Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? (1978) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~crary/819-f09/Backus78.pdf <comment><USER2> Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=768057](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=768057) (2009)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1059884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1059884) (2010)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671379](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671379) (2014)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182712) (2015)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12159792](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12159792) (2016)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12571950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12571950) (2016)

</comment><comment><USER3> reads like an ode to Haskell/ML.

while haskell/ML is beautiful, and i'd much prefer it if everyone did adopt it - it seems human nature is preferring languages such as C, Python, C# and Java, exactly due to their expressiveness and distance from the pure math side of things.

maybe FP will be the future, but right now and considering everything is a stack machine that has ASM/C under the hood, things have to change on the hardware level to enable deep change in both our hardware and our curricula, which often produce "math is hard". it wouldn't hurt if the larger players put out mobile FP sdks. (i know we can program android in SCALA and that many folk wrote Haskell hooks for iOS, but it's not all very supported by the main players)

if anything, dabbing into Haskell made me understand math better. our youngsters would benefit greatly from such a change and it'd boost things beyond what we can imagine today if more than 5% of the population could program.

a low level FP styled non-gc`ed programming language would be interesting to see rise too. though haskell is making its way through the bushes, it's nooks and crannies leave a bit to be desired, esp. when complex software becomes extremely difficult to read by others, despite it's beauty and conciseness.

<comment><USER4> > it seems human nature is preferring languages such as C, Python, C# and > Java, exactly due to their expressiveness and distance from the pure math > side of things

I personally think humans prefer imperative languages because they are closer to the metal, and hence more predictable in terms of performance.

<comment><USER5> Also closer to how most of us learn and are taught.

Consider, I often tell my kids that they need a cup if they want water. I just as often have to change that to "go get a cup, and I'll get you water."

Declarative seems to be natural at a desire level, but at an action level, imperative seems to be more common.

I believe this is flipped for topics and actions that are well internalized. When my kids are older, I can just say "cup". If cups aren't in the right drawer, I have to provide imperative to where to check, though.

And yes, all of this is anecdotal. YMMV. I'm highly interested if folks know of studies or counter examples.

<comment><USER6> You're right that it's closer to how people are taught, but there's no reason we can't teach from the FP perspective.

Consider the imperative

      cup_of_water get_water (cup_loc, water_loc) {
          cup = get_cup(cup_loc);
          return fill_cup(cup, water_loc);
      }

or something like that, versus

      getWater :: CupLoc -> WaterLoc -> Cup Water
      getWater cupLoc waterLoc = fillCup (getCup cupLoc) waterLoc

It's just a slightly different way of thinking about things.

<comment><USER7> There's nothing in either example that is intrinsically functional or imperative, they're just different syntax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think it's fair to assume that most of us have been schooled in imperative then later OO styles, with probably no attention (my case) or little attention given to FP styles. Having tried FP a little bit now, I think it's quite powerful (although not a silver bullet).

      Given function: max x y = if x > y then x else y
      foldr max (minBound::Int) [1,10,-11,1] // yields 10
      foldr (max.(uncurry max)) (minBound::Int) [(1,-11), (10,1)] // yeilds 10

While not always the case, I think much of FP code demonstrates ease-of- compositionality (partial func, composition operator in second ex), ease-of- reuse (of max function in different contexts) in a vein similar as above. I think most of the time maintainability is a positive side-effect.

I wonder how many of commenters here have seriously tried all imperative/OO/Functional styles of programming, and still think FP is not something to invest anymore time/effort in vs the other paradigms.

Personally, I'd hope more energy was spent on eliminating the short-comings of FP, than keeping a firm foot in the OO camp, which I think is already overloaded with too much attention with quickly plateauing benefits in return (at language level, not in terms of products that come out of it)

</comment><comment><USER9> Equational reasoning like it is presented in the paper is alive and well in the Haskell community.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is Von Neumann Style, not the most efficient way to program a Von Neumann Architecture? Which as I understand it, is pretty much all major commercial computers today.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have this article printed and I read it occasionally, if only to try and reach a deeper understanding of the points made in it.

This isn't about functional programming, ML and Lisp even predate this paper. I shall quote myself from a previous submission: "The paper describes function-level programming, it is different than functional programming; see the languages APL, K, and J."

Don't believe me? Check out the John Conway's Game of Life in APL[1] or J Language[2]. Even a high level language like MATLAB[3] still reads like normal code.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4)

[2] [https://copy.sh/jlife/](https://copy.sh/jlife/)

[3] [https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life#MATLAB](https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life#MATLAB)

</comment><comment><USER12> To me it is about abstractions. FP cannot abstract over mutable state. In a way that is a good thing, less mutable state is easier to control as you grow a program. But inability to abstract is not a good thing. (Just like how async infects your callers, so does mutability in FP.)

But also note that in this paper, the main trouble pointed out with imperative languages has long been solved. Using objects/classes and generics or runtime typed (dynamic) languages. All these make it easy to extend and compose.

</comment><comment><USER13> Functional programming is magical. The majority of people who works with magical frameworks tend to agree that having libraries doing simple predictable things is better than magic. At the same time, everybody seems to think functional languages are awesome.

<comment><USER14> fp is the opposite of magical because it is essentially math, 100% predictable (follows laws) and all things composed of simple primitives

<comment><USER15> I'll jump into the flame war and say that every single programming language we use with computers is math. It may just not be expressed in a way you are comfortable with. And they are all as 100% predictable as FP.

<comment><USER16> There is a difference though.

In a (strict) functional language, foo(bar) always returns the same way and always has the same affect.

In almost every non-strict language foo(bar) can do anything, and can always be different based off some state not contained in foo or bar, but only the scope of the program.

So while mathematically they may both be equally as predictable at the physical level, given only a function its parameters, a strict functional language is predictable while a 'traditional' language is not

<comment><USER17> I don't think that this is because of functional vs other, but because of the assignment operator and mutable primitives (which functional languages tend to omit). Consider

      \x y -> g (f x) (f y)

We have no way of knowing what this function will do, because f and g are free variables with respect to the function. But we assume they are constant, so we're happy. And if you zoom out far enough eventually you'll find the binding locations.

Instance members and globals are just the imperative version of free variables, and if it weren't for that pesky assignment operator or mutable primitives, they'd be constant and hence completely harmless too.

You could imagine an OO language without assignment or mutable primitives that would have all the advantages of "functional" languages but that would still feel different enough in style that we wouldn't call it one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd like to get a copy of a digitized version of this paper. Also, can anyone point to information about the response from CS academics and software engineers to its publication?

<comment><USER19> I'm quoting a citation-free sentence from Wikipedia (ugh), but it sums up what I've always heard: "this paper did less to garner interest in the FP language than to spark research into functional programming in general."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Looking at kinesin that just walks over a protein in raw nature in Von Neumann style, I doubt so.

</comment><comment><USER21> For me, functional programming and ideas that come with it, like immutability, gain relevance while constructing software for verification (making software testable), as well as when trying to make software more maintainable by discouraging side-effects.

For me, learning those concepts helped me write better software, even while using imperative languages.

</comment><comment><USER22> Henceforth, I will add "Keywords and phrases" sections to my crawlable writing

</comment><comment><USER23> my most recent "non" von neumann discovery [https://www.infoq.com/presentations/power-144-chip](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/power-144-chip)

</comment><comment><USER24> -"Computer says no"</comment>


Ask HN: Movie Parody Game. Fair-use or Violation? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I am thinking of developing a mobile app/game that is inspired from scenes from a couple of hit movies! e.g. a couple of hit scenes from Home Alone and maybe Baby's Day Out !
There will be no scenes from the actual movie but maybe the "thief" character be "inspired" by the thief from Home Alone ! (kind of like you have to stop the thieves from entering the house or a palace)
Will this be considered a parody and fair use or can be it a copyright violation? I will be consulting an attorney but wanted to see if anyone here has some knowledge or ideas? I tried searching but couldnd find anything !!
(Also if you know and can recommend an attorney in the Bay Area, i will appreciate it) <comment><USER2> Your attorney will need to know more about your specific plans, but in general as long as you don't use material from the movies (title, major plot elements, character names, images, sounds, etc) you can be inspired all you want. So "Tiny Thief Thwarter--The Game" is more likely to fly than "Home Alone--The Game", and if TTT weren't named Kevin and was defending a meth lab or a palace instead of a house in Evanston you'd give the Home Alone guys less and less to be quarrelsome about.

Now, you specifically mention "parody" and "fair use," do you intend to quote parts of the movies, or actually parody part of it? Based on your short question I don't really get the sense that's your angle. I more get the sense that you're looking for a new scenario inspired by those movies, and I'd encourage you to use the inspiration to drive toward the new idea rather than attempt a parody of the old.

And good on you for not having it be zombies!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks ! I am trying to find out a good attorney to discuss this.

I was trying to figure out and was wondering why aren't there any games that are "inspired" from movies ! So was just looking around trying to find answers.

I was searching for copyright and stuff and came across a whole bunch of posts/sites that talked about parody and fair-use, that's why I was wondering.

