" of things on phones, these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Something missing from this story.

If '9' gets you an outside line, then you miss the '0', the number seen by the telco starts '11...'

Maybe the pbx is programmed to recognise '911' and dial that, without requiring an outside line?

<comment><USER35> The '9' prefix to reach an outside line likely corresponds to a specific outbound route that handles phone numbers matching a certain regex (generally length). Depending on how outbound routes were configured on the PBX a prefix might not be required for the outbound route set up with regex to match 911.

I think this is often done as a safety feature, so somebody not knowing or forgetting the exit number can still dial 911 in an emergency and reach emergency services.

I've seen PBXs set up this way in past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's rather apt to be an astronaut with the last name Kuipers.

<comment><USER37> Dutch here. Other than kuip as in badkuip or a ship's kuip, I don't see what it refers to. Does it mean anything funny in the context of space?

<comment><USER38> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt)

<comment><USER37> Oh right, how did I miss that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Here is how I pictured it going.

> operator: "911 what is your emergency?"

> "...........Hello, I need assistance??"

> operator "Sir, Sir. Do you need help?"

> "........... YES I am here, Who is this? ......."

> operator: "Sir, we began tracing your call and are on the way.... wait... > Sir what is your current location"

> "uuuummmmmm.... well about 2000 km up..... Sorry dialed the wrong number..." > _hung up_

> operator: ".....???"

isn't day dreaming fun? LOL

<comment><USER40> Please don't do this here. Comments like this degrade the reading experience on HN. This is why you are getting downvoted. The HN crowd generally prefers more substantive comments and discourages low effort humor.

<comment><USER39> This is in good fun. What is wrong? I mean the original post is not really a Scientific Journal article. It was posted for fun. So lets have fun once in a while.

<comment><USER41> Humor's fine but the bar is high. Low-quality humor grows like crabgrass or kudzu and soon takes over. People are vigilant about not letting that happen here, not because they don't like fun, but because they've seen it happen elsewhere on the internet.

Most people overestimate how funny their comments are. scott_s said it best: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289)

<comment><USER42> It would be interesting to read the top voted HN jokes, presumably they should be good if the bar is high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Offtopic, but is there some malware on this website? First I was rather annoyed because there was an autoplaying video that stayed at the top of the screen covering half of it, with only a very tiny x at the top right to close it. After that chrome asked me if I want to allow the site to show notifications, but then chrome asked me to access my camera! Why on earth would a news site need access to my camera?

<comment><USER44> Not on the site itself, but I'm using an third-party-script blocker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Did they send out a car?

</comment><comment><USER46> I worked for a unicorn startup. We got in trouble when our SDRs (entry-level salespeople who did cold calls all day) kept accidentally calling 911. Ultimately the solution was to reprogram the phone system to allow 7 as a prefix in addition to 9.

</comment><comment><USER47> Our workplace had 9 for outside line and someone accidentally called 911. It was changed to 2 after that happened.

</comment><comment><USER48> I see you are a redditor as well.

</comment><comment><USER49> Gravity plays tricks on your fingers.

</comment><comment><USER50> Well, at least he didn't try to order a pizza.

"Jaa, I vaant too laage pies vit pepperuuni. Let me give yoo die oobital parametaas."</comment>


StackExchange new FAQ on gender pronouns - <AUTHOR> https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334900/official-faq-on-gender-pronouns-and-code-of-conduct-changes?cb=1 <comment><USER2> Already submitted here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21225051](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21225051)

</comment><comment><USER2> Here I foolishly claim that I have a fix for the bug in their CoC.

Even if you're only interested in English I think it makes things clearer if you make the rules language-neutral with English as an example. The main point of the rules is that although people should have a right not to be misgendered they should not have a right to force other people to use a particular form of language.

So here is what I think the rules should probably be.

* If someone has indicated to you that they identify as male or female then you must refer to them either in the way that they have indicated they would like to be referred to in the current language, if they have done so, or in the way you normally refer to people of that gender.

