Make coders develop Blackberry apps, says firm's boss - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30932399

<comment><USER2> Microsoft subsidized development of some popular apps for Windows Phone (e.g., Angry Birds). They paid for these. They were necessary to claw away at some market share.

Chen seems to think he's entitled . . . and this is one reason why BlackBerry is utterly doomed. Now I wouldn't develop a BB app even _if_ he paid me :-)

But while we're at it, maybe we _do_ need some regulation, so we can hold app developers at gunpoint (because that's what laws do, in the final argument) and force them to cough up the goods. In fact, I have an old Palm Pilot VII in a box somewhere that is being discriminated against and would be perfectly useful if only it had some apps... </snark>

<comment><USER3> They did subsidize a number of major apps that come over to BlackBerry.

<comment><USER2> On the other hand, it's probably cheaper to buy a congressman or senator than it is to pay a developer to port an app.

<comment><USER4> Exactly right. I noticed this many times when living in DC. There's even a study that puts numbers on the ROI for politician-purchasing:

 _" In a recent study, researchers Raquel Alexander and Susan Scholz calculated the total amount the corporations saved from the lower tax rate. They compared the taxes saved to the amount the firms spent lobbying for the law. Their research showed the return on lobbying for those multinational corporations was 22,000 percent. That means for every dollar spent on lobbying, the companies got $220 in tax benefits."_ [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-s...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget- stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist)

<comment><USER5> holy shit

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Developing on the BlackBerry 10 OS has actually been a pleasant experience, but that was for fun rather than profit, as the numbers do not add up in their store vs the rest of the market. Their android runtime is very good and most apps run well on it, with the confidence of a modicum more sandboxing than a native android phone. I think BlackBerry's only real hope now is to get the phone into the hands of people for little to no cost and hold developer events and contests. It will cost them to have a dev community, like Microsoft learnt, but without it, they will wither even more so.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seeing as it's a letter to Congress, maybe the phrase "Those who can't innovate, legislate" is apt...

</comment><comment><USER8> I almost don't believe he actually feels that way, but is simply so desperate at this point that he'll try anything. It'll be interesting to see if this news affects investor sentiment.

</comment><comment><USER9> If this weren't from bbc I would assume that someone had misquoted the onion as a proper news source again. This argument seems pretty preposterous.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sorry but maybe Apple and Android don't care about BlackBerry because it's going under. Nobody wants to hang out with a loser and that's what they've become. His whining doesn't help.

I'm sure turning around BlackBerry is a monumental task but I feel like he should be focused on innovating and leading and let his PR team do the writing for public statements.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow, that's a horrible headline. Did anyone actually read the letter? His position is far less extreme. All hes essentially advocating for is open protocols so that popular services aren't locked down to a single platform. It's an interesting question whether government should mandate interoperability.

<comment><USER12> That's not what he says:

      Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone users to download and
      use our BBM service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry or
      Android users to download Apple's iMessage messaging
      service. Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for carrier
      neutrality, has discriminated against BlackBerry customers
      by refusing to make its streaming movie service available
      to them.

<comment><USER11> His phrasing is clumsy because hes not a programmer. The issue is that its rather "impossible" to create BB apps for some services because they're locked down. If NetFlix and Apple were to open the API, that would be enough for anyone (including BB employees) to create the app themselves. I don't think BB is so poor that they couldn't hire a few devs to get the apps written.

<comment><USER13> Netflix and Apple don't have to open up anything if they don't want to. It's their service and ultimately they can choose which platforms to support. This is just whining from BlackBerry.

<comment><USER11> >It's their service and ultimately they can choose which platforms to support.

I think you're thoroughly confused. A documented protocol can be implemented on any general purpose platform.

Remember the binary document formats from Microsoft? People had to reverse engineer that shit once upon a time. Not anymore, its all XML now. Microsoft didn't have to "support" Linux. They merely had to document their format. Certainly, OOXML has its own problems but these days almost ANY service/application can read/write MS document formats.

<comment><USER13> What are you going on about? Apple and Netflix offer a service, not a protocol that should be used by everyone. They decide which platform to support — this isn't about any protocol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Initially my reaction was the same as the herd, however on reflection I see that he's trying to address a problem in the mobile space.

Really the mobile phone market is currently a duopoly and that's bad for consumers. We are now getting past the initial innovation part of the curve and starting to see level growth in terms of the number of devices in the market place and platform changes.

What we need to start thinking about is perhaps a standard on which Apps are built. Right now its like the 90s where you'd build a site for IE and one for Netscape.

</comment><comment><USER15> If someone was foolish enough to still own BBRY, I think this incident should be evidence enough to get out while you can. What an incredibly stupid thing for a CEO to say.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm in favour of competition, but this sounds like "Music industry should be forced to release cassette tapes"

BB was ahead of the curve, had its glory days, dropped the ball on not focusing on enterprise and now it is struggling to find its place.

I do think we need a 3rd big player in this market (other than apple/google). Feels like innovation has became a battle of thinness / big screens.

<comment><USER17> Microsoft is a big player in terms of resources, though not market share (2%?) in smart phones.

Based on their Windows 10 announcement yesterday, they are pushing universal device integration, which should help them in the enterprise market. If they deliver, what they'll have is a full stack of productivity, line-of-business, and analytics platforms through a unified UI for any device. Most enterprises already run Windows and if mobile/tablet integration is seamless with a Microsoft platform, that should be a large gain in market share.

The two big questions are if they can deliver well on the promise, and if they can leverage enterprise adoption to increase their consumer market share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> WhatsApp only supporting Google Chrome for their web client is silly. Should they be allowed to look silly? Yes.

</comment><comment><USER19> What Mr. Chen claims as "discrimination" or non-net neutrality is not that at all. Net neutrality is not about making apps available for all platforms.

On a side note, has anyone developed a BB app? Maybe he should start there first.

</comment><comment><USER20> Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8927539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8927539)

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow. Ignorant or wilfully stupid?

We might as well argue that Blackberry be forced to run a common OS.

<comment><USER22> Like Android.. haha. Seriously this is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read that was not a April Fools Joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So would their position be different if they were still the market leader?

</comment><comment><USER24> Well, time to stop supporting BlackBerry.

</comment><comment><USER25> forcing != free market

</comment><comment><USER26> lol, no.</comment>


Show HN: Redditplaylists.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.redditplaylists.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I created a scraper that compiles Spotify playlists for the most popular music subreddits, using the top weekly track submissions (basically any links to Spotify, Soundcloud or Youtube using $ARTIST - $TRACK in the title). The Spotify API is then used to search for the track and if found, adding it to a playlist. This runs once weekly and updates the same playlists, so if you're following one it won't be removed.

Github link to the scraper: [https://github.com/jameslawlor/reddit2spotifybot](https://github.com/jameslawlor/reddit2spotifybot)

Happy to hear any comments and feedback!

<comment><USER2> Started using and sharing. Cheers

For your code you might want to check out [https://github.com/Delgan/loguru](https://github.com/Delgan/loguru) for logging rather than print statements.

What is the meaning of try/except 1 here [https://github.com/jameslawlor/reddit2spotifybot/blob/master...](https://github.com/jameslawlor/reddit2spotifybot/blob/master/find_subreddits.py) (line 24)?</comment></comment>


Why I wrote my own UIKit and the end of the platform wars - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/f466467d9a25

<comment><USER2> Impressive how much faster open gl is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, when I dug into instruments, the biggest impediment is that if you have a bunch of OpenGL surfaces you establish needless sync points each time you present a buffer when you have to wait for the OpenGL command list to clear out. When you have one giant surface to present you only have to do this once and save a lot of synchronization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Did you write your own UIDatePicker?</comment>


Entrepreneurs: What To Do If You Don't Have An Idea - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/58691/Entrepreneurs-What-To-Do-If-You-Don-t-Have-An-Idea.aspx <comment><USER2> In all seriousness, if anyone is racking their brains for an idea I'm happy to share some thoughts. I'm an idea's guy at heart (coder by day) and there just aren't enough hours in the day.

I might even start a blog, open source ideas.</comment>


SmalltalkHub - <AUTHOR> http://www.smalltalkhub.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> A neat hosting service for Smalltalk projects. I especially like the classic Smalltalk browsers for navigating projects (e.g. [http://www.smalltalkhub.com/user/NicolasPetton/SmalltalkHub/...](http://www.smalltalkhub.com/user/NicolasPetton/SmalltalkHub/source)), really shows that the early design decisions in Smalltalk are still extremely useful today.</comment>


Photo Particles - explode your pictures - <AUTHOR> http://lab.aerotwist.com/webgl/photoparticles/

<comment><USER2> "You could always upgrade to Chrome" -- I'm already running Chrome (well, Chromium from about a week ago)

<comment><USER3> If you're running on Windows XP GPU acceleration in Chrome has been "blacklisted" due to problems. You can re-enable it with the --ignore-gpu- blacklist command line flag.

<http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't drop anything to the "Drop an image" box. My chromium just shows me the image I dropped.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's relying on Modernizr's detection of WebGL, which is the best available. But yes WebGL is not ubiquitous as yet so some folks aren't going to see it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I cant get it to work on Windows XP (neither chrome 10 nor FF4).

I guess webgl is not available to this platform, I'll try at home with windows 7.

