Ask HN: How to get to "commit" on a good open source project? - <AUTHOR>

I want to get involved in an open source project, but I thought I'd ask the HNers for some advice first.
Here's what I have come up with as my initial to-do list:
(1) Find an interesting project that has some momentum.
(2) Study the project src.
(3) Learn the source control environment. (e.g github)
(4) Follow the forums, and answer some questions.
(5) Find a bug I can fix.
(6) Find a feature I can add.
What else should I do?
I am also interested in advice on human behaviours and politics in OS development communities, (i.e.)
What kind of things should I expect to see in succeeding/failing OS project communities?
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> While i'm new to OS contributing, I've found dealing with communities (especially in IRC) in a way that discourages vampires (<http://www.slash7.com/pages/vampires>) and promotes friendly urges to "learn more" are generally appreciated if handled diplomatically.

I'm attempting to get more involved in the CakePHP community myself and am taking the tact of contributing to smaller supporting projects (their documentation) and lurking in the IRC chat to understand other people's problems, learn from them and get to know the core developers.

Edit: And never have the expectation that you'll ever get to work on core development. (Not that you can't, but this mantra will help to keep your motivations altruistic.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers, I hadn't thought about contributing to documentation as a good starting point.

I had assumed I wouldn't be contributing core code, my motivation is simply an urge to code more outside of my day job, and to get some good/fun experience doing it.</comment></comment>


Firesheep, three weeks later: Fallout - <AUTHOR> http://codebutler.com/firesheep-three-weeks-later-fallout <comment><USER2> This is not about a new tool called Fallout if the headline made you believe so (I did). This is just an article summing up Firesheep.

I found it very hard to read and there was nothing new in it. So unless you lived under a rock the past weeks, you can safely skip this.</comment>


IPhone 4: Who cares about pixel density? It's about interface definition. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dustincurtis.com/iphone-4-who-cares-about-pixel-density-its-ab-0

<comment><USER2> Is it really true that Android has not been scaling interface definition as pixel density increases? It's been a while since I used my G1, but I thought that my notification bar was taking up the same amount of physical space on that device as it does on my N1, which would make a lie of that claim. The number of icons on the home screen has not changed either even though the N1 is much higher resolution.

<comment><USER3> Android does this. Even windows 7 has a configurable option for the size of all interface elements. (I recently got my mom a laptop with a small but very high resolution screen and was impressed with how well it handled it.) This article is a waste of space.

<comment><USER4> Since everyone seems to agree with you I find it odd that more people aren't flagging this article. I've said it many times, please stop up-voting all the Apple articles. They don't belong here and nearly every one of them is discovered to be crap or inaccurate. Even after someone points it out and gets up-voted for it the article still remains on the front page. Exercise your ability to clean up HN -- flag!

<comment><USER5> While I seem to have negligently exaggerated on the exclusivity of the iPhone 4's resolution independence, the spirit of the article is still there and the points are still valid. iOS's implementation of resolution independence is the best and most standardized implementation that exists.

<comment><USER6> Not really. I don't know how much you know about how it actually works, but it's a much bigger mess than what you are describing in the article. OS X isn't really built from the ground up to be resolution independent, and linking to articles about quartz is kind of misleading, given that a lot of the graphics layer of iOS is completely different than the graphics layer of Mac OS X.

It may be easier on OS X than other platforms, I don't really know, but Mac OS X, despite a lot of talk over the last 4 years or so, remains not fully resolution independent, and the new iOS approach is a pretty big departure from what has been going on in Mac OS X.

<comment><USER7> It's actually far harder on OS X than any modern Windows or Gnome system (don't know about KDE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can't we just admit that the iPhone's 320x480 pixel display was getting kinda old and was due to an upgrade? Yes more pixels = things looks sharper. Other phones had better displays for a while, now the iPhone has a great one too. I think the display upgrade was kind of obvious for the iPhone4 and have been saying this since last year - it's cool and all but don't hype it into oblivion.

<comment><USER5> Other phones have had better resolution, but they have never increased the definition of the interface elements themselves. Those "better" screens just made everything smaller and provided more room for stuff.