I like the TTT - The Game concept, that's kind of what I was thinking and not actually using the material from the movies.

My nephews and nieces are in the age group where all they talk about these days are these home alone, baby's day out kind of movies ! I know there's a whole bunch of games that are either from Disney or are Disney themed but I couldnt find anything from non-animated movies !!

I think non-zombie would be preferred by my target audience ;-)</comment></comment>


State of the Computer Book Market, part 4: The Languages - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/04/computer-book-market-2011-part4.html

<comment><USER2> Hm, so one of their top sellers, "Head First Design Patters" is categorized as a "Java Language book" because the code examples are in Java. And then Java is declared the most popular language by overall book sales.

Is it still the top language when one does not include books in which the examples happen to be in Java, but which are obviously not really primarily about the language and are of use to users of other languages as well? That question can not be answered with the information presented in the article.

<comment><USER3> _That question can not be answered with the information presented in the article._

Most interesting questions can't be answered with the information presented in the article. Bookscan doesn't measure _usage_ of programming languages. Bookscan doesn't measure _demand_ of programming language books. The best it can do is measure publisher efficiency at predicting what might sell--and O'Reilly doesn't even give the necessary information to show that.

Most tech books have a maximum shelf half-life of eight months, and of course once a book is off the shelves, it's really hard for Bookscan to measure its sales.</comment></comment>


Venus flytraps 'able to count' in order to avoid false alarms, study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/21/venus-flytraps-able-to-count-in-order-to-avoid-false-alarms-study-finds <comment><USER2> I haven't read the paper, but I assume the novelty here is the discovery of what happens when more than two of the hairs are triggered. The BBC Life series with David Attenborough talked about the counting/triggering mechanism years ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7eQKSf0LmY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7eQKSf0LmY)

<comment><USER3> Ya I immediately thought of the same Life segment. Is there something new in this discovery that I'm not seeing? Maybe the fact that they can also tell how big the prey is and add digestive enzymes accordingly?

<comment><USER4> Yes, that process you refer to apparently kicks in after 5 triggers which, I think, is a much more impressive feat of genuine counting.

I'm now intrigued by its memory capacity and how that works.

<comment><USER5> A simple threshold seems easy to me. You just fire some messenger and if the concentration is high enough (N counts of messenger emitting) it reacts.

Something binds or disassembles the messenger so the system resets after some time.

The details would still be interesting of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yep. My flytrap won't trigger its petals until you poke it twice with a toothpick in the same general area. I think it does this for numerous reasons.

1\. If the petals close and they don't actually capture anything, they take hours to open back up.

2\. If they do close on something, (for example a fly or a spider I happen to come across) they will stay closed for days digesting whatever is trapped inside. The traps themselves don't actually survive this process. They wilt away and new petals grow to replace the old after a month or so.

Speaking strictly from a natural selection point of view it make sense that a plant that has evolved to derive it's nutrients from carnivorism really has no chance at surviving if something as simple as a leaf, a seed, the wind, or any other poor nutrient provider could trigger it to close on said object (or not on said object). Either way, a plant that is in such need of nutrients can't really optimally survive if it closes at every opportunity it might have food in it's trap to catch.

Natural selection seems to suggest that a venus flytrap that is more precarious about when to trigger it's trap is the far more optimal survivalist when it comes to these plants.

I should also point out that calling them a flytrap is kinda lame considering their trap mechanism is not really all that fast enough to trap most flies. Atleast not in my observations. Although I have discovered that they get lucky from time to time, their trap mechanism is also apparently evolutionarily optimized to avoid most bugs that just land, chill for a minute, and fly away. Bugs they wouldn't likely catch. They would rather wait for a caterpillar, spider, beetle, etc to cross their path.

My pitcher plant is the real fly catcher. It uses the old fashioned, "oh hey thats a nice smelling hole. I wonder what yummy things are down there for me and my maggot babies to eat. Dooo da doo da... eh... _feets sticks to pitcher plant 's trap_ oh no... AHHH! HELP! SOMEBODY HALP MEEEE!... HELLO?! Isn't there anybody out there!?

,,,

ohhhh pooo. Well at least it still smells wonderful down here." technique.

</comment><comment><USER7> The publication: [http://www.cell.com/current- biology/pdf/S0960-9822(15)01501-...](http://www.cell.com/current- biology/pdf/S0960-9822\(15\)01501-8.pdf)

Relevant snippet: _We found that by counting and integrating the mechano- electric signals elicited by the trapped prey, Dionaea muscipula triggers biosynthesis of the touch hormone jasmonate, secretion of lytic enzymes, and channel-mediated uptake of prey nutrient-associated sodium loads._

</comment><comment><USER8> This isn't new. I studied biology at Glasgow University in 1992 and the botany lecturer told us about this then. One tap, two taps didn't trigger it to close, but three would. Along with a number of other examples of unexpected things that plants could do - this was his example of plants counting.

<comment><USER9> they're discussing the later phase after digestion has started.</comment></comment>


Astronomers do not Date Sappho's 'Midnight' Poem - <AUTHOR> http://dhayton.haverford.edu/blog/2016/05/20/astronomers-do-not-date-sapphos-midnight-poem/ <comment><USER2> I feel articles such a this are important, even though we already knew the problem it's describing. Shoddy science and shoddy journalism should be called out in the strongest words possible, and I'm glad this article does:

 _Despite the link to the article in the "press release," nobody at UTA [..] apparently could be bothered to read the article. I shouldn't, therefore, be surprised that most other people [..] have likewise ignored the article. While not surprised, I am disheartened to see that even purportedly reputable, pro- science sites that typically demand "evidence" and "data" expend no effort to read the original article_

 _In the best case, Cuntz et al. [..] would simply confirm what Herschberg and Mebius concluded two decades ago [..] There is nothing new here—their newer methods do not justify more than a paragraph._

 _We have a poorly constructed article [..] authors all lack expertise in the field [..] conclusions border on indefensible [..] writing and style is Wikipedian [..] risks violating scholarly norms and practices with respect to citations and intellectual integrity_

</comment><comment><USER3> For a more modern example of why you can't reliably date poems by their in- universe information, consider the song "Tom's Diner"[1], which has a series of events that is impossible for any single day in New York in the range of time that the author could have composed it.

Since the composer was around to ask, she was able to relate that it was a composite of several days of events, which is quite reasonable.

As a side note, the wikipedia link assumes that the newspaper story about the actor was a front-page story, which is reasonable, but not necessarily true, so we don't even know that Vega was referencing the NY Posts' article on William Holden.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%27s_Diner#.22Tom.27s_Diner...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%27s_Diner#.22Tom.27s_Diner_Day.22:_The_date_of_the_composition)

<comment><USER4> I feel this is a silly idea. _Of course_ physicists (many of whom love poetry) understand the difference between a literal depiction of a real event (as is clearly the case in the Sappho poem) and an artistic description that seeks to establish value through means other than a literal description.

Acting like Cuntz, et al., must have pursued the assumptions and analysis they pursued because they have some kind of infantile understanding of poetry, literal vs. non-literal depiction, literary devices, etc., is ridiculous. No one, certainly not Cuntz, et al., is going around saying all parts of poems that resemble literal descriptions must therefore be perfect eyewitness accounts of actual events.

And all of that is irrelevant to the task of astronomically dating the poem by _assuming_ a certain literal description. The result is implicitly modulo that assumption, and if the assumption turns out wrong, that's not a criticism of the work otherwise based on it.

<comment><USER2> _if the assumption turns out wrong, that 's not a criticism of the work otherwise based on it._

True. It is however, a criticism of everyone that conveniently forgot to mention that critical assumption, and that starts with the UTA press release.

 _Acting like Cuntz, et al., [..] have some kind of infantile understanding of poetry_

That's not the most damning criticism in the article though. The most damning is that they seem to have copied entire paragraphs off Wikipedia, which suggests they have some kind of infantile understanding of science.

<comment><USER4> > That's not the most damning criticism in the article though. The most > damning is that they seem to have copied entire paragraphs off Wikipedia, > which suggests they have some kind of infantile understanding of science.

I agree about this. If the other article had been about this and a small amount about the continually beaten dead horse of qualifying your research (or qualifying media headlines) with caveats and assumptions, then it would have been reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i don't understand this part:

"that Sappho died around 570 so it is therefore valid to use 570 as a date for their analysis and, then, for people to conclude that Sappho was writing in 570. "

is that a ridikulusly strong prior? i don't understand how one estimates the date of publikation of a pome when assuming a date of publikation. am i missing something?

also this appears to be published in the 0.00 impact faktor, thai "Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage". prof. cuntz appears not to be a complete joke though, he has published most of his papers in high impakt jurnals. this paper seems like a bar chat that was done for entertanement, the qestion is why it was published in a jurnal instead of just pushed to arxiv, espeshially this jurnal.

i say this is more an indiktment of the media, not of prof cuntz. any good jurnalist wuld know to check the qality of the sorce and immediately realize that this is just a playful exersise, not a serius paper.

