How To Cheat On Facebook Apps Permissions - <AUTHOR> http://homakov.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-cheat-on-facebook-apps.html

<comment><USER2> First, this isn't a flaw.

Second, this is well known and has been discussed here previously a number of times.

There are already numerous browser extensions that allow users to customize these settings. for eg. FBSecure:

[http://www.addictivetips.com/internet-tips/fbsecure- customiz...](http://www.addictivetips.com/internet-tips/fbsecure-customize- permissions-that-facebook-apps-ask-for-chrome/)

and

<https://github.com/chadselph/OOptOut-Chrome-Extension>

previously discussed on HN here:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3287272>

and a bunch of other threads that I can't find right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> >First, this isn't a flaw.

I didn't really call it a flaw. Just UX stupidity or whatever

>Second, this is well known and has been discussed here previously a number of times.

well known? :) is it mainstream to call smth 'well known' if you know something?

> There are already numerous browser extensions that allow users to customize > these settings. for eg. FBSecure:

extensions are useless because actions are really routine. but it's nice to have them, anyway.

<comment><USER2> Flaw is my word, but 'cheating' almost implies it. the params are documented here:

[https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/permissi...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/permissions/)

I thought I would dump my previous links incase you jump into writing an extension. It would be better to contribute to the open source extension than to have yet another project (as we do with removing auth popups on news feed items)

Otherwise nothing against this making news again, the more people that know about it the better

<comment><AUTHOR> Those extensions are good. I wanted an ext for personal usage that just removes scope at all - no big plans here.

My point is not just 'check this trick' but OAuth2 has no fixed-scope feature at all. You always have to check shit after user did something. This is just lifehack but i am interested in oauth2 spec overall

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is this a flaw? Go to your Facebook apps settings and you can disable extended permissions for any app there. The apps are expected to work with only some of the permissions, and they have APIs to check which permissions they have enabled. This is intended.

Edit: There's also an option to edit/disable the extended permissions during the authorization. Docs: [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/authenticatio...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/authentication/) (Permissions section)

<comment><AUTHOR> > This is intended

what is intended here? I am user and I cannot opt-out perms in user interface. So I have to use URL trick. Looks not intended

<comment><USER3> <https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications>

<comment> mike-cardwell During the time between granting the permissions, and removing them, couldn't those permissions be abused? The URL modification solution prevents this problem.

<comment><USER4> Exactly what I thought. An app will potentially already have your whole social graph by the time you get to change those settings.

<comment><USER5> The social graph is not secret. Apps don't need to ask any permission to get it. <https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=197943902130>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any facebook app can "require" permissions simply by refusing to operate unless you grant it the permissions it wants.

Many developers request permissions they think they'll use in the future, so this trick is useful because it puts it back on the app to error out when the user is missing a permission it actually needs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Checking permissions after authorization rather a work around than a normal work flow.

Facebook should either let me to opt out permissions in UI or make them required (if I press Allow then permission is granted anyway)

<comment><USER6> I disagree, an app should always check permissions on startup and request any that it needs, in case the user has removed those permissions on their own.

<comment><USER7> Why request the kitchen sink on startup? For example, if I have an app that posts on my wall when I perform certain actions inside the app, why not check and ask for that permission at that point? As a user the cause-effect will be clear since I've just performed an action that requires post.

The only benefit I see of the all-at-startup solution is that it provides one single "interruption" to the user. But the list of things an app might do can be large, even though it only may need to do some of them rarely. So if I see a big long scary list I'm more likely to just cancel out.

<comment><AUTHOR> oauth2 permissions are not agile at all. there is no 'one time token' for some action or 'allow it for 1 day only'. If you allowed 'wall' - it's forever.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but at the first point where the user performed an action relevant to their desires, you have requested the associated permission. The connection is clear in their mind and the app's request for that permission makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can change an application's permissions on Facebook's authorization page, but this will only work if the application does not check a user's allowed permissions when the loop goes back to the application. If the developer checks the permissions granted based on the retrieved access token (via [https://graph.facebook.com/me/permissions?access_token=USER_...](https://graph.facebook.com/me/permissions?access_token=USER_ACCESS_TOKEN)), he/she can see which permissions have been allowed by the user. The developer can then just disallow your use of the app until you allow all permissions.

Reference: <https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I've had this bug with a facebook app I built.. I thought the flow would be:

      - Ask for permission
       - Yes? -> Good you're in.
       - No? -> Ok, np see you another day, maybe.

But what was happening is there was a third flow..

        - Yes (But I don't give you permissions!!).

And that created a nasty bug later on in the app.

I don't think it's a "flaw" because you can accept the first perm. dialog as a user, but deny the second one (Asking for more permission). But, I believe it should be more explicit that developers need to verify permissions on every actions requiring them.

<comment><AUTHOR> basically provider could just return 'scope' for 'token' when you obtain it with 'code' along with 'expire_at' parameter

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is definitely a cool trick, but the real problem with FB app privacy is that unless you _completely_ disable the app platform on your account, any apps that your friends install can also see information about you.

Does it really matter how much you can limit your own apps, if anyone on your friends list can install any app and silently give away your information to some unknown third party without your knowledge or consent?

<comment><USER11> Not true. Just go to the Apps, Games and Websites section of the Privacy Settings and use the "How people bring your info to apps they use" section to select exactly what you want apps your friends use to be able to access about you. Doesn't require completely disabling the app platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This only solves half the problem. I recently tried this with yahoo reader, yet on the yahoo site there was a social reader widget with my friends and my reading history. I paused it when I realised but it seems you need to be aware of more than what permissions they have on the facebook platform; something many of my friends had not realised.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's a great Chrome extension that lets you choose which permission to give to the app when authorizing it: <https://github.com/chadselph/fprivacy>

<comment><AUTHOR> +1

although any non programmer human being is smart enough to just modificate 'scope' param in URL :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> But does this give basic permissions or full ?

<comment><AUTHOR> app will receive basic perm</comment></comment>


The Great Model Train Robbery - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-28/britain-s-great-model-train-robbery-remains-an-unsolved-crime <comment><USER2> Hey y'all, this is the story's author here -- thanks for upvoting our magazine feature. I hope you enjoy the story, and would also direct you to a video version of the piece, which gives a wonderful sense of the passion these folks have for their locos:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWCUXoNZYio&t=](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWCUXoNZYio&t=)

This may be a good instance where additional online sleuthing could help solve the crime. If you have any thoughts/tips, please just let me know! Happy also to answer any questions you might have about the story. Thanks for reading!

Best, Austin

<comment><USER3> As a Brit I found your article's tone and this video a little patronizing Austin given the gravity of the situation. It's really worrying how people just care about financial value of things to steal with apparently no thought about what has been created and what it means to people. I'd quite like to see the people that stole these found injured 'in a ditch somewhere' as well as the trains [https://youtu.be/MWCUXoNZYio?t=306](https://youtu.be/MWCUXoNZYio?t=306)

<comment><USER4> Fully agree with your sentiment. I'm the unofficial bosun of my small sailing club. It pisses me to no end when people are not properly taking care of our boats, not clean them after use, not stowing the sails properly, not even reporting the breakages inherent when so many people (we are renting the club house and the boats to other clubs for costal sailing) use them, so we can fix. 4 of these boats were with the club for 30+ years, helping teach countless new sailors. The value for these boats is about 300 gbp (guessing here) each. But the sentimental value is tremendous. There are pictures with them almost my age. They pop up here and there on various bbc programmes. The yellow genoa and deck, mark 2 Wayfarers, with the sail numbers 1,2,3 and 4 (these are not official) are now part of Brightlingsea. And to be honest, there is no modern dinghy that can match our boats. Not even the 2 newer mk4s we have.

<comment><USER3> I restore old cars and make them perform better as an addiction/hobby. It's discouraging the gradual decrease in people who know less and less about how cars actually work and what it takes to get them working well and safely, coupled with a rise in people whose only interest is how much what they look at for 20 seconds is worth. The lower rung of that ladder is people who see perceived value and then look for ways to steal it and resell it in whole or part online which is alarmingly easy...drug addiction seems to fuel this group, but I suspect the train thieves are a less doped out sophisticated bunch who possibly are even stealing to order, as is often the case with car thieves

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In related news, a model railway (we are talking HO/OO gauge) was trashed a few weeks before this incident. Rod Stewart - himself into trains - decided to donate extremely generously to make things better:

[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/20/rod- stewart-...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/20/rod-stewart- donates-10000-model-railway-club-vandalised-market-deeping)

Regarding the actual story - where they could have done with Rod Stewart donating - those trains really do take five to ten years to build. You can get castings of some parts such as wheels but then you need to put them into the lathe and do many other processes to get the finished article. Even with an 0-6-0 train that is a lot to get right.

Getting a boiler built and tested is a major landmark in the whole process. There is as much to put together as on a full size 'prototype' train as on the model version, some parts are actually harder to make in miniature.

Incidentally 'prototype' is the railway modelling term for a full size train. This could definitely be used in software engineering, e.g. if making a MAME video game cabinet the original from the 1980's could be the 'prototype'. If getting things like the buttons right happens then they could be commended as 'prototypical'.

<comment><USER2> Totally agree -- I was immensely impressed by the engineering work that went into each loco. Indeed, one of the trains stolen took ~25 years to build/refine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One moral to this story, local police are usually useless when it comes to investigating a crime. The two recent incidents I reported to the police, which included a home robbery the police refused to investigate They cycled through excuses for why they didn't have to do anything. Pretty disappointing.

