A hot bath has benefits similar to exercise - <AUTHOR> http://theconversation.com/a-hot-bath-has-benefits-similar-to-exercise-74600 <comment><USER2> Exercising (moderate physical activity) for 2-2.5 hours per week leads to a 20% reduction in all-cause mortality (not to mention its many other benefits). Exercising for an additional 5.5 hours leads to another 20% reduction.

No preventative intervention we have in medicine leads to that kind of gains (except maybe quiting smoking).

Articles like this are probably causing harm to the people that read them by discouraging them from exercise [conjecture]. Until I see rigorous mortality data on taking bath, I think I'll stick to my exercise routine...

Source: [https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/resources/recommendatio...](https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/resources/recommendations.html) (see 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee Report [PDF - 4.5MB])

<comment><USER3> > Exercising (moderate physical activity) for 2-2.5 hours per week leads to a > 20% reduction in all-cause mortality (not to mention its many other > benefits). Exercising for an additional 5.5 hours leads to another 20% > reduction.

With a very important caveat in the report:

> Because all of the studies in the evidence base were observational > epidemiologic studies with no randomized controlled trials, the data cannot > prove causality of effect.

People who don't feel that great when they exercise (despite everyone urging them to exercise) are probably not in the best health. The pervasive advice to exercise more will by itself confound the studies, because healthier people will tend to self-select into the "exercise" group.

<comment><USER2> I agree with your comments entirely. I'll also add, however, that even though this is cohort data 1) there is A LOT of data, almost all of it in agreement for hundreds and hundreds of studies, over millions of person years and 2) there is pretty strong evidence of a dose-response relationship. Both of those two points _help_ (though don't entirely eliminate) the weaknesses inherent in cohort data.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't change the fact that if you take approx 150 from each of the activity groups, the cohort study will tell:

Approximately 5 from the "slobs" will die.

Approximately 4 from the "moderate exercise group" will die.

Approximately 3 from the "forrest gump group" will die.

On a personal level, to me these groups are more or less the same in terms of mortality, but somebody marketed the 20% really well.

<comment><USER5> Well if you truly don't understand math, please transfer 20% of your wealth to me. I mean, from your perspective it's the same amount of wealth, right?

<comment><USER6> that's not the point, the posters point is that the way the math was used added dramatic effect, it did not aid in understanding the meaning of the findings.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. 20% or 40% sounds really big. In reality, you're maybe lowering your chance to die (during some time) by less than 2% by exercising almost constantly. Now, if you're not enjoying exercise, or feel exhausted after exercising, you actually reduce the amount of "quality life" by exercising.

If exercise was a drug, they'd never allow it on the market.

<comment><USER7> > If exercise was a drug, they'd never allow it on the market.

Plenty of drugs have much worse efficacy and "numbers needed to treat" figures than exercise.

Current exercise advice is about 30 minutes per session with 3 sessions a week.

<comment><USER4> Not really. Take your 30 minutes of exercise per week that will reduce the chance of dying by 1% (2% is for the forrest gumps). Let's say you can do that by spending 60 minutes a day (changing clothes, getting dressed / undressed, showered and so on). In a 52-week year that will amount to loss of 156 hours of your life. For 8-hour work days that's 19.5 workdays. A good vacation's worth! No drug is allowed to do that.

And if you break your ankle or break your wrist or elbow when exercising, it'll never be as good as new.

<comment><USER8> What a silly set of arguments. Exercise is literally empty time for you with no other benefit? Lets put aside the fact that you receive endorphin from almost any exercise you do. You can't go to the beach, rock climb, play with your kids/dog, etc.? No, must be productive all the time. Even if that was the case, it's quality adjusted lifespan that counts for most people.

You may break your wrist sure. In the same way that you may get wrist injury from typing too much. Exercise will reduce the likelihood of other injury.

<comment><USER4> Ugh, your comment is so stupid I can't even be bothered to think of a proper reply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So exercise is good, fasting is good, heat is good, cold is good. It seems all short term stress is good.

I'm waiting for the study that shows binge drinking is good :)

<comment><USER10> Fasting seems like the opposite of stress- your digestive tract isn't actually doing anything

<comment><USER11> Actually, you're well off, but not for the reason you think. Let me explain.

Fasting invokes all your counter-regulatory hormones: cortisol, adrenaline, others but they are the big players - because not having easy access to sugar leads to a stress response.

So it isn't gut rest, it's physiological phase change that is causing the stress response

<comment><USER12> How long is the stress response ? is it only transient before switching to a "fasting" regime or is it long lasting ?

<comment><USER11> I guess depends on your definition of a stress response; most people would consider it to be a 'stress response' whilst you have high adrenergic/sympathetic activity. Upon activation of the parasympathetic nervous system there will be a gradual decrease in cortisol and a rapid decrease in adrenaline.

Thyroid hormone is also going to be implicated somewhere along with a host of other hormones so I have simplified but suffice to say it's shades of grey on the way in and out

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > These activities – such as soaking in a hot tub or taking a sauna – may have > health benefits for people who are unable to exercise regularly.

I would add not only "unable", but "unwilling". Some people don't get any pleasure by exercising, and perhaps having 50% of the benefits of cycling is better than having none.

<comment><USER14> Count me amongst the unwilling! I can't wait for a magic bullet or pill that gives me the results I want without trying. I'm supposed to feel guilty about that admission, but I do not.

<comment><USER15> The problem with not exercising for HN-types is that your brain suffers because of it. Your cognition isn't as good as it could be and will decline faster than if you exercised. Also more likely to develop neuronal disorders later in life, and those aren't very fun.

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

<comment><USER16> Does this take into account the time she could have spent learning new programming skills?

Serious question. With pre- and post phases (changing clothes, shower) and the post-sluggishness, the exercise that you are doing in your free time just to do exercise can be quite an extra time investment.

(no anti-exercise opinion here, but I find it better to combine exercise with commuting or real hobbies)

<comment><USER17> > _Does this take into account the time she could have spent learning new > programming skills?_

Because she can't find 30 mins per day (or less) not devoted to programming skills or other stuff, to do exercise?

Does the question takes into account the less years of practicing those programming skills because of earlier demise due to bad shape?

<comment><USER16> Did you read and understand the second & third paragraph at all?

If yes, please name the type of effective exercise that you can complete in 30min, _including_ preparations and clean-up afterwards. Really curious.

(Commuting and hobbies that are not for the sake of doing exercise don't count because they were already mentioned.)

<comment><USER17> >Did you read and understand the second & third paragraph at all?

Yes, and I find it wrong.

I'm not sure what "preparations" and "clean-up" afterwards you imagine, sounds like excuses not to do any or overthinking it.

It can be just doing some sets of repetitions of body only exercises, without any equipment to put out (a towel on the floor will do). Or a jogging run -- no preparations, just putting on your running shoes and a shower afterwards. Or dancing around in your room. And countless other ways (e.g. getting some gym equipment, a stationary bike, etc).

One showers at the end or start of the day (or should) anyway, and that doesn't have to take more than 5 minutes. And 30 minutes, or even 15-20 minutes, of exercise per day is more than enough to see health benefits.

In fact: "For most healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends these exercise guidelines: Aerobic activity. Get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I always figured that it's diversity of stimulus/experience/etc that is the biggest factor. The operating envelope of our bodies (and minds) presumes season changes, pretty much constant walking, and (typically) a very different social environment. Putting how we modify all this with various drugs aside, our environment in modern times is very different from the one our bodies expect. Some of this seems better understood, like how the insane abundance of sugar is something our bodies cannot cope with. Another interesting one is the entire discipline of orthodontics; turns out our teeth would come in completely straight if it weren't for all our soft processed food not giving them the input they need to orient themselves correctly in our jaws. I suspect exposure to cold and heat is simply another thing we've lost.

<comment><USER19> > _Another interesting one is the entire discipline of orthodontics; turns out > our teeth would come in completely straight if it weren 't for all our soft > processed food not giving them the input they need to orient themselves > correctly in our jaws._

Do you have a source for this? Sounds interesting.

<comment><USER20> Considering plenty of mummies had horrible teeth, I doubt it.

<comment><USER21> The Egyptians didn't each much better than us - lots of breads.

I would assume OP means by "feedback" the constant ripping and tearing of meat and incessant chewing of highly fibrous plants and vegetables.

<comment><USER20> Which doesn't mean highly processed foods, just not living like hunter gatherers.

<comment><USER21> Well, I haven't seen a source for the claim that teeth were better when we weren't eating soft food, but the Egyptians definitely ate soft food, so I would assume that the hypothesis doesn't apply to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How many years until we get the headline, "A hot bath doesn't have benefits similar to exercise"? I predict five.

<comment><USER23> You basically summarized today's new episode of EconTalk, on the perils of statistical significance: [http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/03/andrew_gelman_o.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/03/andrew_gelman_o.html)

<comment><USER22> The thought certainly isn't original to me! I think that Slate Star Codex and The Last Psychiatrist both had pieces on the reproduction crisis, especially in psychiatry, and I'll check this episode out as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow crazy. The article ends by speculating that activities that activate "heat shock protein" pathway may help blood sugar control. It's interesting b/c this pathway is well-studied in microbes like e coli and we were taught about it in my genomics classes. But I didn't realize it was conserved to the point that it is significant in humans (maybe it isn't).

It's a bit of a misnomer, actually. It was identified in e. coli as molecularly central to their response when exposed to immediate stress, such as going from 32 C to 40 C, but also on exposure to UV, or cold?, pH change, salinity change etc

Basically it's bacterial-molecular version of calling 911. But because it was first identified by heat shock experimental condition, that's what it was named.

Did the author just read about "heat shock protein" in humans and assume it was related how gene expression changes in human cells when body temperature is elevated 1 degree C? Or was it mentioned in the primary literature they are summarizing...

