A Bourne-style shell built from scratch in 35 minutes [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/shell-from-scratch <comment><USER3> On this note, I need to build my own Terminal multiplexer - does anyone have a favorite primer of theirs for all the escape codes? Not only do I need to use them myself, but I need to handle them of child processes to restrict term sizes etc.

I can Google like ya'll - I'm just asking if there are any favorite resources :)

Thanks

<comment><USER4> Not strictly answering your question, but years ago I worked on a job which comprised a group of us sitting in a room, each with a VT100 connected to a Unix box in the corner, cranking out C. We weren't _massively_ overworked, so one clever bugger wrote his own terminal multiplexer on the side, enabling him to flip between sessions using function keys. Another guy wrote a shell - <USER2> Bourne shell. It had, errm, a few issues, but, crucially, gave us command line editing and history (that was otherwise lacking in the vanilla sh we had, and none of us fancied csh much).

<comment><USER5> My 2nd year college project (UK college not US very different things) was a VT100 emulator written in Delphi.

In hindsight I should have done what the rest of the class did and took the Blackjack option but there was the option to do our own project instead, I demonstrated it worked by connecting it to my Linux laptop (this was '98, I was a strange 18yo).

I was into LambdaMoo and mtrek at the time and I wanted to understand how they worked better :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Then 35 weeks to get POSIX job control, pipes, handling signals and whatnot. 35 years to find the last bug.

<comment><USER7> Not that I think writing a feature-complete shell is "easy", but pipes, specifically, were the main feature of this shell implementation (besides reading, forking, and executing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _It supports (1) running commands with arbitrarily many arguments_

Wouldn't the size of the arguments be limited by sysconf(_SC_ARG_MAX) as explained here? [http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man2/execve.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/execve.2.html)

PS: Is the code available somewhere? I can't play the video on Firefox on CentOS 6.

</comment><comment><USER9> The Bourne Shell was, in my opinion, the worst of Robert Ludlum's books.

</comment><comment><USER10> By the way, IMHO much of the ugliness of shells comes from the requirement that simple filenames are to be used without additional escape characters. I think we should ditch that requirement.

<comment><USER11> My fantasy crosscutting change is outlawing spaces in filenames, _at the filesystem level!_

<comment><USER12> my fantasy is they design a shell language where it's impossible to write anything that fails if there are spaces in filenames

<comment><USER13> That's much better than what the parent wants. Almost always whenever I write any script almost 25% of the time is spent ensuring it doesn't break due to spaces or special unescaped characters.

<comment><USER11> You already have that. Just write your script in one of the countless sane languages that are #!-able.

<comment><USER12> until your script needs to launch/spawn another app/script/command/program.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't necessarily have to be a major hassle. With my homemade Lisp, here's a quick and dirty shorthand for running external programs (ultimately boiling down to fork+exec):

        (extend-parser "!"
                       (mac (cmd) `(apply run (map to-string ',cmd))))

        !(sed "s/foo/bar/" README)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Only typing the man page of the Bourne shell will take at least a few days.

<comment><USER14> Not to mention the time it takes to think it up, i.e. make the design decisions.

"That's not writing, that's typing", as someone once put it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is more to writing a shell than simply reading commands and executing them after fork()ing. TTY handling must be done right¹ and interrupt and signal handling is rather tricky to get right as well².

(Not to mention, of course, that a Unix shell is very cumbersome to use without pipes and redirection. EDIT: Pipes are implemented, but not redirection?)

1\. [http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/](http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/)

2\. [https://www.cons.org/cracauer/sigint.html](https://www.cons.org/cracauer/sigint.html)

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if you watched the video or read its description, but pipes are the focus of this implementation. He describes pipes as "the core of the UNIX shell" in the video. I suppose that is somewhat up for debate, but building complex tasks out of composable pieces is certainly up there among UNIX's design goals, and pipes are a big part of that. OTOH, his implementation does not seem to cover output redirection à la `exec` (file-based, file-descriptor- based, or named-pipe).

<comment><USER15> I read the description, but must have missed the part about pipes; oops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised there are no comments about the video itself.

How was this video made? Imagine trying to make it. What would you do? You need to write the code, but do you do it before or after you write the script? Or do you write the script after you write up the code so you know how to produce it?

Everything flows so smoothly. It's mesmerizing to watch. It's like code appears as fast as he can talk. But in a natural way, where it seems like it's typed as he's talking. But he certainly isn't typing it in realtime.

I'd like to make videos like this too, so I'd like to learn more about how to produce one.

<comment><AUTHOR> That typing is in realtime! I rehearse screencasts until they flow naturally like you see here; there's no content editing and no script. I basically record the whole thing from beginning to end, over and over, until it doesn't change significantly from run to run and I don't feel it catching anywhere.

I do edit out pauses to breathe, to drink water, sometimes to double-check my thinking about what to do next, and occasionally to open a second terminal and check something.

Destroy All Software is six years old, so I've had a lot of practice. Most DAS screencasts require a couple hours of initial silent prep, then around 10 full runs from beginning to end. When it starts to flow well (run #5, give or take), I fire up ScreenFlow and start doing each run as if it might be the final published version (because it might actually be). With these longer "from scratch" screencasts, I only make one or two attempts per day; by then my throat and brain are both pretty tired.

I also live stream these on Twitch before making the final version, so you can see the sausage being made if you like! It's basically the same as what you saw in this video, but the pauses are there, you get to hear me become confused sometimes and comment on my mistakes, and there's a bit of Q&A afterward. The schedule isn't fixed, but I try to tweet with a couple hours' notice ([https://twitter.com/garybernhardt](https://twitter.com/garybernhardt)).

<comment><USER17> I learned a whole lot from your DAS screencasts! They came along at a time when I was leaving my first software dev job where I had spent a decade doing things the way they had always been done there. Things like automated testing, MVC, and for the most part web development were all completely new to me. I bet I watched most of them more times than you ran through them making them. I would watch them over and over until I understood the concept, then find places at work to apply what you taught me. Thanks for making them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Such negative Nellies. This is why I don't publish anymore. You try to teach people something fun, and show people you can do quite a lot with very little. But it's nothing but criticism, and none of it constructive.

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends on where you look. Hacker News is pathologically tilted toward negative sentiment, usually in the form of look-how-smart-I-am. I also announce these screencasts on Twitter, where the the response is universally positive (in six years, I can't remember a single rudely negative comment about a Destroy All Software screencast). Not that Twitter lacks its own problems, of course!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Was expecting more guns, car chases, exotic city backgrounds, and slightly- above-average women from the new Bourne shell. Turns out it's just a command line interpreter. Two stars.

<comment><USER20> Funny, but the shell's namesake is pretty badass himself [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_R._Bourne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_R._Bourne)

<comment><USER15> "[…] _at one time Bell Labs had two Stephen R. Bournes with offices along the same hallway._ "¹

— Eric Allman

1\. [http://www.sendmail.org/~ca/email/README.cf.8.8.html](http://www.sendmail.org/~ca/email/README.cf.8.8.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Will this video eventually be paywall'd as well?

<comment><USER22> The video has a download button (right click save as also works) if you want to save it for later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm impressed that destroyallsoftware is able to put their screencast library behind a $30/mo paywall. Am I the only one who thinks that's high?

<comment><USER24> When you set up a paywall, you cut the number of people who will consume your content by a ton, and then you have to set the price pretty high to make a living.

<comment><USER22> The reverse being that with a ton of people that watch your free content you will probably make less than what the author currently makes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> But 'ls' already has built-in sorting.

</comment><comment><USER26> I was so disappointed that they chose Ruby. I would have been impressed if they had chosen bare C and still manage to build it under 35 minutes.