\-- For example, in English, suppose that someone has indicated that they identify as female and that they prefer to be referred to with "xe" in English. If you normally use "she" for female persons then you may refer to that person either with "xe" or with "she". If you normally use "they" for everyone then you may refer to that person either with "xe" or with "they". If you normally use "ey" for everyone then you may refer to that person either with "xe" or with "ey".

* If someone has indicated to you that they identify as neither male nor female then you must refer to them either in the way that they have indicated they would like to be referred to in the current language, if they have done so, or in the way you normally refer to people who identify as neither male nor female, however you must not refer to them in a way that implies that they are male or female.

\-- For example, in English, suppose that someone has indicated that they identify as neither male nor female and that they prefer to be referred to with "xe". If you normally use "they" for people who identify as neither male nor female then you may refer to that person either with "xe" or with "they". If you normally use "ey" for everyone then you may refer to that person either with "xe" or with "ey". You must not refer to people who identify as neither male nor female with "he" or "she" unless they have indicated that they prefer or accept that usage.

* If someone has not indicated their gender identity then you must refer to them either in the way that they have indicated they would like to be referred to in the current language, if they have done so, or in the way you normally refer to people of unknown gender, however you must not refer to them in a way that implies a particular gender identity.

\-- For example, in English, suppose that someone has not indicated their gender identity but has indicated that they prefer to be referred to with "xe". If you normally use "they" for people of unknown gender then you may refer to that person either with "xe" or with "they". If you normally use "ey" for everyone then you may refer to that person either with "xe" or with "ey".

EDIT: Correct typos. Add third clause.</comment>


Show HN: Open-sourcing my wedding website on my first anniversary - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rampatra/wedding-website <comment><USER2> Ok feel old.

20.5 years ago I sent out a link to a party celebrating our engagement. I spent more time explaining how to get to the website, than people finding website helpful.

Still married - so get off my lawn :)

<comment><USER3> They probably liked that better than you breaking out the slide projector when they came over for dinner though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've got a different format - timeline style:

[https://www.09092018.com](https://www.09092018.com)

Let me know if anyone wants me to open source this :)

<comment><USER5> It would be awesome if you could open source this!

<comment><USER6> It's already, IMO you hadn't paid attention to the Title of Post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just went to my old wedding domain name to see if it was still up (www.paulandtessa.com) and it turns out another couple bought it for their wedding next February. Amazingly, they are from the same city as us (Long Beach). I'm not sure what the chances of that happening considering anyone in the world could have bought it. It's a good thing I didn't renew the domain name so that someone else could enjoy it for their guests. Keep that it mind when you are gobbling up domain names for important life events ;)

<comment><USER8> great story. highly unlikely coincidence. same names and wedding at the same city. domain names can have different easy to remember permutations and there are different top level domains so it's likely the couple would've registered something similar. overall good advice on not keeping it permanent, although I could understand some people turning it into a family business or something.

<comment><USER9> Heh, rent our domain for $5 a month! Or, buy the homepage, just send us pictures and captions, and pick one of our templates... Would probably work best for highly common name combinations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still find the idea of a digital wedding invitation pretty strange, because here in Hungary the bride and the fiancé invite everybody in person together. Maybe distant relatives are invited by mail or something.

Is digital invitation a common thing nowadays? Or was it more common even years ago in other countries?

<comment><USER11> As others have said, in the US the formal paper invite is considered official. When my wife and I married we still did this but we encouraged people to RSVP via the website or email. No sense in sending more paper.

It's sad to me that we felt so pressured to do the paper invites. They're ridiculously overpriced and all of that paper and emissions for delivery for something that can easily be delivered electronically and instantly for near zero cost.

The entire wedding industry thrives on norms like these and it's amazing to me that technology doesn't displace more aspects.

<comment><USER12> How do you let people know about the website? Social media posts? How do you contact people not on social media about the website? A mailer? A phone call/text? These are just questions I would ask to understand why paper invitations are still a thing. Rather than providing a self addressed stamped envelope for the RSVP, just put the website into it.