<comment><USER7> > local police are usually useless when it comes to investigating a crime. The > two recent incidents

Huge claim to make on a sample size of 2.

<comment><USER8> Well I can back it up here in Australia, too. My car had its wheels stolen while I was asleep. The cops did nothing other than give me a number for the insurance company (despite the wheels being worth $4000 total).

Funnily, I got them back a few months later. $1.5 million in car parts was found at a warehouse and the thieves were arrested — so I guess it's not all bad news. My wheels were incidental to the police however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sad to hear it... especially here, where I'd like to remind everyone, that (albeit probably universally inherent from curiosity and not tied to any locality) modern, western hacker culture has its roots in model railroads[1] at the MIT club in the 60s.

I hope those stolen Locos find their way back to their rightful owners, and wish all those pursuing that goal all the luck they can receive.

[1]: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/07/where-did- hack...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/07/where-did-hacker- culture-come-from)

</comment><comment><USER10> Happened in Seattle a few months ago [https://komonews.com/news/local/thieves- caught-on-video-stea...](https://komonews.com/news/local/thieves-caught-on- video-stealing-mini-steam-train-in-west-seattle)</comment>


Russia Bans Rocket Engine Sales to U.S. Military - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-13/russia-bans-rocket-engine-sales-to-u-s-military.html <comment><USER2> >Rye said, "If recent news reports are accurate, it affirms that SpaceX's irresponsible actions have created unnecessary distractions, threatened U.S. military satellite operations, and undermined our future relationship with the International Space Station."

I think you could argue that ULA, by outsourcing the engines, is what threatens the operation. How is it Space X's fault?

<comment><USER3> I believe they're referring to Musk legal action as the distraction.

> Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has sued the U.S. Air Force, > claiming it created an illegal monopoly for the military's satellite launch > business.

<comment><USER4> As basically a sidenote to that lawsuit, SpaceX more or less said _" Oh and by the way, how is it that they are buying engines with these sanctions in place?"_. It was a rather tangential issue to the lawsuit itself.

All SpaceX did was publicize that issue, everything before and after that was entirely the governments doing (the sanctions in the first place were on the government, and the injunction on the ULA was placed by a judge, not SpaceX. The injunction was lifted, again by the government, and the governments currently poor diplomatic relations with Russia inspired Russia to essentially make the injunction stick)

In other words, the ULA is just whining that SpaceX tattled on them. Any real blame lies with either the people who made the rules, or with the people who broke the rules (or both).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> who is this bad for? It seems good for SpaceX

<comment><USER6> For a country with financial difficulties, it sure is taking some odd steps. Write-off North Korea's debt, now cancel out million/billion dollar sales to the U.S. for rockets. I guess they don't want us to build any more fighter jets before NATO attacks. ;)

<comment><USER7> Maybe they feel they might need the rocket engines in their inventory at some point.

I think some rocket components were produced in Ukraine, not sure if that applies to this. So maybe they don't want a limited supply diminished.

<comment><USER8> > I think some rocket components were produced in Ukraine

If true, this is a significant wrinkle in the story.

<comment><USER9> It is Yuzhmash in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine (still, Putin is working on the issue).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzhnoye_Design_Bureau](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzhnoye_Design_Bureau) (search for Antares :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Delta IV is more expensive than the Atlas V to launch. Will the ULA get more money as a result? Is the contract cost plus or is it fixed rate?

</comment><comment><USER11> elon must be a happy bunny right now.

<comment><USER9> US must be a happy bunny that it have visionary people like Elon.</comment></comment>


Douglas Adams quotations to live by - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2bcFfMt6rGLTPpbG0yLwPw0/42-douglas-adams-quotes-to-live-by <comment><USER2> _" A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program. Zaphod waved a hand and the channel switched again."_ -From The Hitchhiker's Guide

It feels prescient, and the kind of thing we're going to be living through sooner rather than later.

<comment><USER3> Yep, though the fussiness of OTA (over-the-air) TV and radio broadcasts was probably quite inspirational. Rowan Atkinson explored OTA in a Mr. Bean skit:

[https://youtu.be/Sm3_qEMTdc4](https://youtu.be/Sm3_qEMTdc4)

<comment><USER2> I still have fond memories of my father inducing me to hold the antenna during game-time one year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I always keep this in mind when building fault-tolerant systems:

 _The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair._

And user interfaces:

 _A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools._

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone know the original source of the Bach quote?

 _" Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe."_

<comment><AUTHOR> It appears to be original to Adams - I've found no earlier references, and every reference I've found is unattributed or explicitly attributed to Adams.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I hadn't seen it attributed to anyone else, I just was trying to find a better citation that had when/where he said it.

As Abraham Lincoln said, "don't trust quote attributions on the Internet".

</comment></comment></comment><comment> david-given I've always liked:

 _Some things you should care enough about to do badly._</comment>


Ask HN: How far away are self-programming computers? - <AUTHOR> Say a system scans all publicly available source code and, given it's knowledge of the compiler / interpreter, is able to determine the function each block of code.
Could this system learn how to build software given human language instructions as input.
How far in to the future might this sort of system be? <comment><USER2> Far.

This would be the intersection between natural language processing, small-step operational semantics, and structural (big-step) operational semantics.

This is something I've been trying to wrap my head around for nearly twenty years.

It is relatively easy to rewrite terms within a single language such that very different code is functionally equivalent (which can be an insanely useful card to have up your sleeve).

And it's not too terribly difficult to generate equivalent code in a different language for very small things (functions, loops, etc.). A bit more difficult to generate equivalent idiomatic code.

But going the opposite direction -- taking some functional code and truly understanding "oh, this section is building a graph of dependencies" is more challenging. And the names of things rarely helps (the two most difficult things in computer science are cache invalidation, naming things, and off by one errors).

And then stepping back and having a system _understand_ what you _mean_ \-- what you want -- is a black squiggly squirming nightmare.</comment>


The Startup Racket - <AUTHOR> http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2010/04/the-startup-rac.php

<comment><USER2> Nice little rant, Daniel. Certainly struck a nerve here.

Sometimes I think I'm living in two worlds, the customer world, where everyone is scrambling to get stuff done, and the startup world, where everyone is talking about what the customer world should be like.

Don't misunderstand me, though. I love the startup world. There is an underlying current of optimism that I rarely see in the customer world, where people are just too busy to see the possibilities if they hit them in the nose. Sometimes I have to grab my customers and yell, "Let's slow down for 5 minutes and think about a better way to do this!"

In the startup world, it's often too easy to lose sight of the definition of success. Success is not starting a business, getting into an incubator, or securing funding. Success is satisfying paying customers over and over again.

In the past 6 months, I've had 5 different customers ask me for the same thing. I described my approach to satisfying them to a startup investor acquaintance. He told me that no one would ever pay for it. Now I know I'm on to something.

I like living in 2 worlds. It helps me maintain perspective. Sounds like it works that way for you too.

<comment><USER3> "Success is satisfying paying customers over and over again."

Providing value.

I'll be honest. I never understand why people get so excited when a company announces it's looking for funding. To me, if you are looking for funding after a product has launched, it just seems backwards. After all, if your product was good, it wouldn't need funding after it launched.

I guess the idea with this is you need to spend a lot to bring it to a point where it's profitable. Google is an example where profit really couldn't exist until it grew large enough, and it couldn't really grow large enough without money, etc. Facebook is the same way. Twitter, too (Okay, does Twitter actually make money? Is it in the black?). But all these things focus on making money via advertising.

Anyways, enough of my useless questions. It was a good read.

<comment><USER4> The idea that once you launch your product you shouldn't need funding doesn't seem intuitive to me. Sure writing code is hard, but there is a lot that goes on after your initial launch, and a lot of these things cost money (like sales, marketing, etc.).

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not against funding. It just seems like getting fund to start up, and then additional funding after you've launched seems odd. Sales, marketing, etc, should be covered with the initial investment. Needing more money just sounds like poor planning or foresight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Many of the things Daniel said resonated with me. Certainly, the online community around startups can have a low signal to noise ratio. But, there's a much bigger world outside Twitter, HN, and similar outlets.

I'm an attorney and most of my practice is IP and business litigation. But only a handful of my clients play to the broad consumer market. If you filter out the Mom-n-Pop shops and the VC-backed tech companies, there's a huge population of companies in the middle that started with Angel or F&F funding and have found really interesting business models entirely on their own.

There's a lot to learn from the mistakes of others, and the various startup "movements" can be a wonderful source of community. But at the end of the day, the founders I work with who have built successful enterprises generally have done it on their own.

At the end of the day, if you want to build a brick wall, you just have to start laying bricks.

</comment><comment><USER6> See what patio11 writes on his blog. If you manage to bring your interesting stuff to half of the level his Bingo Cards business is, you'll have your traction, proven bussiness or whatever you feel you don't have.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, that means a lot to me.

On the subject of the article: Somebody please give me a sharp rap with a wooden spoon if I ever sound like being a pundit is my job and writing and selling software that solves problems for people is my quirky hobby. It should be the other way around.

<comment><USER8> "Somebody please give me a sharp rap with a wooden spoon if I ever sound like being a pundit is my job and writing and selling software that solves problems for people is my quirky hobby."

Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened to some people who are pushing the "lean startup" meme as consultantware. You (patio11) are an inspiration and role model. Thanks for your candour, humility and wisdom. I doubt we'll ever need that wooden spoon!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great post. Thank you.