<comment><USER27> For my system programming class we had to write a Unix shell in C. I procrastinated and wrote the whole thing in one 38-hour caffeine-fueled sprint on a 32-bit SPARC SunStation. I don't think it supported pipes but it did support input/output redirection and ANDing of commands. Not my best product, but some of my best work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This was one of the projects in my Unix class in college. And yeah, it took about 35 minutes. :)</comment>


Backlift beta now open, featuring auth, validation and auto refresh - <AUTHOR> https://www.backlift.com/index.html

<comment><USER2> Backlift seems like a great tool thank you for taking this step! I was setup in 5 minutes. The writing on the setup docs is straightforward so I think I could pass your link on to "less techy" friends and they would be able to be up and running quickly. The general docs are also well written. I am curious and have two questions: 1. Is the data stored in CouchDB, Mongo or other? and 2. The docs mention "eventually... deploying production websites used by millions." Please can you tell us the eventual date? Also I would like local development but I think I can guess that you guys will not prioritize this as your target users might not make it through the conversion funnel of getting the software setup on their own computers. All-in-all, bravo, I think you are on to something great here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The database is mongo. We can't put a date on production yet. Local development is a feature we've thought about a lot. Our servers rely on several third party tools, and ensuring those are available locally would amount to building a package management system, or having a lot of dependencies. We think part of the value proposition of backlift is its minimal installation, and both of those strategies add complexity. We have, however, tried to make backlift work with external build tools. So in theory you could use backlift with something like brunch.io.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> After reading this post, and trying backlift out, which by the way looks Very promising and easy to use (to boot)!

I came across the following bug: <https://github.com/backlift/docs/issues/1>

Cant wait for it to be resolved so I can give backlift a good go.

</comment><comment><USER4> I got a beta invite about a week ago, but after reading how they only want you to use JST templates and such I avoided it. Is this actually the case or is that just the standard template (and documentation) recommendation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cole from backlift here. It's a temporary limitation. We just haven't integrated other template libraries yet. If you shoot us an email at support at backlift.com with the template library you use, we'll prioritize it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Had a quick run through over lunch - looks _really_ promising :)

Going to use it to rapid prototype an app this week - just one thing, any prospect of coffeescript in the pipeline?

</comment><comment><USER6> nice stuff I will try it, but how is it going to work in The future? there is no information about this anywhere... maybe it's free for first adopters :) ?

<comment><USER6> no answer whatsoever, not even a "it will be charged but we don't know how much yet" How can I start to develop something real there without knowing that ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. You've got it. We arent sure yet. It depends a on what kind of people get most excited about backlift. Will our users be mostly designers? People just learning how to code? Will people want to deploy production websites with backlift or use it primarily for rapid prototyping? I think different answers may point to very different pricing models.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> awesome stuff. will try it out over the weekend. would be nice to have some sort of backend storage a la StackMob.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't Backlift have that?

""" Give the database dude a break. Backlift offers a full back-end-as-a- service including:

Data persistence and validation that works with backbone's sync mechanism """

Looks pretty awesome, I'm thinking of playing around with it this weekend as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go in terms of explaining to your users how to get a dev environment set up, but:

on OS X you need to run `brew install libyaml` before you install backlift via easy_install

Also the correct flag for easy_install is --upgrade, not --update.

<comment><AUTHOR> Libyaml is not a requirement, the installer will fallback to a pure python yaml library if libyaml isn't available. It does report a rather confusing error, however, before completing the install. If this wasn't the case for you please shoot me an email at support at backlift.com so I can investigate. Thanks for catching the upgrade/update error.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Suggestions on good resources to get started with 'OM.Next' - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> \- Intro by David Nolen: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByNs9TG30E8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByNs9TG30E8)

\- Github docs: [https://github.com/omcljs/om/wiki/Quick- Start-%28om.next%29](https://github.com/omcljs/om/wiki/Quick- Start-%28om.next%29)</comment>


OwnCloud 4.0 just released - <AUTHOR> http://owncloud.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> <https://gitorious.org/owncloud>

ownCloud began at a KDE community event in 2010, aiming to bring greater flexibility, access and security to data in the cloud. ownCloud enables universal access to files through the widely implemented WebDAV standard, providing a platform to easily view and sync contacts, calendars and bookmarks across devices while supporting sharing, viewing and editing via the web interface. Installation has minimal server requirements, doesn't need special permissions and is quick. ownCloud is extendable via a simple, powerful API for applications.

With more than 450,000 users, ownCloud offers the ease-of-use of Dropbox with more flexibility and security. ownCloud users can run their own file sync and share services on their own hardware and storage, use popular public hosting and storage offerings, or both.

Other major improvements:

\- Drag & Drop File Uploading – Enables end users to upload a file from a browser without installing a client. Simply open a browser, log in and then drag from the desktop into the ownCloud window.

\- Shared Calendars and Calendar categories – End users can sync their own calendar, but also share their calendar with others, enabling them to see and schedule appointments while looking at the user's schedule.

\- File Encryption – new server side encryption increases file security while at rest – not even server admins can look at these encrypted files while they reside on the server.

\- ownCloud 4 also adds a to-do syncing plug-in, improved contacts and groups, improved file sharing, enhanced the photo gallery, improved system performance, easier installation of third party plug-ins and more. Complete details can be found <http://owncloud.org/features>.

...if it would only sync FBReader bookmarks and FireFox tabs/bookmarks á la read it later across devices...

</comment><comment><USER2> If you're involved in this project, please fix one thing on your website: What on earth is this?

You need a simple statement of what the project actually achieves for me, not random promises of "versioning" or pictures of calendars. I've no idea why I need them.

Rob Walling's "Promise to verb your noun" is a great way to quickly get something up.

Edit: Just read about it on Wikipedia. Now I get it.

<comment><USER3> I read their webpage and thought the same thing. They should just add a <h1> tag to the website that reads "Bring Cloud Storage to your own Hardare" above their main graphic.

<comment><USER4> me too... I had absolutely no idea what it is. It's funny to think that people can build a site and forget to check for things like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Careful with their encryption: [http://crypto.junod.info/2012/05/24/owncloud-4-0-and- encrypt...](http://crypto.junod.info/2012/05/24/owncloud-4-0-and-encryption/)

<comment><USER6> Summary of the link:

OwnCloud is using Mersenne Twister (not secure) seeded by time of day and PID (which is not nearly enough entropy) to generate keys. The encryption is done in ECB mode, which leaks data ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher_modes_of_operatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher_modes_of_operation#Electronic_codebook_.28ECB.29)). The encryption key is stored in the clear in session data, which usually resides in /tmp.

There's more, but those seem to be the worst parts.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for the useful summary. I wish more people did that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What makes something a "cloud" and not a "directory manager"?

Why is for example <http://code.google.com/p/relay/> not a cloud solution? Is it only a marketing term or does functionality like being able to syncing from multiple devices make something a cloud?

<comment><USER9> It's more than just a directory manager. It is also an extendable platform, see <http://apps.owncloud.com/>

<comment><USER8> I am not sayin that is just a directory manager. Just starting the discussion to give "cloud" a more substantive meaning.

If "extendable" is the criteria, then any directory manager is a cloud because you can easily write a plugin and extend the functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems ownCloud is trying to be everything sync at a single time and not really performing upto the mark !

Though I understood it after visiting some pages, was really confused on visiting their front page as to what the product is about.

Skeptic about how successful they would be.

<comment><USER11> > Skeptic about how successful they would be.

They are releasing version 4. I'd assume some success on versions 1 through 3 or the project would have been abandoned.

I'm curious on how it performs with thousands of users. I'll probably run a few tests.

And brush up my PHP.

<comment><USER12> I was psyched about contributing to this awesome project so I immediately checked out the core. Then i saw it's written in php........... never mind :(

<comment><USER11> It is possible to write elegant PHP. All it takes is discipline.

Besides, being a PHP application, you may even be able to deploy it to shared hosting. Not bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice work. But the demo gets suck in some sort of infinite loop trying to log in...

<comment><USER14> Same here, tried in Chrome and Opera, same result.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Although I like the idea of syncing my files in one place and managing it myself, it would hard for me to commit to using a PHP application for such an critical task.

</comment><comment><USER16> Congratulations on the 4.0 release. Can't wait to try it out.

</comment><comment><USER17> it looks great except the search feature seems insufficient.</comment>


Everything a Competent iOS 7 Developer Needs to Know [Graphic] - <AUTHOR> https://www.codefellows.org/blogs/everything-a-competent-ios-developer-needs-to-know

<comment><USER2> You don't need to know git or cocoapods. In fact I had to just look up cocoapods as I've never heard of it. It seems it uses Ruby, which explains why I've never heard of it, as I don't use Ruby. I guess I'm incompetent (or perhaps just not cool :)

<comment><USER3> Git has become pretty synonymous with source control management, which is definitely valuable for a mobile dev, and a first class citizen of Xcode now. So, makes sense for it to be there.