Also, people love to hang things like invitations on their fridge as a constant reminder of an event that's somewhat far into the future. Rarely is that something printed off of a website, but a card received in the mail will pretty much get placed there straight away (or maybe after sitting on the counter for a period of time).

<comment><USER13> > How do you let people know about the website? Social media posts? How do you > contact people not on social media about the website? A mailer? A phone > call/text?

Someone should invent some kind of electronic mail for these things!

> Also, people love to hang things like invitations on their fridge as a > constant reminder of an event that's somewhat far into the future. Rarely is > that something printed off of a website, but a card received in the mail > will pretty much get placed there straight away (or maybe after sitting on > the counter for a period of time).

My wife and I did email invitations because we didn't consider it worth $500 for someone to have something to stick on their fridge. We were able to automatically send an email reminder a week or two ahead of time instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thanks for sharing. I just got married and did my own site - I forgot how time consuming even a regular HTML / CSS static site could be when you have a million other things going on - I would have loved to have used this.

<comment><USER9> I got married last month and thought about doing a site for a while (I just may still make one just for her sake with all the wedding pictures) but being a full-time web developer I knew it wouldn't just be slap on some pictures and HTML/CSS. I cannot tell you how many times I've struggled with CSS or JS and I use both daily! They're painful lessons, sometimes too easy to forget when you leave the front-end.

<comment><USER14> I did that as well; I threw all the images afterwards up on a S3 bucket and set up Cloudfront in front and it's relatively easy / cheap to host.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Oh nice, me too!

Here's the site (hosted on my home server, so may be slow under heavy traffic): [https://www.astrid-en-sander.nl/](https://www.astrid-en-sander.nl/)

It's not nearly as pretty as all the others here, but I am a backend developer, not a designer. You cat get the source code at [https://github.com/sandermarechal/wedding](https://github.com/sandermarechal/wedding)

</comment><comment><USER16> > This event is no way close to ethnic. The bride & groom would like to have > some "shots before the knot". With booze flowing down the floor and the > western attire on, everyone would be busy showing off their new moves on the > stage which they have finely honed. Lastly, expect some beer pong matches & > karaoke for sure.

The money quote. I would have loved to have gone to this wedding!

<comment><USER17> Indeed. The whole site exudes a nonchalance and cultural pluralism that just makes me think I'd have had heaps of fun attending, despite being from the other end of the globe and another background entirely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Happy Anniversary!

For those looking to use this, the following may help a little:

      find /path/to/folder -type f -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i 's/Ram/YourName/g'
      find /path/to/folder -type f -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i 's/Antara/OtherHalfsName/g'

Edit: FianceeName -> OtherHalfsName (some people are easily offended) :P

<comment><USER19> I always found the concept of a whole website, domain name, etc dedicated to a wedding to feel a little... heavy. I understand it's a big occasion. It just feels like a lot for a single event and domain that will become irrelevant after the event is over.

<comment> black-tea Yeah but men basically go insane when trying to impress women. The entire concept of a wedding is insane. That much time, effort and money for something that essentially amounts to a few photographs, most of which are fake and posed. A man wouldn't buy this for himself.

<comment><USER20> I don't think we do it "to impress", but rather to "not disappoint".

<comment> black-tea That's even worse. I was giving them more credit but maybe you're right. The wedding industry thrives by sowing the idea of a perfect and unique wedding into the minds of little girls and later some man will come along and fulfil that dream.

<comment><USER21> I wouldn't buy dolls, and after, their clothing either. Yet my daugthers love them and I love my daugthers. I wouldn't buy expensive jewelry, yet my wife loves it everyday still.