</comment><comment><USER25> I always wonder about the effects of pervasive air conditioning. Living in cool environments all through the summer certainly isn't natural, right? Maybe the energy required to regulate body temperature in warm environments is actually a good thing, and air conditioning prevents us from getting the benefit.

<comment><USER26> Some people also tout the benefits of mild hypothermia. I suppose any type of thermal regulation is a workout for the body.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I see a number of these articles from time to time about the health effects of (warm|cold) water treatment.

Seems to me not to be a replacement for exercise, a healthy diet, and good sleep. Maybe as a supplement. Or maybe for someone who is injured or old or has limited opportunity.

Unfortunately good scientific work along these lines very often lead to headlines that lead people to think: wow this is like a shake-weight but there's a science paper proving it.

There's no replacement for hard work.

<comment><USER28> >There's no replacement for hard work.

Not yet for physical health. But that saying kind of annoys me in a general sense given that the majority of technological advancement has specifically been to replace hard work we don't want to do. So there's good reason to believe a technological solution for physical health that doesn't require hard work will exist some time in the future.

<comment><USER29> Does not follow.

Just because we _want_ something is not a good reason to think that it's possible.

As I understand it, the health benefits of hard work are currently believed to be an integral part of that hard work. And, they're at least somewhat localized to whatever systems are doing the work.

Or from another perspective, weight machines and indoor air-conditioned treadmills _are_ your technological solution.

<comment><USER30> They're the _current_ technological solution, but they're essentially proxies to condense a naturally occurring process into a more efficient process; weight machines and treadmills provide an efficient method to work out whatever systems your exercise regime is designed to affect. But what you're after is the resulting byproduct of that exercise, not that exercise itself.

Similar to how biking uses the same inputs as walking, but makes it more efficient. So if your goal is to get somewhere as efficiently as possible rather than walking in and of itself being the goal, you're going to bike instead. Then comes along the car and you're no longer constrained to the natural capabilities of your body in order to travel, and it's a whole new ballgame.

Exercise has a lot of health benefits because it _causes_ things in the body. From stretching things to tearing muscle fiber to causing your body to generate and release different hormones and steroids (and many, many other effects).

The technological solution the OP wants is something which simulates the effects of exercise on the body but without the exercise itself. Such as nanomachines that can be designed to stress test different components of the body and keep them active or that cause the same types of micro-tears in muscular tissue that weight lifting does. As we learn more about the body, and we make smaller and smaller machines that are capable of operating from within the body, we can leverage those machines and that knowledge to directly maintain an ideal state of fitness regardless of externalities such as an individuals predilection or capacity for the level of working out needed to maintain that ideal state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> So are 40 degree Celcius hot tubs as effective as 80 degree Celcius Sauna sessions. I was just about to buy a portable sauna, but if a bath gives me a similar effect I wouldn't buy it. Except that I can watch TV while I'm sitting in my portable sauna chair and my S.O. lounges on the couch.

<comment><USER32> I mean, buy one if you want one. I wouldn't buy it for this reason. It might be sort of good for you, but so are lots of things as research constantly reveals. A 30 minute run everyday will do way more for your health if you're not exercising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I bet that hot baths move lymph at higher than normal rates, just like exercise. This is the mechanism by which our bodies cleanse our tissues.

But, that is considered "woo" by a lot of people. I am sort of annoyed at the heat molecules explanation at the end of the article. Like, we can't just admit that maybe our own body's mechanism for taking out the trash matters when it gets pumped up to a higher rate? That is too...weird? or something?

</comment><comment> waxing-gibbous n = 7 per group, no control, main effect p ~ 0.05. Nothing to see here unfortunately.

<comment><USER34> Yeah, I'm not sure why this is being discussed so seriously. There really wasn't a control group?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Funny, because the comments on here a few months ago implied a cold water shower does miracles for you too and practically bashed hot water cleaning to oblivion.

</comment><comment><USER36> What I like to do is have a hot bath and then 30 minutes in take a freezing cold shower for about 10 minutes then get back in the bath for 30 minutes, followed by another freezing cold 10 minute shower.

If you think you can't do a freezing cold shower, you'd be surprised. Start off luke warm and just keep lowering it little by little. Before long you'll have the water all the way on cold.

Once it's cold I try to do 2-3 minutes on front, back, left and right.

This will get the endorphins flowing and is good for weight loss. I've also read that it will release something in your body that tells it that it needs to start burning fat reserves, which makes sense given our history.

<comment><USER37> I guess I'm not the bathing type, 1 h 20 min seems excessive too me. I rather spend this time in the gym exercising and raking in all the additional benefits compared to bathing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone know where the Shutterstock picture has been taken? I haven't seen a swimming pool with chess games in it. I once thought about playing with hive pieces on the bottom of the pool. It'd be nice to read a book in bath or in the water, but water and books don't really get along.

<comment><USER38> "Szechenyi Baths (Budapest, Hungary), traditional Hungarian thermal bath complex with spa treatments." \-- [https://www.shutterstock.com/image- photo/budapest-hungary-no...](https://www.shutterstock.com/image- photo/budapest-hungary-november-2-2008-szechenyi-205346587)

<comment><USER39> I've been there, it's great (and in a very nice building).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> There are similar studies showing that regular saunas lower cardiovascular risk and dementia risk up to 63% (a summary here [http://outcomereference.com/causes/108](http://outcomereference.com/causes/108) )

Like the hot bath study, these were limited to very specific populations (Finnish). I have yet to see studies of hot bath or saunas on different ethnicities or different locations.

At the end of the day though, nothing beats regular moderate exercise. It's the only lifestyle that has no side-effects, cheap, accessible to everyone anywhere, and with demonstrated short-term and long-term effects. Walk, run 5k, hike, bike to work, your heart and your family will be grateful!

</comment><comment><USER41> Were they measuring outdoor cycling or indoor (exercise bike)?

I think there's a huge qualitative difference between the two - breathing the outside air (and absorbing the sun if I'm lucky) probably do much more to improve my health and outlook than the simple calories burned.

<comment><USER42> I don't think it matters for this study. They only measured calories burned and inflammatory response, which, assuming the same amount of energy expended, I'd expect to be identical cycling on a trainer or outdoors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Best news ever! Now I can finally justify my exuberant daily morning bath ritual to my friends and family with more than just "I like it so stfu".

On a serious note though, I've always known how good I feel after a nice 30-60 minute soak so I'm not entirely surprised. But I'll be sure to keep the water temp up from here on out though. I've grown accustomed to a "nice and warm but not excessively hot" setting. Come to think of it, 40 C (104 F) might be where I'm at already--that doesn't sound like a crazy high number. Perhaps it's time to take things to the next level and install a bath thermometer along with measuring my body temp pre and post bath.

</comment><comment><USER44> J Physiol. 2016 Sep 15;594(18):5329-42. doi: 10.1113/JP272453. Epub 2016 Jun 30. Passive heat therapy improves endothelial function, arterial stiffness and blood pressure in sedentary humans. Brunt VE1, Howard MJ1, Francisco MA1, Ely BR1, Minson CT2.

A recent 30 year prospective study showed that lifelong sauna use reduces cardiovascular-related and all-cause mortality; however, the specific cardiovascular adaptations that cause this chronic protection are currently unknown.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27270841](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27270841)

</comment><comment><USER45> Such articles are so frustrating. What is with our fixation to trying to do as little as possible for max. gains. It feels like there is this whole group of individuals out there who are trying to convince (without solid evidence) that exercise is replaceable my other things.Human beings are not efficiency optimization machines. Moreover, everyone who exercises regularly can tell you that fitness is the low hanging fruit. There are so many other benefits of exercise like opportunity to meet new people & benefits to mental health and more.

</comment><comment><USER46> Hope you are heating your water with renewables.

A coal powerplant would produce ~ 8-10 pounds of CO2 to heat a bath, 3.5x more than a shower.

[https://www.withouthotair.com/c7/page_50.shtml](https://www.withouthotair.com/c7/page_50.shtml) [https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11)

</comment><comment><USER47> _" Water immersion resulted in a greater increase in body temperature compared with exercise, as well as a greater reduction in average arterial blood pressure."_

Was that reduction in blood pressure seen after the bath or only while in it?

If after, how long after?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was lower blood pressure while lying still in a bath compared to while performing vigorous exercise. But what about after?

</comment><comment><USER48> We've known for a long time that temperature will change calories burned at rest, and a reduction in peak blood pressure is not the same as a reduction in overall blood sugar. These same temporary effects can be gained merely by slight changes in diet, and don't provide the other positive effects that light exercise brings.

The comparison to exercise is quite misleading.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is just a simply "I heard that ...", so take it with a grain of salt. I heard that heat (such as sauna) can help you lose weight, but it also loses muscle, so it's not a great method of diet.

</comment><comment><USER50> There's also one significant downside: hot bath lower testosterone levels in men, hurting fertility, so please don't do it if you are trying to make your partner pregnant.

<comment><USER51> There's certainly some evidence that hot baths reduce sperm counts[1] but nothing I see about testosterone levels. At the same time, it's clear that men in cultures with traditions of soaking or saunas do still seem to father children...

1: [https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2007/03/5541/hot-tubs-hurt- fertili...](https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2007/03/5541/hot-tubs-hurt-fertility- ucsf-study-shows)

<comment><USER52> Damn. My muscles have been feeling more fatigued lately and I was planning to start going to a hot tub on a semi-regular basis :/.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I wonder how cold a bath has to be to get the same calorie burn as for 40C water.

</comment><comment><USER54> Warm bath would be better than hot bath.

</comment><comment><USER55> hasn't this sort of practice been a common thing in Japan for centuries?