Cocoapods is a great project -- basically makes it a _lot_ less painful to deal with 3rd party libraries.

However, in general I think junior developers rely way too heavily on 3rd party libraries.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what you mean 'synonymous' \- svn has a higher user base (according to the eclipse community survey).

<comment><USER3> Wasn't saying one is better than the other, but I'm biased because I primarily use git :)

Xcode supports both, though git is enabled by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really neat graphic.

I would have maybe brought design patterns higher up the tree and have the Apple Frameworks underneath them.

Reason being that it's more important to know how to use/approach the frameworks than it is to be completely versed in all of them. They often follow the same delegation patterns, etc. Knowing how to approach the documentation and look in the header files for help is -- to me -- primary to the details of the frameworks themselves.

</comment><comment><USER4> The fact that you are developing "at the pleasure of the King" seems to be missing. It's a good thing for Apple users to know as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty neat to see a rouge map of iOS knowledge drawn up like this. Makes you realize you know more than you think. It's interesting when you compare all of this against someone who is first learning to develop for iOS (or anything software related). You gain an appreciation for all the hurdles a newbie coming to the field has that an experienced developer takes for granted.

<comment><AUTHOR> We made it for our students and figured we could share it with the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The subscribe to mailing list is not working, I tried in both Firefox and Chrome.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the online press service to read N articles from different sites - <AUTHOR> What is the service that lets subscribers read a given amount of articles in a series of publications, for a given price tag?<p>It has been mentioned here, in HN comments, a while ago, but I could not find it. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you. <comment><USER2> I only know of [https://blendle.com](https://blendle.com), pay-per-article.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not think it's the one I was thinking about, but this one is very interesting. Thank you for sharing</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ads provider for charity? - p-c-p

I have a small website that I created just as a hobby project (http://pcp-comics.com/). The website receives ~50k visitors per month.
Is there an ads provider that I can use where the money directly goes to a charity of my choice. I know I can use AdSense and similar, get the money and then donate it to charity, but I don't want to deal with W-2 and tax filing.
If it works through ad blocker then it will be a plus. Thanks ! <comment><AUTHOR> Don't have an answer for the question, but how about coming up with a list of charities you want to support and seeing if they are interested in advertising directly on the site for free?

<comment> p-c-p That is helpful. Thanks ! :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you watch Infrastructure/DevOps Screencasts? - joe-stanton I've found that many of my colleagues are eager to learn more about modern infrastructure techniques. In an effort to become more full-stack and better support some of our apps in production. This is especially true of developers arriving via Code Schools rather than from a traditional CS background.
Topic Ideas:

  * Docker/Containerisation (ECS)
  * Service Discovery (Etcd, Serf, Consul)
  * Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible etc.)
  * Monitoring techniques
  * Capacity planning
  * Security best practices
 There doesn't seem to be much out there addressing this "need", except https://sysadmincasts.com/ which seems abandoned these days.
Would this kind of screencast be of interest to anyone? I'm thinking I could charge a subscription fee for it. Small bite size lessons. Any further thoughts or topic ideas?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Hey, Justin from [https://sysadmincasts.com/](https://sysadmincasts.com/) here. Ah, not abandoned just hard to find time. It was taking about 2-3 hours per minute of video if you include all the researching and editing. After joining Docker I just did not have any spare time. Want to get back to it eventually.. one day :) It was incredibly rewarding building something that people find useful and I still get emails every few days from people.. saying "Thanks!". If you go down this road -- at least there is that! It also opened lots of doors. In that a resume was almost irrelevant. So, having said all that, you cannot really go too wrong by helping people, learning new technologies, having doors opened for you, etc. Even if you make no money, like I was (compared to what a company will pay you), you can still do really well.

I created kind of a checklist of things that made the site somewhat successful @ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9837727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9837727).

Some personal thoughts if you go down this path. It take a long time to build a following (think 1+ years). Make sure you get RSS feed & email list going from day one (this was a big selling point). I went down the subscription path and was making about $1-2k/month (at $14/month). That was after spending a year putting in 60 hour weeks. Transcripts and diagrams came in really handy in driving traffic to the site. Google was really helpful in building a following. Not saying it cannot be done just that you need to really love what you're doing (in that you'll want to give up before you see a return). Do not skimp on production quality. Having highly edited content with premium audio makes these worth watching (that's the differentiator from other content). Just watch railscasts.com and you will instantly see that quality vs some random youtube videos.

Burnout can also be a real thing here. You paint yourself into somewhat of a corning, in that you are charging a monthly free, for something that requires creative juices. I found there to be real pressure to produce new and exciting content, but what if it is not polished enough or up to your production quality control bar? Might be a good idea to have somewhat of a backlog so that you fall back on in the event you have writers block. I had a few episode, where I just could not write for a couple weeks, or the content was just not up to my production standards yet. You'll also find that as you progress into writing something, you'll think of a much better way to tell the story, then you'll want to re-write on a tight timeline. It was brutal having to produce on a timeline like that.

<comment> joe-stanton Wow, thanks for the response Justin. Very useful to get your perspective on this. I have some teaching experience (Code Schools etc.) but this would be my first attempt at screencasting. Very useful to hear some of these issues first hand!

<comment><USER2> Feel free to ping me (email in profile) if you have any questions, want to chat, or need advice.

<comment> joe-stanton You're too kind! If I pursue this, I will definitely be in touch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You know what is more important for a infrastructure/devops engineer, previously simply called "sysadmin"? Understanding several compilers and interpreters (and actually learning several programming languages). Unix C API (fork(), exec(), file descriptors, pipes, sockets, and others). Understanding how services daemonize and how they log. Learning how packaging systems work, how to build a new package, and how to install it. Learning what can be read/detected about the system and what does this information mean. Learning how does the networking work (address configuration, resolver, routing, firewall, packet inspection). Traditional networking helpers, along with several protocols carried out by hand. NSS and PAM, and how the accounts work. And many, many more _basic_ things.

I've never seen anybody understanding the basics, who would have any trouble picking up anything that was a fad in the last ten years _from its documentation directly_. On the other hand, I've seen Docker or Ansible fanboys that couldn't unify accounts across dozen servers in a sensible way, despite their "modern automation" tools.

And screencasts are the second most useless way of conveying technical material (the top one being podcasts). You can't skim through the material, you can't search it, you can't copy-paste it, you can't print its fragments, it's inherently hard to navigate.

<comment><USER4> I share your sentiment that there are way too many copy-paste "devops" people in the industry these days; I always thought the idea was to hire people with both sysadmin and coding skills, yet a perplexingly high proportion of people I interact with these days have neither. I'd never choose to hire somebody who can't describe a tcp handshake, explain what epoll_wait() does or whiteboard a hashtable, but that's the state of our industry (and, probably, why those of us who can are in such high demand...)

Nonetheless, it seems silly to complain about a lack of knowledge and then complain about somebody trying to share knowledge. I've definitely wanted to lock coworkers in a room with a copy of _The_Linux_Programming_Interface_ before, but maybe a video series on similar topics would be better-received.

<comment><USER5> How does it feel to know these devop types are a decade younger and make the same if not more money than you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Definitely interested.

btw, I love [https://sysadmincasts.com](https://sysadmincasts.com) and would love to see more sites like it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would watch it.

So, essentially the egghead.io for Infrastructure/DevOps. If you made it cheaper than egghead.io I would sign up.

</comment><comment><USER8> Its not as visual as screen casts, but I would go for a podcast. When I have downtime or I am driving, this is my preferred learning medium.

<comment><USER9> Which podcasts are you listening for the purpose of learning?

<comment><USER8> I picked up a few tech podcasts off this thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836023)

My other method is to use the discover podcast feature. The Pocket casts app I use, has a discover option that lets me search for new podcasts by keyword. I think it just goes to one of the major podcast indices and pulls from there but I am not 100% sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would definitely be interested in this.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm interested

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm in.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER14> It would be really cool to find the sweet-spot between "twitch.tv-like free- for-all that eventually devolves like medium did" and "site run by select group of individuals that eventually develop a clique" \- somewhere that lets enough people post so nobody gets too burnt out, but not so many people that it's just like the million and one other videos of this sort of thing on YouTube.