There are a lot of people in the business of selling information to would-be entrepreneurs. Their rallying cry is "never give up!" Sometimes I wonder if they are only saying "never give up!" because giving up means losing customers. Not everyone is capable of being an entrepreneur, and some should give up.

There are some great resources out there on startups, but most of the information out there reminds me of late night infomercials about how to make money from home.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good stuff. It seems that every field of endeavor that's difficult to make headway in and has no clear pathway to success has this kind of industry grow up around it.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a self-funded startup looking to raise a small angel round without much traction yet, I am fairly sympathetic to this article. However, I still wouldn't go as far as calling investments in startups with traction, cash- flow, and coming from a good personal recommendation "low risk". Most of these startups will still fail.

I also don't think it's unreasonable for VCs and Angels to use these markers in determining whether or not to invest. There are still lots of deals available to VCs and Angels and these are some of the better filters to find the best ones. If there weren't enough deals available where startups could provide these metrics, the market would correct itself.

Lastly, while I do agree that the "pay" industry around how to run a startup doesn't provide much value, I don't see it as too much of a problem. There is a plethora of really valuable information available for free from successful entrepreneurs who give back to the community through their blog posts and talks. You'd have to be a fool to pay to learn how to run a startup when you can learn all the best advice (from people who have succeeded at it) for free.

</comment><comment><USER12> I like the article.

I think a dominant pattern is to try and put forth gospels from the experiences of successful startups. All worthwhile to explore, however, sometimes it starts to feel a bit mechanical. Each context is so unique. I tend to think that there are so many potential paths, and agility is in part being creative with carving your own.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good post. I have had similar thoughts lately, but have never taken the time to articulate them. The analogy to the writing industry is a very good one.

I once heard that the people who did best during the gold rushes of previous centuries were those who sold picks, shovels and gold pans to all those with the big dreams of striking it rich…

<comment><USER14> Yeah I love the annecdote. When there's a gold rush, don't be the guy digging for gold, be the guy selling shovels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You choose how much you want to consume from the community. I think that in a startup, there's a learner's schedule in addition to a maker's and manager's schedule. It would encompass going to meetups, reading blogs, attending conferences, listening to podcasts, following Twitter, etc. It can easily take over your whole day if you let it but it's ultimately up to you how much time you want to invest and on what schedule.</comment>


Exploring ZFS ZIL with Intel Optane and NAND - <AUTHOR> https://www.servethehome.com/exploring-best-zfs-zil-slog-ssd-intel-optane-nand/ <comment><USER2> I'm a little surprised that they didn't standardize the SSD capacity, or perform tests on empty vs nearly-full SSDs. Increasing size slightly decreases read speeds, just like L3 caches.

<comment><USER3> The amount of space used by he ZIL on a SLOG is very modest. Typically less than a gigabyte. So a SSD used as a SLOG will be practically empty it's entire life. The reason one would use a large capacity SSD for this purpose is to take advantage of the large SSD's higher iops and greater wear leveling.

<comment><USER4> it's unfortunate but not surprising that you can't buy very small, very fast SSD's for this purpose

<comment><USER5> PMC-Sierra/Microsemi has some cool DRAM-based SSDs that do 1M IOPS (not a typo) with 16GB capacity. [https://www.microsemi.com/product- directory/storage-boards/3...](https://www.microsemi.com/product- directory/storage-boards/3690-flashtec-nvram-drives) I don't think they're available in U.2 or M.2 format though.

NVDIMM-N would probably also be great for slog. [https://www.anandtech.com/show/12029/micron- announces-32gb-d...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/12029/micron- announces-32gb-ddr4-nvdimmn-modules)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, DRAM chips are the only ones that currently offer the right balance of performance and capacity per die. NAND and 3D XPoint dies are too big and too slow per die for this use case, so they're better used as nonvolatile storage to flush the log to in the event of power failure, not as the primary log storage media.

I expect it will soon become common for high-end enterprise NVMe SSDs to include a few GB of DRAM accessible through the new Persistent Memory Region feature, so that they can be accessed through simple PCIe memory read and write operations, but will automatically be preserved by the SSD in the event of a power failure. It won't be as fast as a NVDIMM, but works with existing form factors and platforms.

<comment><USER7> Battery backed DRAM is likely a better choice for performance & endurance in most applications, as the Optane product line is a lame duck with memory that dies around the 1TB of writes mark, leaving you with lost data and a dead SSD.

<comment><USER6> > as the Optane product line is a lame duck with memory that dies around the > 1TB of writes mark, leaving you with lost data and a dead SSD.

You seem to be much more concerned with venting anger than conveying accurate or relevant information.

<comment><USER8> Considering that the Intel drive in [https://techreport.com/review/26523/the- ssd-endurance-experi...](https://techreport.com/review/26523/the-ssd- endurance-experiment-casualties-on-the-way-to-a-petabyte) self-destructed when it ran out of guaranteed lifetime, I think it's a fair criticism.

<comment><USER6> There's nothing fair about making up a number that's wrong by multiple orders of magnitude.

I'm not a fan of the end of life behavior of Intel SSDs either, but it's a consistent policy that does work well for enterprise usage scenarios, with no unexpected data loss. They probably shouldn't be applying the same policy to the consumer products. But the fact that there are valid criticisms to be made doesn't mean this particular one was fair or germane.

<comment><USER8> Oh, I wasn't even looking at the value of the number. Yeah, it's bad to exaggerate like that without being clear about it. But something performance- heavy can burn out an endurance of 10 drive writes per day _pretty fast_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am certain the volume of acronyms is intentionally hilarious in the title, so let me pre-empt the complaining by laughing at it. Definitions are in the article.

<comment><USER10> ZFS = Z File System, a next-generation file system from oracle ZIL = ZFS Intent Log SSD = Solid State Drive, a type of long-term data storage system with better read/write speeds than an HDD NAND = not actually an acronym, but a type of logic gate. Not AND.

<comment><USER11> Hilariously enough, NAND is the only acronym. The others are initialisms.

<comment><USER12> Initialisms _are_ acronyms.

<comment><USER13> Other way around. Acronyms are the subset of initialisms that are pronounceable.

<comment><USER14> Dictionary.com uses same definitions for both words, just in a different order. The first definition of acronym is when initials form a pronounced word; which is the second definition of initialism. So they're the same thing with the difference being vernacular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brian-armstrong So we know the CPUs have IME. What else? Is it conceivable that SSDs do as well? Is any Intel product safe to use?

<comment><USER5> No, nothing is safe. There's an NSA backdoor in your mouse.

<comment><USER15> you jest, certainly, yet... now I'm not sure.

<comment><USER16> They are called implants.[1] To GP, yes even hdds, I suspect similar with ssds.[2]

1: [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/cottonmouth-i...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/cottonmouth- i_n.html)

2: [http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=1](http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article reeks of being "sponsored" by Intel, but there is no mention of it anywhere in the article. So my first question is - what, if any role did Intel play in the creation of this article?

Second - I find it ironic after all the marketing buzz that Intel has finally admitted that the endurance of Optane is embarrassing compared to NAND devices. This was their original claim:

>When Intel announced 3D XPoint, the company said that it would be 1,000 times faster than NAND flash, 10 times denser than (volatile) DRAM, and with 1,000 times the endurance of NAND

Those claims are so far off from reality that I'm surprised their shareholders haven't sued them over the claims.

<comment><USER5> ServeTheHome is one of the most honest hardware review sites, especially in the very small field of server/enterprise hardware. AFAIK ServeTheHome is basically advertising for DemoEval which is an independent lab full of servers that you can rent access to. So there's a commercial interest behind it, but it's not Intel.

Here's their policy if you want to believe it: [https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright- polic...](https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-policies/)

Looking at Optane specifically, it is just that good. It is 2x-10x better than NAND (at ~2x the price) in certain aspects like mixed read/write or fsync. This is very far from Intel's 1000x claims, but Optane is still worth buying in some cases.

(Also, feel free to call me a paid shill if you want to get deeper in the mud.)

<comment><USER17> 2x-10x better when they claimed 1000x isn't "just that good". ESPECIALLY not when the write endurance is so abysmal.

The fact they don't come out and say, in the review, the hardware was furnished by Intel, and instead you have to actively search out the link you just provided, in and of itself is troubling. It's common courtesy and pretty much industry standard practice to list conflicts of interest at the start or end of an article like the one posted...

<comment> Patrick-STH Hi tw04 - just as a heads up, none of the SSDs were furnished by Intel. We have a budget and bought all of the drives we used on this test. Some we had to buy second hand, some were scavenged from servers we have had to decommission.

Intel does provide us with hardware, as does AMD, Intel, Toshiba, Samsung, WDC, Cavium and etc. In fact, we have a full list of all relationships here: [https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright- polic...](https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-policies/)

Unlike virtually every other major review site (and a large number of bloggers), as of today we still do not have direct ad sales to any of these companies.

We also buy an absolute ton of gear for the DemoEval service we run which is why we have access to many different bits. For example, we have purchased a dozen Optane 900p's already since Intel would not furnish us with a U.2 drive.

Intel does not want to have the 900p eat into the P4800X which is a higher margin product. As a result, this is the kind of article (Optane 900p in servers) that Intel specifically would not want us to do. Since we buy hardware, we can.