\-- Edit --

Apparently I was wrong on this point. Android does have some support for resolution independence, but most apps are not built for random pixel densities and therefor do not look stunning.

<comment><USER3> Bullshit. Android does exactly the same thing.

<comment><USER9> This is the kind of lack of civility I'd like to see less of on Hacker News. Pointing out someone is wrong is probably enough. It feels good to shout bullshit at someone, but lowers the level of discourse and also makes it more acceptable for people to speak and behave trollishly.

<comment><USER3> This is a level of negligence that is beyond just being accidentally wrong. It would have taken less than 2 seconds for the author of the article to check whether Android has resolution independent ui. Instead they chose to mislead everyone who reads hackernews.

I really don't have any patience for the 5 minute write -> post -> submit cycle that a lot of the crap submissions on hackernews have, and I think it warrants some vitriol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I care about pixel density, because you can't improve interface definition without increasing pixel density. I think the improved interface definition is implied when people talk about pixel density, hence Apple's term,"retina display." The resolution independence of the OS is nice, but even if you use rasterized UI elements, you can still have better interface definition on the new iPhone (you just have to create a new set of elements).

</comment><comment><USER11> Personally, I think the pixel density doesn't really make that big of a difference. Who cares how slightly prettier the screen looks, most of the apps use overly large buttons and layouts anyway.

I think Apple couldn't come up with anything revolutionary so everyone is trying to find stuff about the new phone to talk about.

<comment><USER12> Exactly. Wake me up when they come out with a rollup screen. Or a watch that projects a screen into midair. Or glasses that have inbuilt augmented reality etc but look _exactly_ like normal glasses.

Come on scientists!!! How hard can this stuff be???

<comment><USER13> _Or a watch that projects a screen into midair._

The Samsung Beam isn't far off that - it's an Android phone that has a miniature projector in it. I think it might need to be my next phone actually: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTFY6hOVOzE>

<comment><USER12> Hah nice. But I'd bet the battery dies after much use :(

<comment><USER13> I would keep it plugged in and charging most of the day, add a bluetooth keyboard, and ditch my laptop :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While I believe Mac OS X has had some resolution independence since at least 10.5, I believe as of today it's still "not ready", and to say it's been there since the beginning is a bit of a misdirection. It's a work in progress.

Having said that, I'm really glad iPhone 4 is taking this direction of clarity over "you can shove more stuff on screen". Imagine if you really had all the pixels for your interface: trying to read or (more importantly) tap on something would be nearly impossible unless it was blown up anyway. Looking forward to new screens like these in all devices.

<comment><USER15> You're right. Mac OS X has the underpinnings of true resolution independence, but it is as of right now _not accessible_ to most users (you have to hack a plist to get it, and there are some _very glaring_ problems, which explains why it's not enabled by default).

To claim that OS X is resolution independent is a bit disingenuous - for the lay user OS X less resolution independent than Win7.

<comment><USER16> IIRC, the underpinnings of resolution independence were there since the time it was sold with black cubic computers. At that time, NeXT used DisplayPostscript. When Apple decided to base its new OS on NeXT technology, they replaced it with something more royalty-friendly (DPS licensing was quite expensive).

Solaris also used DPS and had a couple demos with it (last time I played with them was on Solaris 2.5). NeWS was also based on PostScript, something that, legend says, made writing apps for it very... uncomfortable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I guess PalmOS automatically scaling UI elements when the screen size went from 160x160 to 320x320 (way back in the day) doesn't count in the author's world.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to see res indie in OS 10.7, but bitmaps will probably prevent that from happening, though <http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_algorithm/2/> looks like a promising way of making bitmap scaling possible.

<comment><USER19> Nah, unfortunately that algorithm does not magically make bitmaps scale. The image example they gave is grossly misleading. It works well on certain types of sparse information in Fourier space.

</comment></comment><comment> saint-loup Just a link found on Wikipedia... : [http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/releasenotes/G...](http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/releasenotes/GraphicsImaging/RN- ResolutionIndependentUI/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Any technical explanation for why iPhone apps just used straightforward pixel doubling on the iPad, even for text elements? How can iPhone apps seamlessly take advantage of the extra pixels on iPhone 4 but not iPad?