Basically find the balance between supply and demand so that most subscribers have watched _all_ of a given uploader's past videos, while new users won't feel like they have 1000TB of old content they need to go through to catch up.

It wasn't until I read WestCoastJustin's comment ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11670868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11670868)) that I thought that something like this might be run as a top-down project with a chartered (for want of a better word) set of specific contributors - <AUTHOR> initial interpretation was a social approach, where many people could upload videos and become well-known for their experience in specific areas (but still following along with a set of themes specific to your site).

What might be really cool is a system of competitions/incentives/rewards that encourage people to submit high-quality content, along with eg funding small events/hackathons/the like. That sounds like it would be a lot of fun!

Besides DevOps and infrastructure I would also highly recommend you add "enough focus on current programming languages to fully comprehend devops from the dev side of the fence" \- focusing on how the engine works without driving the car and seeing the scenery will be boring :D (Translation: go maybe one or two steps beyond TodoMVC, but leave it at that. Then people's appetites have been whetted - which is kind of the idea!)

On a slightly less positive note, this concept reminds me of a service that provides screencasting services for programmers; one of the founders (who may have (had(?)) some mental health issues) who began accusing a video uploader of certain actions in a very confusing way. Not drawing any conclusions myself; the comments (go to your HN settings (username, top-right) and turn _showdead_ on to see them all) are over here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476)

I first learned about that service a few months before the linked events happened, and I'd initially filed the site away as something that might potentially be fun to use; I'm not sure how I would proceed to use that service now that this has happened, because I wouldn't want to be caught up in a similarly bewildering sequence of events myself.

Since DevOps is a very interesting subject to me, a site like this would fill a definite hole. I can't promise I'd immediately be able to use the site myself (for current specific reasons that may for all I know have changed by the time the site is up) - but the idea sounds really cool.</comment>


Show HN: Full screen mobile app (PWA) of TikTok for Porn (NSFW) - <AUTHOR> https://siksok.app/ <comment><AUTHOR> To create my dream nsfw app, I have been working on this for long weeks.

You can add the app on your mobile phone's home screen and play videos full screen as a Progressive Web App.

For iOS: click Share on Safari -> Add to home screen

For Android: click 3 dots on Chrome -> Add to home screen

Features:

\- Tiktok-like algorithm

\- Always shows a different new video anytime you use it

\- Fast loading of videos

\- Likes/favorites. Saving and listing likes offline in the browser storage without login.

\- Fully anonymous, no login is required

\- Up/down keyboard access

\- Videos are updated automatically

\- AI to detect video content

</comment><comment><USER2> Would like a "download video" button.

Half of the fun of browsing nsfw content is to download the interesting videos.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. I just didn't want to fill the screen with so many buttons however downloading will surely come on next versions.</comment></comment>


Javascript is making all other languages irrelevant. You must master it now. - <AUTHOR> http://projectricochet.com/blog/javascript-making-all-other-languages-irrelevant-and-why-you-must-master-it-now

<comment><USER2> Yes, you should master JavaScript -- it's used all over the web and people will continue using it that way. But I disagree it's making all other languages irrelevant and that it's a "game changer". Devices are not going to be coded in JS any time soon (the runtime isn't robust enough and the language is not designed to be used that way). Yes, people may use asm.js more and more to convert bigger programs to run on the web, which is super cool, but asm.js isn't JavaScript.

So master JavaScript, but then learn Rust, Elixir, Go, Haskell, and Lisp, too. These are as much "game changers" as anything else.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Devices are not going to be coded in JS any time soon"

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really think the JS madness is getting to an absurd level here on HN.

I understand how it's geting more popular but there really is a whole world outside of webdev.

Systems programming, AAA games, simulators and embedded software are not switching over to JS any time soon.

<comment><USER4> It isn't absurd, Javascript is everywhere and it is shipping on almost every new device. That isn't shared by many other languages except C and C++. It is even showing up outside of webdev all together, mobile and server side. I definitely agree it won't replace systems programming, and where native speed and performance is paramount, it'll struggle there too. But it will progressively infringe on those spaces, including games and other types of programming. The business need for a language that can be used on so many platforms will be hard to resist, impossible to resist. And the fringe cases where other development is needed will become more niche and competitive, while JS will flourish with opportunity for some time to come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That guy lost his touch with reality living in that Drupal land.

"...Different languages come with more than just a different syntax, they also come with their own way of thinking...". This is of course bad, because naturally we don't need Erlangs, Scalas, F#s, SQLs, Haskells, X(*)MLs, telling us there is a different way to approach a problem. Just give us the good ol' Hammer.JS! It's perfect for any task!

Required reading for author: asm.js, LLVM, TypeScript.

PS: if the world goes mad and he turns out right we will have a _really_ good reason to leave for start ups.

<comment><USER4> I didn't say they were inherently bad, but they can be. They often keep people thinking in old ways.

<comment><USER6> Well JS is keeping you thinking in pretty ancient ways. The "ideas" in JS are so old that you need quotes around the word. This sounds like from a Blub programmer. I'd better add a reference because Blub programers don't know what Blub means: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(computer_programme...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_\(computer_programmer\)#Blub)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reflects my inception, too. Not only in webdevelopment, but desktop-apps and mobile stuff is developed in JS, too.

I even heard, that: Win8 Metro Apps are developed with HTML5 stuff and Apple is building a JS Bridge to their Cocoa APIs. But i have no sources currently.

If this is true, there will be one language to rule them all. It's not the prettiest one, but that's what meta-languages like coffeescript are for (if you want).

(Projects like ASM.js (near native speed) or Emscripten (transcompile many languages like C++ to JS) are pushing towards this direction even further!)

<comment><USER5> ASM.js is actually a JavaScript killer. It's a hope-giving possibility of not having to touch JS whatsoever.

<comment><USER7> perfect world for me: write in coffeescript and compile to asm.js for raw performance :)

<comment><USER8> I don't think you know what asm.js is

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "You must master is now." Most certainly true. If not for production, you will at least use if d for communication of your work on the Internet.

"JavaScript is making all other languages irrelevant" Hogwash. Many many languages out there have something to offer you intellectually and professionally. Saying they are all now irrelevant is naïve and the path to mediocrity.

<comment><USER7> For intellectual fun and profit, there is an increasing number of "meta"-languages out there which compile to javascript. See Coffeescript and Livescript for Example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Politics is unworthy of discussion yet an article like this is acceptable? If Javascript is making all other languages irrelevant why does the world have Coffeescript, Clojurescript, and so on and so forth?

<comment><USER11> You know that those languages produce Javascript in the end correct? If anything wouldn't that just support this argument?

<comment><USER12> The argument is "You must master javascript". If other languages compile to javascript - then you needn't master javascript, you can master those other languages.

So no, this does not just support this argument. There are other languages to learn.

<comment><AUTHOR> When Steve wrote this article, his point was Javascript or anything that creates Javascript. Or actually, we don't even really care about Javascript, just the portability and qualities we get from it and its derivatives or offshoots. Another suitable title would be "Server side only thinking is dead".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Roblox follows Minecraft into the education market - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/31/roblox-follows-minecraft-into-the-education-market/ <comment><USER2> I am parent to three kids and am encouraging and happy to see them playing minecraft - the local lan facility is where almost all their online playtime goes.

But roblox, after a ton of pestering we downloaded it, i don't know who messaged my kids, i don't know who ran round setting people on fire. honestly i don't care. in the remainder bin of history

<comment><USER3> Roblox also has IMO some dark UI patterns intended to make kids buy things in the game. Minecraft is a much healthier game.

<comment><USER4> Microtransactions have no place in any game, let alone one directed at kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hilariously enough, Roblox provides what is likely one of the best programming/development environments for a game targeting a very young audience. Making a change of any sort to Minecraft is needlessly arcane; decompile, deobfuscate, no official tooling, no API, boatloads of incompatible attempts at implementing one, etc. Although I guess it would prepare kids for the reality of "buttons-to-push-the-buttons" software engineering, Roblox is the development process that could have been, but wasn't.