<comment><USER6> > Intel does not want to have the 900p eat into the P4800X which is a higher > margin product. As a result, this is the kind of article (Optane 900p in > servers) that Intel specifically would not want us to do. Since we buy > hardware, we can.

Intel has not to my knowledge actively discouraged or tried to prevent anyone from reviewing the 900p in an enterprise context. They haven't expressed any negative opinion about me including the 900p in my review of the P4800X, even though they provided hardware for both.

I agree that they probably don't want the 900p to hurt the sales of the P4800X, but I don't think they're particularly concerned about that happening. Most potential P4800X customers aren't going to go to the trouble of buying and installing large quantities of 900ps instead.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Eye candy is a critical business requirement - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/stephenpa/eye-candy-is-a-critical-business-requirement

<comment><USER2> He also wrote an article at A List Apart on the same subject: <http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the slides comparing the old gas pump to the new one, it really demonstrates how high-quality appearance brings about feelings of trust.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great looking presentation. Would have loved to hear it too.

Was the following ever true?

 _...it doesn't matter how pretty your site is or how many "bells and whistles" you have. While a high-quality site is important, the majority of people today value usability more than good looks or fanciness._

I firmly believe that if we (the collective we) don't start paying more attention to aesthetics, we are not going to survive this mess. The human landscape needs to start looking better. Would you rather have a trailer or one of these? [http://www.smallhousestyle.com/2007/07/23/the-mill-house- by-...](http://www.smallhousestyle.com/2007/07/23/the-mill-house-by- wingardhs/)

I know that not everyone can afford one of these but if there was more desire for them in the market the prices would come down and possibly be more competitive with a double wide.

<comment><USER5> BTW - you do realize that that house is okay in a wooded or rural area, but is a privacy disaster in urban/suburban area. Also, walls aren't just to keep other people from looking in, it's to keep protect them from seeing you. I'm glad that my neighbors have opaque walls.

<comment><USER6> While I agree it wouldn't work in an urban area...

The reason it wouldn't work in most suburban areas is because most people have these weird ecological disasters they call "lawns." They fret over them. They urge them to grow, and then mow them down (reminds me of one of my exes.. ha!). And they poison the local water with their fertilizers and pesticides. If they just grew some natural areas with large flowering shrubs, trees, and so forth.. having a house with windows wouldn't be such a problem.

The problem is everyone wants to pretend they're in a house out in the country, with rolling fields. Unfortunately, what they get are facsimiles of rolling fields; facsimiles of forests and streams. And day after day they trundle on, with their houses that only face forward (you don't see windows on the sides of houses in the 'burbs... do you? I haven't ever), like blinders to the reality of the fakeness they live in.

Of course, I live in post-industrial bushwick, so I can't really say my surroundings are more natural. But at least they aren't a caricature...

Besides, trailers/double-wides are typically in more rural areas, like the outer rims of suburbia.

<comment><USER5> > The reason it wouldn't work in most suburban areas is because most people > have these weird ecological disasters they call "lawns."

Lawns have nothing to do with their privacy failures in a urban/suburban area.

> If they just grew some natural areas with large flowering shrubs, trees,

You've got a very unnatural view of "natural area". With a few exceptions, the natural growth isn't nearly as dense as you suggest. (I now know that you haven't been to most of the US, Australia, Africa.)

> you don't see windows on the sides of houses in the 'burbs... do you? I > haven't ever

I'm looking out one. In fact, side windows are actually almost universal. There are a couple of recent styles that don't have them (because they're maximizing ground use) but they're the exception even in new construction in the US.

> Besides, trailers/double-wides are typically in more rural areas, like the > outer rims of suburbia.

Not really - I suspect that a majority are in parks and those aren't really "outer rims" of suburbia. (Take San Jose and Sunnyvale CA.)

<comment><USER6> Sorry, I should have made the disclaimer that I'm basing that on my experiences growing up in central North Carolina. I've been an east coaster for life, though I have family out there on the left coast now. Back home, azaleas and tall evergreen shrubs could provide plenty of privacy between houses. The woods were typically pine, with hardwoods coming in below that, and holly, azaleas and so forth beneath. We had large "natural areas" (by which I mean my dad had planted bushes and such, and just let them grow wild) which didn't look that messy, and were absolutely gorgeous when the azaleas were in bloom.

I guess if you're living out in the desert you've got to worry about not having enough ground cover. But then again, you chose to live in the desert ;)

Funny, almost none of the houses built in my father's neighborhood circa '92 have windows on the side. And they have fairly large yards.

Really? You're basing the "majority of parks" on some small observations about cali? Have you ever driven through georgia, alabama, ohio, north/south carolina, florida, etc?

California is not representative of the US - especially "middle america."

<comment><USER5> > You're basing the "majority of parks" on some small observations about cali?

Not at all. I just thought that the Silicon Valley counter-examples were interesting. Most people don't know how common trailer parks are.

> Have you ever driven through georgia, alabama, ohio, north/south carolina, > florida, etc?

I haven't driven through the carolinas or georgia, but the rest, yes. I've lived in the midwest, was born in the "mid central", and have driven through all that plus most of the west and part of the northeast.

I do apologize for not having a current count on the number of my relatives who currently live in "manufactured housing", but feel free to assume what ever you'd like from the fact that the number in the past is >0.

I'm still waiting for any support for the assertion that ugly houses are harmful to survival.

<comment><USER6> Well, they're certainly a detriment psychologically. How can something ugly be healthy?

Here you go.

[http://www.amazon.com/Aesthetics-Well-Being-Health- Architect...](http://www.amazon.com/Aesthetics-Well-Being-Health-Architecture- Environmental/dp/0754618560)

(Review was one of the first results on Google for "environmental aesthetics affecting health"... Did you research this question before you posed it?)

<comment><USER5> Yes, I did research it. I found the arguments in favor to be lame, self- serving, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone have audio from this presentation?

</comment><comment><USER8> I personally have an affective responsive to towards orthogonal design, meaning that if A does this, and B does that, then if I do A and B together, then I get both their effects. I get a great deal of pleasure from products that do this (many don't). I think it's an engineering thing - most people don't care.

This could contribute to the chasm between "features,reliable,usable,convenient" and "pleasurable,meaningful", if the organization is run by people who already get the latter from the former.

<comment><USER5> The dominant "engineering thing" is tradeoffs, like "good, fast, cheap, pick two".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Four Laws of Perception: similarity, proximity, closure and continuation.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=gnsOAAAAQAAJ&lpg=PA43&#...</a></comment>


Read an actual record contract (from Breaking Benjamin court case) - <AUTHOR> http://tunelab.com/2011/08/03/breaking-benjamin-court-docs/

<comment><AUTHOR> Contract starts on page 25. This is pretty much a par for course recording contract boilerplate.</comment>


Why Millennials Don't Want To Buy Stuff - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1842581/why-millennials-dont-want-to-buy-stuff <comment><USER2> Look I see Millennials lining up the night before sitting on line to buy SNEAKERS. Not to see the latest film or concert, but to actually buy sneakers. Sure Millennials won't pay for music or content, but they'll spend big time on everything from energy drinks to cosmetics.

</comment><comment><USER3> This millennial doesn't buy this article's claim. Consumer culture seems as great as ever--as long as you have money.</comment>


$78,000(US) worth of bitcoins couldn't fetch $50 16 months ago - <AUTHOR> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=1e02e63700d71abc90bb409088032aad&topic=92.msg826#msg826

<comment><AUTHOR> I really posted this just to get someone who understands bitcoin to tell me that I am (not?) mistaken here. I don't understand bitcoin, but it seems absolutely unbelievable to me that people would have faith in a currency that shows such outrageous volatility as this example seems to suggest. As for "volatility," I don't know all the numbers, I just mean that if it can increase that much in such a short time, it can clearly drop as much in the same amount of time or less.

Is the title correct here or am I mistaken? If correct, what the hell is going on?

<comment><USER2> You are correct, it's "value" has increased as quickly as it seems.

Do people have faith in bitcoins as a currency? Sure, some people do. A larger number of people see it as a way to make a quick profit by speculating. Whether bitcoins are legitimate currency or not is irrelevant - as long as people are willing to pay "real" money for them (and there exists a way to get "real" money back out) there will be speculators manipulating the market and inflating prices.

If, or how long, this will last is really anyone's guess. It could all collapse tomorrow, or (unlikely) turn into a legit "real" currency.</comment></comment>


Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/nootropics

<comment><USER2> I believe in research, I believe that we need to seek understanding and explore concepts, technologies and questions that can improve our race.

However, I have a huge issue with one of the goals of the project "People may choose to take nootropics due to the additional clarity it gives them, leading to increased performance in all walks of life."

The ethical dilemmas that this creates are massive. What about the authenticity of what it means to be "human". WHat about the adverse affects it will have on competition against those who don't have access to the enhancement (due to physiological, economic or other reasons)?

We need to understand this class of substance, however we cannot responsibly peddle "enhancements" in this way.

The ethics on this subject are extensively debated in academia (see works by Forlini & Racine among others...) and the only clear consensus that I've seen is that there are some very serious unanswered questions about the societal impact of this.

Would anyone back this campaign if it was studying athletic doping?

<comment><USER3> I don't know if these things work or not but the premise that improving people's abilities is somehow unethical is dangerous.

One could argue that giving good education to students gives them an unfair advantage to those without such an education. Does this mean that education is unethical?