On a related note, I think even iPhone 4 apps will still look a little bit odd on the iPad since your still taking a small, high-dpi interface and displaying it into a large, low-dpi device so it would still be worthwile to recode your interface.

Android, it seems, lets you provide resources and layouts for both large devices and high-dpi devices independently.</comment>


Show HN: Random cat generator - <AUTHOR> http://randomkedi.com

<comment><USER2> If you could put more pictures on each refresh, it would be more engaging I think. Also it feel slow.</comment>


Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-thank-you-t-shirts-as-it-cuts-their-hazard-pay-2020-5 <comment><USER3> Reminds me of the weekly clapping for the NHS here in the UK when what they really need is a pay rise and PPE supplies. Sometimes thank you is not enough.

In the case of Amazon this seems much more sinister and cult like. I struggle to believe that any of the warehouse workers buy into it.

<comment><USER4> Do you believe permanently raising wages to offset black swan events such as the COVID-19 epidemic is a wise move? What about the next black swan event? Are they going to be paid enough then or they'll need a pay rise again?

Healthcare professionals are paid much more compared to the average UK citizen. Especially doctors, the average pay (100k pounds) is in the 2% of the earners. Emigrant doctors couldn't even dream of finding comparable wages in free market scenarios in their own countries and come to the UK.

I think the best we could do collectively is to pay out generous bonuses to frontline nurses for the duration of the pandemic.

<comment><USER5> The COVID-19 epidemic is not a black swan event. It is a foreseeable event with a computable probability of happening. Epidemics are recurring events throughout human history, including in the present day. Sure, the recurrence is low, especially for global pandemics, but you can be almost absolutely sure that within the next 100 years there will be another one.

In fact, even in the black swan book, they are explicitly given as an example of rare but NOT black swan-style events.

Point being, governments and corporations should have epidemic plans. It should never come as a surprise. Sure, a small mom-an-pop place or a start-up can't really prepare, but a corporation the size of Amazon should have an epidemic plan and reserves for that. Not having one would simply be irresponsible, both to shareholders and to employees.

Edit to add: airlines, restaurant, and hotel chains should have been the most aware of this. If they do not have plans for resisting a 2-6 month epidemic when business is shut down, then they are simply gambling on government intervention. There is almost 0% probability of operating one of these companies for 50 years and not having to battle at least a local epidemic in a large country.

<comment><USER6> Here's how this would go. The UK government did have epidemic plans, including a stockpile of PPE. Here's how the BBC described that stockpile: "Coronavirus: UK failed to stockpile crucial PPE". Of the four items that it complains were missing from the stockpile - gowns, visors, swabs and body bags - two (gowns and swabs) were ones that the government didn't expect to need for the epidemics it was planning for, the visors are expensive and bulky to store but so easy to manufacture hobbyists with 3D printers can literally do it at home, and I'm not even sure what's going on with body bags because there was famously a huge Brexit stockpile of those. Anyway, my overall point is that governments and corporations don't get credit for planning, they get blamed for the ways in which their plans don't predict the future exactly.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps you missed the C4 doco which showed that stockpiles of PPE of all kinds were run down and what was left was often out of date.

Or the conclusions of the government's own Exercise Cygnus in 2016 which stated clearly that this should never be allowed to happen because the consequences would be beyond horrific.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reading this makes me thing I should divest.

I feel ashamed owning shares in a company that thinks 20 hours unpaid time off a quarter is reasonable.

<comment><USER9> It's getting harder and harder to participate in the modern world for me. So far I've deleted my accounts on Uber (because of the harassment reports) Airbnb (because they don't give a fuck about scams), and last, Twitter (because they were enabling Nazis, and continuing to use Twitter is basically endorsing Twitter in my eyes). But the majority of the world seems to just shrug and are fine with the terrible behaviours.

<comment><USER10> The slaves must free themselves - I always think of the start of the mining unions - the strikes went on for a long time, and they were very nasty, it was a huge fight. People have been tricked out of these rights that were hard won, capital won't easily go back to decent conditions for workers without a fight.