</comment><comment><USER6> They should fix their mess, so it would work in Wine[1]. Or better release it for Linux to begin with.

1\. [https://github.com/roblox-linux-wrapper/roblox-linux- wrapper...](https://github.com/roblox-linux-wrapper/roblox-linux- wrapper/issues/135)</comment>


We put Caddy 2.0.0 head to head against a ranking heavyweight, Apache 2.4.41 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/caddy-offers-tls-https-and-more-in-one-dependency-free-go-web-server/ <comment><AUTHOR> The official title of the article is "Caddy offers TLS, HTTPS, and more in one dependency-free Go Web server"

But I felt it has nothing to do with the content of the article at all. So I used its subtitle instead.</comment>


Quantum Computers and the future of Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> Bitcoin was created in 2009 which means this technology is almost 10 years old. Think about it... What phone or computer you had in 2009?
The main thread against Bitcoin in addition to Futures is the fact that it's not Quantum resistant. Quantum computers will be released to the public soon.
Right now it's not the question IF, but the question WHEN ...
Here are some thoughts about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EXz3EPi7dM <comment><USER2> > _Quantum computers will be released to the public soon._

Don't believe all the hype and don't worry because a general quantum computer with enough qbits will take a long long time. At least 20 years ... [https://xkcd.com/678/](https://xkcd.com/678/)</comment>


What tech stack to use for users in environments with bad internet? - <AUTHOR> I'm building a web app where many of the users' access to the internet will often be sporadic and low speed. I'm wondering what kind of stack is best suited for this situation? Is a client-side JS framework a no-no? Should I prioritise performance when choosing a backend language? How would one run the servers? Which database technology?, etc. The app itself should be a fairly simple CRUD app but will require loading lots of images, files, etc. <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/pazguille/offline- first](https://github.com/pazguille/offline-first) is a good starting point.</comment>


Google's "iLost" Motorola ad faked an address to "lose" iOS 6 Maps - <AUTHOR> http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/152941/googles-ilost-motorola-ad-faked-an-address-to-lose-ios-6-maps

<comment><USER2> I would say just as in most ads these are half-truths.

I think this article[0] hits the nail on the head in that Motorola/Google are promoting the fact that something that is pretty much gibberish such as "315 e 15th ny" can be translated into a pretty accurate address of what the user wants. Again like one of the top comment in the thread about the Ontario map comparison. It's not about the visualization of the maps, it's not about the data, it's about search. Apple just does not have search down very well in general.

I think that a big thing Google Maps had over most other services was to estimate pretty well what the user is looking for even if he only has a slight idea of what he's actually looking for. And to be fair sometimes Google corrects my search results WAY too much. I can't think of examples right now but there are times where the synonym they use for a search term isn't actually a synonym in context to what I'm looking for.

Anyways all this Map discussion on HN has me pretty exhausted about talking about maps for a really long time.

PS. Reading that forum thread, I can understand the accusations that Google is lying, but the ones where people are replying to people who try to interject that Apple's Maps aren't up to snuff getting replies like, "Do people even use Maps that much?", or "Do you get lost that much" is pretty sad.

[0] [http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/did-googles- motorola-...](http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/did-googles-motorola- fake-an-ad-critical-of-apples-maps-nope?utm_campaign=tmo_story_sidebar)

<comment><USER3> Why would you say the user wants the manhattan address and not the Brooklyn address? If somebody actually had 315 written down on a piece of paper because that's where their friend lives, Brooklyn is the address they want. When would a user want to go to manhattan _and_ have that address?

<comment><USER2> I don't follow. The address in Brooklyn lists 315 Marlborough Road.

<comment><USER3> Because Marlborough Road and E 15th St are the same road.

<comment><USER2> There are plenty of roads like that, but if you wanted to get to somewhere on Street X, the correct location shouldn't be Street Y on the same road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm really not a fan of these ads. I'm sure it's very schadenfreude watching what's happened with Apple's Maps from the other side, but I would have liked to see Google/Motorola take the high road on this one and not come out with ads like these.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hate to be that guy, but how is this even related to HN? Why are a lot of these apple maps related submissions getting upvoted?

<comment><USER6> +1 to that. Apple related posts feature too frequently on here..</comment></comment>


Would Arc benefit from [] replacing ()? - <AUTHOR>

On standard qwerty keyboards, typing [], which can be typed with just your pinkie, seems far easier than typing (), which requires at least two fingers and movement of your right hand.  What do you all think? <comment><USER2> You may find it easier to convince everyone else to revise the qwerty standard. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought it was worth a try. It just seemed so.. natural. Not to look at, just to type.

<comment><USER3> I do a lot more looking than typing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-t echo -e "keycode 18 = 9 bracketleft\nkeycode 19 = 0 bracketright\nkeycode 34 = parenleft braceleft\nkeycode 35 = parenright braceright" >> ~/.Xmodmap

xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

Cheers! 8)

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, that works too. Unique solution.. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> hmm, out of habit, I hit [] with my middle and ring fingers, which requires the same slight movement of my right hand that typing () does. maybe I need to break the habit.</comment>


60% of YouTube's video ads are skippable - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/video/more-than-half-of-all-youtube-video-ads-are-skippable/ <comment><USER2> 100% of YouTube's video ads are adblockable.</comment>


Flares –  CloudFlare DNS backup tool - sahin-boydas https://github.com/lfaoro/flares <comment><AUTHOR> Neat. Stack Overflow made a similar too that let's you easily push DNS records to multiple providers (ala DNS infrastructure as code)

[https://github.com/StackExchange/dnscontrol](https://github.com/StackExchange/dnscontrol)

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/srecon17americas/program/p...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/srecon17americas/program/presentation/peterson)

<comment><USER2> Any reasons why I'd use this over Terraform?

<comment><USER3> Maybe if you're allergic to HCL :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. I just backup the DNS records manually ([https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/ZONE_ID/dns_recor...](https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/ZONE_ID/dns_records/export)) but this seems like it would be useful too

</comment><comment><USER5> Please don't put "Show HN" on titles unless it's your own personal work.

Please read [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).

<comment><USER6> This is actually, my work :)</comment></comment>


Things I learned from my Siberian airbnb guest - <AUTHOR> http://gatech.tumblr.com/post/35436901714/5-things-i-learned-from-my-siberian-airbnb-guest

<comment><USER2> This is why I switched from staying in hotels to AirBnB houses. The best place turned out to be Startup House where I am currently staying longer than anywhere else in a month. As my current startup stabilizes, I intend to live in more cities not just in US but all over the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it's true. You get to know the town much better as well by living through Airbnb. Traveling at hotels makes you feel more like a tourist while Airbnb allows you to live as natives of the destination.</comment></comment>


Paper Phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1383903/PaperPhone-The-smartphone-paper-shape-pocket.html

<comment><USER2> The thinness is definitely cool! But controlling the device through bending gestures doesn't seem all that intuitive. I would rather have a thicker easy- to-use phone. Next step is to get touch screen on that.</comment>


Ronin: Experimental Graphic Terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Hundredrabbits/Ronin <comment><USER2> Very cool! The screenshots look kind-of-retro (like oscilloscopes), but I guess this is really a window with two panels: A terminal left, the graphics output right. In scientific computing, there are a lot of explorative GUIs like this. Today, most of them embed the graphics between the input lines, such as IPython (matplotlib) or Mathematica.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Video tutorial, showing the interplay of code editing and mouse based direct manipulation: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=SgAWGh1s9zg](https://youtube.com/watch?v=SgAWGh1s9zg)</comment>


Julia Child Cooks Primordial Soup (1973) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://massasoit.instructure.com/courses/346438/pages/video-the-primordial-soup-with-julia-child <comment><USER2> As Don Hopkins notes, this was originally part of the National Air and Space Museum's "Life in the Universe" exhibit. I saw it several times there and it's still a treat. For a while, a high quality version was available on YouTube but it was taken down due to a copyright claim by the owner, WGBH Educational Foundation. The Smithsonian Magazine link Don posted has a link to the now- removed video.