Improving people's mental ability, whether through drugs or education, improves all of our lives. To win at being higher functioning and making better choices is not just a win for the individual but for the society at large. Those people can go on to improve the live of others and grow our collective economy. It's not zero sum as athletics can be thought of.

As an aside - if these improvements make us less human, then I don't see why modern medicine doesn't also make us less human. Do we define human purely as a certain cognitive ability?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> $12,000? I think they forgot a few zeros. Who is going to risk their brain chemistry on a substance that has undergone this level of testing? I think they will raise all of our collective IQs once they test it on themselves and remove themselves from the gene pool.

On a side note: Does IndieGoGo have no standards at all? There is so many garbage projects there compared to KickStarter. It makes it very tedious to browse.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have (nearly) nothing against drugs, especially those seemingly harmless. Still, reading articles like this I'm always reminded of this Blade Runner quote: "The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long".

Let's hope this is not the case.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow this sounds safe... get some random drug that these people make at the end of it? Could be anything.

<comment><USER7> > Could be anything.

That's true, but then again, that doughnut you purchased to "Support the Troops!" could contain anything as well.

Read: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can anyone let me know if these are legitimate? I have heard things about them in the past..

<comment><USER9> I use aniracetam (500mg twice daily) together with a choline supplement. It _definitely_ improves my cognitive stamina: while I don't think it boosts my 'peak' ability, it increases the amount of time I can operate at that level.

It doesn't seem to be right/left-brain specific, either - my wife (a psychotherapist) finds it similarly helpful.

Regarding side effects, I had some headaches and disorientation during the first week, but nothing after that.

Better living through chemistry :-)

<comment><USER10> I think he meant something in the line of sources of clinical trials etc. Nonetheless, the sources on Wikipedia suggest that they have been extensively tested in mice, like all the other stuff we take. And they do have proven use in treating Alzheimers etc. They are considered nontoxic or even neuro- protective, but in my opinion often sought out for based on reviews from first users who are mostly biased from the start and therefor easily placeboo'd. No offence :) I'd love to try them, but I'm in dubio for reasons stated above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> a splash quite unnoticed this was Icarus drowning</comment>


Ask HN: Going to MBA for a degree in Entreprenuership - <AUTHOR>

I've been going back and forth about this for a while. What are the reasons someone would want to get an MBA if they want to come out of school to join a startup or found their own company?
I can only think of a few reasons:
1) Connections. Going to a top school will help you meet and get to know many people who are just as well connected and ambitious.
2) Professors. They can help guide you and give you tips much like a mentor would.
3) Status. It could possibly be easier to get funding and capital if you have a MBA from Stanford on your team.
Is this generally it? To me, it doesn't seem like there's much of a reason to get an MBA, even from a top school, if you're planning on doing entrepreneurship / startups. <comment><USER2> Here's research on business school outcomes, notably compiled by Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford GSB: <http://www.aomonline.org/Publications/Articles/BSchools.asp>. The study was published in 2002, but the costs have skyrocketed and the benefits have imploded even more severely since publication. Net, if you don't want to work in investment banking or Fortune 500 management consulting, you don't need to buy a $150,000+ interview.

If you're planning to start your own company, MBA programs are a waste of time and money. You're far, far better off saving your money, learning on your own, and working on your company. It's not that difficult, and employers/clients/investors care more about results than credentials 99 times out of 100.

That's pretty much the introduction to my book (<http://book.personalmba.com>). The book itself is a primer on the most important things you need to know to get started.

Hope you find this useful. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> I took a degree program in Entrepreneurship - <http://www.conrad.uwaterloo.ca/mbet>

You could definitely just go out and start your own company. I'd never say that's not an option.

The program curriculum covered things like accounting and taxation which are reasonably important depending on what kind of business you're running. We got the chance to interact with local VC's and went through mock term sheet negotiations as well as discussion of what various terms mean in the world of venture funding. None of these things are un-learnable outside of school, but it was a positive experience.

We covered some technical things like organization structure and strategy and technology lifecycle management. We also covered marketing which may or may not be "technical" depending on your opinion of what marketers do.

You certainly do get connections, etc. Honestly there's a certain category of jobs that want to see an MBA before they'll hire you but I'm not sure of actual VCs really care about it.

The final truth is that even from an entrepreneurship program, the majority of students go on to get regular jobs.</comment>


A Gentle Visual Intro to Data Analysis in Python Using Pandas - <AUTHOR> https://jalammar.github.io/gentle-visual-intro-to-data-analysis-python-pandas/ <comment><USER2> A very gentle intro, indeed ;)

Pandas is such a vast monster, that even after going through the book from the original author of Pandas ([https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/python-for- da...](https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/python-for- data/9781491957653/)), I was absolutely unprepared for doing real analysis.

Whilst I understood the basics, such as data loading, (simple) cleaning, selections, functions, groupby', indexes etc., I spent most of my time on stackoverflow looking for solution to actual problems I was facing. I reckon that many other users have made the same experience - there is lot's of general info out there when it comes to pandas, but every data is different and the devil lies in the details. Long Story Short: learning pandas is all about trial-and-error and will take months (years even), to be efficient in.

<comment><USER3> Serious question: I've tried to use Pandas for some data analysis for my small business. Data sets are on the order of 10,000 data points or less. After struggling for days with Pandas, I've begun to wonder if it wouldn't be easier to code the analyses in raw Python. I wouldn't mind taking longer to complete the task at hand if in the process I was acquiring skills that will pay off down the road, but I wonder if Pandas isn't so esoteric and difficult that I may never reach the point that I can cash in that investment of time and effort as long as I am only a casual user.

In contrast, while I'm not an expert in JS or Python, I find that time spent struggling with those technologies pays dividends since the lessons learned make everything I do in the future easier.

This is highly subjective of course, but in your opinion, should I keep fighting with Pandas? Is it worth it?

<comment><USER4> 10,000 data points is well within the range of what Excel can handle without needing PowerQuery. What type of analyses are you attempting?

<comment><USER3> Linear optimization and generating some simple graphs. I would like to be able to at least generate the graphs automatically from my database.

<comment><USER5> > Linear optimization

Did you mean linear regression? Linear optimization isn't a use case that Pandas covers, but there are other tools that I can recommend.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's what I meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How does Pandas compare to R's Tidyverse?

Tidyverse was super easy to pick up, and I can do almost anything I want with. Why would I want to switch to Panda?

Has anyone tired the python tydiverse port? How does it compare to the original?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't used tidyverse myself, but I know that pandas is heavily influenced and inspired by R. Most analysis tasks are doable in both platforms. If later stages of your pipeline involve deep learning (or machine learning, generally), then it could pay to be in the python universe given the wide adoption of python ML/DL tools. I generally wouldn't advise switching unless you have a certain pain point, though.

<comment><USER5> > pandas is heavily influenced and inspired by R.

Is it? How so?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN, author here. If you've ever wanted to get into data analysis, this is my best attempt at getting you past that first hump. A lot of these concepts are easier than you might think.

<comment><USER7> Thank you very much. I would certainly love to read more and more about Pandas (or anything) written this style and go deeper in the subject.

Are you going to write more? Can you (or anybody) recommend where (a book, a YouTube channel, a website or whatever) do I continue from the point where you intro ends? As for now all I use of Pandas is a datetime-indexed array of real numbers + simple vector operations on its columns but I feel like I would like to take a learning/career path to becoming a Pandas expert.

<comment> happy-go-lucky You may want to check this out:

> Short hands-on challenges to perfect your data manipulation skills

[https://www.kaggle.com/learn/pandas](https://www.kaggle.com/learn/pandas)

Also this:

> Things in Pandas I Wish I'd Known Earlier

[http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/rasbt/python_reference/bl...](http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/rasbt/python_reference/blob/master/tutorials/things_in_pandas.ipynb)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Love this intro! All of the popular dataframe oriented tools (tidyverse, pandas, etc) all require familiarity with vectorization and thinking with related mental models. I'm involved with Dataquest Labs and we teach data science interactively in the browser. We're pretty big believers in using diagrams and visual aids to help people learn these concepts as well.

We've had a pandas course ([https://www.dataquest.io/course/pandas- fundamentals](https://www.dataquest.io/course/pandas-fundamentals)) for a while and we just launched some R courses that teach a lot of vectorization ([https://www.dataquest.io/path/data- analyst-r](https://www.dataquest.io/path/data-analyst-r)).

</comment><comment><USER9> What kind of syntax is var['string'] in these examples?

Haven't really used python for anything and I'm just wondering, since it looks like an array or map, but clearly seems to have some logic behind it as it seems to reference the specified column at each row. What is this functionality, something that's built in to python or use of some sort of magic functions?

<comment><USER10> var['string'] means get the item of object var with key 'string'. Any Python class can define the magic method __getitem__ to define the behavior of/overload the [] operator.

<comment><USER9> Thanks! Didn't know python had magic functions so I was really confused.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky Note to author:

> We can select one or multiple rows using their numbers (inclusive of both > bounding row numbers):

> df[1:3]

That will slice beginning from the row with integer location 1 up to 3, exclusive of the last element. So, just two rows, not three as shown.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up! Indeed it's df.loc[1:3] that would return three rows, not straight-up df[1:3] which indeed returns two rows.

Edit: Corrected in the post. Thanks again!

<comment><USER11> But why design it that way? Seems to be a sure way to confuse new user.