<comment><USER7> Early 20th century unionisation only happened in the US after pitched battles and gun fights, and when that didn't stop it it was bought off where possible.

A lot of that history seems to have been suppressed to the point that hardly anyone knows about it. It's certainly not something you'll see being mentioned on any mainstream media channel.

<comment><USER10> yes its disappointing, younger people don't realise how much blood, sweat and tears went into obtaining the working conditions they have now, and as you say, it's not taught much any more.

I remember going to a huge meeting and strike in the 80's, things were a lot more civilised then. I was a young apprentice, there was an older guy who was 'blackballed' \- he had turned on a switch against the slowdown rules (a partial strike) - no other worker would talk to him. There were strike funds for people who couldn't afford it, it was a very exciting thing for a young kid, I don't know if it happens any more. People dying on the job so the owners can make more money is nothing new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The title is purposefully misleading.

Amazon is not handing out 'Thank you' T-shirts to its warehouse workers.

It is handing out "Thanks to you, we will deliver" T-shirts to its fulfillment associates.

It is a societal statement on their power dynamics, not a hypocritical act.

Amazon wants to be seen as exploitative today, because it will morally justify the layoffs tomorrow once all this is automated away.

<comment><USER12> Found the Amazon manager.

<comment><USER11> no.

I try to objectively characterize their reasoning.

I see comments about how it is awful of me to call them "fulfillment associates"—but this is the term Amazon picked[0]. And they chose it to represent how they see it fit in their worldview.

My personal feelings? I am saddened by the lack of compassion. But the only way for people to optimize for the fulfillment of all lives instead of the minimization of all costs requires, at this point, a far teleportation of the Overton window in the political discourse.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/versandmitarbeiter](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/versandmitarbeiter)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've said it before and I won't tire of saying it:

»Gut, das ist der Pfennig! Und wo ist die Mark?«

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ihb2XqEsa4g](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ihb2XqEsa4g)

The same bullshit is happening everywhere. In the German Bundestag MPs gave standing ovations for care workers. Meanwhile those continue to slave away for pennies, now more precariously than ever, while the next items on the MPs agenda are bailouts for airlines and fucking car manufacturers.

We can't live without the care people and we don't want to live without the fulfillment slaves. »Sie schulden euch Glück und Leben.« They should have huge leverage, especially in these times, why will they not organize?

<comment><USER13> Check out this CNBC interview with one of the warehouse organisers who was fired. (Which led to Tim Bray quitting.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HUGc7R8hw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HUGc7R8hw)

At one point it almost seems like he is suggesting to this poor guy that it is unreasonable for him to protest for better working conditions because "people like me" need to be able to place orders on Amazon while in lockdown. Imagine the difference in salary between the guy working for CNBC and the guy working in the Amazon warehouse. Feels as if we are watching some dystopian fantasy film like Hunger Games.

<comment><USER14> I think it's a knee-jerk feeling that during an emergency you shouldn't refuse to work because you are making it harder on everyone else, as well as taking advantage of the emergency. That sounds reasonable enough, until you think about the fact that unless they organize and demand improvement now they won't have the leverage to do it after the emergency is over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Personnaly, the COVID episode is the final straw. I live in France rural area. Amazon brings huge benefits and comodities there but I can't stand their attitude towards employees anymore.

<comment><USER16> Shouldn't French Amazon employees be safe due to French labour laws?

<comment><USER15> Actually most of stories that influenced my decision are from US: employees fired by algorythm, fired because trying to unionize, etc. It seems all of this is impossible in France but still, this is not a culture I want to support.

<comment><USER17> ...but what if your impression is just based upon the bubble of news you consume? Isn't it possible you, from France, don't get unbiased news about US companies?

<comment><USER15> I consume a lot of news from US and France on a quite large political spectrum, so I think the bias is quite reduced. I also discussed with an Amazon french warehouse manager. My decision is cold and well thought. Btw I would love to be wrong because I will miss their services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Clickbaity title (and worse than the article headline). Amazon is not cutting pay. It is removing the hazard pay, which was extra on top of the normal wages.