<comment><USER56> Yes, but a common practice doesn't mean that whether or how it's beneficial has been studied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> My feeling is that diabetes is, at least in part, caused by poor circulation. The peripheral neuropathy commonly associated with diabetes may actually be caused by poor circulation as well, not by diabetes.

If blood flow to your limbs is impaired, your limbs can't process insulin very well.

Given this view, anything that promotes circulation is going to help diabetes.</comment>


My next text editor - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2012/08/10/next-text-editor <comment><USER2> SublimeText2 continues to impress me, and the more I use it, the more I discover to love about it.

As to the "not Mac-like enough" complaint, you can install the Soda theme (<https://github.com/buymeasoda/soda-theme/>) to make it more so, and it's configurable out the wazoo, so if there's something you don't like, you can probably fix it (and someone probably already has with a plugin). Just the existence of the package manager makes Sublime a better experience than most other text editors, because it's insanely easy to add additional functionality as desired.

</comment><comment><USER3> TextMate is over? I guess 27 commits since yesterday is nothing then? <https://github.com/textmate/textmate/commits/master>

</comment><comment><USER4> "Cursed at Emacs a few times in college."

I've had quite the opposite experience: I marveled at Emacs many times in college and have been delighted to be able to use it continuously on so many machines and OSes over three -- now starting on four -- decades.

<comment><USER5> Apart from the occasional sore hand from my bad habit of ctrl-alting with the same hand as I reach for the letter with, I have no complaints about Emacs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I must say I don't get this panicking over TextMate at all. If you liked it before, how can the open sourcing not be a huge plus? Surely there will form a development community around it now even if the main author will be less active and if you have an itch to scratch you can help it yourself. How can that be a bad thing?

<comment><USER7> Most of the love is for the original TextMate, which wasn't open-sourced. TM2 might come together if a community rallies. Then again, it might just be a fundamentally lesser product than the likes of ST2 that managed to storm out the gates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So here's a meta question: how could we have a comment thread in response to this that doesn't turn into a flame war?

<comment><USER9> No more than about a post that dismissed macs as having a "Fisher-Price interface", I imagine. (I'm stealing that imagery from one of my professors-- some of them really have a way with words.)

Moreover, we _shouldn't_ let FUD like that go unchallenged--it might scare reasonable people away from trying Emacs. And that's a net detriment to the world :).

<comment><USER8> Hmm, I don't feel that saying his post is FUD really contributes to the goal of having this thread not turn into a flamewar.

Edit: also, my question was not a yes-or-no question, but you answered with a yes-or-no answer.

<comment><USER9> I guess I wasn't sufficiently clear: the answer is _no_ , because spreading around the idea that Emacs isn't modern is counter-productive.

I guess your question _wasn't_ "yes or no". Then the answer is: we shouldn't. If we ignore the fact that he claims Emacs/Vim are "very hard to learn, ugly, lack many modern features", people will start just assuming that it's all true. And, as I mentioned earlier, this will scare people away from truly great editors needlessly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used Sublime Text 2 on all my machines for over a month for Python and C. It was great for about 90% of the things. But I ended up going back to jedit because of:

\- The way split views are handled for:

a. The same file in multiple views.

b. Non-global scope on 'Ctrl+P' in multiple views.

\- Better Highlighter plugin. (The existing ones for ST2 don't provide the same features)

\- The Hypersearch (and the overall search/replace dialog) in jedit is awesome.

On a quick search I didn't find the options to get these preferences, but I'm sure they will come to be, if they haven't already. (Please feel free to suggest the options if I'm overlooking anything.)

That said, the reason I switched back to jedit is because I was much faster in it even though I had got a good hang of ST2.

 _Aside_ : I never see jEdit being discussed in these editor discussions. Personally, I feel it's the best editor out there today despite being dependent on the jre.

It checks all the right boxes:

\- GPL/Open source

\- Free

\- Cross platform

\- Huge repository of plugins

\- Amazing font rendering

\- Highly configurable

\- Really nice search/replace hypersearch feature.

\- Great themes available

..and a lot more things.

<comment><USER11> Same file in multiple views is actually possible but difficult to find: Under file you have to say 'duplicate in other view' (or something like that, I use Vim now).

<comment><USER10> I know how to achieve it, (File > New view into file), it's just not as natural as jedit (You just open different views and the current open file defaults to opening in the new view too).

If there's a way to set this up in ST2, please feel free to comment!

<comment><USER11> Oh sorry. I thought you didn't know how to achieve it, because I knew that I struggled a bit since I think the implementation is really cumbersome and I didn't expect it to be that way. My fault, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would be interested to hear what modern features are not possible in vim or emacs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Marco talked in Build & Analyze about loving multiple cursors, which I believe emacs/vim don't support: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5bPRhFHEz0>

<comment><USER11> In VIM, you can edit multiple adjacent lines at the same time. You can place multiple cursors at random lines though and start editing. I think I saw a plugin for that once, though.

<comment><USER8> Did you mean to say "can't" in your second sentence?

<comment><USER11> Yes, sorry, wrote it in a hurry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _I almost picked Chocolat, but its performance problems gave me pause._

I've been using Chocolat and loving it for the past month -- I feel like it hits exactly the right balance between minimalism and features. It does everything you need it to do, and exactly nothing more.

But performance is definitely its biggest problem by far -- everything starts out fast, but after a few hours CPU usage goes way up (even when you're not doing anything) and saving trivially small files takes several seconds. Basically, you have to restart the app every couple hours to keep everything running well.

But as long as development continues actively, I assume (hope) problems will be fixed...

</comment><comment><USER14> I've only ever had two true loves, when it comes to text editors. Like Marco, I was happily married to TextMate for a good 5 years or so.

But over the past few years, I've slowly gotten over the divorce, and found true love again in `vim`. I recently added 'tmux' to the mix, for the ultimate perfection of a _ménage à trois_.

[http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/Screen_Shot_2012-08-10_at_3.16.1...](http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/Screen_Shot_2012-08-10_at_3.16.12_PM-20120810-151621.png)

</comment><comment><USER15> Sublime Text 2 won out, just barely. I had the same experience, but after 6mo of fulltime use of ST2, I'm a diehard fan. It still needs to be improved in a lot of areas (project wide find/replace is not optimal), but I have confidence the developer and community is progressing faster than any other text editor.

Seems like a good place to be

</comment><comment><USER16> I laughed at the thought of neckbeards cursing their screens when they saw VIM and Emacs under 'Alternative Lifestyles.'

</comment><comment><USER17> I also use Sublime Text 2 (both OSX & Win7). Is there any hotkey cheatsheet/tutorial available? I'm 99% sure I'm not taking advantage of countless power features because there's no way to stumble upon all the features.

Also, Marco used "Samsung-like resemblance". Phrase needs no explanation.

<comment><USER18> Here are some resources I've found helpful:

[http://whiletruecode.com/post/7-handy-text-manipulation- tric...](http://whiletruecode.com/post/7-handy-text-manipulation-tricks- sublime-text-2)

<http://cheat.errtheblog.com/s/subl/>

[http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and- tips/essential-s...](http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and- tips/essential-sublime-text-2-plugins-and-extensions/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not a lot of BBEdit love going on in the comments, so I'll throw this in... I switched from TextMate to BBEdit when 10.0 came out. Haven't looked back. There was a brief adjustment period, and I had to do some customization to cope with the change (default font is way too small, for instance). But it's been long enough now that I'm pretty sure I could switch to stock BBEdit, and be happy.

Rock solid, deep feature set, good support, will never go away... what's not to like?

Ok well, there are some things I don't like:

1\. needs better syntax highlighting support 2\. needs to adapt to languages better (e.g. native syntax check scripts for most languages, autocomplete) 3\. search dialog could use an overhaul. 4\. default font / color scheme isn't to my liking.

What was my point? Oh yeah, I like BBEdit.

<comment><USER20> BBEdit does take some adjustment but I find I'm really happy with it now that I've settled in. I gave ST2 a shot for a few days this week but found myself missing BBEdit - which is a good place to be since it will probably be around for a long while.

Are you using ctags? The syntax highlighting was making me a bit nuts as well but using ctags clears much of the frustration:

[http://bbeditextras.org/wiki/index.php?title=Advanced_ctags_...](http://bbeditextras.org/wiki/index.php?title=Advanced_ctags_hacking)

It still isn't perfect, but much better than the default highlighting.

My two must have tweaks aside from ctags are to change how long autocomplete suggest takes (way too long by default):

defaults write com.barebones.bbedit Editor_AutoCompleteDelay -float 0.1

And unchecking suggest dictionary words for autocomplete, but adding it as a custom setting for markdown.

I found this to be a good, affordable resource for suggestions on how to get the most out of BBEdit:

<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/bbedit>

Unfortunately we don't seem to have the strong community editors like Textmate do - so this books was a good way to find some neat tricks I hadn't seen elsewhere..

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hacker News title should have (mac) in it somewhere. I was very disappointed after opening it up :P

<comment><USER22> For future reference, Marco Arment (marco.org) is a notorious Apple fanboy (I hate to use the word, but in this case it's apt) and troll. Anything he writes is guaranteed to include smug Apple boasting and/or jabs at all things which are not.

For example, I wrote the above statement _before_ finding this in the article:

"Chocolat: Very young, active development. It has the most modern Mac interface, but it also bears a _creepy, uncomfortable, Samsung-like resemblance_ to TextMate: it's effectively a TextMate clone with a few new features added."

Never fails.

<comment><USER19> > For future reference, Marco Arment (marco.org) is an iOS developer, and > Apple enthusiast. He's also fairly opinionated. Anything he writes is > guaranteed to include a strongly stated opinion, usually backed up with > facts or at least a rationale for why he holds that viewpoint.

Fixed.

<comment><USER22> > Fixed.

Cute.