</comment><comment><USER4> This seems like a clumsy and spastic criticism of the Cuntz, et al paper. Don't get me wrong, just as happens like 99% of the time, some science paper sweeps some assumptions under the rug and some university PR machine hypes it beyond what is reasonable.

But there is no hint in any of this that people are privileging scientific inquiry above other kinds of inquiry. I'm certain that any of the paper's authors would admit straight away that they had to make assumptions (that is just called _all of science_ ) and that the assumptions, which they might argue are defensible, can certainly be criticized by others. Indeed, their assumptions seem very reasonable to me, I see no fault with making the assumptions they made (even if other academics in turn can point out improvements upon those assumptions), and I consider it good science for them to turn the problem into an analytical one clearly by making such assumptions.

I can't comment on the near allegations of plagiarism. The fact that an earlier paper made a similar claim does not seem really at all relevant to me though. At least from what is quoted in this piece, the two don't seem directly related, and it's extremely common for a result such as this to be rediscovered sometime later. You can complain that they should have done better legwork to identify the earlier work, but that kind of complaint is extremely different and not nearly such a grave accusation as plagiarism.

I more blame PR hype machines (especially universities) for the attitude that it's reasonable to trumpet results up beyond the weight of the actual arguments they make. "Scientists" aren't doing that, except in so far as they play bullshit PR games to get papers published, just like academics in every other field, including historians.

I think maybe this person should read _That Chocolate Study_ on Slate Star Codex [0] and calm down a minute. Either we fix what's wrong with the reward system that forces academics to behave this way when publishing, or else we expect the basic literacy of anyone consuming headlines derived from research papers is insanely high and that they will account for possible errors, misleading hype, need for more data, challenging assumptions, etc., on their own.

It doesn't seem super productive to me, though, to make a whiny fit about what some other academics did in order to publish their paper. It's a whiny fit that's been thrown over and over and over with no results ever.

[0] < [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/30/that-chocolate- study/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/30/that-chocolate-study/) ></comment>


A New Way to Start Linear Algebra [Gilbert Strang] [M.I.T] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrHlHbtiSM0 <comment><USER2> This appears to be geared towards teachers and not students.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice find! Thanks for sharing</comment>


Lean startups find their moment - <AUTHOR> http://venturehacks.com/articles/lean-startups

<comment><USER2> The question in my mind against most of these efficiency driven programs is simple. If you're always looking to eliminate waste and become super efficient, you're not spending any time being creative or chasing radical ideas that may or may not be worth the effort spent on executing them.

Innovation sometimes requires a lot of wasteful experimentation and it looks like that is completely anti-thetical to the whole efficiency argument.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if you can have the best of both worlds by spending 80% of your time on efficiently making money, and 20% on experimenting wastefully? (The split isn't as important as the idea).

<comment><USER2> That's an interesting idea but it's hard to evolve a culture of superefficient mindbots (a la Toyota's conveyer belt workers) and crazy hackers with no interest in money.

3M struggled with this as well: [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_24/b4038406....](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_24/b4038406.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I proposed this kind of approach on a UK/US corporation I was waved away due to alleged unnecessary optimizations and lack of focus. Every little project tended to get over six figures a year just in support and licensing, any decision agreed in the countless meetings was carved in stone.

Many big US corporations can't survive this crisis because they have a systemic culture problem. Corporate behavior is very hard to change at that size. Truly lean approach requires maturity. These corporations only seem understand as a lean approach to simply reduce the workforce.

</comment><comment><USER5> Neat observations. I wonder how one can become more effective at understanding which features customers won't want. I guess focus groups are one answer, but the danger with these is that your product's desirability may be limited to a local maximum. Further, it seems that the most desirable, iconic products rarely come from focus groups.

<comment><USER6> Yes that is what I took away. I think the article was highlighting the get it out and often mentality. Like a build early and often type of iterative approach rather than work on things you think the customer might want without some experimentation with the product/market insight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> see also Eric's blog who begun a series about lean startups.

if remember well, he started here [http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/lean- start...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/lean-startup.html)</comment>


Rails Installer - Get up and running on Windows - <AUTHOR> http://railsinstaller.org/ <comment><USER2> From [http://www.rubyinside.com/rails-installer-ruby-and-rails- on-...](http://www.rubyinside.com/rails-installer-ruby-and-rails-on-windows- in-a-single-install-4201.html) (which I worked on with Wayne), I just wanted to repeat a key point:

 _I've been speaking to Wayne and in the long term he will extend the RailsInstaller site with more information on where to go next and links to tutorials, etc, but for now he wants RailsInstaller.org to be the #1 "go to" site for budding Windows-based Rails developers. To help with this, he's keen for people to link to<http://railsinstaller.org/> with the text Rails Windows Installer - making it more likely to come up if people Google for "rails windows" and similar._

Being on sites like HN will probably do most of the work but Wayne & RVM have been significant credits to the Ruby world in the last year so if you have the opportunity to link it up, please do! I'm going to get a link on Ruby Inside ASAP..

</comment><comment><USER3> The biggest hurdle with Rails on Windows is that when things go wrong (and often in subtly different ways with different solutions to when things go wrong on OSX and Unix), the quality of help just isn't the same. Overcoming that is a harder barrier than the initial installation, which this certainly seems to significantly improve.

The most useful Windows installer I found for RoR (and I'm far from a Windows detractor) was this one: <http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/windows- installer>

<comment><USER4> Another "side-by-side" route is via virtualization. I like <http://vagrantup.com/> a lot for this. It allows you to share folders between the host + the guest OS. I'm interested in this route. Engine Yard is sponsoring Mitchell & his virtualization work to help it get more traction as part of a standard development toolset.

Either way, these are more convoluted "getting started" or "test drive" solutions. A 50Mb one-click installer that "just works" will hopefully help new Rails developers fall in love with Rails first and foremostly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm just learning ROR from an online tutorial (<http://railstutorial.org/>), and I wish I had this last week. For newbies like myself, I think installing the framework is sometimes such a big hurdle, it pushes one to give up early. Which is unfortunate, because I read the real challenges happen a few weeks in.

I had a weird issue where I had to reinstall xcode from the OS X DVD. Took a bit of Googling to figure that one out.

<comment><USER6> If you're on a mac, you already have rails and ruby 1.8.6 (osx 10.5) or 1.8.7 (osx 10.6).

Just __sudo gem update __to get the latest version and you're good to go.

<comment><USER4> ruby 1.8.7 is required for Rails 3; so Leopard/10.5 users need to install ruby 1.8.7 manually to get started as if they didn't have ruby installed at all, I think.

<comment><USER7> Actually ruby 1.8.7 is required to install ruby 1.9.2. Rails doesn't need 1.8.7 and works fine with just ruby 1.9.2 installed.

      ruby - Ruby itself is prerequisite in order to build Ruby 1.9. It can be 1.8.

source: [http://redmine.ruby- lang.org/wiki/ruby/DeveloperHowto#label-...](http://redmine.ruby- lang.org/wiki/ruby/DeveloperHowto#label-3)

<comment><USER6> If you install via RVM, you don't need a system ruby or anything else installed for bootstrapping.

<http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/rvm/install/>

<http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/deployment/system-wide/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you want to get up and running on Ubuntu I've found that this is a great way: <http://ryanbigg.com/2010/12/ubuntu-ruby-rvm-rails-and-you>

<comment><USER2> I made a screencast of that for anyone who prefers that method: [http://www.rubyinside.com/how-to-install-ruby-1-9-2-and- rail...](http://www.rubyinside.com/how-to-install-ruby-1-9-2-and-rails-3-0-on- ubuntu-10-10-4148.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The coderpath podcast (<http://coderpath.com>) will be interviewing Wayne and Dr. Nic later today (January 18th/2011 @ 4pm PST). If you would like the host of coderpath to ask them a question about the Rails Installer, add your questions here: <http://titanpad.com/r8CWyBBA4T>

</comment><comment><USER10> I am sure there is a good reason for choosing Ruby 1.8.7-p* instead of 1.9.*, but I'd like to know that reason :)

<comment><USER11> Ruby 1.9.1 segfaults with rails 3 and 1.9.2 is in a state of flux? maybe?

<comment><USER12> 1.9.2 is stable. It, apparently, doesn't work perfectly on Windows though.

<comment><USER13> All of my Hackety problems on Windows? Ruby 1.9.1. Works great on Linux and Mac. Windows... not so much.

Working on the 1.9.2 port, but it's just not that simple...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As far as easing pains for Windows development in a corporate environment, I don't see this as a silver bullet because of the poor support for mswin32 gems. BUT for Rails being taught in the classroom and other developers testing out Rails on the weekend - this could be a game changer.

</comment><comment><USER4> My feature wish: I hope for ANSI colors. Oooh, I want pretty colors enabled by default.