<comment><USER6> Should be, but you can check in Firefox in about:support . Look at the bottom - if it says 0/1 windows accelerated then it's not enabled. Try updating your drivers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Love this. The variation in visual output depending on image colors keeps it interesting.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very cool! Being able to drag&drop images is very intuitive. I like it.

</comment><comment><USER9> That's awesome. Great use of three.js

</comment><comment><USER10> chrome.exe --ignore-gpu-blacklist Should make it work in certain cases.

Lovely demo :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Crashed my Chrome tab.</comment>


Devil's Haircut - <AUTHOR> https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/devils-haircut/ <comment><USER2> The article isn't bad but it beats around the bush quite a bit.

The reality is that the architectual establishment is largely responsible for destroying the aesthetic inheritance in the west. Kunstler lays this out for the layman in "Geography of Nowhere".

It was a confluence of events: the architectual establishments hatred of traditionalism and regional forms, combined with the corporate elites love of the inexpensive, anti-skilled labor, massed man internationalist style.

As the article mentions, we will continue to cycle around in various modernisms that reject one another in a simulacrum of progress while, to the layman, offering nothing of aesthetic merit. What will not be considered, until after the revolution, is a return to the forms that created the towns and cities we all love.

Meanwhile, any remaining charming old neighborhoods are bid to the moon, and Christopher Alexander is read mostly by software designers.

<comment><USER3> > _The article isn 't bad but it beats around the bush quite a bit._

It doesn't respect its readers? I think that does make it bad?

I'm more bothered that it's ostensibly a review of a visual exhibit without any visuals. Without flying to New York I don't have any idea what this is describing. And of course the Guggenheim's video producers are so full of themselves that you can't really get an honest take on the exhibit from the intro video on their website either.

<comment><USER4> > I'm more bothered that it's ostensibly a review of a visual exhibit without > any visuals.

Writing about architecture is like dancing about cooking.

(paraphrase of a famous quote that I can't place at the moment -- cite, anyone?)

<comment><USER5> Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. ~Frank Zappa

<comment><USER4> Thanks! That's it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is AI-generated, right?

</comment><comment><USER7> After I saw this SMBC comic about this subject, I never really kept looking for more critical takes on modern architecture.

[https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-11-16](https://www.smbc- comics.com/comic/2014-11-16)

<comment><USER8> Frank Lloyd Wright sought to elevate the environment workers or occupants had to spend their time in. He was designing buildings for people, not as snarky societal commentary.

Maybe we should return to that idea that people are valuable and ought to be treated well, and hire architects to design that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The Koolhaasian moment in design began to fade, as one might expect, with > the coming of the 2008 global economic crisis; since everything in > architecture takes longer than in any other field, the full-on rejection is > only getting underway now, but already the accelerationist paradigm has been > replaced by another: a meliorist one, eco-conscious and modest, > international in outlook but more focused on firms working within their > communities, especially those in developing countries.

What is this writing style?

<comment><USER10> I don't mind it, the use of commas and semicolons to accumulate layers of meaning without resorting to parenthetical interruptions comes across as both deliberative and spontaneous.

It sort of feels like I am reading the author's thoughts as they organically map the domain of their argument, but with all the backtracking pruned out.

But if you want a cute term for this style, how about "run-on sentience?"</comment></comment>


Space-age underwater hotel planned for Maldives - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/10/travel/space-age-underwater-hotel-maldives/index.html

<comment><USER2> In case of fire, break glass. Or maybe not...</comment>


Ask HN: Why there are no non-profit Social Networks? - <AUTHOR>

At each successive facebook backlash, I find myself asking why there are no non-profit social networks? A quick search revealed that there are a few attempts at this, but none exceeding 50k users. And that looks to be pretty much it.
Does anybody have a greater insight as to why there are no non-profit projects in Social Networking domain such as in others (e.g. wikimedia, craigslist etc). Not counting Diaspora
since its a technology, not a hosted Social Network + its not complete (and there are doubts being raised whether it ever will be).
As far as I can think, there are 2 major costs involved:
1) Infrastructure and bandwidth: It could be from few thousand dollars to several million depending on number of users. From response to Diaspora's kickstarter, one can infer that people are definitely willing to donate for a 'noble' social network. And donations would be in proportion of user-base, so this doesn't look like that big an issue (feel free to correct).
2) People cost: The salaries etc. Since there are many developers out there who would love to get involved in such a project, doesn't look like there will be shortage of people willing to contribute (I know I am one). When it comes at hiring full time employees, this can be run much like a startup (minus equity). I am sure there are many developers even here on HN who would work on such a project without asking for any equity.
I guess people would trust a non-profit Social Network more than they do any commercial one. I find it surprising that there have been no attempts at this. If anybody is willing to work on this, I would more than love to contribute/co-found. <comment><USER2> Want to get started? I did some work for a US client that wanted to develop a political tool for people to organize themselves. It was released under BSD. I can dig up the code and repost it if you'd like (original site expired). It was developed in 2009.

[UPDATE] Found it: <http://districtbydistrict.summerhilldesign.com/source.zip>

</comment><comment><USER3> Here are a few glimpses from my perspective of a long-time techie at an NPO.

Many NPOs can't afford having their staff "surf the net all the time." Those that have the most opportunity are usually managers or higher up which need to network more than support staff. So in that respect that cuts the number of participants quite a bit.

NPOs aren't the same, I went to a NP software development conference, I was from a private NP doing community services with state and fed monies. Many of the others were community/social/political NPOs that are more geared for advocacy, etc. So finding a common thread can be a challenge... and many NPs are in competition for similar funding or causes.

Of the social networks I've seen that mixes well is the forums etc. on TechSoup, the draw is everyone needs tech support and Tech soup has donated software/hardware for NPOs. I've seen others, like one on Ning but that fizzled when the costs went up - NPOs are really tight with their budgets.

</comment><comment><USER4> Until there are cross-network trusts, people will stay on the social network their social circle is on. They can be horrible, slow, riddled with privacy concerns, but if your entire family and entire circle of friends is on there you're going to feel a great deal of social pressure to participate.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree, but on the other hand, facebook was at one point of time far behind myspace. one of the reasons it became a huge success is that the myspace had even bigger issues with privacy etc when facebook was considered nice and trustworthy. And its only after facebook became clear market leader, the user backlash started/became frequent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been thinking along the same lines and have already drawn up some concepts for what I think would be a killer non-profit substitute for facebook. I have also founded a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit, so I have some expertise when it comes to running a non-profit. Shoot me an email if you'd like to explore the idea further. kris [at] oowom [dot] com

</comment><comment><USER6> Craigslist is not a non-profit. Those dudes are raking home tens of millions per year in profits.

</comment><comment><USER7> So, your real question is, why isn't there a non-profit Social Network that's as big as Facebook?

<comment><AUTHOR> umm, what I meant when I said there have been attempts is - those seem to be not full hearted with no outside support. E.g. there's no open-source social network project I know of which plans to run through people's contribution (financial and technical).</comment></comment>


Show HN: Create a restaurant website in one click - <AUTHOR> http://menupit.com <comment><USER2> I love this idea. However, I think it is crucial that you have some sort of demos available for people to look at on the front page.

Edit: You should also allow users to change fonts / text colors, as well as section background colors. I would be very annoyed if every single restaurant website looked exactly the same. I'd also recommend allowing them to upload their logo as an image.

Also, let them download their menu as JSON maybe?

<comment><USER3> There is a demo. Just click the button and get a website! It generated me this: [https://menupit.com/ypguhv](https://menupit.com/ypguhv) The "in one click" is an enticing enough reason to see if it was _really_ one click to get a site. It was, sans editing the menu. With a button I can click and edit things on it. I put "Hello CSEThrowaway" in the banner as the subheading. Not sure if it's publicly available since saving requires me to sign up though.

@OP

This would actually be amazing for the several dozen restaurants near me that don't seem to have any online presence at all - which surely hurts their business as people don't know what is on the menu without going in person. It's dead simple to get up and running and looks nice enough as a default. I'm not sure about the competition in this area (or competition like the easy "build-your-own-sites" like Wix or Square(something)) but at the right cost (subscription model? bandwidth/traffic metered?) this is something I could see businesses going for.

One super major flaw though. Other than creating a header graphic with a logo - there's no way to slap a logo anywhere. Nothing businesses love more than plastering their logo on as many things as they can. ;) I would suggest centered above the "Menu" header would be a great spot, without changing the design in any significant way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very cool.

I actually wanted to build something very similar a year ago.

However, the frustration that was driving it wasn't that I need to make these menus, but that as a visitor to restaurant websites I hated the experience.

Too many restaurant owners are commissioning sites with all the bells and whistles and forgetting the customer that just wants to quickly see one page with

\- Location \- Map \- Menu \- Phone number

Anything that stands in the way of the above is another chance for a customer to get frustrated and try somewhere else. I certainly often visit restaurant websites with the intention just to double check the menu and phone number and spend my money, but the website makes me work for it.

If that's covered, knock yourself out with extra pages with silly galleries and blog posts and the story of how the restaurant was founded.

If your service is one step in there being more restaurant websites that stop scaring customers with money away, then kudos to you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback, guys! Much appreciated, and something concrete for us to work on.

This is our first release of the site, and it's still an MVP with lots of features and improvements in the pipeline. We have seen how restaurants struggle to get their information out there and be visible, and are working for a very easy to use solution.