<comment><USER19> Given the current scenario, isn't all pay hazard pay?

Edit: And it's mentioned in the article as well:

> The token comes as Amazon announced it would be cutting the $2 per hour wage > hike it brought in for staff in mid-March as hazard pay for coming in during > the pandemic.

The "Hazard Pay" was a pay rise for coming in during the pandemic, which as far as I can see hasn't ended yet. Cutting hazard pay right now, in real terms, is cutting pay.

<comment><USER17> > isn't all pay hazard pay?

Not really. Not all jobs are risky. I fail to see how being in a well ventilated warehouse is risky. It's not like they're interacting with customers.

<comment><USER20> _> I fail to see how being in a well ventilated warehouse is risky_

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/amazon-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/amazon- warehouse-workers-coronavirus-positive/)

<comment><USER17> Literally nothing in that article supports your argument.

2 million people have tested positive - most of them probably did not contract it at work.

<comment><USER19> Did you even read the article?

> In the past few days, workers tested positive for covid-19 at Amazon > warehouses and shipping facilities across the country.

> workers complain Amazon hasn't provided them with enough information about > the spread of virus in their facilities

> [a worker] only found out there was an infected co-worker after confronting > a human resources staffer in the break room

> Some workers complained that Amazon pushes them to meet the per-hour rate at > which it wants orders fulfilled, a practice that they worry discourages safe > sanitary practices such as washing hands after a cough or sneeze. Others > have complained about "stand-up" meetings, where workers stand shoulder-to- > shoulder at the start of each shift.

All of these support the notion that working in a warehouse is risky during the pandemic.

In any case, how does the proportion of people who contracted the coronavirus at work to total number of positive cases so far have to do with anything? If your hypothesis is true (and you've given no evidence for that), it could very likely be _because_ of the lockdowns we've had so far, which have prevented people from going to work in situations where they could've gotten it. Regardless, the proportion has nothing to do with how risky working in a warehouse is in the first place!

<comment><USER17> Again, none of these sentences indicate that anyone was infected at work - <USER2> that it's any more dangerous than literally everyone else's work place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> the-dude In the meantime in France, unions are holding Amazon accountable.

</comment><comment><USER21>
      And just because he's a human
      a man would like a little bite to eat
      he wants no bull and a lot of talk,
      that gives no bread or meat.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have Tweeted this before and it is relevant here:

Our situation with the virus is not dystopian, but our handling of it from the world leaders, business leaders certainly is.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am trying to reduce my Amazon-usage to a minimum, which works better and better. Only feature which is left are actually the wishlists to keep track of my own desires and ideas for gifts to others. Anyone knows a good alternative for any kinds of goods, which integrates with all kinds of online shops? I live in Germany.

<comment><USER24> While certainly less convenient, but what about a real low tech solution:

A notebook.

While certainly not as spiffy it has the added advantage of being completely vendor agnostic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Aside from the general tone-deafness of this move, shouldn't the management at the warehouses be the ones wearing the thank you t-shirts? To you know, thank the workers...

I'm sure those workers would probably prefer and deserve a bonus and a heartfelt individual thank you though.

<comment><USER7> Workers are resources, not people. You're not considered a person in the US unless your net worth is high enough to make work unnecessary, _and_ you can deal with a serious medical emergency without being bankrupted by it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does Amazon management simply don't see that stuff like handing out t-shirt is actually making them look worse? They could have cut pay and saved the cost of the shirts.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Give me enough medals and I'll win you any war"

</comment><comment><USER28> [https://youtu.be/jLly1AUD9LI](https://youtu.be/jLly1AUD9LI)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm genuinely interested in what people who think of amazon as an evil company think it should do.

It hardly ever makes a profit. Any profit it makes is from AWS usually.

It is popular because it's so cheap, which is why people buy there. So really the solutions can only be:

1\. Raise prices and consumers suffer 2\. Keep wages low and workers suffer 3\. Stop existing.

I wonder how many people who complain about amazons working conditions don't shop there and buy the same product for a higher price elsewhere. I'd guess not many.