</comment><comment><USER3> Only slightly related, but she also helped develop shark repellent for the US government:

[https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story- archive/...](https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story- archive/2015-featured-story-archive/shark-repellent.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> If anyone hasn't seen Cosmos (1980) it's explained and the result of the experiment is shown: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2xly_5Ei3U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2xly_5Ei3U)

</comment><comment><USER5> boy-oh; that list reminds me of the one scene in full-metal alchemist where they list the ingredients that make up a human

<comment><USER6> also, the scene in Breaking Bad where they determine how much of each element is involved in making up a human.

<comment><USER7> Breaking Bad was a great trip in Chemistry basics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Video: The Primordial Soup with Julia Child. (Click on the small thumbnail in the second row with the (>) "play" icon to see the video.)

[https://massasoit.instructure.com/courses/346438/pages/video...](https://massasoit.instructure.com/courses/346438/pages/video- the-primordial-soup-with-julia-child)

The National Air and Space Museum used to show this delightful video in its "Life in The Universe" exhibit, in which Julia Child recreates Stanley Miller's famous experiment, cooking up a delicious hot batch of Primordial Soup!

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/julia-child- an...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/julia-child-and-the- primordial-soup-35465592/)

>Julia Child and the Primordial Soup

>Scientists don't yet know how life began here on Earth. Mineralogist Bob Hazen, who is profiled in the October issue of Smithsonian, thinks that rocks were key to the development of life. Reporter Helen Fields wrote:

>It's the complexity of the hydrothermal vent environment—gushing hot water mixing with cold water near rocks, and ore deposits providing hard surfaces where newly formed amino acids could congregate—that makes it such a good candidate as a cradle of life. "Organic chemists have long used test tubes," he says, "but the origin of life uses rocks, it uses water, it uses atmosphere. Once life gets a foothold, the fact that the environment is so variable is what drives evolution."

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

>The Miller–Urey experiment (or Miller experiment) was a chemical experiment that simulated the conditions thought at the time (1952) to be present on the early Earth and tested the chemical origin of life under those conditions. The experiment at the time supported Alexander Oparin's and J. B. S. Haldane's hypothesis that putative conditions on the primitive Earth favoured chemical reactions that synthesized more complex organic compounds from simpler inorganic precursors. Considered to be the classic experiment investigating abiogenesis, it was conducted in 1952 by Stanley Miller, with assistance from Harold Urey, at the University of Chicago and later the University of California, San Diego and published the following year.

[https://www.wired.com/2009/05/dayintech-0515](https://www.wired.com/2009/05/dayintech-0515)

>May 15, 1953: Cookin' Up Some Primordial Soup

>1953: Stanley Miller, just 23 years old, publishes his landmark work on the production of amino acids, a necessary component of life, in a jar.

<comment><USER8> Here she cooks a diamond. The result is "a very sad sight."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ- mVHoosdI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ-mVHoosdI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I grew up in DC in the 70s, and used to go to the Air and Space Museum all the time. I'm surprised I don't remember having seen this video as a kid.

I love how she uses her well-worn chef's knife as a pointer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Me too! (You might also appreciate the FX show "The Americans" that's set in that era and area. One of the kids on that show had the exact same Star Wars blanket as I did!)

[https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-STAR-WARS-Blanket- Throw-197...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-STAR-WARS-Blanket- Throw-1977-Approx-4-5X6-5FT-EXTREMELY-RARE-/164050327261)

The "Life in the Universe" exhibit was on the first floor of the West wing, from July 1, 1976 through March 1, 1979:

[https://www.si.edu/exhibitions/life-universe-event- exhib-346...](https://www.si.edu/exhibitions/life-universe-event-exhib-3464)

It also featured the original "Powers of Ten" movie:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0)

And they had a cool interactive "Pick-a-Star" display that let you press buttons to select hypothetical planetary systems and extraterrestrial life forms:

[https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/museums- smiths...](https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/museums-smithsonian- institution-si-exhibits-nasm-life-universe-gallery-107-13)

Did you ever see the "Person to Person" Telephone Exhibit in the History and Technology museum? My mom was a docent at the Electricity Discovery Corner, right next to that. So we'd go to the museums every Saturday!

[https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_955](https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_955)

More photos of the "Life in the Universe" exhibit (it was cool and dark and really great place to hang out if you were stoned):

[https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/museums- smiths...](https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/museums-smithsonian- institution-si-exhibits-nasm-life-universe-gallery-107-1976)

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[https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/museums- smiths...](https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/museums-smithsonian- institution-si-exhibits-nasm-life-universe-gallery-107-14)

[https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/museums- smiths...](https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/museums-smithsonian- institution-si-exhibits-nasm-life-universe-gallery-107-15)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How does it taste?</comment>


Web app for finding useless websites - <AUTHOR> https://theuselessweb.com <comment><AUTHOR> The project isn't mine, I found it accidentally. I like that it's silly, playful, not hateful and non-commercial.

My favourite links:

\- [https://cat-bounce.com](https://cat-bounce.com)

\- [http://unicodesnowmanforyou.com](http://unicodesnowmanforyou.com)

\- [https://pointerpointer.com](https://pointerpointer.com)</comment>


Foxconn Reportedly Ending Payouts To Families Of Suicide Victims - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/foxconn-reportedly-ending-payouts-to-families-of-suicide-victims/ <comment><USER2> The phrase "suicide victim" seems odd. How can someone be the victim of an intentional act executed by one's self?

But cold as the company's action might be, perhaps it will help. I believe that in Chinese culture, family responsibilities are very important. Perhaps knowing that their family would benefit from their suicide has been a perverse incentive.

<comment><USER3> I believe the idea is that the victims are the ones left behind (family, loved ones, friends)... not the ones commiting suicide</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any programmers here suffering or suffered from hyperhidrosis? - <AUTHOR> I am a programmer suffering from palmoplantar hyperhidrosis. My hands and feet are always sweating and sticky. It makes using keyboard and mouse (or touching anything) very difficult.
I have tried every possible solution I could find and the doctor suggested except the botox injection and endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007291.htm
Anyone here gone through hyperhidrosis? <comment><USER2> Yes. I have a very strong case of it on my hands. You should buy an iontophoresis machine (I use an Idromed) and do the treatment religiously. It usually takes about 15-20 hrs of treatment (split up over a week or so) for the effect and then maybe an hour a week to maintain. (It also makes for a great excuse to catch up on your Netflix queue).

After iontophoresis I actually can't sweat from my hands (unless I get lazy about maintaining my treatments). This basically feels like a miracle if you have this condition. Iontophoresis is also very safe and very well proven for hyperhidrosis where I have concerns about the long term effects of some of the other treatments. You can also do the same treatment for your feet (I have it on my feet as well but it doesn't impact my day to day enough to do treatment.)

(Also Id caution against ETS. Go onto a hyperhidrosis forum and there are a very large number of people who had ETS that strongly advise against having the surgery)

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a mild case a few years ago that even gave me blisters [1] from time to time. I went to the doctor and since I couldn't find anything to fix it I almost did the sympathectomy, but gave up after knowing that sweating was going to be transferred somewhere else.

At the same time I started to exercise and lose weight and it suddenly went away. I don't know if they are correlated, but that's the only thing I can remember changing in my routine. I went from 90kg (198lbs) to 80kg (176lbs) which has always been my weigth. I'm 1,80m (5.9ft) tall.

1 - [https://edc2.healthtap.com/ht- staging/user_answer/avatars/40...](https://edc2.healthtap.com/ht- staging/user_answer/avatars/405258/large/open- uri20120916-591-1udkh4u.jpeg?1386559181)

</comment><comment><USER4> Botox is very efficient and generally lasts about 3-6 months. In my experience there are no complications and it really does work.

I have not tried it on my hands but according to my sister it is quite uncomfortable, they give local anesthesia for the hands but not for say armpits. Lots of needle pricks is not that fun and I believe you can get some bruises that go away quickly.

The treatment is very quick, about 10-15 minutes. In Sweden it costs about €150 for the injections and €150 for the actual Botox (the Botox cost counts towards insurance scheme to cap medicine costs) if done privately.</comment>


Ask HN: What will you teach your children how money works? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering what you folks will tell your kids about Money, how it works, what to do, differences between working, trading lifetime hours and creating value / assets.
How would you explain it to a child to understand?
Any great resources you know on this topic?
Courious to hear your thoughts!
Patric <comment><USER2> And crypto currency now that they will live in a world full of it

<comment><AUTHOR> What are you going to tell them about crypto?