<comment><USER5> keep up the good work man, u got this

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool idea, I worked for a site that worked with merchants and their menus were the worst part about it. There is no standard menu structure, a lot of merchants have a variety of mandatory and optional selections based on an item. You want a burger? Ok, you must pick a temperature and you can select from 3-5 toppings, some of those toppings are extra cost, etc. This is a cool idea, just wanted to give you a heads up

</comment><comment><USER7> Dang! very useful. In NYC: Queens. Manhattan. Brooklyn. Bronx. But you need feet on the ground knockin on doors. Mom and pop: Pizza shops. Spanish food spots. Food Carts. Gyro spots. ethnic spots. Pakistani food. Indian. Nepal. Korean. etc.. Only problem is YELP. They all use yelp. Good lucky though.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great idea. My workaround is to use the portals of online delivery services. However even those are not available in my parents town.

I see a lot of monetarization potential in stuff like custom domains, online orders, etc...

</comment><comment><USER9> What are the optional services and what's the pricing? Are they available now or is it just something not yet finalized?

I really have a strong dislike for any service that doesn't have a pricing link on the homepage.

<comment><AUTHOR> Optional services is still in the pipeline, and this release is to see if there is a demand out there - and we'll iterate on that. What the restaurant pages show now will continue to be free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great idea and perfect execution of your minimum viable product!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Add some demo link or screenshot at least

<comment><USER12> Press the button on the website for the demo ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the idea. A few thoughts:

\- The "sign up for free" button takes me to an inescapable box which demands my phone number. Why can't I sign up using email?

\- The cancel button on the sign up screen doesn't work.

\- The Terms of Service and Privacy Policy links on the sign up screen don't go anywhere useful.

\- I'd like to know more about the "optional extra services" and how much they cost before I sign up. I always suspect the worst when I'm pricing info is hidden behind a paywall.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Yeah I tried it out as well. It might be important to note (for user's sake) that if you try to go back from the sign up screen for any reason your work is lost.

Otherwise this is quite polished, and I think it's a great idea. There are a lot of small restaurants and shops that would benefit a lot from this, especially the free version.</comment></comment>


Show HN: EuroKeks, a stock exchange parody for memes (open beta) - <AUTHOR> https://eurokeks.com/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome man, you should post this to r/memeeconomy. It would absolutely take off.

Also, how do you create more shares of a stock? I made a sample meme at 10 shares, and realized I wanted to increase the number of shares.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it! Currently talking with /r/memeeconomy mods to be featured. Concerning raising number of shares, we are discussing in the democracy section if this should be done and how since it might destroy rarity of some sought memes.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's realtime, got around 10.000 transactions already, can hold 400+ concurrent connections and got API for bots! All the economic decisions are made using a liquid democracy (which is almost functional)</comment>


Not saying winter is coming, but where is your coat? - <AUTHOR> https://m.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/not-saying-winter-is-coming-but-wheres-your-coat/1225914144108114/ <comment><USER2> Submitted earlier by Kent Beck himself: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218583)</comment>


Raspberry Pi – a rapturous reception - grey-area http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17196115

<comment><AUTHOR> The Chinese Linux on an ARM USB stick devices are now a lot more powerful for the same price as the Pi. Only reason to go for the Pi is the large community and manufacturer support. I think the makers envisioned school kids all being given their own Pis to take home and hack on like they did with the BBC computers their rich parents bought for them in the 80s, but in practice the Pi seems to be mostly used as a curiousity in the classroom and doesn't do anything they couldn't do with their existing PCs.

<comment><USER2> Do any of these USB stick devices have GPIO pins? Honest question, since part of the appeal for me was being able to interface hardware more directly.

<comment><USER3> That's a huge draw for me as well. After the Pi I got some Arduinos, they are very non-scary and really really fun to play with. Both pieces of hardware have their uses, the Pi is much, much more powerful and standalone, but less embedded (I use the Arduino as a USB peripheral, which you can't do with a Pi):

[http://www.stavros.io/projects/](http://www.stavros.io/projects/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rather old news (feb 2012). Still interesting though if you're into the whole Pi world.

<comment><USER5> A lot of old articles (some as early as 2011) have been popping up in the popular list on BBC News. In the past this had been due to it suddenly being shared on social networks although I can recall one occasion when it displayed a list of the most popular articles from exactly one month before.</comment></comment>


We Need More Newsletter Tools, Here's 7 you can build and I'll pay for - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/post/7-newsletter-product-ideas-for-indiehackers-041b39e5d0 <comment><AUTHOR> Any of these you would pay for too?

\- Better Archives

\- Tiny Sends Queued

\- NPS For Emails

\- Growth Dashboard

\- Directory Maker

\- Email Courses

\- Lead Magnet Manager</comment>


Ask HN: A service that takes you "off the grid"? - <AUTHOR>

Ever since news broke out about the NSA and other organizations tracking the public on the internet, I thought there would be a major rise in services that protect you from being tracked, in other words, be taking "off the grid". i.e. snapchat <comment><USER2> You may have missed the point.

Signing up for more services would be exactly the opposite of getting off the grid.

Instead, do things like hosting your own email, use an OpenPGP card to access any Linux servers you run, stop using Facebook and Gmail, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> In what way is Snapchat "off the grid"?</comment>


How to successfully develop and release an Android game - <AUTHOR> http://jmoses.co/2014/10/23/how-to-successfully-develop-and-release-android-game.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting information. Gives me some motivation to work on an app of my own! Are you currently working on anything yourself?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, do you have any ideas?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This was a good read. Its nice to see indie game developers getting some love. Did you know the guys?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, no I didn't know them. But I really enjoyed the game and was curious how they were able to get it released.</comment></comment>


BPG Image Comparison - <AUTHOR> http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-bugfixes/#soccer-players&webp=s&bpg=s <comment><USER2> I think the big question is whether people can put BPG pictures online without getting sued.

 _edit_

Why am I being downvoted for saying this? Do the people downvoting me realize that BPG is using HEVC which is patented by many entities?

<comment><USER3> How could distribution of the encoded images be infringing a patent? It's the distribution and possibly use of the encoders and decoders that would be within the scope of patent law, not the output itself. The encoded image isn't the invention.

If I own a patented 3d printer, would you be worried that those patents could restrict my ability to distribute the objects printed by it?

The javascript decoder would certainly be covered by the patents as much as any other decoder, so it doesn't solve the patent-related barriers to adoption even if it takes care of the practical issues with using the format.

<comment><USER2> Err, because MPEG-LA and the other patent holders that didn't join knows that Fabrice Bellard didn't license the patent from them, so you used an unlicensed _encoder_.

If you stick that poly-fill on your website they can also sue you for distributing the _decoder_ to everyone that downloaded the javascript file.

<comment><USER4> IANAL, and this might be a simple case of letter vs. spirit, but my understanding was that shipping the decoder's source is allowed, so with a JS implementation you're theoretically safe. This was one of the arguments around Broadway, the JS H.264 decoder.

<comment><USER5> I'd argue there's a difference between shipping source code, and actually embedding it in your page via a <script> tag. Once you embed the script into your page for execution, you're building a derivative work -- not just publishing technical details.

Otherwise JS would become a universal patent loophole, which I'm pretty sure a judge would find fault with.

(IANAL also.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wasn't aware, but BPG is a Fabrice Bellard[1] project.

Bellard is possibly the best example I'm aware of the 100x programmer.

[1] [http://blog.smartbear.com/careers/fabrice-bellard- portrait-o...](http://blog.smartbear.com/careers/fabrice-bellard-portrait-of- a-super-productive-programmer/)

[2] A subset of things he started: LZEXE, FFMpeg, QEMU. He's also held the record for the calculation of the largest known prime and the most digits of Pi, wrote the first x86 emulator in JS that could boot Linux, won the International Obfuscated C Contest, etc etc.

<comment><USER7> I'm concerned that highlighting his accomplishments every time one of his projects comes up gives the wrong impression to the newer programmers reading the site, or even to experienced programmers.

You, reader, can be a Bellard. There's nothing "special" about what Bellard has done, in the sense of it being beyond your abilities. You just have to believe in yourself, along with having a willingness to work hard most days. But working hard is easy when you find an interesting problem.

Bellard is able to do so much because knowledge is like compound interest: The more you know, the more you can learn. Bellard has been saving up for a long time.

Competition is sometimes motivational, and if you insist on looking at it like a competition, then realize that every day Bellard devotes to relaxation is a day you can catch up to where he's at. Competition is what motivated me, when I first started. And once you realize there's nothing magical about what they know, you realize you can sprint very hard towards where they're at, which is exciting.

But once you start down that path, competitive spirit tends to transcend into something else entirely. You stop comparing yourself to others. You focus on putting one foot in front of the other, taking the next logical step towards your goal. Repeat for N days, and suddenly people are highlighting the projects you've done.

But what's your goal? Well, that's up to you.

So pursue your interests! You can do it.

<comment><USER8> I'd love to believe this, but it's my day job. By the time I've poured my brain 9–5 into what my employer wants, I just feel too drained to do what I want.

It's a vicious cycle of desire and fatigue.

<comment><USER9> > too drained

Drained, or scared?

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure there is no need to troll this comment.

Even if your point was logical, it would be debatable.

<comment><USER11> I believe the comment was meant to motivate, or provoke a bit of self- reflection; not for trolling.