<comment><USER15> the closest we can get to ANSI color support is ANSICON <http://adoxa.110mb.com/ansicon/index.html>

Here's what it looks like with Rspec: <http://www.bryanbibat.net/images/rspec- haml.png>

<comment><USER4> Yes, colors!!! I added a feature request here - <https://www.pivotaltracker.com/story/show/8786925>

<comment><USER16> In cygwin, the mintty terminal has great looks (ansi colors and pretty smooth font).

<http://code.google.com/p/mintty/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very cool - I have yet to try it out, but if its as easy as the video suggests, this could be a boon for ruby/rails. I've made several attempts at introducing .NET developer friends to Ruby/Rails, but they've given up, due to frustration preparing the environment on their Windows boxes -- Hopefully this will help change that experience.

</comment><comment> clark-kent So this is a new version of InstantRails (<http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl>), good to see the project was continued.

It was how i started with Rails and Ruby on Windows. After I got addicted I switched to Ubuntu.

</comment><comment><USER18> I thought rails was a pain to set up until I got a mac. That's not an advertisement for osx though, it's just what rails is catered for. I would love to see better support on other platforms. This includes linux, it's easier than osx, but there are still issues.

</comment><comment><USER19> What are the differences between RailsInstaller and RubyStack ?

<http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack>

<comment><USER4> RubyStack is great - it installs lots of things you need for running Rails in production on Windows, I think. Like Apache and MySQL server, etc. The 20-panel wizard is sort of off-putting, if you really want to be fussy. I don't think RubyStack includes Git when I last looked.

The focus for RailsInstaller is a welcome kit for new developers. Can we give them everything they need for the first 30 days until they fall in love with Rails? After that, they'll learn to create tickets on projects, learn about different Rubies, learn about different ways to do things.

Can we keep them excited and nurture them into the Rails/Ruby communities? Hopefully, yes, if its trivially easy to get started.

<comment><USER20> Yes, RubyStack includes Git as well

<comment><USER4> Ah ok, thanks. I didn't see it mentioned on <http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack> and I didn't remember seeing it when I ran the installer last year.

<comment><USER20> It's in the readme ;)

<http://bitnami.org/files/stacks/rubystack/2.1-0/README.txt></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


8085 Microprocessor Reference Card for Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://catsonkeyboards.blogspot.com/2011/04/8085-microprocessor-reference-card.html

<comment><USER2> Ahh, a simpler time. Compare to today's (approximate) equivalent:

 _Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Optimization Reference Manual_ <http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/manual/248966.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER3> Even though I see a graph of how memory accesses have gotten slower relative to everything else at every conference I attend, it's still striking to see how much relative cycle times have changed. IN and OUT are now serializing instructions that have a penalty of hundreds of clocks, not even including time spent waiting for the I/O itself, as they flush the machine or cause some scheduled instructions to replay, depending on whether or not your micro- architecture supports dependent replay. The memory access instructions aren't quite so bad, since they might hit in the cache, and they don't create a serializing memory barrier, but they can still be hundreds of cycles.

Correctly predicted branches now have a cost of 1, and almost all branches are correctly predicted (and they're actually free on the P4, if they're already in the trace cache). The arithmetic instructions are now single cycle, too, and multiple copies of them can execute in the same cycle (and they're only half a cycle on early P4 micro-architectures).

</comment><comment><USER4> If you want to put this info to use, check out Stefan Tramm's JavaScript 8080 and CP/M emulator: <http://www.tramm.li/i8080>

Aside: The 8085, despite its similar part number, is not actually an x86 chip. It used the 8-bit 8080 architecture: the Z80 was an enhanced 8080 that achieved much greater popularity than its ancestor.

<comment><USER5> Well, that was an enjoyable rabbit hole! (Including traveling deep into the linked pages.) :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll file this under "Things I Needed 20 Years Ago" but thanks.

<comment><USER7> I don't get the impression this was posted for its "hotness," but rather for its nostalgia. Well, partially nostalgia and some HN readers may have never seen an 8086 before in their lives; so in that way, it's a history lesson, too.

<comment><USER8> 8085 is an 8-bit machine; the 8086 is a 16-bit machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wore a small number of these out while writing a compiler for the 8085.</comment>


Backup solutions for MySQL - <AUTHOR> http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2009/03/03/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-backup-solutions-for-mysql/

<comment><USER2> I have about a dozen MySQL databases to take care of. The one worth serious money to me is a megabyte in size (truly, it is not the size of the data, it is what you do with it), and the biggest one is about 100 MB. So my needs for backup are fairly simple, but I still don't want to pull a Magnolia.

I found automysqlbackup.sh and it is wonderful. Setup took about five minutes (edit file to put in names of databases, create a .my.cnf file so I didn't have to put the DB root user and password in a script -- on general principles), set permissions on the backup folder and set up cron job. After that it is fire-and-forget, automatically taking backups and rotating daily, weekly, and monthlies for me.

You can find it on sourceforge:

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/>

This will probably not suffice for your needs if you are Twitter. Luckily, I'm not Twitter.</comment>


Billionaires Are Raging and the Minimum Wage Is on the Ballot - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xyzxb/billionaires-are-raging-and-the-minimum-wage-is-on-the-ballot <comment><USER2> One number cited in this article is scary: 30% of jobs in the US don't pay enough for a single adult to feed, clothe, and house themselves.

As long as this is the case, it doesn't matter how far any given individual pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps. Nearly a third of our population - if they are going to work at all - will be stuck doing jobs that leave them hungry.</comment>


Facebook user gets away with nearly a full day of trolling Target commenters - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/08/facebook-user-gets-away-with-nearly-a-full-day-of-trolling-target-commenters/

<comment><USER2> "Customer Service Hijacking" is what I'm going to call this growing practice of people who create accounts that resemble official customer service accounts, then use these to troll complaining customers.

It's reminiscent of crank calling, but involves intercepting incoming customers, which is easier in social media.</comment>


Revenge of the Ugly: 'Beautiful People' Dating Site Hacked - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/230719/revenge_of_the_ugly_beautiful_people_dating_site_hacked.html <comment><USER2> PR stunt: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2673452>

Previous submissions of the same story:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2674600>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2673804></comment>


Nikola admits prototype was rolling downhill in promotional video - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-admits-prototype-was-rolling-downhill-in-promotional-video/ <comment><USER2> How does a huge corporation like GM end up partnering with such an obvious scam, especially post-Theranos? Where is the due-diligence? I saw NKLA stock skyrocketing, and spent 5 minutes researching the company to find out why, and all I found were massive red flags... how did GM miss them?

<comment><USER3> It was such a good deal for GM that it didn't matter. They got 11% of Nikola, which they can start selling off after a year. And that was just to allow Nikola access to their IP, which GM wanted to develop and test anyways. I imagine they got such great terms because Nikola has absolutely nothing working in-house.

<comment><USER4> 11% of 0 is 0. This simply solidifies the idea that GM is led by out of touch legacy management. "We were supposed to check they only rolled the truck down a hill?"

Say what you will about Musk and Tesla (I know, _I know_ ), but their Class 8 Semi did a nationwide tour (under its own power) to potential customers [1] and also occasionally pitches in to perform vehicle deliveries [2], no downhill coasting required.

[1] [https://electrek.co/2018/08/25/tesla-semi-drove-across- count...](https://electrek.co/2018/08/25/tesla-semi-drove-across-country- supercharger-elon-musk/)

[2] [https://electrek.co/2020/06/26/tesla-semi-spotted-used- deliv...](https://electrek.co/2020/06/26/tesla-semi-spotted-used-deliver- vehicles-end-of-quarter-push/)

<comment><USER5> In addition to the 11%, GM is also slated to earn up to 700 million dollars in cash.

<comment><USER6> More specifically _was slated_ to earn 700 million, if the Nikola ponzi had been able to slip under the radar and continue. I'm absolutely sure NKLA does not have 0.7 billion lying around in cash, those are new investment that they need to raise. Fake it till you make it, they say.

In the current situation, all investors will require substantial proof of working technology. No working tech, no new investment, the company will probably fold before paying back a cent to GM.

<comment><USER7> As of their last earnings report Nikola had almost exactly $700M in cash / cash equivalents. Maybe GM just wants that :)

<comment><USER6> That's interesting. Without any product, what exactly are those sources of cash earnings?

<comment><USER4> Reverse merger with a SPAC investment vehicle. They're not earnings, they're investor funds.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/spac-biggest-blank-check- dea...](https://www.businessinsider.com/spac-biggest-blank-check-deals-ackman- chamath-palihapitiya-nikola-draftkings-2020-7)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the CEO that said their infotainment system is a HTML supercomputer. He's now a billionaire and has cashed out 70 million with nothing more than a fake prototype, lies and purchases from suppliers in which they give their equity and call it a strategic partnership.

<comment><USER9> I thought you were exaggerating but I found the truckinginfo article ([https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the- grille-...](https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-of- the-new-nikola-hydrogen-electric-truck)).

I am not involved in this world at all... but is this common? Can you really expose your own ignorance in this way and also manage to keep investors?