<comment><USER3> That it's short for cryptography.</comment></comment></comment>


Rescuing Nokia? A former exec has a radical plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/22/nokia_manifesto_risku/

<comment><USER2> From the article.

"Essentially, Nokia has forgotten how to bring innovative products to market. This is despite a rich R&D base, which has pioneered many of the innovations competitors now feature. Instead, a risk-averse bureaucracy has grown up that stifles innovation – it makes progress slow or non-existent."

An old and familiar story.

"his diagnosis may be familiar, but the proposals quite radical. ... a bloodbath of middle managers – starting with 300 to 500 staff at senior VP, VP or director level. This he calls a GRO program, or Get-Rid-Of."

Yahoo had 300 or so VPs before its fall. How do companies end up with five _hundred_ \+ VPs? What value do they provide exactly? (Genuine question, not snark. From what I've seen _most_ people at VP level spend all their time in internecine politics)

Does anyone know how many VPs Apple has? or Google? (though I suspect , with no proof or numbers, that the latter would have relatively high numbers, given the "middle agedness" Google seems to demonstrate these days)

<comment><USER3> But what does "VP" mean? These titles are distributed pretty liberally, do not have a consistent rank/role across employers, and tend to represent very different things between say the UK, US and Finland. E.g - look at your average investment bank: VP is basically rank-and-file, and form the core group of the people that do the work.

<comment><USER2> "But what does "VP" mean? "

Good Question. At Yahoo (and other places like Intuit) these guys are about two rungs from the CEO. That is the sense in which I used it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have worked in Nokia as consultant for almost a year and I have always wondered how Nokia became Nokia, given they way they managed software development internally. Several consultancy companies were working on the same project - a communication nightmare and developers with little or no experience were brought on board. But, as the book suggests, the main issue was coming from the Nokia managers involved in the project. They were absolutely unable to manage and run a large scale software development project and, above all, they weren't able to take any decision, a complete, terrified paralysis. Not sure how they ended up being like that, the Peter principle is likely one of the causes. I hope Nokia gets back on their feet, they surely have a massive technological asset and they can bring innovation to the telco world.

<comment><USER5> This is what happens when a field matures; companies transition to "managing assets" and source commoditized products and services rather than retaining detailed control and knowlegde themselves. This promotes cost efficiency and is a valid business practice.

At least as long as the field they operate in is stable.

The problem is that it makes businesses vulnerable to disruptive change, and when disruptive change does occur companies usually struggle to re-evolve talents that they shedded when their business matured. The trick is to realize the necessity of restructuring what they do and how and to do so before loss of revenue makes it hard or impossible. The first reaction, though, is often to cut cost. Which is a great way to start the downward spiral.

It is almost like drowning: all your natural reflexes conspire against your survival.

I can't remember what this cycle is called, but I read about it in some textbook used at business schools, so it is probably part of a typical MBA curriculum. (The rest of the book was too dull for me to actually remember its title).

When Apple raised the standard for handsets and brought handset software significantly closer to state of the art of software in general, handset manufacturers were caught napping. Then they panicked. And now they are taking on water.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My experience with Nokia is: great hardware and absolutely awful software. How to rescue Nokia? Continue making great hardware and switch to Android on all phones, before everyone else does.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. I've been looking at the new phones coming out and I think that a Nokia Android phone would kick everything else, including the iPhone4, out of the water.

<comment><USER8> I don't know if they'd ever be as beautiful as an iPhone, but on the other hand, they'd likely be able to make phone calls even if you did things like hold them in your hand. And, joking aside, I have a suspicion that Nokia does more in terms of design and testing to ensure that dropping the phone isn't going to wreck it. Probably more so on the lower end phones that are likely to be owned by teenagers, but my wife and I have had Nokia phones for a while, dropped them every now and then, and (fingers crossed) never had a problem.

<comment><USER9> I love the durability of Nokia phones. They're tools rather than some kind of precious object.

<comment><USER10> Their low-end consumer phones, maybe. In my experience their smartphones have been as poorly-built as everybody else's. My Nokia smartphones were the only phones I've owned that didn't still look good after two years, with discoloured plastic and loose parts.

<comment><USER9> My last Nokia ran Symbian. Lasted for years and years. Sure the case was pretty scratched up, but I didn't have to replace it every time I dropped it on the ground.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I (and also a lot of people) think they ought to ship Android phones, How bad could be for them that option? my limited vision says it is an excellent choice.

<comment><USER4> Shipping Android phones would be probably a smart move for Nokia but I don't think the company wants to be bound to Google that much. Instead of insisting on Symbian, they should have worked on developing a proper Linux-based OS. Maybe is not relevant, but Linus Torvalds is Finnish and the country, even if rather small, has the brain power to do that. Maybe now is too late and probably the Android move would be the smartest but I don't think it'll happen.

<comment><USER12> maemo?

<comment><USER13> And MeeGo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell Nokia simply isn't capable of producing a phone OS that is better than Android or iOS. The sooner they accept this fact and migrate to Android the better. The software side of their business is doomed. They can save the hardware side, but they need to migrate to Android in order to do that.

<comment><USER14> "Google simply isn't capable of producing a phone OS that is better than the iPhone."

"Apple simply isn't capable of producing a phone OS that is better than Symbian."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> IMO, the problem with Nokia or for that matter MS/Palm/etc is not a lack of innovation but rather a lack of _confidence_ in their innovations.

<comment><USER16> Palm had confidence in it's innovations and look how that went. It's a very long road from innovation to shipping product - just ask Microsoft's Kin team.

<comment><USER15> I like how confident Apple or Nintendo are in their products. Look at Wii- it was launched against more powerful consoles, iPhone was launched when other smartphones were more powerful, had multitasking, copy-paste(!) etc.

The fact that Nintendo was confident it could sell more Wiis because theirs _was more fun_ and Apple confident about iPhone because theirs _was more usable_. Nintendo revealing a DSi-esque 3DS when Sony is trying to make PSP more iPhone like etc

It is this confidence that developers want to see when they want to _invest_ in developing for that platform. You cannot lead others when you can't even be confident in yourself.

<comment><USER17> Especially interesting about the Wii case is that I think Nintendo was presumed to be a lost case before the Wii launch. Not sure how much of what they did was inspired by confidence and how much was just desperation.

<comment><USER15> I think they changed their approach to the market. I guess they have capable people at the top who think clearly.

When asked about how they felt about their rivals, Iwata responded

 _"... rather than trying to identify a specific rival and to think about how to fight against it, it is more important for our unique business to always ask ourselves, and try to answer, such questions like "What does it mean to make people interested in something?", "What is worth spending people's time and energy on?", or "What do people find amusement in?" We would be glad if you understand that, as the basis, we are not conscious of any certain rivals."_

from here: [http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/meeting/100629qa/02....](http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/meeting/100629qa/02.html)

I don't know whether this is scripted or not, but it was certainly a good read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One page link: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/22/nokia_manifesto_risk...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/22/nokia_manifesto_risku/print.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> I may be the only one, but I would gladly pay $50 for a Nokia 3210 - at the very least as a party or back-up phone. I think that it still holds up well today, and if not, they could just improve the hardware and add a camera and colour screen: "3210S"? I have actually tried finding and ordering a mint 3210 on eBay without any luck.

I don't see anyone beating Apple in the app phone market - maybe Google themselves might fare adequately with a new Nexus and some Android tweaks. I am not an Android person myself, but I am sure that others are.

<comment><USER20> Or 6310i. Its beautiful and functional.

I was actually thinking the other day that there could be a market for rock solid, no nonsense businessphones. Which makes phone calls. A week or two of battery life. Small but legible b/w display. Good, physical buttons. Solid construction. It couldn't be that pricey to make and if marketed correctly, it would probably manage to get its niche market.