<comment><USER12> I'd say that's because df[start:stop] mimics python's builtin list slicing, which includes start but excludes end, so this dictates the behaviour of indexing without .loc. By contrast, df.loc[start:stop] is a label-based indexer, and labels can be anything (integers, strings, datetimes, categories, etc.), so it doesn't always make sense to exclude the right endpoint of the interval.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wanted to try to analyze application logs (usually a timestamp and some text) but all examples in pandas deal with numbers.

Is this useful for the analysis of such data (with a machine learning mid term goal (clustering and anomaly detection)?

</comment><comment><USER14> This is great. I hope the author posts more Pandas visual guides.

</comment><comment><USER15> Curious, for stuff like this, why not just use sql(sqlite)?

<comment><USER16> There are some things which Pandas is just better at, such as: extracting content via RegEx and pivoting... However, there are also some situations where you should use SQL such as UPSERT or date-range joins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The last time I wanted to use Pandas, it ate 32GB or RAM and then I just killed it, and made all the analysis in Postgres.</comment>


Ask HN: Steve Job Stories - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for personal accounts that have surfaced around the net in the past few dates.
Got any? Please post others that you've surely read/watched/listened to from around the internet.
I just really want to a understand the thought process that powered and made the man they called Steve Jobs.
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>== http://john.jubjubs.net/2011/10/09/steve-jobs/ http://www.stephenfry.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs/ http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/25/michael-dhuey-apple-engineer/
then there are: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394285,00.asp#fbid=TtIib3Ttzhx
http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/25/top-10-steve-jobs-resignation-reaction-stories/
</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>===
Rest assured, I'll be getting one of those biographies coming out in 14 days. </comment><comment><USER2> www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&characters=Steve Jobs&detail=medium</comment>


A Bit of Advice for Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/demo-techcrunch50-september

<comment><USER2> CenterNetworks is the best blog out there! Reporting the way it should be done!

</comment><comment><USER3> no sense in trying to fight for press - just wait another week

</comment><comment><USER4> makes sense. Unless you are at TC50 stay out of the press until its over.</comment>


Ask HN: Is anynone on HN currently developing for Google glass? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Yes, a my coworker and I coded up a glass app in the last three days, and we're planning to open source a bulk of code responsible for integrating with the mirror API (we did it using rails, so the logic will be extracted into a gem). It's surprisingly simple to do once you've acclimated yourself to the mirror API.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, i just finished watching a SXSW video and it seems like it is just a rest api. I assumed it would be more like mobile where you would get an SDK and could develop apps to be downloaded on to glass. Does this mean that if there is no wifi or 3g/4g access the glasses become useless?

Also it works off a realtime timeline which your app can subscribe to, inorder to receive 'cards' relative to your app. I couldn't help but think that this timeline is twitter on steroids, it could be a competitor to twitter.

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't say it becomes useless without wifi but definitely less useful. The timeline cards are saved to glass memory, so the content on them should theoretically be accessible without wifi.. I am under the impression that any actions performed without a connection get queued up, and then sent once connected, though I'm not perfectly certain that this is the case..

Twitter on steroids is actually a surprisingly accurate analogy, I think. Probably just about the most accurate description I've heard so far. Mostly I think people think of google glass as a HUD, which it isn't.. yet anyhow.

<comment><AUTHOR> How did you test your app, did you just check to see if your app updated on the timeline correctly?

<comment><USER2> Mostly we used the glass playground, which you have access to if you have a pair of glasses. The playground doesn't perfectly represent the glass experience.. I say this mostly in regards to stylistic stuff (I.e. CSS rendering).

You can have access to the API keys if only one dev has glass, if they include you in their dev 'team' . This grants you access to the playground. I'll be writing stuff up about it soon, to more explicitly explain the whole procedure, since the documentation (while sufficient) is rather confusingly organized...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The answer is probably yes, but what do you expect to learn and what do you want to know? Maybe make your request a little bit more specific.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't heard any discussions on HN about this except for the product itself, usually when there is a new platform we see a number of little hacks and blogposts on HN about it but i haven't heard anything. I don't have anything specific, i just wanted to know if dev's on HN were playing around with it and if they had anything to say about their experience developing on it.

<comment><USER4> Well, you can't expect to cover every single aspect of the IT,but there is a huge probability.</comment></comment></comment>


The_platinum_searcher (Code search tool similar to ack and ag) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/monochromegane/the_platinum_searcher <comment><AUTHOR> After striving to get grep to handle multiple delicate exclusions (exclude file types, dirs etc) and dealing with BSD vs GNU grep, and trying ag and the like, I've found pt to work "out of the box", be easily configurable, and have nice defaults.

And it's even written in Go, and quite easy to extend if I need...</comment>


Ask HN: Why in Windows shutting down the PC is not the same as restarting it? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It's the fast start feature, that writes the RAM content to hard disk and quickly starts back up when the computer is shutdown normally. When the PC is restarted, it starts with a fresh state.

This feature can be toggled in settings and may impact perceived boot time.

<comment><AUTHOR> But why would this impact installed drivers or applications? I get this warning "shutting down and starting up again" as different from rebooting from new versions of software, usually.

<comment><USER2> It's probably because the current state of drivers and applications is also saved along the RAM content I guess. For example, when you install a new driver and it asks you to reboot in order to start working, if you do it manually by shutting down and starting up, it wouldn't have the same effect as restarting, so driver wouldn't start as well. For recent versions of Windows, you need to select restart instead of shutdown-start up to ensure fresh boot- up.</comment></comment></comment>


Telling your "career story" - why the same storytelling rules apply - <AUTHOR> https://www.hireart.com/blog/how-to-tell-the-story-of-your-career/

<comment><USER2> Its funny how hard it is to really promote yourself in an authentic way. Enjoyed reading this one.</comment>


Hip hop samples, mapped to your keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://samplestitch.com

<comment><USER2> This is excellent for teaching infants how to produce hip hop beats. I'll test it out on my own kids.

[http://samplestitch.com/?song=150&sample=impress](http://samplestitch.com/?song=150&sample=impress)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a little bit like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw2RT_vQDQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw2RT_vQDQk)</comment></comment>


How to Recognize a Great Boss, or Even Be One  - <AUTHOR> http://www.caycon.com/blog/2012/02/how-to-recognize-a-great-boss-or-even-be-one/ <comment><USER2> I think this is a great listing of traits and attributes.</comment>


Never Test Logging - <AUTHOR> http://javax0.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/never-test-logging/

<comment><USER2> As someone who does Ops and support for a living, please test logging. I can't tell you the number of times I've been told by a developer, "just send me the logs," and no log was generated. Diagnostic logging should be a feature that is considered in your application, especially one that will be put in front of users. It will eventually break and will do so in a way that you didn't expect and some overnight support person will be staring at "Generic Error 12: Error 11 didn't happen" with a screaming customer and no access to source.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think a good case is made here. If it doesn't need to be tested, that implies it doesn't need to work. If it doesn't need to work, you don't need to write it in the first place.

<comment><USER4> Preach it brother! Much truth in this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The author simplifies the problem a lot I think. He says there's is a quite clear line between logging, alerting, etc. -- I say there isn't. What we did recently in a quite critical system is we had a process to scrape the logfiles -- essentially tailing them and looking for words like 'error', 'fail', 'exception', and so on (well, it was a bit more intelligent than that). Whenever something smelly happened, then we received the log fragment in email.

I hear the uproar, and I must say this was not our main alerting system. This was the 2nd or 3rd fallback, because an alerting system has a lot of dependencies and complexity, and it might fail in certain (unforeseen) circumstances. Having an extra line of defense is nice, and there is a well- tested, widely-used, reasonably simple way of communicating system state (including problems): using a simple logging framework.

You could write something extremely simple low-level stuff for sending alerts when the more sophisticated alerting system (with GUI, etc.) fails, but why not use something that has been tested already?

</comment><comment><USER6> Now, I'm not saying you _should_ test logging, but I don't think the author made much of a case here. You shouldn't test logging because it is a code smell! If you are testing logging it's because it's not actually logging!

<comment><USER7> You may be using a logging framework to satisfy some audit requirement, e.g. to capture user login timestamps, or important transaction details. That should be tested, since it's a feature of your software.

But even if you are just logging for behavior tracking/debug purposes, you should at least verify that the logging framework is actually working, otherwise it might not be there when you need it. If you're going to go through the trouble to code something that's going to stay in the production release, you should pretty much always at least do some basic smoke tests on the feature.</comment></comment>


US Air Force + 1,760 PlayStation 3's + Condor = supercomputer - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html

<comment><USER2> How does Sony feel about subsidizing the cost of these things?

</comment><comment><USER3> So the Air Force can get "Other OS"</comment>


Intel's first 'open-source PC' on sale for $199 - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9241234/Intel_39_s_first_39_open_source_PC_39_on_sale_for_199 <comment><USER2> For some of you scratching your head about why this board is the way it is, check out this Google+ thread from Darren Hart:

[https://plus.google.com/101378268367730737515/posts/DGQ9Nkr5...](https://plus.google.com/101378268367730737515/posts/DGQ9Nkr5hjK)

In the fourth comment he explains some of his design choices:

      One of those factors I mentioned above was making sure the
      board was "replicable". This adds a number of constraints,
      such as:

      * The price cannot include any subsidies (otherwise people
      could not recreate the board at close to the same cost)
      * The parts must have a long product life cycle (this
      eliminates some of the other chips that we might have
      considered) and be readily available (otherwise there would be
      shortages in supply and people wouldn't be able to source the
      parts to make their own)
      * Maker and hacker friendly meant including access to a number
      of buses and other interfaces, which also limited our part
      selection as well as impacting cost.