<comment><USER30> Consumers suffer because they won't buy that 50in tv? Really, any business that exploits workers should not exist. If some goods are just too expensive then people should really learn to live without them. I don't mind "suffering" as a consumer if what I pay reflects the real costs of production. It's called honesty.

The problem is that any company as big as Amazon is a billion pound train moving at high speed, it can't make turns that fast. So while I would like for them to try harder I don't expect it to happen.

<comment><USER29> That might well be, but your view of how consumers should behave is not what happens in the real world. A lot of things in the world should be some way you imagine but they're not.

Otherwise amazon (or Walmart) wouldn't exist, because everyone would support their local store. But they don't. Prices matter.

<comment><USER31> A potential solution would be to pass regulations that protect workers. Examples could include minimum wages, profit sharing plans, or mandatory benefits.

That wouldn't necessarily affect consumer behavior but it would affect what strategies corporations are able to use to service that behavior.

<comment><USER29> Ok, but then amazons prices will be higher. Taken to the extreme amazon might not exist because it can't deliver the low prices it has so far.

Is that what you want? If you do, that's fine, that's a fair enough perspective, but understand that you are probably making it harder for people with less money. Same goes for Walmart.

<comment> vertex-four There will always be a company that delivers products according to the minimum regulations required by law - that's how capitalism and competition are meant to work (given a near-unlimited labour supply).

<comment><USER29> Correct. But in this Imaginary scenario it will Certainly be more expensive than current amazon. Is that more acceptable, to say the poorest in society, than bad worker conditions?

<comment> vertex-four The poorest in society, at least in a functioning capitalist society, are those either employed according to the minimum regulations or those receiving state benefits. By raising both of these, we raise the purchasing power of the poorest in society, hopefully in a way that is commensurate with the increased costs.

We are able to provide both good working conditions and a living wage to all people. We can afford it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Aws-upload - A delicious CLI Tool for uploading files to ec2 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/borracciaBlu/aws-upload <comment><AUTHOR> I'm working on an open source project that may be it could be interesting for someone.

The project is a cli tool to upload files through rsync. The main point is the api. You define a json file for each project you are working on and then you are able to upload from cli.</comment>


Fiat Chrysler Is Being Sued Over a Software Flaw - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/software/court-allows-lawsuit-to-proceed-against-fiat-chrysler-over-software-flaw <comment><USER2> I have this car and it's done this 4 times so far. Really scary.

You'll be driving and all of a sudden the engine stops, and the dash says to place the car into park to turn it on. Imagine making a turn and your engine dying mid-way; that's exactly what happened to us. People die getting t-boned that way.

Buying a Chrysler was a huge mistake; no one will acknowledge the problem. There are Pacifica forums with over 100 pages of posts from people talking about this issue.

<comment><USER3> > Buying a Chrysler was a huge mistake

One of my good friends is an automotive engineer. He's told me never to buy a Chrysler product, no matter what. That includes Jeep, Fiat, Dodge, Ram, etc. It's pretty bad when the people who design your cars literally think you are the worst car on the market.

I tell people this when they are looking for cars, and they always tell me "Well I asked the salesman about [whatever issue they heard Chryslers have], and he said they got rid of those issues." Without fail, a few years later there are a whole bunch of problems with whatever Chrysler.

I really don't understand how your cost accounting can be so terrible that literally everything you design has a horrible flaw. I guess they stay in business because people always want Jeeps and cheap cars that have 'luxury' interiors.

<comment><USER2> My expectation was that the car would start to have issues gradually. Eg, you can generally hear when an engine starts to misbehave. I got the Pacifica b/c it was a quiet, comfortable ride and accepted the higher cost of ownership. Now I wonder if their airbags will actually deploy in a crash.

Cars are now becoming a pile of soft-buttons, and I don't see how that makes he experience better. There's no physical lever to stop your car in an emergency in most new cars. Just a [P] toggle. Even the Chrysler has a really dumb knob for changing gears on the transmission (which people often confuse with a volume knob).

I may just buy a Chevy Tahoe next; it's a much simpler car with sufficient luxury & tech.