Many people are unwilling, or can't or look for excuses to not take the first step because fear[1][2] might be (secretly) hindering them.

I was offered a great job and I was afraid/unwilling to take the job because of the responsibility in involved (even though, I would've loved the job) and was afraid I wouldn't be up to the task or _my own_ expectations (now I realise I would've been more than capable).

Although, my issue was a consequence of a much bigger emotional problem, I wouldn't have ever resolved it, if it wasn't for a tactless and stubborn friend who forced me into helping myself.

Just my two cents.

\--

[1]:Atychiphobia

[2]: or Jonah's complex

<comment><USER9> Yes. I realize the comment was short and blunt, but the intent behind it was simply to question motivations behind "working for the man" and "doing what brings you joy". I encourage everyone to consider the risks and fears associated with building something new and revolutionary. Sometimes that takes digging deep and facing your fears!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Compare original vs BPG in the soccer picture, then look at the green strip on the shirt of the red team player and slide over it. It's magical how perfectly the compresion make the red dots disappear.

<comment><USER13> Another great one is the Irish Mannequinn. I thought BPG blows up the edges, because every other format smoothed them out. But no, when you compare to the original, all the interesting edges (hair, hanging fabric, top of the lips) should be very visible.

I really like the results!

<comment><USER14> Yes, it seems like BPG is smarter in finding interesting parts of the image.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This conversation showed up a couple of weeks ago...

Any new "image compression format" isn't going to gain widespread traction unless is can displace JPEG in terms of hardware support and ubiquity in cameras.

I was part of the JPEG-2000 support. The company I was with at the time had technology around how blocks were encoded (it gave up block independence at the benefit of 20+% encoding efficiency -- downside would be an intermediary step to reconstruct the JPEG steam).

None of those solutions took off.

Explain to me how beyond a hobbyist market BPG will make a splash?

<comment><USER16> It'll make a splash if (0) the legal issues are sufficiently sorted out so that adopters don't feel threatened using the format (1) the polyfill works everywhere, as it seems to, without too substantial a slowdown, (2) it saves enough bandwidth that major websites start sending BPG instead of JPG to at least some web clients, (3) one or more major browsers decide to build in native support, and maybe an extra boost (4) it manages to support use cases that other formats don't handle well (e.g. photographic/naturalistic images with full alpha channel) and carves out a niche as the main format for those particular types of images.

I can imagine Safari and IE building support for this format entirely as a counter to Google's WebP, since they already need support for HEVC as a matter of course.

Many current websites send very heavily compressed JPEG images to save bandwidth, and just live with the big hit to image quality. If they had a similar-filesize alternative that they could use for some or all clients that didn't degrade image quality, and still was guaranteed to work smoothly, it's plausible they might adopt it.

<comment><USER15> Who is going to re-encode their images en masse? Content companies? Photo sites?

<comment><USER17> Facebook. Which is probably a large percentage of the images going over the web. Heck, they could start by just doing it on mobile.

<comment> saiya-jin Nobody will reencode anything in photo sites. Just newer content will be supported. As for FB, their internal re-compression of jpegs is annoying as hell. Fine details taken with D750 become blocky almost cell phone quality images. Solution? Upload PNG.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If an American company incorporated Bellard's reference decoder into a commercial product that is distributed in binary form to clients, would that company need to license the HVEC patents to avoid being sued by an HVEC patent holder?

<comment><USER19> Almost certainly yes, you would need to license the many patents covered in H.265 and H.264.

However if you look at the history of JPEG and MP3, which were also encumbered with patents, the public domain basically won due to the sheer number of violations being too large to take down or even force licensing.

It will be interesting to see if any product (ie browser) actually puts any of these algorithms in their codebase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Jaws dropped. Maybe having the option of adding 1-2% of luminance noise after decompression to disguise the plastic feel would make it look even better. It would look a bit different every time you load the image, though.

I would love to be able to use this today.

<comment><USER21> Must not necessarily look different: use a PRNG with a fixed seed, possibly as part of the image itself. Since there's nothing cryptorelevant here, the PRNG can be a simple one and its exact parameters specified as part of the standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> BPG does a much better job at smaller sizes: its artifacts are way less jarring than JPEG's (they just look like smudges).

However, to my eye, Large is the only acceptable quality level on these examples, and at Large the difference between JPEG and BPG looks almost imperceptible. Considering the cost of polyfilling, I would stick with JPEG.

<comment><USER16> > _However, to my eye, Large is the only acceptable quality level on these > examples, and at Large the difference between JPEG and BPG looks almost > imperceptible._

I feel we must be looking at different examples, or must have very different definitions of "imperceptible". I find that there is a very substantial difference in high frequency detail between mozjpeg and BPG in nearly all of these examples at the 'large' size, as well as many images where mozjpeg produces highly objectionable artifacts even at the 'large' size and BPG does not.

Speaking for myself, I would prefer to use a higher quality setting than any of the ones demonstrated even with BPG for most of my personal purposes. For my typical use cases, the 'large' BPG versions of most of these images are at the edge of acceptable quality, and every one of the other compressed versions falls far short of acceptable.†

Many other people have use cases where precise image replication isn't as important though, and at every size BPG seems like a dramatic step up over the competition.

One thing I hope gets worked out before this goes mainstream is color management / color profile support. In Safari on my Mac there are several images where the rendered BPG image is obviously not correctly applying the image's color profile.

† Kakadu's JPEG2000 encoder and WebP at that 'large' size also seem noticeably better than mozjpeg, but they still seem to wipe more high frequency detail and produce more artifacts – especially edge artifacts – than BPG. On some images packed with very high contrast fine detail (e.g. Vallée de Colca), WebP performance and BPG performance seems pretty similar and a bit better than Kakadu; in general compression is hard in these cases so the "large" size ends up being pretty large.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> When I clicked it I thought this was supposed to be a test damning BPG somehow, but I get the impression from other comments that I am NOT supposed to see this: [http://i.imgur.com/XDXOB2w.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/XDXOB2w.jpg)

All the other image formats work fine.

Any idea why? Windows Chrome 41.0.2243.0 dev-m (64-bit)

<comment><USER24> I see it too. Identical version: 41.0.2243.0 dev-m (64-bit) and also on Windows. I see it here as well: [http://bellard.org/bpg/lena.html](http://bellard.org/bpg/lena.html) which explains "The BPG images are decoded in your browser with a small Javascript decoder." You can find more on the format at: [http://bellard.org/bpg/](http://bellard.org/bpg/)

Someone filed a bug today: [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=442599](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=442599)

Fixed in Canary 5 days ago: [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=439743](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=439743)

<comment><USER25> OT ... but I find Canary to be much more usable and stable than Dev.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The "Production" picture [0] is quite challenging for all encoders. The original has fine details like text that are smoothed out of existence even in the "Large" profiles - though to its credit BPG preserves more of it than the others. (Also, relative to other high-detail pictures this one has an unusually low filesize.)

[0] [http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo- bugfixes/#production&bp...](http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo- bugfixes/#production&bpg=l&png=s)

</comment><comment><USER27> previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8735572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8735572)

BPG context: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8704629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8704629)

</comment><comment><USER28> Maybe Bellard is reading these comments. I made a very unpopular remark about his use of Lena.jpg and while I believe it's mostly coincidence, he used an imageset without Lena.jpg.

If you're reading, Bellard, hi!

<comment><USER29> Ignore the haters - I read your comment and upvoted it. It _is_ everyday sexism and role-confirming behavior, and it _is_ off-putting to women and making them feel unwelcome. But I think people are not aware of it and mean no harm, which is why it's good you pointed it out.

I do think some people can only relate to the argument when you propose to replace Lena with a seductively pretty half-naked (gay?) man, though.

<comment><USER30> I'm trying to figure out why it's inherently sexist. The woman in the photo posed, doesn't object to its use, gave a presentation about herself at an imaging conference, and had a career helping handicapped people work on computers. Image compression algorithm's are tested against faces since that's what we take the most pictures of. This took hold for whatever reason.

The reflexive hate for anything "role-confirming" is sexist in denying legitimacy to any man/woman in that role.

Fine change it to a half-naked guy. I don't know why if he's gay it'd make a difference, but sure.

<comment><USER28> I'll try to answer to this as best as I can, since I'm new to this feminism thing there's bound to be stuff that I'll miss.

Well first of all it's very nice of her approving the use of image and Playboy too for not going after their rights. But I think it's far fetched to see her approval as a positive message. There are women out there contributing to the objectification of women too, for whatever reason they have. (One weird side of this is people think women are shielded from criticism of their own objectification, but it's a delicate matter to say the least. One has the right to objectify _themselves_ so it's hard to say something without getting in the way of their right to self express.) There are more than one side to this issue; but it's not about her consent, it's about how it might be contributing to boys club image of tech.

It's easy to see that we have a problem of the lack of women in tech. I find this very depressing since they're able as much as men are and it looks wasteful to dismiss half the population. I think we're getting better each day, but it does not happen magically. People fight for it and will keep fighting until there's no discrimination based on sex. I accept that Lena image is one of the minor issues, but I still see this as one of the factors that drives women away. This boys club image of tech gives the implicit message that women are not wanted here.