      There is a fairly lengthy story here, which I'm happy to share
      with anyone interested. All in all, I think we managed to come
      up with a very capable board that will allow people to tweak
      it and hack it and expand it while providing strong
      performance (especially in terms of I/O) and a decent price
      point. More on that as information becomes available...

Edit:

To the best of my knowledge Intel has _never_ focused on releasing designs that an individual can build/modify on their own. To me this represents a _very_ exciting change in Intel's attitude toward "the little guy." Further, to anyone looking to build their own hardware similar to the Raspbery Pi, good luck trying to get Broadcom to talk to you, let alone give you a BSP or sell you chips. Their NDA process/requirements is/are obscene...

<comment><USER3> For a real world story on (not) interacting with Broadcom (and AMD, who don't make a very good impression in that story either), read Jens' second comment on [http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/2463/](http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/2463/) (Feb 21).

I'm just not sure if Intel's process is really better for small customers (but you probably end up in the "small" tier faster than with Broadcom)

<comment><USER2> > just not sure if Intel's process is really better for small customers

It depends on what you're buying, but for SoC processors and especially chipsets, it's not so great. And re: "who's small" \- yeah, I think ~1M units annually is still "small" to Intel.

However, some of their memory products (NOR and EEPROM come to mind) are very attainable for smaller customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> This is exactly the type of marketing effort Intel needs in order to steal the embedded systems market back from ARM. As an embedded systems hacker who normally works on projects with budgets well under $10m, Intel has never really been on my radar. They're incredibly unapproachable until you're a bigger OEM, and chances are if you've started from scratch you're already used to (and tooled for) designing for ARM.

Creating an open platform around Atom makes Intel much, much more approachable.

With regard to price, I'm not discouraged _at all_. $200 is well within my personal budget, and I've got a vision-heavy robotics project in mind that I'd love to use this for.

Why not use an Raspberry Pi or a more powerful ARMv7 SBC? ARM software support is getting better every day, but the vast, vast majority of software is still written for x86. As examples, libBLAS, LAPACK, libav, OpenCV - all of these were written and optimized for x86 MMX, then SSE*, first. Their performance on ARMv7 has come a long way very quickly, but ARM performance is a secondary goal for a lot of these types of projects.

Shit, how well does Matlab or Octave run on ARM? I know more than a few people who'd salivate at the chance to write sensing/control code in Octave and run it on a $200 SBC...

<comment><USER4> I don't know, but I guess HPC-type packages don't optimize for Atom. They optimize for the performance oriented micro-architectures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So far their firmware isn't open source. Tianocore isn't useful on real x86 hardware without hardware initialization code (which Tiano doesn't provide).

Let's see if an Intel group manages to coerce the chipset group to release those "precious" (but in reality, very boring) details on memory initialization to the world.

So far I'm doubtful, even if it's "just" for Atom.

[edit: In fact, their website ([http://www.minnowboard.org/technical- features/](http://www.minnowboard.org/technical-features/)) states "All software will be provided in image and Open Source form (with binary elements per IP restrictions)". That exception _will_ cover Platform Initialization code...]

<comment><USER2> I think internally this is a huge [1] experiment for Intel. They're saying "is doing the work to support the low-volume 'little guy' going to do anything for our high-volume sales?"

I have a feeling were it up to the people leading the project, the init code would be made available. However Intel as a company is only going to take so much risk in support of this experiment. I have a feeling that init code and firmware for softloaded peripherals will be "business as usual" for quite a while.

That said, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If this is successful and if customers are very vocal about not wanting "half-assed" open systems, it _might_ eventually get there.

1: Actually, in terms of resources I'm sure it's tiny. In terms of culture on the other hand...

<comment><USER3> I'm involved in the open source firmware struggle with Intel for a number of years now. There are Intel customers with solid business cases, but it actually got worse in the last few years.

<comment><USER2> Can you say more? What's made it worse recently? I was witness to some struggle between GumStix and Intel/Marvell back around when Marvell bought the XScale processor line, but I've been out of touch with Intel on this issue since then. However I've seen countless peripheral silicon manufacturers maintain strangleholds on their softloaded firmware... Though with things like wireless chipsets and DSP algorithms, it's arguable there's real IP there worth protecting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sort of like the Pandaboard. Not as many GPIOs though.

Interesting that Intel is dipping its toe in here, At one level it validates the ARM SoC market that is percolating around the embedded space but its also typical in that this doesn't put any of the 'good stuff' Intel could put out there into the market.

Perhaps most interesting has been the continued fraying around the windows/intel empire, what with Microsoft offering an ARM version of Windows on the RT and Intel building clearly not PC compatible motherboards.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, is it just me or is Intel missing the market on this one? The price is about 4x too high for what you get (compared to other ARM based boards) and the size is a little big as well.

Who is this really aimed at, anyway?

<comment><USER7> Apparently their market is developers who don't own computers:

> However, the MinnowBoard is still cheaper than most PCs and could appeal to > developers looking to write and test commercial applications before they're > deployed in servers, embedded devices and other computers.

I'm baffled as to why anyone would purchase this board. Raspberry Pi[1] destroys it on price/value so _will_ Parallella[2]. Why not wait a couple months and get a super computer![3]

[1] [http://www.raspberrypi.org/](http://www.raspberrypi.org/) [2] [http://www.parallella.org/](http://www.parallella.org/) [3] Why do I think anyone here needs these links?

<comment><USER8> lets be honest the number of "developers" who can't afford a proper PC is trivial in the USA just buy a newish pc second hand one ebay.

<comment><USER9> You could probably find a computer better than this in the trash, some old Pentium 4 with 2GB of memory.

<comment><USER10> Unless you want something more power efficient. [http://www.minnowboard.org/static/pdfs/Getting%20Started%20w...](http://www.minnowboard.org/static/pdfs/Getting%20Started%20with%20the%20Minnowboard.pdf) says this runs from 5V, 2.5A. That's 12.5W. Quite a lot for mobile, but a Pentium 4 CPU alone will use at least four times that ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation_f...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation_figures#Pentium_4)), for a < 2GHz variant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's interesting, just yesterday I scanned the low cost system boards looking for one with SATA. I was wondering if I should replace the old PCs I use as filestores with something smaller, lower power, that could just run linux and rsync for me.

This does it ... but as others have said, the price is not really attractive compared to a used pc. I don't fault the design team for this. It looks like a great little board ... but probably for strategic reasons Intel would rather have us continue with those old pcs, rather than risk cannibalization of low- end pcs.

Update: I think I was slow to see the embedded focus of this board and it's IO. So of course it is priced against that world, and not the world of low-end or used PCs.

<comment><USER12> [http://www.bigboardlist.com/](http://www.bigboardlist.com/) (note that this is my project)

Cubieboard and Wandboard Quad both have SATA.

<comment><USER11> Excellent, thank you.

FWIW also, comparing that $200 pricepoint, Newegg recently had a Lenovo server Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GH Dual-Core; 4GB RAM; DVD ROM, no-disk, no-os, for $250. (reputed backdoor at no extra cost!)

Update: I just went to techbargains and searched "server", that one was recently expired. When I'm in shopping mode I just keep an eye on a couple such shopping sites to see what comes by.

<comment><USER12> Please add links for that!

I'm actually thinking of building a hadoop cluster at home so something cheap would be nice.

Foxconn has cheapo machines on newegg as well.

A while ago I bought a Fujitsu P180 and it was a lot of machine for the price but the prices went way up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I couldn't find the schematics or design files for the board.

<comment><USER14> Project member here. The hardware design files will be released in about a week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How are these different than AMD Fusion boards already out there in the market, with x86-64 and virtualization?

</comment><comment><USER16> $200 for an atom board? Hyperthreading on an Atom?

This would have been interesting a decade ago.

</comment><comment><USER17> ONE ethernet port. Why won't anyone give us nerds TWO ethernet ports??

<comment><USER18> It apparently has a free PCIexpress lane, so I think we can go nuts with the expansions :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It was mentioned in this article that the Atom SoC uses a PowerVR based GMA600 graphics core. [http://liliputing.com/2013/07/intels-minnowboard-open- source...](http://liliputing.com/2013/07/intels-minnowboard-open-source-low- power-dev-board-ships-for-199.html)

Would someone be able to confirm this, because if it's the case then there might not be as much Linux support, especially for 3D acceleration, for this board.

</comment><comment><USER20> How is performance per watt? I mean, that's mainly what makes older Atom boards interesting, isn't it?

<comment><USER21> Older Atoms had about 10W TDP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Since you can already get full ITX atom boards for around $60 on ebay, this makes little sense to me.

[http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=atom+motherboar...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=atom+motherboard+itx&_sop=15)

</comment><comment><USER23> The datasheet does not have any power consumption info. How big does the PS have to be? Otherwise it could be a useful board, $200 is a little steep now- a-days. The APC is $100, the RPi is $40 etc.

</comment><comment><USER24> $199 seem a little high.

</comment><comment><USER25> 1 GHz?

32-bit CPU?

$200?

Really?

Who exactly is the intended audience for this board?

<comment><USER9> Suckers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Could someone gift it to RMS? :)

<comment><USER27> He'll just complain about the blobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> UEFI? Closed the fucking tab, we're done here.