There is so much you wouldn't do for yourself but do for the ones you love. That doesn't make it insane or just to not disappoint. You do it because it makes you happy to see them happy. If you would do the same if you were alone is not the thing that matters here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My wedding website from 6 years ago is also open sourced [https://github.com/potench/shum-harden/](https://github.com/potench/shum- harden/) It is not mobile optimized, whoops [http://shum- harden.com](http://shum-harden.com)

<comment><USER23> quite crazy...I like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Nice, this is great! I did the same thing with mine a couple years back:

Demo: [http://coryandro.com/](http://coryandro.com/) Code: [https://github.com/czue/django-wedding- website](https://github.com/czue/django-wedding-website) Writeup: [https://buildwithdjango.com/blog/post/wedding- website/](https://buildwithdjango.com/blog/post/wedding-website/)

</comment><comment> laurynas-s Nice!

Had an idea to make a website for my wedding too (married one year ago), but in the end, decided to go with traditional paper invitations as would be difficult to explain to older people how to RSVP and paper invitations would be more cost-efficient (By comparing the time needed to build the website with my hourly rate).

For big Indian weddings with hundreds of people, I do see that the website can benefit by not needing to contact each person about RSVP status.

<comment><USER25> At a traditional indian wedding, you don't invite people. You tell your aunts and uncles and friends, and they tell their aunts and uncles and friends, and they tell theirs, etc, until you end up with 800 people at your wedding.

<comment><USER26> At $25-50+ a head for food and alcohol at reception alone, that is a huge number unless you come from wealth... However I think I read somewhere the average cost of South Asian wedding is $100-150k in California. Ouch.

<comment><USER25> Buffet

<comment><USER27> buffet's prices are calculated per plate too

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Putting the placeholder for the +1(s) as "Wife or kids", Yikes... Are women allowed to use the form?

<comment><USER29> Nice catch. I believe it is cultural.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> How does the "RSVP to google sheets" work? That's an extremely useful feature to have on a static site with no backend. It looks like it's related to this line:

$.post('[https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbzUqz44wOat0DiGjRV1g...](https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbzUqz44wOat0DiGjRV1gUnRf4HRqlRARWggjvHKWvqniP7eVDG-/exec'), data)

... how does the security work on that, or can I RSVP to your wedding too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I found it extremely helpful too. You can only RSVP if you have the invite code. If you don't then you can't RSVP.

You can store the code in a particular box in the sheet and then your google script can validate the code entered by the guest.

<comment><USER31> You are checking the invite code in the browser side js. That doesn't keep any tech-savvy user from registering even without code. Is this correct?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's correct for my site currently. But what I had in mind is to have the invite code in the sheet itself and then when one submits, I check the entered code with the code in the sheet and then add/not add the rsvp.

However, due to timing constraints, I couldn't do this and instead used a simple encryption algorithm to have the hacker at least put in some effort to know the invite code :)

I will raise an issue on github for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow, all these wedding websites here look amazing. Ours was a really simple static webpage which I hacked together in a single day. At least our guests loved it :) [http://hetalsaidyes.com](http://hetalsaidyes.com)

However, I shall say that we made the website for convenience, we still sent out letters with a formal invitation. The website was more like a place for people to quickly check details and later to distribute photos by guests.

</comment><comment><USER33> Wow! Great timing...Getting married in a couple of days and here 's our website

[https://mamamami.wedding](https://mamamami.wedding)

<comment><USER34> FYI, after clicking RSVP link, all the navigation links stop working. I'm using Firefox.

<comment><USER33> Hey thanks! Fixing it :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Cool project! Was this collaboratory between the two of you?

I especially love this photo [1], I wish that style of formal wear was more common in America.

[1] [https://wedding.rampatra.com/img/eng_pics/NGP_4089-lg.jpg](https://wedding.rampatra.com/img/eng_pics/NGP_4089-lg.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I coded and she tested it. She also helped me with the color themes. Lastly, she was the final "go/no go", after all, she is the boss.

<comment><AUTHOR> *was=gave

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Nice! One thing about the RSVP, it has a section where you can specify the number of "Wife or kids" you are bringing. Probably could be reworded to something more neutral.

Congrats on your anniversary!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I agree. Appreciate the constructive feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I used a service called withjoy.com about 279 days ago :-)

I primarily went to the service instead of a storied page because I needed a system to collect RSVPs. I could have hacked one up together, but this service offered everything I wanted, in a easy way, so I made the choice.