<comment><USER10> From the linked article, here is the full quote:

> "The entire infotainment system is a HTML 5 super computer," Milton said. > "That's the standard language for computer programmers around the world, so > using it let's us build our own chips. And HTML 5 is very secure. Every > component is linked on the data network, all speaking the same language. > It's not a bunch of separate systems that somehow still manage to > communicate."

<comment> DC-3 Sounds like the sort of guy to create a GUI Interface in Visual Basic to track an IP Address.

<comment><USER11> r/masterhacker material

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From the article:

> Nikola's fortunes are now tied to the success of the Nikola Two, Badger, and > other products. If those products are successful, it probably won't matter > that the Nikola One was never drivable.

I'm trying to figure out what is the difference between Nikola One and Two. By comparing [https://nikolamotor.com/one](https://nikolamotor.com/one) and [https://nikolamotor.com/two](https://nikolamotor.com/two) there doesn't seem to be any difference at all, apart from the pictures and videos. The specs are the same, technology is the same, performance is the same, all of the promotional text is the same, etc.

<comment><USER13> I thought you were joking, but it appears you're right ! I've also clicked on the 'tre' model, and while there is no specs, and 'performance' numbers are better , all highlights and inside pictures are the same. Amazing !

<comment><USER14> I believe Tre is meant for Europe and Two is meant for the US. I suppose the American one is larger

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Once again we see that the short side is absolutely necessary to keep companies in check. A company that whines about short sellers is broadcasting its intention to act dishonestly. If you are long a company that puts out press releases about a short conspiracy, run for the exits.

<comment><USER16> > A company that whines about short sellers is broadcasting its intention to > act dishonestly.

Lets not pretend short sellers arent willing to exaggerate their case against in order to make a quick buck. They are talking their book afterall. I would say whining is a sign of weakness more than dishonesty.

<comment><USER17> > _Lets not pretend short sellers arent willing to exaggerate their case > against in order to make a quick buck_

Sure. Both management and short sellers are. But structurally, the table is tilted in favor of management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I feel like Nikola is an example of why it might be bad for retail investors to have access to early stage companies (pre-IPO or not). A traditional venture capital investment has a better ability to do due diligence than the general public does.

I'm not familiar with IPO listings through SPACs, but do these type of listings go through as much DD as a traditional IPO listing? It seems that every step along the way, NKLA had avoided close inspection of it's actual IP and assets.

<comment><USER19> On the otherhand, if Nikola was successful and retail investors couldn't get in early, it's an unfair advantage to the rich who are still allowed to invest.

Nikola is actually a poor example of your point. Their stock price is still up since they IPOed. A retail investor could sell their shares now and be fine.

<comment><USER20> It would seem we would gain a lot from greater transparency in who owns shares.

For example, Robintrack's data was very illuminating, almost every stock that made it to the week popular list was full of retail bagholders: [https://imgur.com/a/LbvUOdi](https://imgur.com/a/LbvUOdi)

Bet you thought I meant insiders. I'd run from stuff idiots buy!

<comment><USER21> > It would seem we would gain a lot from greater transparency in who owns > shares.

Major KODK shareholders: [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/KODK/holders?p=KODK](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/KODK/holders?p=KODK)

Retail holds a small percent of pretty much anything, institutions dwarf retail.

<comment><USER20> Almost all of those institutions are holding shares on behalf of normal "retail" people, not professional investors. The statistic you are seeing is both in support of the claim of how much retail is a bagholder and in support of the claim that the word "institutional" is misunderstood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From the video:

"Behold, the 1,000 HP, zero-emission Nikola One semi-truck in motion. Get ready for the pre-production units to hit fleets next year in 2019 for testing. The Nikola #hydrogenelectric trucks will take on any #semitruck and outperform them in every category; weight, acceleration, stopping, safety and features - all with a 500-1,000 mile range!"

People were arguing about how Tesla's semi was dead on arrival because of these people.

<comment><USER23> I question the 1000hp claim but concede that gravity is indeed zero-emission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is the company with $36k in total revenues from installing a solar system on the founders home. They list a bunch of products on their webpage. Do they sell any of them or is it vaporware?

<comment><USER25> The renderings are real, not vaporware. You can 2D print them

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is a horrible press release. Horrible. The allegations Hinderburg made are substantial, but a rebuttal as poor as this one is even worse than just staying silent.

It would be somewhat understandable if they'd be trying to weasel out of one or two issues.

But when all but a few of your rebuttals are "oh but in a strict technical sense, we didn't make the claims that Hingerburg is challenging", like "we never said the truck was under its own propulsion, the video was just called "in motion", or "the contract that we claimed was worth 250 million had an option that made it _potentially_ worth 250 million", then that just underlines how much bullshit they have been spewing.

<comment><USER23> Agreed, when I read their response I thought that what they didn't say spoke volumes. Hindenburg's article covered every company in Trevor Milton's professional career from dropping out at Utah Valley State to Nikola. Hindenburg gave evidence that Milton perpetuated fraud at every single company he was involved in and they only challenged the 250 million option at DHybrid.

I think the issue the legal team faces is that many of the things Trevor says are clearly false and misleading.For example, he claimed multiple times that Nikola is generating 3.5 megawatts of energy from solar panels on their roof. There is simply nothing there, it is a bold lie so naturally it's not referenced in their response at all.

The entire company is built around mysterious battery tech that's twice as efficient as Tesla's batteries and hydrogen production at 18.75% of current cost. That is the central fraud in the company just as the unrealistic notion of droplets of blood for reliable testing was at Theranos.

Eventually, if Nikola persists in trying use hydrogen they will face the technological and economic reality they've been hiding from investors and the company will fail.

<comment><USER27> Milton is obviously an idiot, crazy and delusional, if he didnt realize someone could prove him wrong via google earth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What terrifies me the most is that supposedly this company is planning to store a shit ton of hydrogen in the middle of the Phoenix metro area.

Nothing that I've heard about this company makes me think it is at all equipped to properly handle that responsibility, and I'm adjusting my behavior to stay clear of that part of town.

<comment><USER29> The chief of the hydrogen division at Nikola is Trevor's brother. His industry previous experience consists of pouring concrete driveways. Phoenix should be fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not to defend Nikola, but people are quick to forget that iPhone's first presentation was a lot of smoke and mirrors?

"Hours of trial and error had helped the iPhone team develop what engineers called "the golden path," a specific set of tasks, performed in a specific way and order, that made the phone look as if it worked."

[https://gizmodo.com/the-iphones-first-demo-was-buggy-as- hell...](https://gizmodo.com/the-iphones-first-demo-was-buggy-as- hell-1441324523)

<comment><USER31> That's common for tech demos, especially software demos. Hardcoded values, scripted paths, etc.

Nikola's presentation was something else:

> "We will have a chain on the seats to prevent people from coming in just for > the safety. I don't want someone to end up doing something and driving this > truck off the stage," Milton said. "This thing fully functions and works, > which is really incredible."

He specifically boasted that it was a fully working machine. That's a lie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So I guess they subscribe to the 'fake it till you make it' philosophy of start ups?

<comment><USER33> Considering their founder bought a ranch which cost tens of millions of dollars, I think they're following the fake it till you can cash out WeWork model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really think that false statements made by commercial entities should be prosecuted as fraud. It's one thing to engage in vague sales talk like 'the new SuperTech Blinkenlights will turbocharge your actuarial skydiving research!!', but when you're making claims of having actually existing technology (which you may not be ready or willing to patent, but do want to raise money with), the public has an interest in protecting itself from fraud.

Perhaps there should be some requirement to pay for independent professional witnesses, sort of like observers who validate Guinness world records as having met some (negotiable) standard of existing in the real world while being bound not to comment on the specifics of how it was achieved.

<comment><USER35> This is called due diligence, and it's on the investor to perform their own due diligence. For a product that isn't commercially available to consumers yet, due diligence should be enough.

In the case of something like Theranos, I thoroughly agree. Oversight of a commercially available product, especially one with health implications, is definitely necessary. Although it seems even these systems failed in the Theranos case.

<comment><USER36> There is actually the legal test of a Reasonable Person.

If they say they're going to sell trucks, and they present a truck doing truck things (moving), most people would assume it's a complete truck as portrayed. An empty shell is just fraud in the court, hopefully.

<comment><USER37> Agreed, but a reasonable person would also ask: "how well does it drive up hills?", "what are it's miles per charge?", etc. at which point the truth is uncovered.

It's not a good look, but you also shouldn't be investing based on what amounts to a commercial. This should be another stain for the company and another warning sign for investors, but we don't need a law against misleading promo videos because almost all are short on information and high on emotion. It's the investor's job to get the information behind the video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I opened a massive short position on NKLA today after seeing it up almost 10%. Uneducated speculators that have forgotten the lessons of Theranos are fueling its rise, and for them it will end in tears. For me? I will make a fortune.

<comment><USER39> Good call! NKLA is down 8% aftermarket

<comment><USER40> I see a long TSLA / short NKLA position much safer than just shorting NKLA.