Too bad that nobody is interested in niche markets these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _'We can't find the piece of code that could shift [a dialog on screen] up 5mm.' They said, 'There's 20 million lines of code in the phone – it's impossible.'_

Ouch. That sounds like a code base seriously out of control.</comment>


Gartner Says Vista Will Collapse. And That's Why The Yahoo Deal Must Happen - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/11/gartner-says-vista-will-collapse-and-thats-why-the-yahoo-deal-must-happen/ <comment><USER2> As funny as this would be to watch, I think this underestimates the lock-in effect Microsoft has on business and everyday users. Even with Ubuntu, linux isn't going to capture the mainstream in a long time, so the only real threat to Windows on the desktop is OS X... and since you have to buy hardware to get it, Microsoft still has a pretty strong moat here.

Now if Apple were to give away their OS for non-mac hardware, that would be interesting.

As for Office, no online solution can compete until net access becomes ubiquitous. You can't use Google Apps on a plane at the moment, and a lot of users are comfortable with Word's UI.

I think Microsoft's business model is _eventually_ doomed, but not in any time frame short enough to make the Yahoo deal matter in that regard.

It seems to me like Microsoft should leverage what it is very good at (marketing) and try to compete with IBM in the consulting business rather than try to compete online. There will always be a huge market of MBAs wasting money on overpriced tech advice!

<comment><USER3> I'm not so convinced that Microsoft's business model is doomed. Even with ubiquitous net access, there are still issues with keeping sensitive information on evil corp servers. Not just legal (medical info, educational records, etc.), but also practical issues. After all, if you are a software company, you are competition for other software companies. (This is what MS overlooked as Google was taking root.) Putting your business strategy in their hands is not something I'm comfortable with.

I think MS's stranglehold will be loosened, however. I am fine working with Open Office (I really like MS Publisher, however), Firefox, and other "alternative" apps. I think others will be too, especially if the recession turns out to be very painful.

Imagine how much $ a school system would save if they went to Open Office?

<comment><USER4> Large corporations will never switch to Open Office, because they have too much invested. The home edition of MS Office is $129, which isn't too bad for most home and small business users, and it means they have exact file compatibility with other businesses.

I like Open Office, but I would never have bothered to switch except for the fact that I prefer Linux to Windows.

I owould say that cash-strapped startups and nonprofits are the most likely groups to switch to Open Office in particular, though I expect just as many OO.o switchers are actually people who switch to Linux and use OO.o by default. There would probably also be more switchers if the native Aqua version for Mac were rock solid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "vista will collapse" is likely too sensationalist. i'd say it's more that windows is continuing its long, slow slide into irrelevance, a trend that has been evident for several years now.

the most encouraging sign i've heard about microsoft lately is that the next version of windows will supposedly break binary compatibility. it will continue to run old apps, but only in an old-windows-emulator, much the same way macosx used to run old mac classic apps. they'll finally get to break free of the 20 years of backward compatibility that's strangling them.

that means they'll have a chance for a smaller, leaner OS. will they also take that opportunity to make a _better_ os, in terms of user experience and programming APIs? i kind of doubt it, because microsoft is too big to get out of its own way. but it will be interesting to watch, nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER6> His general notion is that the operating system is doomed, which is a flawed argument. Microsoft Office / iWork are still vastly superior to Google Docs. Not too mention that the combination of browser and web software still doesn't "feel" right in most desktop software emulation.

You might see some shift towards a truly portable environments but the idea that the O/S is going to give way to solely a web browser is a bit much and likely won't happen anytime soon. Computers do FAR too much with standard software right now. The path to this browser-centric world is 10+ years from now and too many other curve balls can be tossed in between to accurately predict.

</comment><comment><USER7> I agree with the first comment by Xichekolas and also Raphael's comment (4th). MSFT is a very very large company. Most news sites paint the picture that everyone is switching to online word editors... the only people who I know use online editors are advanced tech savvy users who hate the load time of MSFT Office. However, I would still always use Office for doing any type of professional document such as essays, letters, resumes, etc.

Just because there are alternatives, doesn't mean the main competitor is doomed. Perhaps in the long term, with Bill Gates no longer at the helm since 2000 (which is when Google came to rise), MSFT might be in trouble in the next 15 years or so.

Cheers

P.S. I used to read Digg many years ago when it was still up and coming but now I cannot bare to read that site. The news posts are always the same predictable things and the commentators are so unintelligent it's almost mind numbing just being there. Great site here, will try to comment every once in a while and weigh in.

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of the Doctor Who episode where the Doctor tells the Prime Minister he could destroy her with six little words, and all he does is whisper to one of her aides, "Don't you think she looks tired...?" It becomes a rumor that she's unwell and turns into self-fulfilling prophesy.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christmas_Invasion>

</comment><comment><USER9> Microsoft is, in it's current state, far from "doomed". The lock-in effect mentioned will account for their survival for some time, look at businesses still using windows 2000 in large deployment. The other thing to consider is how they have been trying to refocus their direction and corporate girth to target the web, i.e. online advertising, Silverlight and such. how successful that will be remains to be seen.

</comment><comment><USER10> I dislike Microsoft, but the idea that the only hope of MS is online advertising is scary. We're talking about 30 billion in sales for office and windows. Is the only viable alternative for MS to give up all that in order to chase advertising dollars? Will 'free' really kill an entire industry?

<comment><USER4> > Is the only viable alternative for MS to give up all that in order to chase > advertising dollars?

No, of course not. Anyone who thinks that is on crack.

But what we may see is that Windows and Office are mature businesses and if Microsoft wants to continue to grow, it will have to be online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The dirty little secret that public corporations don't talk about is that they NEED TO PAY SOMEBODY. Freeware, shareware, and ad supported software are good for many things, but as soon as something goes wrong (and it will), someone must be held accountable. Imagine management telling ownership that "Google lost our data and there's nothing we can do about it."

Microsoft's position may be threatened in the future, but only by someone willing to take on that responsibility.

<comment><USER12> IBM is making _bank_ on that need. They offer Free and Open Source software, but take on the accountability and support. There's big money there, but I think you have to have some major clout to really take advantage of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you believe Vista/Windows is collapsing, doesn't it validate Yahoo's resistance to combining with an even more doomed ship?

And so isn't TechCrunch's conclusion, including the "scorched earth" rant from yesterday which called a Yahoo-Microsoft combination "the only reasonable outcome", kind of silly? Reasonable for MSFT, perhaps, but not necessarily anyone else.

TechCrunch: good for scoops, atrocious for measured analysis.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not familiar with Michael Silver or Neil MacDonald but wow, I hope this isn't a case of prediction being any kind of catalyst. These guys probably get high off the smell of their farts.

I wonder if they're Apple Fan-boys.</comment>


Notes from a lil' app on Heroku/MongoHQ - <AUTHOR> http://blog.logeek.fr/2010/6/29/sinatra-heroku-mongodb-mongohq-notes

<comment><AUTHOR> Lil' because this is a little app, not a massive deployment. I hope the notes will be useful to newcomers mostly.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn in your spare time? - <AUTHOR> I feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I want to learn and end up doing nothing instead.<p>How do you decide what to work on? <comment><USER2> This might not be responsive because spare time isn't something I can count on filling with other than sleep. If you don't mind a more general response, what I do is keep a list and when the next paying project comes along I'll try to use something off the list to realize the product. As a ferinstance, right now I have Elixir, Rust and FreeRTOS on the list. Two days ago a project came down from on high where even though I can't demonstrate that I _need_ an o/s (it's not internetworked) I'll implement over freertos and get that off of my list.

</comment><comment><USER3> Often I discover a problem in my everyday life. Last time i did not find a tool to rename and transfer files, that fitted my needs (on Windows!!), so i did some research, what language would be the right tool for the job. Thats how i learned golang.

The most important things for me, learning a technology are:

\- Having fun, learning it

\- Solve a concrete problem in my life

\- First success in a short time (<= 1 week)

\- It should improve my skills in general

\- Best case: It is something i never did before or it improves something, i already did

Currently I'm learning Rust, to improve my copy tool written in golang ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think you should lengthily think about WHY you are interested in x,y,z. Formulate it by jotting it down. It should make what is a priority clearer.</comment>


The Feature Matrix - <AUTHOR> http://evanmiller.org/feature-matrix.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Another way to achieve a dense feature matrix is to expose an API that fully exposes every feature.</comment>