All our guests liked the website.

[https://withjoy.com/evelynandaravindh/](https://withjoy.com/evelynandaravindh/)

</comment><comment><USER38> We did one quick and easy with squarespace. We had people RSVP with a form we set up there. Took about an hour. Worked awesome!

</comment><comment><USER39> [Off-topic] I feel there is a need of many more open source projects. Most open source projects these days are backed by big cos. There are hardly any large open source projects nowadays which are not by big cos. Why is there no credible alternative to Uber which is open source ? How about open source stack for security software ?

<comment><USER40> Because it's not so easy to make a stable big software without lots of money and people. And only big corporations have that sort of money to spend on such things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's not as polished as the poster but I've open sourced our wedding website should it help serve as inspiration for you [https://github.com/intenscia/Wedding](https://github.com/intenscia/Wedding)

</comment><comment><USER42> Related idea: Prediction market for how long a relationship / marriage is going to last.

If most of your friends are betting against the marriage, perhaps you should call it off, and the betters get their money back.

Not sure how to solve the moral hazard problem though.

</comment><comment><USER43> @rampatra Your Pull Request was approved and merged by Antara. Happy anniversary!

<comment><AUTHOR> The most creative anniversary wish till now :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Hey I'm trying to RSVP but it's rejecting my invite code :-(

Dude, excellent work on that site by the way. It's incredible, really.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you try 271117 as the invite code?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Wow. Someone deleted my comment without any notice or whatever. What kind of practice is this here on HN?

I was not offending the author or someone else.

I was just criticising the size of the repo and the number of tools that are required to develop this single static website in contrast to a simple html file. People started to upvote and agree with me and the reaction is to simply delete?

If this is the new practice here I'll have to ask myself if it makes sense to keep participating in this community.

<comment><USER46> I still can see your comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18557415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18557415) (think you meant this one).

I believe comments aren't removed here at all. There are some comments which are objectively useless/offending in many threads and they're just flagged but never deleted, so I doubt they'd remove yours when it's a valid technical critique (if perhaps it can be expressed less harshly).

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Nothing to add but congrats on year one of marriage, and here's to many more. Thanks for sharing this with us :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome. Hope it helps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> When buying a wedding domain, you can buy domains like .party and .dance, which adds a nice touch I think.

<comment><USER49> Unfortunately, those are much more expensive than .com domains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Thanks for sharing! I was just searching github for something like this for my own wedding.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you liked it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> never knew up until now that this was a thing. _insert "but why?" GIF_

<comment><USER52> Paper invites being expensive for large weddings is a pretty big motivator outside it being neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> How hard would it be to set up a backend payment service to receive $$ for gifts?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not that complex. You can have a paypal.me address or set up a stripe account with buymeacoffee.com. There would be many more but these two are at the top of my mind now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Congrats! Thanks to this I made happy mood from morning.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really sweet of you :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Nice to see a fellow Odiya trending on HN. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, how did you conclude I am Odia? By my last name?

<comment><USER55> I had a hunch and I snooped around in your website. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Adorable. My best to you both.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a million :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I want an invitation code!

<comment><AUTHOR> it's mentioned on the github repo :) It is 271117.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> i gave you my email address. what have i done? haha

<comment><AUTHOR> I won't spam you, don't worry :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> This is cute :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER61> Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER45> Looking at the bloated and checked in node_modules folder makes me wanna cry. Yah it's probably all just dev dependencies but building a static website shouldn't feel like rocket science. People were creating wedding websites in the 90s with just one html file and that's it. Welcome to the age of total bloat.

<comment><USER62> The package.json declares 4 build dependencies and 3 runtime.

Most of that bloat probably comes from Gulp, which is one of the most ridiculously bloated tools I've ever seen.

<comment><USER63> What is the alternative to tools like Gulp or Gatsby for those of us who want to make (fairly)simple websites?

In my case, I'm a Data Scientist looking to make a portfolio website. Nothing too crazy but more than hello world.