<comment><USER29> Huh?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> You can already get a 4x4 Intel NUC machine on amazon for ~$150 with case and mounting bracket. They are capable machines.

NUC with haswell processors (less wattage) coming this fall - price TBD.

<comment><USER14> Project member here. I was disappointed with the way the PCWorld article described it as an "open source PC". MinnowBoard is really an open hardware embedded platform. If you're looking for a small form factor PC, the NUC is definitely the way to go. MinnowBoard is for embedded applications or product development where interfacing with custom hardware (whether I2C sensors, or custom FPGAs through PCIe, etc) is needed.

<comment><USER31> I can't believe you guys price it at 199$, totally unacceptable as embedded platform. at 1/4 of the price, there are plenty of ARM solutions. Why even bother?

<comment><USER2> It depends on what you're doing. If you're making an internet toaster, go buy an arduino. If you're doing anything CPU intensive, or if you're not familiar with embedded systems tooling, cross-compilation, Yocto or similar build systems, Atom >> ARM.

I'll _very_ happily pay $200 for this.

<comment><USER32> Honest question, no snark - Why not gut out an elcheapo laptop's mainboard (Atom or AMD Brazos) and dedicate a usb port to an Arduino or something. You get the power of x86 along with the expandability (i.e. GPIO, SPI, I2C, etc) of a microcontroller chip.

<comment><USER2> I've done sort of what you suggest professionally on projects where design decisions are driven largely by per-unit cost. If the SoCs that do _everything_ you need aren't cheap/available, go with the best-fit main microprocessor to handle the heavy lifting, and one or two cheap micros to fill in the missing pieces. It's also a good approach for when a part of your solution needs good strict real-time software.

However for low-volume and/or personal projects, dev cost/time often trumps hardware cost and heterogeneous systems have a whole host of secondary challenges. Specific to your recommendation, it's a more complicated power architecture, more components to enclose, more tooling to worry about (software and hardware), and I have to worry about how to synchronize and communicate between the SBC and the micro/arduino.

It's worth an extra $100+ to be able to focus my limited free time on solving the problem I want to solve rather than on "shaving yaks."

<comment><USER32> Ah got it. Thanks. I didn't think power would play a significant role, but if it does then I can see why.

<comment><USER2> It all depends. Are you running off batteries, or wall power? Does your system have idle time that it can take advantage of for power savings? Were the boards in question designed with features to allow for low-power sleep, etc? Are you working with analog? Do your boards have low noise supplies, or do they expect a low noise input source? Are you doing any high current or high voltage switching? Is power-coupled noise an issue? Are we doing any switching of mains power? Is safety an issue? Should we use isolated supplies? If so, how much isolation do we need?

Software folks, myself included, tend to drastically underestimate the complexity of power design...

<comment><USER33> There is a reason an entire branch of electrical engineering is devoted to it. A branch I am considering going back to.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How do you guys manage to stay in shape while working on your startups? - <AUTHOR>

I am constantly on my computer and when I'm on the eliptical I can't seem to do my work fully. So I have to spend an hour working out then go back to my work. So I was wondering if there was a better way to work and work out at the same time? <comment><USER2> You'll never--as you've discovered--be able to do either activity particularly well if you're doing them concurrently. That is a dead-end; Just bury it. Focus fully on one thing and one thing alone.

Next, get rid of your elliptical. It's a wildly inefficient use of your time and effort.

Finally, get a Kettlebell.

According to a recent study from a well respected fitness research organization, in collaboration with an equally well respected research University, Kettlebell workouts can burn up to 20 calories per minute. This is primarily due to Kettlebell workouts being comprised of total-body movements that bring cardio and strength training together, in one quick workout.

The only other activity known to man that is that efficient is cross-country skiing, uphill, at a fast clip. Considering that your work-space likely lacks snow and hills, a Kettlebell may be more readily appropriate. ;-)

For more info, see: [http://www.acefitness.org/getfit/studies/kettlebells012010.p...](http://www.acefitness.org/getfit/studies/kettlebells012010.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Upgrade your diet and then address the fitness.

I followed the Slow Carb diet (from 4 Hour Body book) and then switched to the Warrior Diet. A total loss of 51 pounds as of this morning. (38 from SC & 13 from WD so far)

Look at kettlebells for intense exercises with low time requirements. If you have more time, try any full-contact martial art, especially the wrestling ones: Judo (my choice) or BJJ (if you don't like standing up! :-).

But do something positive sooner rather than later.

</comment><comment><USER4> For me the whole point of working out is to take a complete break from the computer.

I do some martial arts twice a week ( jiujitsu )

Other than standing and stretching at regular intervals, I don't think it's productive to try and do both at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER5> Eat less, seriously. Most of us are over-nourished by default. Then try to bake your exercise into your daily life instead of the traditional method of blocking off a few hours to do solely that. Walk to work, walk back. Climb more stairs. Do house work.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I just wanted to question your use of the term over-nourished. My understanding is that we are generally over-fed (myself included ... but now actively working on it) but woefully under-nourished.

Jon Gabriel (sp?) teaches that most people are low on Omega-3's and that the first step on any diet is to add Omega-3 before changing or subtracting anything. I did this and while I'm only a single data point, I found that I was less fanatical about food afterwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A healthy diet is 80% of your health- I agree with the Slow Carb diet and Warrior Diet recommendations. Personally I stick to a modified Paleo routine (I do dairy- yogurt, cheese, goat milk).

As for workouts- you really don't need much- don't waste hours on an elliptical, it is far more beneficial to do an intense 20 minute sprint session (10 x 100m sprints with 1 min of rest in between each round) or a 10 minute circuit involving pushups, pullups, squats, etc. 3 quick, intense 30 min workouts, combined with a decent diet will keep you going.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am a skinny guy so my problem is not keeping weight off but rather putting weight on. When I am deep into my work I put off eating and end up skipping meals.

My co-founders and I have started going to the gym for an hour or so every night which is a great break from work. Before it got cold and I started going to the gym I would sneak out for a 30min run every other day, a lot of great ideas come to me while running.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why would the recommendation for someone who is busy with a startup be anything different than the recommendation for any other busy professional?

If you absolutely have to feel productive, go spend an hour on a treadmill, bike or elliptical listening to tech podcasts or something. Typically you won't be able to do intense, short-burst training while doing this. That's ok, a bit of long slow distance won't kill you.

</comment><comment><USER9> Everyone has great points here. I took up intermittent fasting where I eat within an 8 hour window. Normally, I only eat one huge meal per day. It saves me time too. I also use a kettlebell and keep it by my workspace (It basically taunts me to workout). In 15 minutes I can get a full body workout and I have left my work for that time and cleared my head which makes me way more productive for the rest of the day.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you're trying to work on the elliptical machine, I think you're missing some of the benefits of working out. It's a chance to unplug and let your mind drift creatively. I find that a lot of problems solve themselves while I'm running or weightlifting.

If you're really die-hard about working durning your workouts, try business audiobooks, or let Siri read you your emails.

</comment><comment><USER11> Man, you definitely can take 1 hour off in a day 3-4 times a week. Just take this time and go to the gym or do some interval training outside (sprint/job/sprint/jog etc. cross-fit style).

You can sleep a little less if you really need the time, but I'm sure you can take the time to workout... I do take it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I do recommend changing your diet a bit. As fezzl pointed out, most Americans/westerners are hardwired to eat more calories than needed. I eat Indian vegetarian food and, ironically, I calculated my caloric intake to be 1500-1700 yesterday. I had to eat a few things once I realized it was far too low.

I usually force myself to block off an hour or two every day for exercise because I was raised with it and if I do not, then I feel strange, then grumpy, then downright erratic. My suggestion: Try to find something that is fun, not boring. I play soccer at an intense level, which is much more fun than running around a track or treadmill.

Also, (and this is arguably one of the most important things) remember how little it takes to workout really well. Your body burns calories much better when it lacks oxygen. Instead of running on the elliptical for an hour, go out to a park after work for 15 minutes and do nothing but sprints. You'll get a workout that is over 10 x better and it takes less time.

</comment><comment><USER13> In an hour, especially if you can get in an hour 5 days/wk of weights/stretching/cardio, combined with a good diet should keep you in shape and the weight off.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. But an hour is a lot to ask most people before they start to realize some benefits. That's why I recommend the diet first and then short workouts. If those work for them, the desire to exercise will cause them to step it up themselves and do more activity because they have learned to enjoy it.</comment></comment>


Seven years ago next month, Tim Bray predicted the End of SOA... - <AUTHOR> http://www.ebpml.org/blog2/index.php/2013/03/20/the-end-of-the-web

<comment><USER2> SOA = "Service-oriented architecture", first time I've come across that term (I always say "Web Services").

<comment><AUTHOR> LoL</comment></comment>


Some of my best friends are pawns - <AUTHOR> http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/2009/11/some-of-my-best-friends-are-pawns.cfm <comment><USER2> I fear this is another one of those interesting pop psychology articles that draws socially-oriented conclusions far above what the study itself actually shows.

It seems like an interesting result that the test subjects tended to mix up different people who they had already associated as being similar, according to them and in reference to their own lives.

I'm not sure that you can really extrapolate that to having any bearing on pigeonholing "others as blue-collar or professional, conservative or liberal, Black or white or Asian, man or woman, young or old."

Certainly not to the even more tenuous connection with "using people, which we're taught early on not to do".

Disclaimer: I didn't read the original article, just the blog post summary of it.</comment>