You must really be fan because that's another thing Arment likes to do. He writes snarky "fixed" versions of quotes from people saying remotely positive things about Android or anything that can be construed as negative about Apple.

Opinionated, certainly, but I've found next to nothing in the way of facts in his arguments and rarely even a stated rationale.

Face it, Arment is exactly what I described, even he knows it. He demonstrates it with pride:

<http://www.marco.org/2011/04/10/fanoboy-fan-boi>

<comment><USER19> He sure hates when people are

critical: <http://www.marco.org/2012/07/26/mac-app-store-future>

of: <http://www.marco.org/2011/03/03/a-rare-disagreement>

Apple: [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat- hona...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan- hacking/all/)

sources: google "marco arment critical apple"

<comment><USER22> Three posts over the course of a year and a half from a guy who posts 70+ times a month.

So he's a whole 0.23% critical of Apple?

Great point!

Seriously now, we both know the truth, stop grasping.

<comment><USER19> Of course, because when I'm trying to argue on HN comments I always do comprehensive statistical analysis.

I cited three articles, found in a couple of seconds, not the entire corpus of Marco's on-record statements regarding Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yeah, emacs is not hipster-compatible.

<comment><USER24> Hey can we stop this please? This does not in any way, contribute to this discussion and calling someone a "hipster" does not make them so.

And really what someone uses as their text editor is their own opinion. It's just a text editor man. He can use ST2 if he wants. It's an awesome text editor.

I'm actually moving away from Vim to Sublime Text just because it feels more native and modern on my mac. I love the Package Control plugin and I'm already learning some cool new stuff about it.

<comment><USER22> 1) Arment's style solicits this kind of response. Trust that the suggestive title "alternative lifestyles" and simple dismissal of emacs while admitting no actual experience was absolutely intentional.

2) It's widely understood that Arment is a hipster, though his cred is slightly lessened now that he moved out of Brooklyn to Westchester.

<comment><USER25> 1) Isn't it possible this is just "being clever and writing well"?

2) Where? By whom? What are you calling a hipster? By an standard, a man who listens to Phish CANNOT be called a hipster. Please avoid assigning categories (especially derisively) to people, especially categories that you do not understand .

<comment><USER22> 1) You know, now that I think about it...no. I don't see anything particularly clever about intentional flamebait. I'm sure it drives plenty of traffic that wouldn't otherwise care to visit the site, but not particularly clever.

2) Please avoid attempting to refute one anecdotal statement with another.

3) I'm famous. The Marco himself has taken notice.

<http://twitter.com/marcoarment/statuses/234122334645137408>

<comment><USER26> 1) meh

2) meh

3) lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I also used Textmate 1 for the better part of 5 years. After that I slowly migrated to Vim because I liked it's text selection / text movement language so much.

Now I guess I arrived, I'm rather fast with Vim. I took a long time (at least a couple of weeks) of continuously refining my MacVim until it's not so ugly anymore; in fact, I think it looks pretty good.

Apart from that, I also played around with Sublime, and I like it a lot, I'm just so used to vim now.

<comment><USER27> I don't want to blow your mind or anything, but check out vintage (vi) mode for Sublime Text.

<http://www.sublimetext.com/docs/2/vintage.html>

<comment><USER28> Almost every editor/IDE around has a vi emulator. The problem is they never have all of vims features, and it doesn't take long until you discover <favorite feature x> is not there, and then the emulator is effectively worthless at that point.

<comment><USER29> True, but sublime's is pretty good. I'm a long time user of vim and though I've only used ST2's vim mode a little, it worked well.

I just tested and it even does the ci" ci( stuff right. It isn't VIM ofcourse so it can't do everything, but it's enough to get by either to use for just a little while or as a transition to a new editor.

My big complaint with ST2 is that the glibc we have at work is too old to run it. I tried to compile a newer glibc in a prefix, however the ABI changed between what we have and what ST2 needs, and the system ld-linux.so won't work with it.

I haven't figured out a way to have linux use a ld-linux.so in a prefix yet. I don't think it's possible :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Development has just been open-sourced after 7 months of going almost nowhere, so it's probably safe to assume that it's effectively abandoned."

I can see why one would make that assumption, but I wouldn't call it a "safe" assumption. It might just be the contrary: development may pick up speed given the massive fanbase that TextMate was able to gather.

</comment><comment><USER31> Notepad++ is still alive.

<comment><USER32> And still works only on Windows. I think Marco is a Mac developer ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This thread is doomed to become complaints from vim and emacs users. I agree with Marco on the hard to learn, but mainly the __ugly __comments.

As a recent convert to ST2 from eclipse, I agree with his choice. Also, recently having to use windows at a client site, a portable version of ST2 has been very comfortable.

<comment><USER9> Emacs doesn't have to be ugly: <http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~tikhon/img/prettyEmacs.png>

The reason Emacs users come out is simple: there is an absurd amount of anti- Emacs FUD spread by non-Emacs users which can scare reasonable people away from using it. If nobody disagreed with it, it would seem true. More perniciously, people would start assuming that it was the case without questioning that assumption.

<comment><USER34> I will agree with you on that, provided vanilla emacs ships with such a pretty GUI like sublime text 2 or like the image you posted.

I have enough work to do already. Customizing the editor to look like that has got to be somebody else's job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> if textmate2 is opensourced, why isn't anyone picking it up and creating a community around it?

<comment><USER36> The code release was _yesterday_. Give it some time, I'm sure it'll gather (or fail to gather) a community. Mind you, Textmate 1 has had a huge fan- following, and they might just migrate to v2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Vjj

<comment><USER37> :x

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> >"very hard to learn" re: Emacs

Hrm. Decidedly not. It's a nominally modeless editor with no complicated mental creole to translate into from verbing the text like Vi.

<comment><USER39> On the other hand, to really get much more out of it than what you'd see in nano or pico, you _do_ need to learn stuff. It's true it's not as bad as Vi in that it doesn't make you drink from the firehose, which I think was your real point. But if you just use Emacs as a glorified TextEdit, why bother?</comment></comment>


Programming magic: Rituals and habits of effective programmers - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/development/67857/programming-magic-rituals-and-habits-effective-programmers <comment><USER2> +1 for scratchpad. I use a cheap spiral notebook. It gives me a place (other than the proverbial "back of the envelope" that I used to use) to write quick calculations, half-assed uml diagrams to think through the organizational structure, etc. I keep it as a journal, date and number each page, log the time of entries. I even put a table of contents on them! Almost never refer to them; hell, they're nearly incomprehensible a couple of months after the fact.

</comment><comment><USER3> Doing an SVN "Update" before a commit even when I know I have the latest code (for example, when I'm the only coder working on the project).

<comment><USER4> Interesting. I do a "status -u" instead, because "update" without knowing what's about to be updated scares me (but I've only been using svn consistently for a few months).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Running the entire suite of unit tests even though all I'm committing is a trivial bug fix.

<comment><USER6> I fall into this. Even when what I'm committing is just a markup change that doesn't even get touched by the unit tests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I always had my notepad + pen beside my keyboard. without those 2 things it just not feel right.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is not a ritual of mine, but something widely practiced by those around me: asking me for favors when I am hacking. I agree to everything!

</comment><comment><USER9> Every morning I come in and stand in the middle of my team's area and ask _is the site still up?_

<comment><USER10> Are you a manager?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of the things I do is run who, uptime, and free when I first log in to our development server. I'll repeat that periodically through the day. I ps aux if uptime shows any significant activity.

</comment><comment><USER12> Talking with other hackers and programmers about tips and habits for self- improvement :)

(Which would be easier if I could reply to you guys in a timely manner...)</comment>


R Function for Simulating Gaussian Processes - <AUTHOR> https://ntguardian.wordpress.com/2018/01/26/r-function-simulating-gaussian-processes/ <comment><USER2> Nothing like a good graphical demonstration!

</comment><comment><USER3> the idea that these are processes and you can sample your trajectories doesn't get enough emphasis, at least in presentations related to machine learning. i mean it's of course acknowledged but i wish i had seen more plots like these when trying to learn this stuff.

thanks!</comment>


Python for the impatient - <AUTHOR> http://abiens.snv.jussieu.fr/mv448/python_for_impatient.html

<comment><USER2> This would probably be more aptly named "Crash course in Python for C/C++ programmers". On that note, it reminds me a lot of [http://wiki.call- cc.org/chicken-for-programmers-of-other-lan...](http://wiki.call- cc.org/chicken-for-programmers-of-other-languages)

I love the idea, and I think more of these need to exist for more languages. So much effort is spent on making languages accessible to newcomers (which is great!), but that results in bulky, low-content language tutorials that experienced programmers will usually skip. It would be nice to have concise tutorials like this one that draw quick and obvious parallels between the syntax and semantics of some other language, preferably for multiple languages (at least one from each major paradigm).

Maybe I'll start on that myself!

</comment><comment><USER3>
        print "foo=%(foo)s bar%(bar)s" % {foo:123,bar:321}

is incorrect. It should read:

        print "foo=%(foo)s bar%(bar)s" % {"foo": 123, "bar": 321}</comment>


Scheduling Spark jobs with Airflow - <AUTHOR> https://blog.insightdatascience.com/scheduling-spark-jobs-with-airflow-4c66f3144660#.dlqt7edey <comment> dallas-stuart Nice guide to Airflow. Would be interesting to compare it to other tools like Luigi.</comment>


Flirtatious Labs - Making a game out of Flirting - <AUTHOR> http://www.rudebaguette.com/2012/10/24/flirtatious-labs-making-a-game-out-of-flirting/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like a great mix of our two majors actual needs in life : relations and fun!!!