Should we just work with HTML? Materialize CSS? GitHub pages w/ Jekyll? Nextjs? Bootstrap?

Should we just head back to Wordpress and Wix? Wixcode? Is Gulp the best option?

Is it worth paying a professional to create the site for me?

I'm very intereted in developer opinions. Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you.

<comment><USER62> > What is the alternative to tools like Gulp or Gatsby for those of us who > want to make (fairly)simple websites?

Gulp has nothing directly to do with building a website, it is a compilation tool of sorts that allows you to transform your source files into something you'll end up deploying via various plugins. For example, you can use gulp to collapse all your JS source files into one or to transpile it into something more cross browser compatible.

The reason I dislike Gulp is that it has a massive number of dependencies and really is just an overcomplicated reimplementation of pipes. Personally, I prefer Webpack. It is also a fairly large tool, but at the very least it actually does something useful out of the box. When I migrated our projects from Gulp to Webpack, I replaced a over 500 lines of gulp code with about 50 lines of config and a small bash script.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Holding phone on engagement

</comment><comment><USER65> Badly expressed, sorry. Deleted.

<comment><USER66> Even if I chose to ignore the fact that you're being a downer for no good reason, that's not true for all demographics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Cool!</comment>


Ask HN: How do you follow long threads? - <AUTHOR> I'm often having a hard time following long threads with hundreds of comments: coming back to the discussion after having read all the comments, it's not easy to find all the new comments. If it's been less than an hour, I can use browser search for "minute", but that doesn't scale well.<p>What strategy do you use? <comment><USER2> When I used the Chrome browser I had a very useful extension installed (HN enhancement suite?) that let you find new comments and did a few other neat things, such as the thread collapsing that is built-in to HN now. It solved your problem. I had to switch to Firefox because Chrome was behaving so badly on my machine, and can't find an extension that does this; I wish there was one.</comment>


Brighsun's long-range EV batteries to enter industrial trials - <AUTHOR> https://www.newmobility.global/e-mobility/brighsuns-revolutionary-long-range-ev-batteries-enter-industrial-trials/ <comment><USER2> This is one of those "either a major breakthrough or total bullshit" articles. OK, first, who's "Brightsun"? These guys? [1]

\- Last news item on their site is from 2015. No mention of a battery breakthrough. No mention of battery R&D at all.

\- Address on web site is 50 Hidden Grove Blvd, Keysborough Vic 3173 Australia. That's somebody's house.[2] An alternative address on the web site is Level 1 530 Little Collins Str, Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia. That's an office building. Level 1 seems to be a strip club.[4]

\- Related companies. [3] They built an electric bus prototype in 2015, and it got a record for longest distance on a single charge, but not using any exotic battery technology. Just a big bus with a big battery.

Where did "newmobility.global" get this story? They don't cite a reporter. They don't cite a press release. Is someone doing a third party pump and dump here?

[1] [http://brighsunauto.com/Index_En.asp](http://brighsunauto.com/Index_En.asp) [http://brighsuntech.com/](http://brighsuntech.com/)

[2] [https://earth.google.com/web/@-38.00666219,145.15557573,13.3...](https://earth.google.com/web/@-38.00666219,145.15557573,13.39113295a,0d,60y,305.45541366h,85.85981264t,0r/data=ClcaVRJPCiUweDZhZDYxMzIwZGNkMDhiNjE6MHgxOWJhYzBhYTlmMDE4YWRlGbSNP1HZAEPAIezBpPj4JGJAKhQ1MCBIaWRkZW4gR3JvdmUgQmx2ZBgBIAEiGgoWLUN4Q00zbWdhbDhRbnVCaWN0N1ZDdxAC)

[3] [https://www.aubiz.net/company/brighsun-ev-group-pty- ltd-1668...](https://www.aubiz.net/company/brighsun-ev-group-pty- ltd-166881723/)

[4] [https://bigboysclub.com.au/](https://bigboysclub.com.au/)

<comment><USER3> > Where did "newmobility.global" get this story?