I think the question might just be the ratio of capital.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> After Elon named his company Tesla, along comes a scam with their machine called Edison. Not to be outdone, a putative truck company circles back and calls itself Tesla's first name, Nikola.

<comment><USER42> > _After Elon named his company Tesla_

Tesla Motors was a thing before Elon was involved.

<comment><USER43> Tesla coils too!

<comment><USER44> Those have a right to the name though; Nikola Tesla invented them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Nikola responded to [https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/](https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/) which is a solid read.

</comment><comment><USER46> Let me get this straight:

Did "Hindenberg" really say that the hydrogen fuel cell wasn't working?

</comment><comment><USER47> There's a part of me that's happy that there's finally a nice example of technology fraud to point to that's a non-medical tech company. After Theranos, the takeaway has been "biotechs, especially diagnostic companies, especially anything involved with microfluidics, especially if founded by a white female engineer[0], are frauds." Theranos has been explained away as something that happens when Silicon Valley invests in biotech (which is just so stupid - Genentech was founded in the bay...), so instead of using it as an opportunity to rethink what is incentivized and how charisma is rewarded over capability, people instead decided that by adopting a bunch of flawed heuristics, they could avoid the issue forever. Well, here you go! Theranos 2: electric Boogaloo! Turns out Fraud is not industry specific! Who knew!?

[0]I know a founder fitting that description that was put through hell because of all the pattern matching. And in my own startup, there was a point where I just straight up stopped mentioning microfluidics because of all the nonstop pattern matching and the dumb questions that resulted. Its so frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER48> >Our investigation of the site and text messages from a former employee reveal that the video was an elaborate ruse—Nikola had the truck towed to the top of a hill on a remote stretch of road and simply filmed it rolling down the hill.

couldn't they just put in battery&motor from golf cart? Or, god forbid, from a Tesla :)

>In October 2019, Nikola announced it would revolutionize the battery industry. This was to be done through a pending acquisition, but the deal fell through when Nikola realized (a) the technology was vaporware

you don't say.

Looking at all that gold rush and Alibaba prices i wonder may be i should start a EV company too. Don't need $20B, i think i can retire comfortably with 3 orders of magnitude less :)

</comment><comment><USER49> On the bright side. The brakes must be working.

<comment><USER50> Probably not. They just use friction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's interesting to me that they didn't use CGI. Maybe they were afraid people would notice? But tons of car ads are totally CGI.

Back when I was at Dev Bootcamp, before that shut down, some car company came to shoot a car commercial in front of the building. People were expecting to see some cool cars and action on the scene, but I rightly predicted that there would be filming of backdrops, some green screens here or there, all done in a few hours, and no actual cars.

Having looked at the video, I see no reason why they needed a real truck, even if they actually have a prototype. Are they just cheap as f __*?

<comment><USER52> >> But tons of car ads are totally CGI.

As silly as this sounds, it very well may be a cost factor - I am desperately seeking the article but I have read that car commercials actually use a highly advanced form of CGI that is incredibly, jaw-droppingly expensive.

I mean, we could assume they just wanted to be honest and show the real thing; but we obviously know they had no interest in being honest whatsoever and it was obviously designed to mislead.

<comment><USER43> Car ads use CGI because they need to a lot of localisation and customisation for trim-level specific shots. Making a CGI car ad from scratch might cost $10m+, but you can now do a new shot or make small changes in a day for a few thousand dollars.

If you need a one-off video, it's cheaper to not use CGI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Have you seen this video from Nikola - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbNopvpSbzU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbNopvpSbzU) ?

It does not look fake.

<comment><USER54> Wait, they also make a jet ski?!

<comment><USER55> Correction, made a prototype which can only jet ski downhill.

<comment><USER56> I'm looking forward to their electric / hydrogen plane, correction, glider.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Why does the truck have a grill/air intake on the front?

<comment><USER58> H2+O2 -> H2O+Energy

Also, probably radiators for the above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> What Nikola seems to have done is outrageous, but am I reading it correctly that the short-seller was trading on insider information?

<comment><USER60> There are a lot of high profile traders who do tons of research, make trades, then "release" their information. The research they do is all from publicly available sources (Ie they don't interview employees), so its not insider trading.

Bill Ackman is probably the most famous person doing this.

<comment><USER59> I see, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Looks very similar to the Tesla Semi.

<comment><USER30> You mean Tesla Semi looked similar to Nikola One? As Tesla Semi was announced one year after Nikola One and there was/is even a lawsuit.

[https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-semi-design-lawsuit- mov...](https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-semi-design-lawsuit-move-forward- nikola-motors-weaker/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Who here hasn't faked a demo? And this is a very different case then Theranos. They faked the demos and never had a working product. Nikola faked the demo and now has an actual working truck.

Don't lie. You've faked a demo before.

<comment><USER63> The mess they are in isn't just about faking one demo one time when they were 2 employees in a basement building a landing page. They consistently lied about basically everything, including key and core components.

"In October 2019, Nikola announced it would revolutionize the battery industry. This was to be done through a pending acquisition, but the deal fell through when Nikola realized (a) the technology was vaporware and (b) the President of the battery company had been indicted months earlier over allegations that he conned NASA by using his expense account to procure numerous prostitutes.

Nikola has never walked back claims relating to its battery technology. Instead, Trevor continued to publicly hype the technology even after becoming aware of the above issues. The revolutionary battery technology never existed – now, Nikola plans to use GM's battery technology instead."

"Inexpensive hydrogen is fundamental to the success of Nikola's business model. Trevor has claimed in a presentation to hundreds of people and in multiple interviews to have succeeded at cutting the cost of hydrogen by ~81% compared to peers and to already be producing hydrogen. Nikola has not produced hydrogen at this price or at any price as he later admitted when pressed by media." [1]

Tell me again how this is not like Theranos?

[1] [https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/](https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/)

<comment><USER30> How about a company that faked a working phone? A phone where there is only 1 set of workflow that actually was successfuly. A phone that could not play an entire song. And because the CEO knew the phone would crash, even during the only workflow that worked, he had multiple phones on stage that he would swap out when it crashed.

Is that also a lie? Because that's exactly what Steve Jobs did when he debuted the iPhone.

[https://gizmodo.com/the-iphones-first-demo-was-buggy-as- hell...](https://gizmodo.com/the-iphones-first-demo-was-buggy-as- hell-1441324523)

<comment><USER63> > Is that also a lie?

How is that a lie? On release day, when you got your iPhone, you got exactly what was demoed, not one feature was missing. As an Apple investor I would have no way to know what did and didn't work during that demo, and I wouldn't care because I got exactly what I was promised. I also would not expect everything to work, otherwise why would the release date be 9 months after the demo? And when making that demo, Steve Jobs was convinced (and he made sure he was right) that everything he was demoing would be ready by launch. He did not pretend that the iPhone could do something he very well knew wasn't possible.

Trevor Milton promised things that he knew he would not deliver. He promised things that his company did not do, was not planning to do and did not have the capability to deliver. Where is the Nikola One today? Where is that revolutionary battery that he promised even once he cancelled the deal to buy that (non-existent) tech? Where is that hydrogen he said he was already producing years ago?

Those two things are not remotely comparable.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


10M page views in a few hours for an analytics platform - <AUTHOR> https://usefathom.com/blog/viral <comment><USER2> tl;dr:

Database did not have correct indexes.

Database is not scalable (serverless).

IOPS were hard limited by AWS plan.

No performance metrics/alerts in place to easily pin-point the issue.

Infrastructure resources are shared by all users (one user going viral means that all the other users are affected).

Article was somewhat confusing for me, as it didn't clearly state the problem (bottleneck), solution or architecture.</comment>


Visualising optimal target points in Darts (for different player skill levels) - <AUTHOR> http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/january12012/index.html

<comment><USER2> There's an interesting discontinuity in where it's optimal to aim here; excellent players should aim at the top-centre "triple 20". Pretty much everyone else should aim below-left of the bulls-eye or thereabouts.</comment>


The best time tracker you use - <AUTHOR> Hey, which software or online services do you use for tracking time as freelancers?
So far I have been using just a simple file with notes. However now I changes my work a little bit, and I'd like to send a nice pdf with detailed report.
I checked toggl, looks nice, however I need to write more detailed reports. When quite a simple task took like 2 hours, I'd like to provide detailed information about all the problems I found, and how I solved that.
So, what stuff do you use, and which should I avoid? <comment><USER2> A combination of: \- Procrastitracker(1) \- Sent emails \- Updated tickets (company stuff) \- Git/Svn commits \- Everything search updated files date(2) \- Zim wiki journal feature (dump style) Alt - D creates a file for the day(2)

(1) [http://strlen.com/procrastitracker/](http://strlen.com/procrastitracker/) (2) [https://www.voidtools.com/](https://www.voidtools.com/) (3) [http://www.zim-wiki.org/](http://www.zim-wiki.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://wakatime.com/](https://wakatime.com/) (Full Disclosure: I built it)

It's fully-automatic, which makes it the best time tracker!