I know there's no nudity in the image and one needs to research to find its origins in Playboy so it seems unlikely to come across it. But the real reason here is if we're willing to combat sexism, it will give women comfort that we're willing to change tradition to be more welcoming. I believe actions speak louder than words, and if the reason to keep the tradition is not all that important, we should do it.

(I also don't think it's fair to compare it to an image of a naked guy, since it's unlikely to drive boys away from tech. It's not just naked guy vs. naked girl, the context and the message makes a world of difference.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Very nice compression! As others have mentioned, BPG seems to be a bit better at picking which details to save. It's an improvement over mozjpg - even at "tiny" size, the usual (and annoying) "JPEG/MPEG-style block noise" seems to be eliminated. (no offense intended to mozjpeg, which is working from an old spec)

\--

Speaking of image formats, it might be nice to have a new format where the container is designed to only allow a minimum of features. Something like a file with only [MagicNum, xsize, ysize, xdpi, ydpi, gamma, <compressed pixels>, CRC32].

The idea is that it should NOT support "metadata" like comments or EXIF. As we've seen, there is a problem with getting most people to understand that they should probably strip EXIF/etc before uploading, and having a format where we could say "only upload .foo pictures" instead of "run $tool to strip EXIF". A browser plugin could even auto-convert every image while uploading.

Unfortunately, it would face the same problem as any new image format: nobody wants to use a new format until it is already popular.

</comment><comment><USER32> Do you think the difference (especially for medium and large versions) is worth using a patent encumbered format?

</comment><comment> z-e-r-o It's interesting how bad mozjpeg looks compared to classic jpeg compression tools like jpegoptim, given how many blogs have been writing about Mozilla creating the "ultimate" jpeg encoder. Comparing it with jpegoptim reveals that at the small-medium-large sizes mozjpeg produces a result with more visual artefacts.

      wget http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-bugfixes/comparisonfiles/Original/Ricardo_Quaresma-L-,_Pablo_Zabaleta-R-Portugal_vs._Argentina,_9th_February_2011.png -O src.png
      convert src.png -quality 100 -sampling-factor 1x1 full.jpg
      jpegoptim -s full.jpg -S85 --stdout > s85.jpg
      jpegoptim -s full.jpg -S50 --stdout > s50.jpg
      jpegoptim -s full.jpg -S30 --stdout > s30.jpg
      jpegoptim -s full.jpg -S18 --stdout > s18.jpg

<comment><USER33> How are the file sizes?

<comment> z-e-r-o Exactly 18-30-50-85 kB if you use the -S syntax.

<comment><USER33> Whoops, I assumed that was an arbitrary "quailty" setting. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> opera 15:

[16/12/2014 06:25:05] JavaScript - [http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo- bugfixes/](http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-bugfixes/) Inline script thread

Uncaught exception: TypeError: Cannot convert 'file' to object

Error thrown at line 5, column 4 in <anonymous function>() in [http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo- bugfixes/js/splitimage2...](http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo- bugfixes/js/splitimage2.js):

        for (i = 0; i < file.length; i++)

called from line 1, column 0 in [http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo- bugfixes/js/splitimage2...](http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo- bugfixes/js/splitimage2.js):

        (function() {

</comment><comment><USER35> Fruits: Mozjpg medium is still worse as BPG and is nearly double the size, it leaves a lot artifacts in the cloudy areas. Found it very convincing.

I think the results depend a little on the kind of input, but some of the pictures where rather convincing. WebP seems to do better than jpeg.

<comment><USER36> A key observation is that WebP biases towards smoothness (which certainly produces pleasing images!) at the cost of sacrificing detail. mozjpeg produces images with numerous macroblocking artifacts (ick) that seem to preserve more of the original image detail, from the cases I looked at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Note that the decoder is 68K compressed. That's not much, and of course can be cached, but considering that the improvement (from WebP, anyway) seems to be most notable for the <50K images, it may not be terribly practical...

Considering that the page says it's based on a Daala comparison page, it would be interesting to stick a Daala snapshot in the mix for comparison using the same images (reencoding to PNG like it does for WebP, I'm not suggesting porting Daala to emscripten). A quick browse of the original page shows Daala sometimes beating x265, sometimes losing to it, but I guess both x265 and the Daala {encoder, codec} may have been improved in the last six months.

</comment><comment><USER38> I would love see how does with scanned documents for preservation ... for example :

\- [http://www.digibis.com/digibib- demo/i18n/catalogo_imagenes/g...](http://www.digibis.com/digibib- demo/i18n/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?path=1000009&interno=S&presentacion=pagina&posicion=1)

\- [http://www.digibis.com/digibib- demo/cartografia/es/catalogo_...](http://www.digibis.com/digibib- demo/cartografia/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?texto_busqueda=&path=1000114&interno=S&presentacion=pagina&posicion=1)

</comment><comment><USER39> Seems to give screwed up results for the BPG in Google Chrome Dev: Version 41.0.2243.0 dev-m (64-bit) But works in my copy of Firefox.

<comment><USER40> Same results here too - corrupted in Chrome 41, works ok in Firefox. Filed a bug: [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=442599](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=442599)

<comment><USER24> And as reported in the above bug, fixed 5 days ago. We're living in the almost bleeding edge here ;-) [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=439743](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=439743)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Why does the comparison use x265 instead of the reference HEVC encoder? Fabrice Bellard recommends that as it produces better quality encodes at the expense of CPU time.

I'm interested in seeing the result of using 4:4:4 with BPG. If you have the originals to compress, of course (meaning, the original is not chroma subsampled).

<comment><USER42> He either made his judgement based on non-obvious criteria or, more likely, looked at x265 at the "wrong" moment. Right before libbpg was announced, x265 had several commits fixing large 10bit and 422/444 bugs.

As far as intra-prediction goes, x265 should be better than the HM by at least a few percents MSE-wise and around 10% SSIM-wise[0].

[0] [https://github.com/strukturag/libde265/wiki/Intra- Prediction...](https://github.com/strukturag/libde265/wiki/Intra-Prediction- Mode-Algorithm)

<comment><USER41> Integration with that library would be great too. Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Subjectively, the best overall trade-off between quality and file size seems to be BPG Large. Great comparison.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is anybody has comparison of original image and one decoded from BPG with highlighted difference? E. g. using Imagemagick's compare command. It is interesting in which areas BPG differ from original.

</comment><comment><USER45> I just wanted to point out, that BGP in "tiny" mode changes the image quality in a way that is strangely reminiscent of film. A lot of details get blurred out, but in a pleasant way.

</comment><comment><USER46> It's interesting to see the comparison at a fixed output size. It would also be interesting to see a comparison at a) fixed encoding time, b) fixed decoding time.

</comment><comment><USER47> Makes me happy that the JS method used doesn't require me to do the same <picture> <source> and provide multiple formats to support older browsers.

</comment><comment><USER48> Impressive. What are the differences for decoding/load time? Especially on mobile devices this is a big deciding factor.

</comment><comment><USER49> I want to see a comparison with a normal JPG picture.

<comment><USER50> You can compare between JPG and BPG by choosing "Mozjpeg" on one side and "BPG-x265" on the other. There are many pictures to choose from. Or did I misunderstand your question?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> bpg is definitely better for tiny pictures

</comment><comment><USER52> Yay! Another new image thing for 1 browser to support and the rest to need polyfills for!

<comment><USER53> Check the discussion from 11 days ago. I think your concerns are misplaced. BPG ships a polyfill... and it works. That's what you're seeing live on the parent page. Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8704629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8704629)</comment></comment>


Hague court orders Dutch state to pay out over colonial massacres - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/hague-court-orders-dutch-state-to-pay-out-over-colonial-massacres <comment><USER2> I'd say this may be a risky precedent for other cases like this. UK comes to mind immediately with their ex-colonies now constituting a better part of the UN.

How far into the past do we allow for these historic compensations to be still valid? Can Spain sue Turkey for the occupation of the peninsula (711 - 1492)?

I think this is just a bad idea.

<comment><USER3> Forcing colonialist countries to return their ill-gotten wealth is nothing but justice. If you live in those countries your affluence is built on a history of appalling human suffering. Saying it's all water under the bridge is just tremendously self-serving and shouldn't be an option. To quote our friend Malcolm X:

"If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made. They won't even admit the knife is there"

<comment><USER4> Many countries without an extensive history of colonialism have achieved similar prosperity to the great European colonial powers: Spain (29k per capita gdp), Portugal (23k), Netherlands (52k), United Kingdom (40k), and France (41k).

Consider Korea (31k), Taiwan (24k), Finland (48k), Austria (50k), Switzerland (80k), Czechia (23k), Hungary (17k), Slovenia (26k), Estonia (23k), Greece (19k), Lithuania (23k), Latvia (18k), and Cyprus (27k).

Hard to make the case that colonialism is the sole or principal factor that produced the prosperity of any of these countries.

But if it is true that Portugal (23k) is an evil white supremacist economy and Lithuania/Estonia/Czechia/Taiwan (~23k) are virtuous economies, we should study Lithuania, Estonia, Taiwan and Czechia! Great job lads!

Does the Republic of Ireland (#4 per capita GDP) need to pay for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland colonies or does the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (#21 per capita GDP) need to pay Republic of Ireland?

Is the Ottoman Empire also very bad? Do the Turks need to pay up? The colonialism people seem to pass over them for some reason.