Most other sites presenting the same news included the paragraph at the end suggesting it was a press release on the manufacturer's website. Example [0]. I linked to the original source below [1].

[0] [https://www.jcnnewswire.com/pressrelease/58590/2/2000-km- on-...](https://www.jcnnewswire.com/pressrelease/58590/2/2000-km-on-a-Single- Charge:-Brighsuns-Li-S-Batteries-to-Enter-Industrial-Trials)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22950468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22950468)

<comment><USER2> The press release is better than the "story".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For reference, they are claiming a specific energy of ~2000 Wh/kg, whereas current Li-ion batteries are in the 200 Wh/kg range. At least according to Wikipedia, so far the highest demonstrated Li-S battery specific energy is 500 Wh/kg.

They are also claiming a cost of $63/kWh vs $156/kWh for Li-ion today.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery)

<comment><USER5> That sounds suspiciously good.

<comment><USER6> Yeah I'm expecting a caveat like "they explode if they reach 40 degrees C" or "they degrade by 20% after 20 recharge cycles."

<comment><USER4> I do wonder what issues come from storing multiples of the same amount of energy in the same space, but I'm willing to wait and see. Anyways, beyond 400 miles or so, there's not so much value in longer range passenger EVs (obviously semi trucks for freight are a different use case). The real win if they can demonstrate this real-world will be the reduced weight or cost per mile of range.

<comment><USER7> _> I do wonder what issues come from storing multiples of the same amount of energy in the same space_

If it makes you feel any better, gasoline stores 12,888.9 Wh/kg according to Wikipedia. So if you're worried energy density in car crashes, it's still much lower than the status quo.

<comment><USER8> The status quo is Lithium-ion batteries which have certainly been known to spontaneously combust or catch on fire. Gasoline, by contrast, is remarkably stable.

<comment><USER9> You better not Google car fires if you want to hang onto that belief in the safety of ICE cars.

<comment><USER10> Gasoline fires don't spontaneously restart, either.

I've also never given much thought to parking my gasoline fueled vehicles inside my garage. When ICE cars do spontaneously ignite, it's never because of the gasoline.

I do sometimes think about how prudent it is to park my Tesla underneath my kids' bedrooms every night while it starts charging unattended after everyone is asleep. I'm glad to have a smoke alarm in the garage.

<comment><USER11> I am glad you have a smoke alarm in the garage I am now thinking how mine died in the garage and I sleep right above it. If it was me in your position I would make sure I used a linked fire alarm system where if one goes off they all go off. It will buy you precious extra seconds getting your kids out as fires can spread incredibly fast.

<comment><USER10> Yep, ours are all wired together. Sometimes when I am a little over- enthusiastic searing a steak, I think they can probably hear the ruckus a quarter mile away when every single alarm goes off at once. Makes me feel somewhat secure that I'll be woken up if there is ever an actual fire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Link to the source announcement: [http://www.brighsun.com/En/NewsView.asp?ID=45](http://www.brighsun.com/En/NewsView.asp?ID=45)

The slightly different websites in different states of abandonment don't inspire confidence though.

[http://brighsun.com/Index_En.asp](http://brighsun.com/Index_En.asp)

[http://brighsuntech.com/](http://brighsuntech.com/)

[http://brighsunauto.com/Index_En.asp](http://brighsunauto.com/Index_En.asp)

</comment><comment><USER12> Lithium sulfur batteries have a lot of potential and I really hope Brightsun's tech works as well (or ever close to as well as claimed). However, I'll believe it when I see it. There are just too many claims about battery tech that don't pan out in actual application.

<comment><USER13> Or at least, they pan out in terms of 1% improvements and not 100% improvements like the breathless journalism claims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >2103.8Wh/kg

~10x Tesla

>Trial production of high-power cells, with an expected energy density in excess of 1,000 Wh/kg, is about to begin

oh, so they dont exist yet, explains it

<comment><USER15> Makes me wonder if this came to pass. Could an electric car be too light? Is there a minimum weight a car needs to be?