</comment><comment><USER3> facebook required? I'll pass, thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually Facebook serves as an identity layer that allows to avoid people creating fakes too easily, and at the same time protect the identity of players from potential creeps - ie both players have to agree they'd like to get in touch before any contact info is revealed. As for privacy, the default setting of the app is "me", meaning all activity from the app is invisible to your network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> we just heard about this game in japan an love it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This is great to hear, I hope you have fun playing, and don't hesitate to get in touch directly with me for additional feedback.</comment></comment>


Puma, a fast concurrent web server for Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://puma.io <comment><USER2> Anyone used Puma on Heroku? Is it as simple as [1] or is there more configuration required [2] as is the case with Unicorn [3]?

[1] [http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2013-02-24-using-puma- on-...](http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2013-02-24-using-puma-on-heroku)

[2] [http://www.subelsky.com/2012/10/setting-up-puma-rails-on- her...](http://www.subelsky.com/2012/10/setting-up-puma-rails-on-heroku.html)

[3] [https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/rails- unicorn](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/rails-unicorn)

<comment><USER3> I'm actually using it in a small side-project I implemented a couple of weeks ago. ([http://playas.io](http://playas.io)) It uses Rails 4 [0], JRuby 1.7.4, postgresql with full text search, one dyno and 10 workers.

It is not the first time I'm using JRuby and Puma, I must say I'm pretty happy with it.

I had enough with the official documentation, just tweaking the DB pool to fit in the Rediscloud free version constraints. [1]

[https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/concurrency-and- databa...](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/concurrency-and-database- connections)

[0]: You'll need to download JCE 6 Extensions to get Puma, JRuby 1.7.4 and Rails 4 running in development: [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jce-...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jce-6-download-429243.html)

[1]: Rediscloud free version gives you 10 connections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone with more webserver knowledge please explain how puma works from a high level? I know very little about web servers so the following may not even make sense!

I have looked at the source, and it appears a thread pool will listen to incoming requests, and pass them to a reactor then move on to handle more requests. Another thread polls the sockets and writes the data to the response stream when ready. [Note: this all may be completely wrong!]

If the way the server works as above is correct, does it mean it's possible to achieve event-loop-based levels of concurrent connections along with good old CPU concurrency as well?

<comment><USER5> I'm one of the authors behind Phusion Passenger ([https://www.phusionpassenger.com/](https://www.phusionpassenger.com/)), a polyglot web server for Ruby, Python and Node.js.

What you said is basically correct. And yes, it is possible to combine event loops with threads in the way you described to get CPU concurrency as well. Whether it is actually helpful depends on the use case. The Phusion Passenger core is evented (similar to Nginx and Node.js) since version 4.0. We considered a multithreaded-evented architecture as well, but it turned out to be less beneficial than we hoped because the applications themselves use plenty of CPU already, and because we rely on shared in-memory state for proper load balancing between processes, thus having a source of contention. In the end, the single-threaded evented architecture in Phusion Passenger turned out to be more than enough.

<comment><USER6> How does Passenger deal with blocking I/O from applications if it is single threaded? Does the entire event loop block while doing I/O?

<comment><USER5> There are two components at work. One is the Phusion Passenger core, which is evented and uses only non-blocking I/O. At no point does the event loop block.

The other component is the Ruby application process. I believe you are talking about this component.

Concurrency on the Ruby application process side is handled using two strategies:

1\. Multiprocessing. 1 process per concurrent connection, with a buffering layer. This is architecturally the same as how Unicorn works when behind an Nginx reverse proxy.

2\. Multithreading. 1 thread per concurrent connection, possibly with multiple processes. This is architecturally similar to Puma, though not entirely the same. It should be noted that multithreading support is available in the Enterprise version only.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like puma, but I thought it was interesting that the left passenger out of their performance graphs. Seems odd to omit the most popular ruby application server from the results.

<comment><USER8> All of the servers listed here are standalone servers, while Passenger is a module for existing servers. I don't really see why you couldn't include Passenger here, but it seems like they're only comparing like to like, which I guess is fair.

<comment><USER9> You can use Passenger as a standalone server too, it's called Passenger Standalone. You can install it with 'gem install passenger', and run it by running 'passenger start'.

<comment><USER10> (In which case it installs and fires up a copy of nginx behind the scenes).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, why today?

I mean, this is not new at all, there is no major version that was released AFAIK...

This is great to share that though, just curious why it's on HN today? :)

Edit: typo fix.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. I also recall seeing it on HN before, and not that long ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may have seen a recent comment, looks like the main page was posted a year ago -- I relied on the URL duplicate checker when submitting it (it was new to me today to come across and I wanted to see thoughts from the HN community on it).

I ran a the search and found the previous:

       A modern, concurrent web server for ruby (puma.io)
       16 points by kachhalimbu 1 year ago | 2 comments | cached

<comment><USER11> Fair enough. Just thought I might have missed something new and big! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not a Rubyist, but if I'm reading the section of the README that describes the design [1] correctly, the closest Python equivalent (architecturally speaking) is Waitress [2].

[1] [https://github.com/puma/puma#built-for-speed-- concurrency](https://github.com/puma/puma#built-for-speed--concurrency)

[2] [http://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/waitress/en/latest/de...](http://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/waitress/en/latest/design.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Looks good. It would be nice to see it on the Web Framework Benchmarks ([https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks](https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks)).

Edit: someone created an issue asking for contributors: [https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks/issues/45...](https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks/issues/459)

</comment><comment><USER15> Any reason why thin is not in the comparison? Is it not very fast compared to the others in the chart?

</comment><comment><USER16> We (ShopKeep) are using Puma for our thin web-services around our platform. Specifically, we send all of our data to a two nodes load-balanced running Puma for our analytics aggregation. It's pretty amazing how a single instance running Puma replaces an entire cluster of Unicorn workers.

p.s. We are also hiring Ruby, and iOS folks. Contact information is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been using Puma in dev/QA and it's impressive. I'm planning on trying it out in production but have a lot invested in Unicorn at the moment. For example, I have monit confs that kill workers once they reach a certain memory threshold and I'll have to figure out how to do that with Puma.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm one of the authors behind Phusion Passenger ([https://www.phusionpassenger.com/](https://www.phusionpassenger.com/)), a polyglot web server for Ruby, Python and Node.js.

We've recently written a comprehensive comparison between Puma and Phusion Passenger, which you can read here: [https://github.com/phusion/passenger/wiki/Puma-vs-Phusion- Pa...](https://github.com/phusion/passenger/wiki/Puma-vs-Phusion-Passenger) The comparison covers things like concurrency models, I/O models, security, clustering, multi-app support, documentation, memory usage, performance and more. Although the comparison is between Puma and Phusion Passenger, a lot of the points are relevant to a Unicorn-Puma comparison as well.

<comment><USER18> Please stop making your comparisons sound as if passenger-free was a fully functional application server such as unicorn or puma. It is not.

Passenger-free is a deliberately crippled demo-version. If someone wants to use passenger in production they will have to pay $50 USD per year, per server for it. And you know that very well.

The 'free' passenger drops requests and serves 502 errors to the users during _every single deploy_.

That's equivalent to popping up shareware nag-screens into my face at random intervals. Except phusion passenger doesn't nag _me_ , it nags _my customers_.

You call the avoidance of these errors a 'feature' ('rolling restarts') that must be paid for.

For some reason your helpful comparisons never mention that both unicorn[1] and puma[2] ship with this basic functionality out of the box. One could almost think it is part of your sales strategy to have people notice this little 'limitation' only after they already deployed your product to production...

[1] [http://www.justinappears.com/blog/2-no-downtime-deploys- with...](http://www.justinappears.com/blog/2-no-downtime-deploys-with- unicorn/)

[2] [http://blog.nicolai86.eu/posts/2013-02-06/phased-restarts- us...](http://blog.nicolai86.eu/posts/2013-02-06/phased-restarts-using-puma)

<comment><USER19> I think thats a little harsh.

I've been using Passenger since it was called Apache mod_rails [http://www.concept47.com/austin_web_developer_blog/ruby- on-r...](http://www.concept47.com/austin_web_developer_blog/ruby-on-rails/mod- rails-passenger-20-rc2-released-even-more-stable/) you have to remember that before the Phusion guys showed up, there was no easy way to run a rails server without proxying requests to mongrel, thin or something like that. instances could bloat in memory or die and your app could, for whatever reason, go down and you wouldn't know it. Did I mention that rails apps were also pretty slow back then?

They made deploying and maintaining rails an order of magnitude easier with Passenger, first with the mindblowingly simple installation process and later by introducing ideas like killing and spinning up new app instances after xxx requests, or spinning instances up or down depending on activity. All this with simple configuration switches out the box. Even the advances in Passenger 4 are pretty amazing (threaded mode, and out-of-band garbage collection, come to mind)

What I'm saying is, they've done __a lot __for the Rails ecosystem and while I 'm not a fan of their new pricing strategy with Passenger or their marketing tack with Puma posts on this thread, I think its worthwhile to be a bit more gentle in chiding them because of their peerless contributions in the past ... plus their link is actually a very well written comparison

<comment><USER18> Yes, phusion was a viable contender for a brief timeframe. That was 5 years ago, in 2008, until unicorn came around in 2009.

I don't see how their standing in 2008 excuses them to use shady trojan horse sales tactics to push their rather mediocre product in 2013.

<comment><USER5> Unicorn improved upon Mongrel in many ways, and it is interesting technology. We know, because we are Unicorn contributors ourselves (take a look at the AUTHORS file). However Phusion Passenger did not stay behind. Since the introduction of Unicorn, we introduced Phusion Passenger Standalone, which allows you to use Phusion Passenger in a Unicorn-like manner (e.g. you can attach it to an Nginx reverse proxy, and it uses a Unicorn-like architecture). Since then, we've even improved upon Unicorn. For example, the out-of-band garbage collection that Unicorn has? We've made it better with out-of-band work. Administration tools for querying the status of workers? passenger- status and passenger-memory-stats do it better than Unicorn. Python support? Not in Unicorn. And so on.