<comment><USER5> Germany had colonies. East European countries are not rich. East India Company was the most profitable corporation in the history of humanity. It accumulated the wealth much greater than any of the current corporations. And contemporary corporations wealth is mostly ones and zeroes increased arbitrarily with ever increasing speed.

<comment><USER6> Germany had a few overseas colonies, late in the game. And boy did they resent it.

Eastern Europe is not as rich as the west, but is not all that far behind -- Poland has the GDP that the UK had in about 1987 (says google). And of course got deeply massively trodden on in a way that certainly wasn't colonialism, rather more recently than most ex-colonies.

The East India companies were indeed large for their time, the biggest companies ever until canals & railways got invented. But it's hard to comprehend how small the scale of commerce was then, the sum of all long- distance trade was a few containers. Enough to make a few well-positioned men very wealthy indeed, they built some nice mansions. But not countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >> Andi Monji, 83, who travelled to the Netherlands to tell his story to the court, was awarded €10,000 (£9,000) while eight widows and three children of other executed men, mainly farmers, were awarded compensation of between €123.48 and €3,634 for loss of income.

Is it just me, or are these _astoundingly_ small amounts of money to compensate people for having their immediate relatives murdered by the state?

<comment><USER8> Why should it be any amount of money at all? If crimes were committed, the people responsible should be tried and held accountable.

<comment><USER9> The people responsible are probably all dead by now, given that the crimes occurred 73 years ago. The people were acting on orders of their government, so the only recourse now would be payment to the families of the victims. The payments seem to be exceptionally small to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >> _The court recognised in its ruling that the sums granted the relatives of victims were "disproportionate" to the suffering caused._

Makes no sense, unless the court couldn't give more by statute. He saw his father killed and was deprived of his love and financial care. This is a joke, after 8 years, $11K

</comment><comment><USER9> It's not just you. One thing I noticed in the article is that the Dutch state's defense was that "the claims {should} be struck out given the time that had passed since the acts were committed."</comment>


Intel Graphics Unlocked Drivers - <AUTHOR> https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/29674 <comment><AUTHOR> > As of this release, Intel Graphics DCH drivers are now unlocked to upgrade > freely between Computer Manufacturer (OEM) drivers and the Intel generic > graphics drivers on Download Center.</comment>


Ask HN: Best Registrar (To which should I consolidate?) - <AUTHOR>

I have domains on google(godaddy) - godaddy - name.com<p>I'd like to get them under one account, which registrar is best to have them under? <comment><USER2> Assuming you're not restricting yourself to those three possibilities, I'm with namecheap.com and I'm pretty happy. Serendipitously, they're also offering $3.99 transfers until the end of today.

<comment><USER3> I have quite a few domains with Namecheap and so far so good. What I like is that their UI is not dumbed-down ("GoDaddy-style") and you can find that darned DNS setting without fishing through 5 layers of navigation.

It also helps that they've been giving away private registration for free.

(I am not affiliated with them, just a customer, YMMV)

<comment><USER2> I agree with your central point, but of all the adjectives available to describe GoDaddy's UI, "dumbed-down" isn't the one I'd pick.

What else could we use? Perhaps "functionally retarded"? Or maybe "overwhelmingly dreadful"? Or better still "Designed with a Kafaka-esque hatred for humanity that puts government bureaucracy to shame"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got fed up with using other registrar's myself and became my own via tucows ($95 at opensrs.com to become a reseller) but there are many out there that are good I'm sure.

I'll just say this, stay as far away from 1&1 as possible. They are complete idiots there, and are very slow.</comment>


Selling Form, Not Just Function: What Prada Can Teach Us - <AUTHOR> http://iamvictorio.us/post/34519406110/selling-form-not-just-function

<comment><USER2> TLDR: The value of luxury goods is a result of marketing/design, not features. Pretty well-known principle.

<comment><USER3> Have you seen this TED Talk (It's worth a watch): [http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...](http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html)

He puts an interesting spin on the fact that in a world of declining physical resources - increasing the intangible value of products is very valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Shopping at Prada is an interesting, carefully designed experience.

As an example, here's the google street view of their flagship store in NYC: <http://goo.gl/maps/bHMZS> There's no sign, and the window displays could be strange art installations just as easily as they could be retail displays: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/alreadytaken/31015342/> The whole thing is reminiscent of bars that don't have signs, designed to make the consumer feel like they're "in the know" before they even enter the building.

Inside the store, the retail experience is similarly unusual: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/12582419@N02/2679233658/> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottnorsworthy/3031713197/> they have a massive space, but they display the goods more like a gallery displaying art than a retailer displaying pret-a-porter clothing.

I find top luxury brands particularly interesting because so much of the value they create is intangible, or arises from the handling of easy-to-miss details. There's a lot to learn from companies that charge multiples of typical solutions and earn devoted, passionate advocates in the process.

<comment><AUTHOR> it'd be interesting if there were any digital equivalent experience to this ... I'm not even sure what a website without a "sign" or "logo" would look like.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Pastepal – your next favorite pasteboard manager for Mac - <AUTHOR> https://onmyway133.com/pastepal/ <comment><USER2> Visually, the pictures of laptop screens don't highlight the product well because the pasteboard is only a small portion of the image and the image is only a small portion of my web browser window. All the pictures look very close to the same and the text on the pasteboard of the laptop picture is undifferentiable. The subtle differences between screen shots do not convey the different use cases described in the accompanying text. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a bunch for the feedback, I will fix that</comment></comment>


COBOL Is Everywhere. Who Will Maintain It? - <AUTHOR> https://thenewstack.io/cobol-everywhere-will-maintain/ <comment><USER2> COBOL can be taught en-masse to farms of programmers if the rate is high enough. This isn't a technical issue, it's an economics issue. Some of the technical debt paydown will be captured by large bodyshops. Alternatively, the entire software will be outsourced to firms like Accenture or WiPro. (It may even allow the companies to book a short term gain)

</comment><comment><USER3> For most HN readers, learning COBOL syntax and conventions would be a trivial task. If you want to be productive in a corporate mainframe environment, you will also need to get up to speed on operating system APIs, file systems, database interfaces, user libraries, and probably much more. Then you can start learning the business logic of your employer's applications. During your training, don't bother trying to find answers to your questions on Stack Overflow or examples on GitHub.

Not much fun.</comment>


In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2018/01/daily-chart-8?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/ <comment><USER2> This comment vastly understates the effects of this law. Social Media companies are scared af to be fined by the German government, so the filters are so strong, that it targets the wrong people. A couple of comedians and satire magazines have been hit, left leaning people as well as right leaning people alike.

In general, I don't think it's a good idea for the government to decide what I can post on social media or not. There are already laws against defamation and "volksverhetzung" (sry I don't no the translation, basically it means I can't say "kill all the jews/muslims, they are filthy swines"), so keep the internet free from more regulation on speech. The internet is one of the last places where people have some sort of freedom of opinion/listening to different opinions, and our lawmakers make it more and more unfree.

<comment><USER3> > basically it means I can't say "kill all the jews/muslims, they are filthy > swines"

Do you know how strict those laws are? I mean, you just said that, albeit in a quotation, so I imagine that at least is out of the scope of the law? Or would it be something that got you in trouble if someone reported it?

<comment><USER4> No, only if it's a danger to "public peace", and that is actually taken pretty seriously. Citing it as an example is no problem at all, you can even say something like that in first person if it is satire or provocative art. Unless you make it clear that you actually want people to seriously think that jews/muslims are subhuman and should be killed, chances are very slim that you would be convicted for that.

<comment><USER5> > you can even say something like that in first person if it is satire or > provocative art

I can give you a counter-example (although in France where we have similar laws). Patrick Sebastien, who is a well-known French humorist has been convicted for exactly that (he impersonated Jean-Marie Le Pen, far right politician, in a satire song "casser du noir").

Sorry but I can only find a reference to a French article [http://www.liberation.fr/medias/1996/03/13/patrick- sebastien...](http://www.liberation.fr/medias/1996/03/13/patrick-sebastien- condamne-il-doit-verser-30-000-francs-pour-provocation-a-la-haine-raciale- osons_165999)

The judges concluded that this was indeed an incitation to racial hatred, which is illegal in France.

<comment><USER6> French and German law are similar but not equal and this falls clearly in to the allowed territory in Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The paper can be downloaded from

[https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=8201061010270271...](https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=820106101027027100093065104126074122037089089042053026107097124081073127064017018108060016059063040047117002119077004085103076007082044064086005008086000121064100092030015033096112070030080089119095026113074126068090099117115122106127084072103124120120&EXT=pdf)

I have only skimmed through the paper, but I am a bit skeptical about their conclusions. The authors first showed that the attacks-on-refugees time series is strongly correlated to the anti-refugee-posts time series. This part is very basic and is OK.

Then they tried to exhibit a causal relationship between the two series, and it is the trend of posts that drives the trend of attacks but not the other way around. This is where I have doubts. Apparently, the authors didn't try something basic first --- like a Granger causality test --- but applied a somewhat obscure regression procedure to establish causality.

This procedure, which they called a Bartik-type approach, was invented only in 1991. Now I'm not familiar enough with time series analysis to know the merits of this Bartik-type approach and why Granger test is not useful in this case, but from the graph in the Economist article, it seems that the trend of attacks is leading the trend of posts, so I wonder if they were deliberately omitting a Granger causality test that might refute their conclusions.