</comment><comment><USER4> I use a mix of Toggl and org-mode, to solve the exact problem you're describing (some clients need detailed information).

I'd probably just use org-mode, but I also have a subcontractor that I need to bill for as well. The toggl reports tell me exactly how much to invoice at the end of the month for the both of us, and my org-mode files have all the nitty gritty details of what I've worked on.</comment>


Visualizing Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://bost.ocks.org/mike/algorithms/ <comment><USER2> Author here, ask me anything. And don't miss the related work section at the end — there's a ton of links there to inspiring work.

<comment><USER3> Have you ever considered visualizing artificial neural networks in training or in operation?

Speaking purely from a selfish standpoint, it would be _awesome_ to SEE what back-propagation "looks like" with different neuronal activation functions, or what feature learning by restricted Boltzmann machines "looks like," or how dropout causes networks to generalize better -- to name just a few possibilities.

If _anyone_ can visualize neural network algorithms in a way that is intuitive and beautiful, it's you!

<comment><USER4> Seconded. I was recently trying to find a good resource to simply and concisely explain (or at least give a 'feel' for) artificial neural networks to someone and came up blank. Everything I found was either assumed too much domain-specific knowledge or was too long.

<comment><USER5> Is there a "feel" to neural networks? You define a bunch of hidden/latent variables connected in an array (or multiple arrays), then perform a heuristic search of the weight state space to minimize some error/energy function. Sometimes it works, often not.

<comment><USER6> I love how you're getting downvoted when the truth is NNs work well _only_ when you have a team of specialists to select their hyperparameters. There's a rich vein of research for AutoML to automatically learn the hyps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Off-topic: Why isn't my macbook a jet engine right now? I've read plenty of blogs with nothing but a parallax scroll at the top and my computer fan goes insane.

But, on this blog, TONS of dynamic code running and not a peep.

<comment><USER8> > Why isn't my macbook a jet engine right now? I've read plenty of blogs with > nothing but a parallax scroll at the top and my computer fan goes insane

Ah, the beauty of Javascript!

<comment><USER9> Fits right in with my rapid-temperature-rise-based workflow!

<comment><USER10> Obligatory: [http://xkcd.com/1172/](http://xkcd.com/1172/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Funny thing about that random comparator shuffle - Microsoft used it for their browser selection screen (part of the EU antitrust settlement). Oops!

[http://www.robweir.com/blog/2010/02/microsoft-random- browser...](http://www.robweir.com/blog/2010/02/microsoft-random-browser- ballot.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Breathtaking work!

Found a ton more interesting examples here: [http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock](http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock)

<comment><USER13> This one is so beautiful: [http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/d8e15a0ab7f85818a5bd](http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/d8e15a0ab7f85818a5bd)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was really great.

Especially maze turning into spanning tree. That one was truly mind blowing.

<comment><USER15> I could watch that for hours straight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This one is also interesting (requires WebGL) [http://ottoallmendinger.github.io/js- quickhull3d/](http://ottoallmendinger.github.io/js-quickhull3d/)

</comment><comment><USER17> +1 if you didn't understand a thing but kept scrolling for the sweet, sweet animations

</comment><comment><USER18> Here're are a couple of papers you'll probably enjoy:

Design and implementation of the UW Illustrated compiler by Andrews, Henry, and Yamamoto PLDI '88

and

The University of Washington illustrating compiler by Henry, Whaley, and Forstall PLDI '90

<comment><USER19> I can't find any copies of these papers that aren't behind a paywall. Is there any record of what the visualizations looked like?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great piece of work!

I've seen in the piece of code corresponding to the Fisher-Yates algorithm this snippet: "n-- | 0". Has the "| 0" any importance?

<comment><USER21> x | 0 will truncate a floating point x to an integer. The multiplication happens first so the overall expression acts like i = (Math.random() * n--) | 0.

<comment> TD-Linux This is actually the only way to do integer arithmetic in Javascript (without the array types introduced by WebGL). It's how asm.js signals integer math as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asm.js#Examples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asm.js#Examples)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone interested will probably also enjoy Mike's talk "Design is a search problem" from Openvis conference: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fThhbt23SGM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fThhbt23SGM)

</comment><comment><USER23> This is incredible. As a non-CS major, it's been truly a fascinating read!

</comment><comment><USER5> Really is interesting how proper visualization allows you to see very subtle probabilistic distinctions that probably only a phd in stochastic processes would understand intuitively.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder about visualizing the algorithms that visualize the algorithms. Being serious and curious here.

<comment><USER25> [http://bost.ocks.org/mike/join/](http://bost.ocks.org/mike/join/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Beautiful...just to understand that algorithms also paint beautifully ...visualising algorithms awesome!

</comment><comment><USER27> How did you people learn these things _without_ visualizations?

</comment><comment><USER28> The web is truly the new <canvas> for the artist.

<comment><USER29> I'm thinking the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Great job, this both reads and looks great!

</comment><comment><USER31> well this excites me now. can anyone help me master the basics or suggest any good book?

</comment><comment><USER32> please recommend a good book that would assist me with the basics.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hug of death?

</comment><comment><USER34> How many times has this been on HN..

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7822983](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7822983) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7652333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7652333)

I know it's more times but I haven't found those threads..</comment>


Why it's important to respect your customers - <AUTHOR> http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/12/27/just-wow1?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pa-mainsite+%28Penny+Arcade%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> I'm very, very surprised at the company side of the exchange. I guess this is what happens if you don't have a professional sales staff who are trained to be tactful and polite (or can be fired for not being)

</comment><comment><USER3> If this clown has, as claimed, "about 125 dedicated people to run PR, Blogs, Articles, Videos", why doesn't he have anybody competent to run customer relations?

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, that was incredible. I wonder if it is legal to treat customers in such a disrespectful way.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would hate to see these guys get away with such unprofessional and crass behavior.</comment>


Forecasteroid – Financial Forecasting for Small Business - <AUTHOR> https://www.forecasteroid.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys - I'm one of the co-founders of Forecasteroid. This is my first ever web application, so would love any and all feedback.

My background is in finance, self-taught programmer - my goal with this app was just to make something that would allow people to build a budget/forecast for their business quickly and easily.

I'm currently working on adding integration with Quickbooks Online and other cloud accounting solutions, so hoping to have that rolled out in the near future!</comment>


Ask HN: How can i become a better explainer - <AUTHOR> I struggle to clearly explain things like a story i read on the news or a movie i watched recently. What can i do to be more eloquent? <comment><USER2> Approach it like you're teaching someone who has zero knowledge. For anything that isn't a common household term, explain it.

Instead of, "Tavis Ormandy broke news about Cloudflare's memory leak that potentially reveals sensitive data," you explain each of those terms.

"This guy, Tavis Ormandy, is a security researcher at Google, so his job is to investigate bugs and find ways into otherwise secure systems. Yesterday, he wrote a blog post about a bug with Cloudflare. Cloudflare is what's called a CDN or content delivery network. A CDN is a network of servers distributed across the world, so that when you request data, they can find the closest one to you and serve you content from that server. The closer it is, the faster your download. That seems really useful for a lot of websites with lots of traffic, right? Well, it turns out Cloudflare is one of the largest and most popular CDNs out there. Anyway, Tavis revealed that Cloudflare had a memory leak that revealed sensitive memory. A memory leak is... well, imagine an Excel spreadsheet...."

It's like teaching someone calculus. In order to teach them calculus, the must first know algebra. In order to know algebra, they need to know basic arithmetic, and so on. For reach term, you either define it and then define other terms in that definition, if needed (e.g., "Cloudflare is a CDN; a CDN is...") or you make an analogy ("if you have a spreadsheet and the cells represent bytes,...").

Anyway, that's my trick. Another way to practice this would be to subscribe to /r/explainlikeimfive on Reddit, and try to answer questions as simply as possible. Study some of the top answers and see how they do it. Like someone else said, one trick is to actually know what you're talking about!

Good luck.

<comment><USER3> Dude carry on, you were doing a good job! I for one want to understand this Cloudflare fustercluck all over HN. Unfortunately i don't understand much of what is written about it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to teach Computer Graphics for almost 10 years, and I like to believe I became somewhat good at it. I've written some articles about fairly technical topics and the reaction I tend to get is "oh wow, that's the clearest explanation I've read".

I think it boils down to two things: form a mental model of the state of the other person's mental model, and find a path from something they already know to the thing you want them to know.

Start from some basic assumptions, state them explicitly if you need to. From this starting point, build the explanation gradually, step by step, and perhaps most importantly, in a way that makes sense _to them_.

That's how I structured my CG course. We alternated theory classes (where we'd explore some concept, say, drawing a filled triangle) and a practical class (where the students would implement that). So after the "filled triangle" class, they applied the algorithm to their existing wireframe cube code, and most of the time it looked completely wrong, because the order of the triangles was random.