Phusion Passenger is used to full satisfaction by many large parties, such as Motorola, UPS, Hitachi, etc. So if you can point out technical reasons why you think our product is "mediocre", please feel free to tell us, and we'll fix them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just keep in mind your code (and gem's code) needs to be thread safe.

</comment><comment><USER20> Less memory usage then Unicorn here, though we recently moved to Passenger enterprise which is really similar: [https://www.phusionpassenger.com/enterprise](https://www.phusionpassenger.com/enterprise)

good writeup on the subject here: [https://github.com/phusion/passenger/wiki/Puma-vs-Phusion- Pa...](https://github.com/phusion/passenger/wiki/Puma-vs-Phusion-Passenger)

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been enjoying using Puma in clustered mode for some production sites, but falling back to Thin for Server Sent Events (new EventSource()) - does anyone know if this is ever likely to come to Puma, or is there a fundamental reason that the Puma process model can't support SSE?

<comment><USER22> Are you doing so with MRI/Ruby 2.0? Been considering Puma over Unicorn since it works so well for one of our JRuby apps but was wondering about how it would perform on MRI since it seems like it was never really designed with MRI in mind.

<comment><USER23> When I tried to benchmark a standardized app under MRI, I found that Puma works great _if_ your app is io-bound as opposed to cpu-bound.

This makes sense because multi-threading is still a win under MRI even with the GIL, only so long as your app is io-bound (so threads can be switched out when waiting on io, for instance waiting on a db query).

Most web apps I've worked with tend to be io-bound.

[https://github.com/jrochkind/fake_work_app/blob/master/READM...](https://github.com/jrochkind/fake_work_app/blob/master/README.md)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well. I have just come across this one which says Unicorn to be the best performing one. Apparently, Puma proves wrong even with multiple workers.

[https://gist.github.com/pbyrne/5218411](https://gist.github.com/pbyrne/5218411)

<comment><USER25> Interesting goes against directly what they claim on their own page. Its tested on a four core machine. I'm suspecting the 16 default threads were the problem, since Unicorn only ran with 4 processes not 16.

[http://puma.io/](http://puma.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can anyone who's used Puma on Heroku comment on how it compares to Unicorn?

<comment><USER27> Much better memory usage and (for us at least) better concurrency. We could only run 4 unicorn workers on a single dyno. But with Puma we run 16 threads with ease.

<comment><USER28> Have you tried running 3 or even 4 puma workers (each with 8-16) threads on a dyno? That way you can get more concurrency on CPU-bound requests in addition to IO-bound concurrency (assuming MRI).

<comment><USER23> I tried that in my attempt at benchmarking a standardized app on heroku, and, yep, it works great:

[https://github.com/jrochkind/fake_work_app/blob/master/READM...](https://github.com/jrochkind/fake_work_app/blob/master/README.md)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm running Puma on my RaspberryPi for a pet Rails app and it's incredibly fast. Would recommend.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is it just me beeing blind, or does it not support https?

<comment><USER5> It supports https through Nginx. HTTPS terminates at Nginx.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Puma is not for me, but Ragel seems very interesting.</comment>


Network Microsegmentation for Docker container deployments - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sdnhub/lorispack

<comment><USER2> The whole SDN thing still draws blank looks in enterprise environments. Where I work I'm trying to get the networking team interested in being able to just work on a delivering rock solid transport networks with applications and their associated networks riding on top in overlay's...This particular project is awesome. I think this is the most exciting area in IT right now. I'm still reading through the open vswitch code...</comment>


National Novel Writing Month - <AUTHOR> http://www.nanowrimo.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> randrews' comment ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=339190> ) about the "Kill Your Blog" article is a sentiment I agree with. Amongst other reasons I write a blog to hone my writing skills, but there are other ways to do this:

NaNoWriMo is overtly about getting words onto the page, breaking through the quality fetish and the procrastination that stalls many wannabe authors. As such I think it an interesting social hack (as well as being a neat website in itself) and thus of interest to this community.

<comment><USER2> I agree completely - the concept is powerful. If the task before you is large enough, at some point you let go of self doubt and perfectionism and start generating content. I really enjoy NaNoWriMo and I am looking forward to this years run.</comment></comment>


India is an Android Country - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/personal-tech/gadgets-special/At-91-Indroid-ring-drowns-rival-OSs-out/articleshow/22914327.cms

<comment><USER2> This is why choosing WP over Android was such a _catastrophic_ decision for Nokia. Nokia used to have _70 percent_ of the smartphone market in India. But because of Android, they've lost almost all of their market there. If they would've adopted Android early on, they could've maintained maybe not still 70 percent, but maybe not much lower than that either. The same goes for China, and other countries India _used to_ own.

But with a new CEO that was going to get a bonus for _selling the company cheaply_ [1], that's what you get, I suppose.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/09/21/just- ho...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/09/21/just-how-inept- was-nokias-board/)</comment>


New skype terms of use - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering if anyone with more familiarity with this subject matter (it did catch my eye, but maybe standard?) could chime in on this particular part:
Content. We collect content of your files and communications when necessary to provide you with the products you use. For example, if you receive an email using Outlook.com or Exchange Online, we need to collect the content of that email to deliver it to your inbox, display it to you, enable you to reply to it, and store it for you until you choose to delete it. Examples of this data include:
* the content of your documents, photos, music, or videos you upload to a Microsoft service such as OneDrive, as well as the content of your communications sent or received using Microsoft products such Outlook.com or Skype, including the:
* subject line and body of an email, text or other content of an instant message, audio and video recording of a video message, and audio recording and transcript of a voice message you receive or a text message you dictate.
How much data are they collecting here? from the looks of it... well everything?
If so, well i think i think i may find a new group voice client, i mainly used it for gaming, but if they are logging everything, id prefer not to...
But, please, if you have a better explanation, i'm always willing to listen :) <comment><USER2> I can't speak with any familiarity to terms of service for these sorts of things, but that does look pretty shady. If you need it, you're welcome to one of the conference bridges I've occasionally used with some friends. This one has become sort of a backup of a backup; 812-462-9297.</comment>


Locked Wikipedia Defacement of the Day: Standards Australia - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards_Australia <comment><USER2> Defacing the wikipedia page isn't a productive way to vent your frustration, but I can sympathise with why those vandals are frustrated. I wanted to view the Australian electrical wiring standards document only to find it cost something like $200 for a single document. I was able to obtain the NZ version, which is nearly identical, for free. Personally, I would have paid up to $30 without too much complaining.</comment>


Ask HN: What is considered a solo-founder unicorn? - <AUTHOR>

A startup unicorn is one worth at least $1 billion.  That being the case, what would be the criteria for a solo-founder/lifestyle business unicorn?<p>I'm thinking a solo-founder who has no employees and makes $1 million/year profit would fit the bill.   Any examples of this? <comment><USER2> It would most likely need to be only software based.

I run a million dollar company now and because physical products are involved, I can't do everything myself and I now have another business partner. We have no employees. It's a pure lifestyle business.

I automated a ton of the business with software that I wrote (otherwise I would need to hire employees), but some things just can't be automated and require a person to do the work.

</comment><comment><USER3> drudgereport.com</comment>


CoreOS Acquires Quay.io to Launch Its Private Docker Repository - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/13/coreos-acquires-quay-io-to-launch-its-private-docker-repository/?ncid=rss

<comment><USER2> Definitely an interesting move, since Docker recently released their own private repositories with their 1.0

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like a very logical move. First we get stable CoreOS updates, now we have private Docker index built-in.

</comment><comment><USER4> We need something like this for Chef cookbooks. Managed private and public API endpoints for organizations to host cookbooks that don't belong on the main community site,

<comment><USER5> Supermarket is exactly that - right now it's used for the public cookbook repository, but the goal is to make it usable for private repos as well.

<comment><USER4> I wasn't aware of that. I know making it easy to host Supermarket privately is a goal, and already not too difficult, but this seems like an awkward solution for smaller organizations. So far I haven't seen any discussions about adding private repos: I would appreciate if you could direct me there. This is one such thread I've found: [https://github.com/opscode/supermarket/issues/217](https://github.com/opscode/supermarket/issues/217)

I would love to see some kind of namespacing: something that would come with organization-specific cookbooks. Really, when I said "don't belong on the main community site" I really mean "don't belong in the current global namespace."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats to both teams. There's a lot of work to make clusters as easy to manage as single machines. These are definitely the right people to make it happen.</comment>


Show HN: Feem Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> http://www.tryfeem.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi. Long time lurker. I built Feem to enable chat and local file transfers within a LAN, without passing through the Internet.

Feem works natively on Android, iOS, Windows Desktop, Linux, and Mac OSX.

Trivia: I am based in Buea; a small city in Cameroon, Africa.</comment>


Panda - Open source solution for video uploading, encoding and streaming. - <AUTHOR> http://pandastream.com/ <comment><USER2> for ruby people, there's also the commercial project <http://zencoder.tv/> , also the open source version <http://rvideo.rubyforge.org/>

but I prefer pandastream, seems a more viable solution imo

<comment><USER3> I'm one of the folks behind Zencoder. It's been a side project up until now, but we're about to take it full-time this fall, complete with a new version. Ping me if you have any questions - see my profile for info - or I'll post Zencoder announcements at <http://railspikes.com>.

There is a lot of need for lightweight video transcoding infrastructure right now, so I'm glad to see another solution on the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anybody know of any Python API's?

I'd also love it if Justin.TV open sourced some of their Python media server stuff. :D

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if the name 'Panda' was inspired from the Sneezing Panda.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are there any demo websites created using Panda?