<comment><USER8> Just to point out that "Granger causality test" is a terrible name as is does not really test causality, it tests correlations between time-lagged series; time-lagged correlation is not causation.

It's just a popular correlation test in the field of autocorrelated time- series.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > New research suggests that this digital hatred is now spilling over into the > real world.

I don't agree there is a distinction to be made here. The _real world_ subsumes social media. Certainly _violent crimes such as arson and assault_ are different, and more severe, than hateful or abusive posts or direct messages. Neither category is less _real_.

<comment><USER10> > Neither category is less real.

I think the context is that "real world" is supposed to mean it has a physical effect. The implication is that physical crimes are legitimately categorized crimes and speech crimes are not exactly legitimate (according to where you say words, they _might_ be criminal).

I believe that some words that make someone/some group _possibly_ feel bad (intrinsically, not just to libel), are not a real harm that is in need of remedy. Even if it is something that is _known_ to make someone feel bad, I wouldn't consider it legitimate. It's always subjective and I don't subscribe to that kind of only-use-doublespeak-watchdog thinking.

<comment><USER11> That's the massive understanding I see when people who don't live in Germany complain about German censorship of speech:

It's not about feelings.

It's about shaping other people's opinions.

If someone says "jack9 is a kiddy fiddler" the damage is not that it might make jack9 upset, the damage is that others might think it's true and take actions that harm him.

If someone says "kill the kikes" the damage is not that Jewish people might be upset, the damage is that others might agree and commit violence against Jewish people.

It doesn't even have to be a convincing argument, it just has to give other people the impression their hatred is socially acceptable and their violence has public support.

Hate speech is like broken windows: the more a certain hateful sentiment is tolerated in society, the more socially acceptable that sentiment becomes, the more likely it becomes someone will act on it and that society will tolerate those actions too.

Hitler's rise to power was not a coup d'etat. Hitler didn't overthrow the government by killing generals and politicians and installing himself as leader. Hitler rose to power by manipulating people's sentiments with language. He created scapegoats and convinced people it's okay to channel their hate and frustration towards those scapegoats. When the Nazis first called for people to be killed or that their neighbors were inferior, few thought they meant it, but saying it over and over normalised the idea. They dehumanised their victims and their future enemies.

A lot of that rhetoric is normal in many places today and Trump's campaign wasn't even a special example. The rhetoric after 9/11 made Germans feel icky because it was so familiar but even then it wasn't new. Americans worry about racism and sexism, Germans worry about xenophobia -- hatred of the foreign, the different, the "other".

<comment><USER12> > Hitler rose to power by manipulating people's sentiments with language. He > created scapegoats and convinced people it's okay to channel their hate and > frustration towards those scapegoats.

People should have the freedom to be persuaded to believe things that you don't agree with. It's OK to have a "wrong" opinion. Let people say what they want and believe what they want. I'm stunned that I still have to defend freedom of expression.

<comment><USER11> If you think _anything_ is worth defending _at all cost_ , that should give you pause.

You seem to understand that speech can persuade people of wrong things. Do you think it's possible you've been wrongly persuaded to hold the belief that free speech trumps all?

Maybe the same people that persuade you that you need free speech above all are also those that have the most to gain from being able to persuade you freely of whatever they want?

If you think incitement should not be a crime and likely think libel and slander should not be a crime, where do you draw the line if fee speech trumps all? What about lying under oath?

I'm going to guess (based on your name and the demographics of HN) you're American. Your nation's history is entirely written by itself and its only revolution was a secession which it was able to defeat.

Maybe your country just hasn't learned the lesson Germany has?

Just a thought: [https://thenib.com/the-good-war](https://thenib.com/the-good- war)

<comment><USER12> > If you think incitement should not be a crime and likely think libel and > slander should not be a crime, where do you draw the line if fee speech > trumps all? What about lying under oath?

I don't think libel and slander should not be crimes, I don't think lying under oath should not be a crime. I believe in freedom of expression.

I especially encourage those people with the _absolute worst most harmful ideas_ to speak often and loudly and publicly, so that everyone has a chance to hear their ideas and think about them and come to understand for themselves how bad they are.

Freedom of expression means I can sit back and let Westboro Baptist Church explain to everyone what terrible people they are much more eloquently than I could ever hope to do. Neo Nazis, please, have a rally and explain to everyone in your own words that you latch onto pathetic ideas of racial superiority for lack of any accomplishments of your own to be proud of.

Why do you want to restrict freedom of expression? Do you find it hard to refute somebody's argument? Do you not trust people to sort out good ideas from bad themselves? The solution to bad speech is more speech. I thought we'd settled this decades ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I especially encourage those people with the absolute worst most harmful ideas to speak often and loudly and publicly, so that everyone has a chance to hear their ideas and think about them and come to understand for themselves how bad they are._

But history is replete with examples of people _not_ doing that, and instead going ahead and implementing the really terrible idea. The Holocaust. The Killing Fields. The Rwandan genocide.

 _Neo Nazis, please, have a rally and explain to everyone in your own words that you latch onto pathetic ideas of racial superiority for lack of any accomplishments of your own to be proud of._

Some neo-nazis in the UK yesterday attempted to perform a 'citizen's arrest on the mayor of London', complaining about his being a Muslim and saying rude things about Donald Trump. Eventually the police showed up, declined to assist, and they were laughed out of the room.

It wasn't realized until later that they'd brought along a mobile gallows and parked it outside. I'll give you three guesses as to what they planned to do with it had they been successful in laying hands upon him.

 _Do you find it hard to refute somebody 's argument? Do you not trust people to sort out good ideas from bad themselves? The solution to bad speech is more speech._

No, not really, and I'm not so sure about that. We don't live in a society of angels and educating everyone to think in enlightened terms is a slow and uncertain process. I don't like any sort of state coercion and would prefer to see prison abolished too, but I do not fool myself that crime would cease to exist if I could force that outcome. Consider Graham's law from economics, which holds that bad money drives out good; a small number of bad actors can undermine the reliability of the economy for all participants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For those of you who read German the following article sheds a revealing perspective on the effects of these new laws:

[https://motherboard.vice.com/de/article/kznxz3/vom-netzdg- zu...](https://motherboard.vice.com/de/article/kznxz3/vom-netzdg-zum-hetzdg- wie-trolle-das-maas-gesetz-nutzen-um-politische-gegner-mundtot-zu-machen)

The leading paragraph claims that "Trolls and right-wing activists conspire through pr0gramm, Discord and Twitter to 'turn the law against hate speech' into its opposite: a tool to denounce left-wingers, women and migrants."

In other words, the opposite of "hate speech" is "left-wingers, women and migrants" according to the writer of this article. This shows the incredible myopia of these activists who have been warned time and again that those same censorship laws they were pressing for and sponsoring could and would be turned around to target their own political platforms. Unfortunately they did not listen, often because they blocked or banned those who spoke out against censorship as racists, xenophobes and more.

<comment><USER14> Amen...and that's how Bismark's Prussian super government whose bureaucratic super machine was the pride and glory of the Germans turned into Hitler's nefarious totalitarian regime more or less overnight. The same tools that ensure 'order and safety' become tools for 'suppression and conformity'. You would think the Germans, if any, would have learnt what totalitarianism feels like. But no, all they learned is that they just did not have the right totalitarian tools in the first place. It must be a cultural/mentality thing. Those who feel quite uncomfortable under such a system historically leave and tend to end up in... the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A couple weeks ago there was this piece on leading German newspaper FAZ showing where censorship-by-law of "hate speech" will lead to (reposting it here).

[1]: [http://blogs.faz.net/deus/2017/12/18/erdogans-mob-und- gruene...](http://blogs.faz.net/deus/2017/12/18/erdogans-mob-und-gruene..). (in German)

[2]: [https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...](https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&..).

<comment><USER15> This just in:

[1]: [http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/deutschland...](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/deutschlands- bekannteste-streetart-kuenstlerin-wird-von-facebook-zensiert-15398563.html) (in German)

Links to Google's translation service appear broken for me, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is terrible, that censorship is a law in such big European country.

<comment><USER17> Soon coming to France, although there it's about fighting "fake news".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In india you get arrested for social media post if its against political figures and encourages hate

</comment><comment><USER19> And imagine this spreads to the rest of the EU because Germany is the role model for all others and we need to harmonize the laws and repress anyone that feels like not liking this european (german) culture and way of thinking.

</comment><comment><USER20> Just like the increase in migrant crimes has "real world consequences" in Germany, including citizens voicing their opinions online, causing the "government" to pass a law to outlaw just that...

Whats their next research paper about? Water is indeed wet?