If the battery got small and you don't have the ice, could it be a problem? Would they add weights?

<comment><USER16> An ice is actually pretty light in some cars. Aluminum blocks save a lot of weight. In economy cars you can lift both out by hand (I wouldn't recommend it, the angles are not really what your body handle well but a normal human can do it)

Most of the weight in a car is the frame which is a lot heavier today than similar cars of 30 years ago to pass modern safety standards.

Even if there is too little weight it is best for the required components to be as light as possible. The ability to add weight where you need it for handling reasons verses where the drive train forces it to be is often important.

<comment><USER17> > Most of the weight in a car is the frame which is a lot heavier today than > similar cars of 30 years ago to pass modern safety standards.

Yes, this is what I was saying to people that a lot of crash worthiness demands now are counterproductive when everybody now drives 1.5, 2.0t bricks on wheels because of that.

Yes, that allowed for few more percents survivability in head on collisions, but at the huge expense of everything else.

Being able to shave off 200kg off an average vehicle will save way more lives than the amount of lives those 200kg save during 60km/h+ head on collisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm working in the automotive industry for over 15 years, designing components for both conventional and electric cars, and I've never heard of this company.

Very fishy.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm looking forward to laptops that can stay up one week on a charge.

<comment><USER20> Personal fans that run all day. Tiles that keep working for decades. Traffic lights that can be deployed by police wherever they're needed. E-Bicycles that can outrun and out-range most bus routes. Electric airplanes make air travel significantly quieter and much cheaper. Internal combustion engines made obsolete and reduced to a historical curiosity. Electric scooters dominate worldwide as honda cubs become too expensive to fuel. I want it all.

<comment><USER21> Ebikes can already outrange most bus routes. I'm building a battery pack right now that should give a range of 150-180kms realistically, for about 300$CAD. That said, it's going to be pretty heavy at 10kg, but that's less than the amount of textbooks I was carrying just a few years ago :)

<comment><USER22> That sounds interesting. How big will it be physically?

<comment><USER21> About 5-6 liters, should fit nicely on the rear rack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Before even reading the article... battery "revolution" claims have been made every month or so for the past 10 years or so, and we rarely see the claims materialize into actual technological leaps. Is this one of those claims?

</comment><comment><USER24> This kind of announcements have been way too many. At this point no matter how amazing battery someone has managed to build in a lab, I don't care unless it's manufacturable in large quantities. There are plenty of amazing batteries that lack that quality.

That said, it would be really cool if the claims are true. I so _want_ this to be true. Just not holding my breath.

</comment><comment><USER25> The problem for small cars is that while the specific energy (J/kg) is better than lithium ion the energy density (J/L) is most likely lower. In small cars the volume occupied by the battery is a significant constraint.

But it's good to see some competition, at least it will be if it works.

</comment><comment><USER26> Forget large scale deploy test blah, outfit one car and drive it 1000kms, charge, got another 1000kms, video it, put on youtube, then we're onboard.

<comment><USER27> IMO the actually hard part is getting the tech to work the same as it did in the lab when you put it through volume manufacturing. A lot of things seem to go wrong in this phase even when the battery chemistry works well enough to create a hand-crafted battery pack that would actually show long range. I really hope they are successful, but until they can show manufacturing working I will keep my enthusiasm in check.

<comment><USER28> How bout do both?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why is their name a misspelling?</comment>


Ask IH: Which Tool Do You Use for Time Tracking, Expenses and Invoices? - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/ask-ih-which-tool-do-you-use-for-time-tracking-expenses-and-invoices-f15eab3ceb <comment><USER2> I use Timely, and would definitely recommend it if you are cool with Memory ([https://timelyapp.com/memory/](https://timelyapp.com/memory/)), their tracking software. I can understand why some people would find it creepy and invasive, but for me it has been a critical way to get credit for work I'm already doing.

<comment><USER3> Should be noted that Memory data is _only visible to you_; not your boss or colleagues. We're GDPR compliant, and don't sell, share or do anything nasty with your data.

Source: I work on Timely</comment></comment>