</comment><comment><USER7> Any integration with FlixEngine?</comment>


Why Google Doesn't Have a Research Lab - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525506/why-google-doesnt-have-a-research-lab/ <comment><USER2> Google doesn't need a designated "lab space" because Google _is_ a laboratory.

It might be different if Google were a chemical engineering company, but it's not. It's a software engineering company. Anywhere they've got computer scientists, whiteboards and computers is a lab. And that's basically every building at Google.

<comment><USER3> You can not say that is always true. Microsoft is a software engineering company as well, but they do have a dedicated R&D team and offices.

<comment><USER4> Just because MS has a separated division doesn't mean Google has to follow. A lot of the google come out as both product and paper. That's already a research lab. Why do we bother to discuss this in the first place? I really don't see any difference in having a dedicated research lab and a place where research and products are mixed together, true a lot of employees at google don't publish papers and they do boring works like fixing bugs.

<comment><USER5> MS didn't start that trend. Many companies used to have research divisions, large ones even...HP, Xerox, DEC, intel, Sun, IBM, even Apple had something. That is almost gone or rapidly shrinking...

<comment><USER4> I don't mean to disrespect these companies, but they are much older than Google. It seems like from the sart Google didn't care about the division. They knew they always have some "research" going on. Maybe founders' background was the founding culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Working at Google sounds like a Fun time, where you can explore your inner child--and learn how to make money on ads. I know all the Google employees are geniuses, but a genius without the right guidance(Scientitists--who could care less about advertising, just the scientific method) might end up just doing what Google rewards them for--making money. I applaud Google for letting us use their API's, but I feel restrictions are coming, along with fees. I'm not a huge fan of google for one reason; they ruined my Privacy. By the way, you can get off Google street view by telling them you have security concerns--at least for now. The minute DuckDuckGo gets a little better--bye to my back stabbing friend--Google. And yes those Google glasses will make some people angry(in kid's speak--you just might get a drink thrown at you, and no--even if they start to make them look like EMO Glasses, some people don't like their picture taken without their permission.)

<comment><USER7> Sadly the days of asking for permission are long gone. Every day we're recorded on dozens of CCTV camera, car dash-cams (and similar worn by bikers / cyclists), traffic cams, police severance cameras (in larger urban towns / cities) and so on. You can't walk into a single shop nor office without being recorded. you can't even talk a walk outside, nor a drive, without the chance of being recorded.

I'm not saying it's right, but that is how it is these days.

<comment><USER8> You can blur your face with LEDS if cameras are your major concern. Someone should make some stylish hats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a big strategic question. Do you want researchers closer to the market, paid by the person whose P&L they could impact? Or further away, so they can think longer term?

Other companies go through this a lot. Procter & Gamble used to have centralized research. To improve time to market, they decentralized research, and had them report to business unit heads. This was great for singles, but when they wanted more home runs and cross-category innovation, they decentralized again.

One can look at Xerox PARC as the penultimate example of the dangers of isolated innovation labs. They created the technology that everyone else monetized. AT&T struggled with this somewhat too.

<comment><USER10> Xerox PARC was not dangerous. The danger for Xerox was the different between seeing an opportunity for the future or a threat to their current business model. If PARC had never existed, the same things with minor differences would have happened some years later.

<comment><USER11> The danger was not the invention it was wasting money without realizing the benefits.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. They invested in a future that other realized instead of them.

Would it have happened anyways? Who knows, probably.

Who was harmed? Their shareholders, and all the employees who eventually lost their jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is purely semantics: "Google's research boss, Alfred Spector, has a small core team and no department or building to call his own."

So no department but he has a "small core team" and presumably Alred and his "small core team" have offices? This is such a non-story...just PR fluff to make Google appear unique and more "integrated".

Are we actually supposed to believe the "labs" at other tech giants are some sort of ivory tower that they never leave?

</comment><comment><USER13> There is one, it is right above Blaze cafe (1225 Charleston Rd). There's a huge sign by the visitor's area: "Google Research & Development".

</comment><comment><USER14> A more in-depth look from the Communications of the ACM, by Alfred Spector, Peter Norvig and Slav Petrov, "Google's Hybrid Approach to Research": [http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/7/151226-googles- hybrid-a...](http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/7/151226-googles-hybrid- approach-to-research/fulltext)

</comment><comment><USER15> Then why they have this: [http://research.google.com/](http://research.google.com/)

``Research at Google is unique. Because so much of what we do hasn't been done before, the lines between research and development are often very blurred. ''

<comment><USER16> > Research at Google is unique. Because so much of what we do hasn't been done > before...

How is that any different from regular research?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What's Google X if not a research lab?

<comment><USER18> A playground for extremely smart people they don't want their competitors to hire.

<comment><USER19> X is still very much run by Sergey. On the more experimental projects (i.e. not Glass or self-driving cars) you have a fair amount of freedom to experiment, but if Sergey wants something to happen a certain way, it happens that way.

(For that matter, the rest of the company isn't all that different: you have a fair amount of freedom to experiment, but if Larry wants something to happen a certain way, it happens that way.)

<comment><USER20> BTW, I sent you an email about meeting Larry/Sergey a while ago. I just added rachelbythebay to the list too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Off topic: Can anyone list ongoing software based research projects, that are critically interesting, preferably in the sphere of compiler design, low level system software or high performance computing?

<comment><USER4> Off topic: Rust from Mozilla is provably the first thing I think of outside of Google that matches the compiler part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, I think Google should have to make his research lab..Google's research lab, Alfred Spector, has a small core team and no department or building to call his own,according to MIT Technology Review.</comment>


Find Out What Type of Blogger You Are - <AUTHOR> http://blogger.zecamp.com/Pm9u61p0fdAS15 <comment><AUTHOR> Your hands are itching to start your personal blog and it's already not the first you came across this idea?</comment>


Namecheap changed their UI and ignoring users - <AUTHOR> https://community.namecheap.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=66572 <comment><AUTHOR> Someone at Namecheap decided to change their functional domain management interface into "better" one - driven by javascript, with humongous fonts, message popups and dynamic forms that makes any domain editing and management job a time wasting disaster. Namecheap called it "more user friendly and has a modern design".

I thought 1and1 and Godaddy were unbeatable but never expected my favorite namecheap to beat them to pulp in pissing off so many users in such a short period of time.

As a response to their customers namecheap published a thread: [https://blog.namecheap.com/we-are-listening/](https://blog.namecheap.com/we- are-listening/) Where ironically "listening" ears were closed to any new comments due to overwhelming negative feedback.

Namecheap stance is instead of giving users the interface and productivity they really liked - they intent to continue forcing users to "like" their new disastrous UI by promising to publish "Get Started wizards" to ease pain: [https://community.namecheap.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=...](https://community.namecheap.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=43083#p89319)

I welcome feedback here and let make namecheap listen to us - the customers that loved and recommended namecheap to all our friends and clients.

I also welcome to discuss alternatives to show namecheap that ignoring users is not an option and is not acceptable.

<comment><USER2> _I thought 1and1 and Godaddy were unbeatable_

FYI, when renewing a domain with GoDaddy not long ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find their site to have been redesigned -- and useable.

(And: in general, GoDaddy has changed course in recent years thanks to a new CEO and the people he brought in. The company has improved technically, they've gotten rid of their sexualized advertising and they've gotten serious about hiring women.

This Wired piece talks about these changes:

[http://www.wired.com/2015/05/godaddy-isnt-company- think/](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/godaddy-isnt-company-think/) )

<comment><AUTHOR> Did they also dismantled their upsell minefield?

One wrong unnoticed checksbox will leave you with unneeded product or service and with less cash on a recurring basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The UI is terrible. When i logged in i was presented with alarming "expired" notice on my domains. Any domain holder knows that these types of messages can cause heart attacks. Digging in i discovered that the expired element is some ssl cert that i never used. there is no way to turn off this "expired" notice. no easy way to sort my domains or whois guards and see which are soon to expire.

i have ~50 domains registered in namecheap which are now almost unmanageable.

btw - ssl has such a familiar icon. why invent a new icon for ssl? The expiration column is of the domain or whoisguard? namechaep are not stupid people... how did this design get through?

<comment><USER4> I ended up renewing a domain that doesn't expire for 6 months because of this. I bet that's exactly why they did it. Even the hover text was ambiguous, something like "expired Oct 31"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I too have had enough of the silly new UI. Just the fact that you give us no choice to revert back or even give us another option, that tells me you are not caring about your customers. I have to spend too much time trying to figure out what to do with the piece of crap you call a User Interface, not to mention too much time on chat when I can't figure it out.

I am running a business here, I'm not some teenager with a couple of vanity domains. I have over 70 domains I manage not to mention clients I need to please, too bad you don't think the same way.

Since you have given me no choice, I have had to look for alternatives. I will not support Godaddy however I did find another registrar, Namesilo, that has a no nonsense interface that is simple to use and doesn't require scrolling forever to find anything. Namesilo has a much better interface and happens to have better prices, free whois guard and, so far, awesome support.

So, I have begun moving my 70+ domains away from Namecheap. Even if they finally decide to fix their bad UI, I will not return, nor will I suggest your company to any of my clients or colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yep, that new iface is not the greatest nor intuitive. It's not madefor efficiency but iPhone handling. I wonder if they ever checked how manyactually administrate a website from a phone...

</comment><comment><USER7> "Now it takes very long time to find functions, it took me about an hour to change nameservers on my domain ..."

Me too.

I'm moving my domains off Namecheap. Who hired the idiot that made this decision?