</comment><comment><USER21> This seems so ironic. The law seeks to limit disparagement of minorities by painting a minority with a broad brush and not allowing them to have a voice.</comment>


Amazon face recognition falsely matches 28 lawmakers with mugshots - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/26/amazon-facial-rekognition-congress-mugshots-aclu <comment><USER2> Amazon's response to this report: [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/thoughts- on-machine-learnin...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/thoughts-on-machine- learning-accuracy/)</comment>


Ask HN: Would you hire me? - marco-fiset

I guess this is a rather common situation, but I decided to post this to HN anyway.
I'm looking to switch jobs because I don't like what I do. I'm stuck with old technologies and there is no hope for that to change. People here just don't care because that's what they always did and they don't want to learn anything new. To them, software development is just a job like any other. To me it's a whole lot more than that: it's a passion. Probably like a lot of people here, actually.
I want to work remotely. I currently live in QC, Canada and I don't want to relocate, mostly because I have a fairly established life here with my wife and our two children. I know that will limit the possibilities, but it is the only strict requirement. I understand the risk of hiring someone who does not have a lot of experience (I have 2 years), but I only need one chance to show what I'm worth.
I am a very fast learner and I can pick up new languages/tools/frameworks in a very short amount of time. I want to work for a company that values knowledge and understanding of general concepts (OOP, Design Patterns, etc) rather than specific technologies. I know my way around C#, PHP, Javascript and more recently I did some Ruby, which I like a lot. I don't mind what technology you work with. What matters to me is that you master it and use it well.
I want to be part of something important. I want to make a difference. I feel like I have not unleashed my full potential yet, and this is hurting me emotionally. I can do more. I know I am better than what I do at my current job. I want to work with motivated and smart people. But first and foremost, I want to love my job and have fun doing it!
Would you hire me?
Find me on GitHub : https://github.com/marco-fiset/
I am looking for constructive criticism and advice from people that understand what I live and that went through a similar situation. You can contact me at my username (replace '-' with '.') over that google mail service. <comment><AUTHOR> As a lead developer that is involved in new hires, I can give you my perspective.

We generally don't hire remote workers. If I did consider hiring for a remote position, it would only be for senior developers. It is difficult to mentor a junior developer that works remotely.

As far as wanting to work for a company that values general programming concepts, well, let me just say this. In reality, it can take years to fully master a framework. It's not just programming, but patterns and architecture. Even the quickest learner can not learn these over night. I wouldn't ever hire someone who just knows a little of every language, it comes across as a jack of all trades. I don't look for people that can just hack stuff together, I want someone who is specialized in a technology and can implement specifications on a product quickly and cleanly.

I don't wish to discourage you, there are probably jobs at there that fit your criteria. It depends on your goals. If you want to just have fun, you will have to sacrifice on pay. If you want make good money, you will need to specialize on a specific platform (ie php/mysql or .net/mssql) and know it inside and out.

<comment> marco-fiset That's exactly the kind of answer I was looking for! Thank you for the feedback.

You mention that mentoring would be difficult, I have to disagree. Mentoring is mostly about answering questions, pointing to the right direction, reviewing code, etc. IMO, distance is not an obstable to any of these things. Communication is just so easy these days with all the tools available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Create a good linked-in profile, populate it with buzzwords. Even if you came along some tool or technology briefly. Recruiters do buzzword search and then contact person.

Don't mention about "limited experience, but fast learner" or "emotional hurts". Present yourself as a happy person wherever you are, and say that you're happy and not really looking for job but maybe opened to new opportunities and growth potentials.

I getting pestered with offers for local and relocations from recruiters who found me on linkedin.

Corps that are ok with remote workers are spoiled by cheap mediocre indian workers and are not interested with expensive but good-hearted remote north american workers. The one who do - would hire you for very specific skill or experience (I worked for 6 years remotely like that).

Advice for the time being: do fun project (or even launch a little online service or business or product) using language/framework/technology that you'd want to learn. Add it to your resume.

Be found.

<comment> marco-fiset The problem is, how do I get that specific experience that is required to work remotely? I don't have that much time to dedicate to side projects (I usually spend 4-8 hours per week with programming, sometimes less). IMO, time I spend at work is wasted, because it is so unrelated to the technologies I want to work with. To me, it does not count as additionnal experience. I want to find a job that will allow me to learn on the go, as I would do with a side-project anyway.

<comment><USER2> Go to bed at 9pm, wake up at 6 and work 1.5 hours before work.

And then you have weekends.

Project idea: Create URL shortener in Ruby on Rails that works like tiny.cc (very useful).

Then write in your resume that you have 1.5 yrs experience in Ruby on Rails. This is hot shit right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your writing is much too focused on what _you_ want, and not on what you have to offer the employer.

The paragraph beginning "I'm looking to switch jobs ..." makes you sound like a complainer. Yes, we have all felt that way at times, but it's not a winning way to present yourself. Never use your resume/cover letter to criticize other people, especially your current employer.

Can you see how the paragraph beginning "I am a very fast learner ..." is all about you and your requirements?

The paragraph beginning "I want to be part of ..." makes me especially wary. None of it is "wrong," but it doesn't offer any benefit to the employer, and comes across as unfocused and high maintenance. (Sorry - I assume you want the unvarnished truth.)

DO read _Ask The Headhunter_.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you're working at a company with old technologies and no real passion for software dev, then you probably don't have a _ton_ that you can easily show? Have you considered trying out some of the challenges on challengepost, just as a way to produce something user-facing and practice the new things you're learning?

<comment> marco-fiset I did not know about challengepost. It looks pretty cool, thanks!</comment></comment>


China to launch world's first 'cold' atomic clock - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/2019276/china-beat-us-europe-launching-worlds-first-cold-atomic-clock-space <comment><USER2> Someone already made a post about this on HN by the way :P</comment>


A JS SVG Demo I made over a few days - <AUTHOR> http://sorsacode.com/demo_puvut_fixed.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the first demoscene entry I've made, with help from two friends (graphics and music). "Puvut" got voted as the best of the first-timer demos, so it won its competition.

There's some more feedback as well as a download link here: [https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62010](https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62010)

Definiton of demoscene: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene)

I also set up a repository on GitHub including full change history and development tools: [https://github.com/jammi/demo_puvut](https://github.com/jammi/demo_puvut)

Here are other demos from the party: [https://www.pouet.net/party.php?which=258&when=2013](https://www.pouet.net/party.php?which=258&when=2013)</comment>


Ask HN: What would your dream web framework look like? - <AUTHOR> I intend to write a web framework that brings together the best ideas from server-side and client-side frameworks.
I am biased toward Django/Ember, so a lot of my ideas come from there. But I know some Rails as well as some Angular, Backbone, and Knockout.
My ideas:
0) Isomorphism via a CoffeeScript-like language that compiles to JS and Python, or a full-stack Node framework written in a CoffeeScript-like language.
1) Folders for server, client, and shared code. And maybe more folders to build a Replicant/Android client with something akin to NativeScript.
2) Support server-side rendering for faster loading in the browser (a la Ember FastBoot).
3) A Model which contains the definitive representation of real-world objects. DB interaction, validations, forms, serializers, etc. all derive as much as possible from the model. Model "classes" have field instances which, in one place, define how they fit in the database and what developers/end-users can do with them. Inspired by Django and, to a lesser extent, Ember.
4) Don't Don't Repeat Repeat Yourself Yourself. See 0, 1, and 3.
5) Real-time with no need for more than one or two lines of code to opt in and make it work. New, updated, or deleted models publish automatically, notifying something like a Django class-based view, which pushes the new data to all clients subscribed to that view.
6) Declarative templates like Ember. But even a basic operation, such as updating a template when an attribute in the model changes, has a default (replace part of the template to reflect the new data) which can be overridden easily to get animated updates, without jumping through hoops and/or accessing private APIs.
7) First-class support for indented languages such as Emblem, Sass, and CoffeeScript (or a similar language).
8) Free as in Freedom. Preferably AGPL, but LGPL or Apache--with its explicit patent grant--could work if a more permissive license is needed to promote adoption.
Your ideas? <comment><USER2> Also just as important as all of the above is a strong contribution to documentation and community - easy start guides, sample web applications that are more than just a TODO list, forums, email lists, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nothing matters more than the programmers ability to understand what is happening, and how to do what they want.

If you write something that does absolute magic, it doesn't matter if no one can use it.

Make sure that everything is simple, easy to understand, and as basic as it can be. If you do that than it will not only be a good framework, but will also have very source code. Simplicity makes everything better.

</comment><comment><USER4> For _me_ , the most interesting feature would be making it easy to expose actions from the command line.

<comment><AUTHOR> What kind of actions? Response handlers (edit: should have said request handlers)?

<comment><USER4> "Actions" in a domain-relevant sense, not so much a technical one. I want the framework to help me assure that anything users can do from within the web app they can also do from a CLI client (possibly decomposed differently).

My biggest objection to web apps is an extension of my objection to applications in general: because the individual steps of my workflow aren't exposed to the shell, I can't manipulate, script, and compose them as I do other sorts of actions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. Interesting idea. I suspect it's not currently supported because web app developers are not expected to work at such a low level.

The closest thing I can think of is if your back-end is simply a JSON API, you can use a tool such as cURL or httpie to make requests from the command line.

<comment><USER4> The shell doesn't have to be low-level. Curling the end-points directly probably would be. A client utility could wrap up higher level actions (which may involve hitting several end-points) with with a clean UI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As simple as possible, with as little magic as necessary. Practically no more than a router, basic response handling functions, a plugin API and some kind of package management. Don't even ship it with a templating language or an ORM - everything else should be up to the developer and available libraries. Let the community do the rest.

And the package management shouldn't depend on any particular server or repository. I should be able to mix git and svn, local and remote and it should just work. As little of the code should be specific to that framework as possible, in order to make migration to another framework easier.

Granted, this might not be the most fun or gratifying framework to build, but I think it would be more future-proof and tolerant than one that just codifies the arbitrary preferences of a Benevolent Dictator.</comment>