So I'd start the next class with "Last time your cube looked all wrong. Why?". Students would offer their ideas, and I always tried to find _something_ right in them to build towards the idea I wanted them to arrive at. Then I asked "How can we fix this?", and again, depending on their suggestions, guide the conversation towards the algorithms I wanted to "rediscover" (painter's algorithm and depth buffering).

The key was that the students were very motivated to understand why their cube looked wrong even though they had no bugs in their implementation. They _wanted_ it to look right. And I didn't just walk in and say "open your book on page 159, this is depth buffering" (I didn't use a book at all, in fact), but "reinvented" the algorithm with them, based on their suggestions and some gentle nudging in the right direction.

The worst thing in these circumstances is the opposite: "there's this random thing you need to learn, it will make sense in 5 weeks, I promise".

Sorry for the long-winded answer... I hope it applies to explaining stories and movies, and hey, this is HN ;)

<comment><USER5> Thank you so much for writing this! This is awesome <3 Kudos to you for being a great teacher!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's like coding, when you fully understand OOP, you can easily switch languages. Same goes for story telling. You need to learn the structure once, then practice with different stories. People never take time to work on the foundation... they jump straight to the story. Great story tellers are people who use the same approach over and over. They ultimately get better at it. They re-apply the same patterns for new stories. Each individual has its own style. I'd suggest you to work on your own structure. How do you approach a story? Do you start with a punch line that tells people you're about to tell a story? Do you hypnotize people until they realize you're in the middle of a long story and they've been listening for hours? There are different ways of telling a story and you should start by asking yourself, what did I do yesterday? Try to come up with an answer if someone asks you the question. Write the structure down on paper and iterate until you come up with great sentences. Do that during your commute to work. Get ready just in case... How do you tell a great story? You need to highlight the emotions. Did you do something cool yesterday? What was cook about it? Why was it cool? What was your reaction? That's what people want, they're looking for emotional things (things that makes them react). Usually great story tellers make me feel like I was the subject in the story.

I mean... There are a lot of things you can do...

</comment><comment><USER7> I was always impressed with one of my past IT managers at how he could "wing it" when explaining the latest services his teams offered in front of a hundred people. He also happened to be a pastor so I figured he had learned something I didn't. I asked him if he had any secrets of the trade, and I'll never forget his answer. He said "Yeah, I know what I'm talking about." So simple, but don't forget to really know what it is you're explaining.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a great question. Is there an algorithmic way to offer the best explanation of an idea to an audience?

<comment><USER9> Do you mean filtering explanations by reading level, or displaying the answers that best match an audiences comprehension level of certain things?

<comment><USER8> Yes and more.

Is there an algorithmic way to get an explanation ? Then

What is the filtering mechanism to make sure the audience get maximal understanding based on their comprehension level

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is the particular problem behind it? Getting the main point, structuring the answer, using the right words? These aspects should be addressed differently, but they seem to be clear and easy to improve on. Like, learn to quickly capture the core points of a book or film, train this ability by doing it after each movie orbook. Look at some good book/film reviews to learn how they are structured, what words are used. Train to write or talk aboun them the same exciting way.

</comment><comment><USER11> Think it through. Ask a question before beginning the topic. Provide some history. Be more direct with the important parts. Summarize and keep it simple.

</comment><comment><USER12> I remember reading about how politicians deliver information and learned a lot about both effective 'explaining', story telling and just good conversation structure.

Also, don't over think it!

</comment><comment><USER13> teaching is a good start

practice answering questions out loud (even when on your own)

practice communicating while restricting your resources (read picture-book with it facing your audience, when discussing a bug with someone don't touch their keyboard)

when listening to your favorite examples, pause the feed to consider why they selected a particular path</comment>


Normal, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic – which one do you click? - <AUTHOR> http://quicklytest.it/blog/?p=66

<comment><USER2> From the article:

        Normal – 44.5%
        Italic – 44.9%
        Bold – 45%
        Bold Italic – 43.8%

      [...]

      Whilst Bold did the best I'm not convinced that it's
      something that it worth investigating further with that
      page.

I feel like the author has a weak statistical background, which is unfortunate when running a site that is, essentially, all about applying statistical tests. The difference between Italic and Bold is basically indistinguishable without a sample size of a few hundred thousand.

Even telling Bold Italic and Bold apart reliably (i.e. lying outside each others approximate 95% confidence intervals) requires a sample size of more than 6000.

(Admittedly, my statistics isn't awesome, and it's late here.)

(Also, www.quicklytest.it and quicklytest.it are acting differently. Specifically, the former is saying "The requested URL <url> was not found on this server." for every request.)

<comment><AUTHOR> The numbers come from around 10,000 visitors.

Mmm, I'll take a look at the www. now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a weird experiment to me because links (that's what 'which one do you click' means, right?) should be based on other factors besides their emphasis and weight, although ideally they're bolded simply to stand out from the rest of the copy. I'd knock the italics out of the running completely because of how sloppy they can render across operating systems, depending on the typeface and the user's ClearType settings.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm getting a database error at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I'm just rebooting the sever. Looks like it just got battered!

<comment><USER5> Judging by the url you are running wordpress, so you'll most likely need caching and if you're running apache you might consider turning KeepAlive off while you are getting hammered.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you I enabled <http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-green-cache/></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What is the ideal co-founding team structure? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Any team or successful team? The simple answer would be "smart" and "get things done". But look beneath and there's a whole lot of things to look for ...

 _'... if you have more than 2 people how to avoid the pitfalls of bickering, politics etc ... to basically (NOT) elect (AN) A$@hole ?'_

Unfortunately you cannot change human nature. Successful traits can have negative outcomes. There's a term for a successful attitude. It's called _"the mongrel factor"_ and it applies to top athletes as well as entrepreneurs. No hurdle is going to get in the way of success at personal and interpersonal cost. It's could almost be classed psychopathic.

It can be pretty divisive. These same qualities within a group that can propel a company forward from idea to prototype to commercialisation can be internalised if a _perceived_ stumbling block within the team.

within each team there will be a leader (see alpha geeks ~ <http://tinyurl.com/155i)> and there will be followers. It's how this power arrangement plays out that causes much friction. Understanding these basic parameters I'd be looking for individuals with

\- competance

\- hard work

\- drive, enthusiasm

\- humility

\- good sense of humour

\- ability to be flexible

\- lack of contempt, arrogance and ego

Think Woz not Jobs, Herman not Tuzman, hmm I'd have to think about Gates and Steve. The dilemma with this approach though is would there be an Apple without Jobs, a Microsoft without Gates, a JumpTV without Tuzman?

Have to think about listing successful startup teams to emulate beyond delicious, reddit et.,al. Could not find this in 'Hardest Lessons' ~ <http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html>

But you can find personal traits you need to avoid in 5, 6, 16, 17 in "18 Mistakes" ~ <http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I was wondering about this too. How must people divide the shares, and if you have more than 2 people how to avoid the pitfalls of bickering, politics etc. How to basically elect the Asshole ? ( Elects himself? :))</comment>


Show HN: Finding the colours of the web - <AUTHOR> http://webcolourdata.com

<comment><USER2> <http://webcolourdata.com/profile/85>

Must go deeper haha.

<comment><USER3> What's going on?

<comment><USER4> Maresca found the color data for the webcolourdata.com page, then found the color data for that color data page, etc, etc.

Take a look at the thumbnail and you'll notice it's an image inside an image inside an image...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok... so I haven't had to handle this much traffic before, bear with me!

<comment><USER5> Design is fantastic. I actually will try using this site!

I saved a bookmark for when your bandwidth isn't on fire ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hm, it is dismissing white (and black?) while I find those colours often very important to a site's look. Think Facebook, it is white and blue.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm keeping white/black and greytones out for now. White/light greys are especially hard... how would you differentiate between the content and the background?

It's definitely on the list of things to address.

<comment><USER7> Any chance of open sourcing? I'm interested in the algorithm. Is it quantizing to a more limited bit depth and taking say, top 5ish via mode?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do plan on open sourcing. A little self conscious about the code as I'm more of a designer, but watch this space.

At the moment it's quantizing down to 40 colours with a tree depth of 4, I then pull the top 12.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is like an interactive version of www.brandcolors.net. Very nice!

</comment><comment><USER9> Is it ignore background-colors? Firefox is primarily green on this but of course the large button is there but the overall theme of the site seems to be that shade of blue

<http://webcolourdata.com/profile/4>

</comment><comment><USER10> seems to be getting the mobile version of our site (<http://webcolourdata.com/profile/4170>). It's done on viewport width, not UA sniffing.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is great! Are you planning on exposing an API? Would love to add this to <https://starthq.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Eventually! Good to know that someone would use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seem to pick up gradients too: <http://webcolourdata.com/profile/816>

</comment><comment><USER13> HN: <http://webcolourdata.com/profile/6>

</comment><comment><USER14> Very neat. Bookmarked it! Now keep it up and going. Github link?

</comment><comment><USER15> My logo is orange, and I don't care.

</comment><comment><USER16> Interal Server Error :(

<comment><USER17> Keep trying... the Heroku app seems to be getting hammered

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> beautiful</comment>