</comment><comment><USER8> Agreed. I use(d) Namecheap because of their Just-Working(tm) interface. Everything was simple, fast and easy to be found. That changed. That changed heavily.</comment>


Monitoring and Debugging Big Clusters Running Real-Time NoSQL Apps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.blekko.com/2012/11/01/tech-talk-about-blekkos-operations-monitoring-infrastructure/

<comment><AUTHOR> The slides can be directly downloaded here:

[http://s.omniti.net/surge/i/content/slides/Surge2012-GregL_b...](http://s.omniti.net/surge/i/content/slides/Surge2012-GregL_blekko- Surge-monitoring.pdf)</comment>


Make Time to Read - <AUTHOR> http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/make-time-to-read/

<comment><USER2> "I once heard someone say that reading a book is like having a conversation with the author. Which means I've been able to chat with some really smart dudes: the former/current CEO's of General Electric, Zappos and Amgen (one of the most successful biotech companies in the world) for instance."

Well, or a chat with their ghost writers.

I think that a lot of business writing really is pretty bad. On the other hand, it's pretty rude to tell somebody that a book that he is holding is a waste of time.</comment>


Crowd sourced ergonomic keyboard sold by crowd buying platform gets reviewed  - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/7245/ergodox-review-an-ergonomic-mechanical-keyboard-via-massdrop

<comment><USER2> Single page link for those who prefer to read the article whole, instead of chopped up into four pieces:

[http://www.anandtech.com/print/7245/ergodox-review-an- ergono...](http://www.anandtech.com/print/7245/ergodox-review-an-ergonomic- mechanical-keyboard-via-massdrop)</comment>


Ask HN: Home security cameras that don't have terrible data policies - <AUTHOR> I just bought a house and everyone keeps telling me to get a Ring camera but I have some major issues with it that I probably don't need to get into here.
I've been looking into the Unifi cameras from ubiquiti but I've heard mixed things. I'm looking to set up a couple cameras outside my home (front door and back door). One feature of the Ring camera that is really nice is that it can recognize people and alert you when a person is at your door. Are there any other camera options that have features like this?
I'm open to hacking something together if need be. It doesn't need to be a completely out of the box solution.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I have a number of cameras on my property (12 and counting), I use cheap cameras from China and put them on a separate lan that is blocked from sending data outside of the network and can't be accessed from outside the lan either. Then I have a blueiris server running on my main lan (I use a ubiquity edge router) where I have the rest of the machines. The BlueIris server has access to the camera lan to get the data off it, and lets me see the cameras wherever I am. I have a mix of cameras but mostly the S3VC cameras you can get off Amazon, they are inexpensive and are decent quality. This lets me feel relatively safe, but still use the inexpensive cameras without spending a ton.

As for doorbell camera specifically. I had setup a Pi with facial recognition which you can find as packages online. It is fairly easy to setup and works pretty well, but I dropped it in the end and just put up good quality door camera attached to the blueiris server. You can set alerts on the BI server to tell you when someone is at the door, pretty easy to setup and minimize false triggers.

<comment><USER3> This post reminds me heavily of "Show HN: Dropbox"'s comment section. Not in a bad way, I just find it really amusing.

How powerful does the BlueIris server have to be / what kind of drives do you use for persisting video temporarily/permanently?

<comment><USER2> My BI machine (I assembled) is based on an Intel I5-8600k 3.6g with 16Gb of Ram, 6 cores with a decent graphics card. I have spinning disks for long term storage (4 TB) but ssd (1 TB) for OS and temp storage.

The CPU sits around 50-60% all day with 8Gb or ram used with the camera grid display on. If I stop the local display it drops the CPU usage pretty dramatically. The key is the record direct to disk setting which reduces the CPU cycles and makes it nice. I also record with pretty high frame rates & resolutions, my lowest frame rate is around 16 fps with most set at 24 fps or so (depends on the camera generally, door & pool cameras are highest).

<comment><USER4> How many cameras are you running?

<comment><USER2> 12 and I still have a few to add. At some point I will have to either upgrade my BI server CPU or split the camera's likely.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! I've been thinking about doing something like this with maybe 4 or 5 cameras. But I was hoping I could do it on a low energy consumption platform, like a Pi. Your info at least tells me I need something a bit more powerful (and of course Windows based).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just bought a few Annke 4k cameras, which afaict are rebranded Hikvision, and set up a Blue Iris box.

The cameras are on an isolated VLAN with no access out. Last I checked, they weren't trying to phone home.

The cameras are cheap, durable, and have excellent day and night vision.

</comment><comment><USER6> I know you said you didn't like ring, but sometimes it's worth paying for the convenience of not having to maintain. Most of us spend all day working, the last thing I want to do is start debugging my security system. It's similar to how mechanics always have broken cars or housekeepers have a dirty home.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is anyone not using Blue Iris? I was hoping to find a freeware solution. Also, is the $70 for Blue Iris a one time payment or annual?

</comment><comment><USER7> Cameras certified under Apple's "HomeKit Secure Video" are probably good in terms of data policies. Don't know how they compete in terms of features.</comment>


A simple box that can bring the Internet anywhere - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680932/a-simple-box-that-can-bring-the-internet-anywhere

<comment><USER2> I want one!</comment>


Perceptibility of Lossy Audio Encoding as a Signal Detection Problem - <AUTHOR> http://danturkel.com/lossyaudio.html

<comment><USER2> A few criticisms of this article:

* The article covers digital audio from its very foundations, which is unnecessary. Just put a link to Wikipedia.

* The citation format is weird. Instead of using inline hyperlinks, you have to look up references at the end.

* The test only covers MP3. This is 2014... and we know MP3 has a low-pass filter.

* The methodology doesn't mention converting from MP3 back to a lossless format for the ABX test, and it doesn't mention measuring MP3 encoder gain. ABX tests can be colored when people recognize differences between lossy and lossless playback that have nothing to do with the encoding itself: if lossless playback uses less IO and more CPU, then you might hear less clicking from your disk drive and your computer's CPU fan might spin faster. Most ABX tests convert both files back to WAV before testing.

* The spectrum of the residual is not very interesting, because the human ear is not sensitive to phase (or far less sensitive to phase than amplitude). It would be more interesting to compute the differences in the spectrums.

If you want a more sound and thorough analysis of audio compression, try the Hydrogen Audio tests:

[http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Hydrogenaudio_Lis...](http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Hydrogenaudio_Listening_Tests)

Quick summary: At reasonable bit rates, many encoders are sonically transparent. At lower bit rates (64/96 kbit/s), Opus is the most transparent, and Apple's encoder is in second place.

<comment><USER3> Instead of Wikipedia, try Monty's article on digital audio [https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil- young.html](https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html) or this "maximum information density" video [https://www.xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml](https://www.xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml)

<comment><USER4> Agreed, Monty's articles and videos are phenomenally educational and well worth the watch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've always thought of there being 5 different levels of lossiness:

* Understandable * Not noticeably worse "casually" (i.e. unable to distinguish which version it is without having heard both versions first) * Not noticeably worse * Not noticeably different * Exact

This applies to video encoding also: for example, I start being able to pick up on mpeg artifacts well before I actually start being annoyed by them.

They each have their roles. The question is: what encodings are most suited for what domains out of the above?</comment>


Amazon bans sale of most editions of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/16/amazon-bans-sale-of-most-editions-of-adolf-hitlers-mein-kampf <comment><USER2> Good. You shouldn't buy Mein Kampf ...it's in the public domain! (Well, the original german version is...)

A thoroughly punishing read but adults are entitled to inspect it for themselves so that it may never happen again. The infantalization of culture continues...

</comment><comment><USER3> "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." ― Edmund Burke

<comment><USER4> We all know that history, though, including the people who are trying to repeat it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I get that people want to stop the spread of Nazi propaganda, but making it so that people can't purchase Mein Kampf just because of the ideas that it contains is reminiscent of a dystopian novel. Where are independent researchers supposed to get access to these books in their printed form? The internet is already subjected to massive censorship and historical revisionism. It's a bit troubling to think of a world where Amazon determines what information is and is not available to the public.

<comment><USER6> Not censorship. Not revisionism.

People can still buy the book.

Independent researchers can get their copy from a library, or any other bookseller.

Amazon is not determining what information is available to the public.

<comment><USER7> Once one person decides to do something and it's seen as okay, more people will do it.

Companies are just the same, suddenly the entire society will fall into line.

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


Dataflow Programming: Handling Huge Data Loads Without Adding Complexity - <AUTHOR> http://drdobbs.com/go-parallel/article/231400148?pgno=2

<comment><USER2> OP links to page 2 of the article. Here's page 1 <http://drdobbs.com/go- parallel/article/231400148?pgno=1>

</comment><comment><USER3> Beware of deceiving graphs. That system scales with many cores compared to _itself_. Erlang isn't easy to program.

Depending on the case, you might be better off moving the critical part of the data processing to C or C++, perhaps using a relevant library. On many benchmarks Erlang is 10x slower than C. And more importantly for huge data, Erlang consumes 3x to 30x more memory.

[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=hipe&lang2=gcc)

Edit:

Relative to C/C++, Scala is somewhat better in cpu (still slower) but memory- wise it's even worse:

[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=scala&lang2=gcc)

<comment><USER4> Dataflow as a pattern is not constrained to Scala or Erlang specifically. In fact, the "Further reading" article[1] is about dataflow programming in C++.

[1]: <http://drdobbs.com/cpp/224202533>

<comment><USER3> Interesting. But then why didn't the author benchmark that too? Pretty graphs like that can confuse people not making a deep analysis of what's going on. There are no disclaimers or notes about it.

<comment><USER5> Figure 2 is a very ordinary line graph, and the text tells you exactly what it's intended to show - "good scalability as the compute resources increased".

When I make mistakes reading, it is most often my fault for not paying attention and not reading carefully.

<comment><USER3> The point of the whole article is "proven" with that test/graph. It neither includes a simple scalar version nor versions on different languages. And they are recommending specific languages (Scala/Erlang).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>