<comment><USER4> > I may just buy a Chevy Tahoe next; it's a much simpler car with sufficient > luxury & tech.

Or just buy non-American brands: Honda, Toyota, Subaru, and others. There's lots of highly reliable car makers, Chrysler and Chevy aren't it.

<comment><USER3> Not to say Chevy's are reliable, but they are definitely better than Chrysler.

I don't understand brand loyalty with cars though. I can understand wanting to buy an American car, but even then it might make more sense to buy a foreign car depending on how you define what an 'American car' is.

<comment><USER5> A lot of "foreign" car makers build many models in the USA.

Lots of Fords and Dodges and Nissans are made in Mexico.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like the headline is trying to frame the lawsuit as frivolous, as if software flaws are inherently unworthy of lawsuits. But a critical safety issue is a safety issue, regardless of whether it's a mechanical failure or a software failure. Several people died due to a software flaw in Toyota's anti- lock brake software.[0]

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls#Anti- lock_brake_software_recall)

<comment><USER4> Indeed, and while I don't think anyone died as a result of this flaw, it was only a matter of time if not repaired and recalled.

The complaints/incidents are pretty terrifying: freeway speeds, stall, and complete power loss (e.g. power steering, hazard warning lights, brake assist, etc all gone) and you couldn't even restart until you put the vehicle into park/0 MpH.

The "lucky" people only had it stall out at traffic lights, the unlikely people had to go in the fast lane on the freeway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Fiat Chrysler had issued two technical service bulletins relating to Pacifica's PCM software before the plaintiffs had purchased their vehicle

Aren't TSB's public knowledge? (Answer: yes [1]). So if FCA issued a TSB for this before the customer purchased the van, how much responsibility do they have to tell the customer every known issue with the product before they sign the papers? And how much responsibility falls on the customer to research any known issues?

I'm responsible at work for talking about our software before customers make the purchase... should I be worried that now I have to have a slide in my deck that talks about every known defect in the product, even though our bug tracker is publicly visible?

[1] [https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchSafetyIssues](https://www- odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchSafetyIssues)

<comment><USER4> I think you misread/misunderstood the article, the judge used the TSB's to decide AGAINST Fiat-Crysler's argument. FSA was arguing that they had no knowledge of the defect, and that the complainant couldn't show otherwise, but TSB's sent to dealerships prove they did know. That's why the case could proceed.

> However, he pointed out that Fiat Chrysler had issued two technical service > bulletins relating to Pacifica's PCM software before the plaintiffs had > purchased their vehicle, and two more following their purchase.

Plus you're also mistaken on TSBs. Technical service bulletins are normally sent to dealerships and other authorized repair centers, they aren't for public consumption (although most leak, if you look on forums, etc). NHTSA notices and TSBs aren't the same thing at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could you just imagine all the headlines and HN outrage if you replaced "Fiat Chrysler" with "Tesla"

That aside

>Dealers, it said, will install a new software flash update to Pacifica powertrain control modules for free.

This seems like something an OTA update could have resolved.

<comment><USER9> It's also something that an OTA update could cause. And the existence of OTA updates could actually make it more likely if the initial quality is not held to account because 'it can be patched later'</comment></comment>


Apple's New Thing (iPod) (2001) - <AUTHOR> https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/ <comment><USER2> Part of me is curious if the posters who were incorrect in their predictions of doom ever changed their mind and learned some humbleness from their incorrect prediction, or if they ended up just adjusting their memories to make it seem like they were always right. I somehow suspect the latter.

<comment> King-Aaron This guy might have changed his mind by now I'd imagine:

> I have no use for an Mp3 player.

> My house has a CD player. > My car has a CD player. > My Mac has a CD player

</comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron "I still can't believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently! Why oh why would they do this?! It's so wrong! It's so stupid!"

-WeezerX80, 2001

</comment><comment><USER3> Think about those 5GB in a pocket-size device, 16 years back! Not long ago we still had 16GB iPhone base models.</comment>


Basilisk web browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.basilisk-browser.org/ <comment><USER2> Why? Sorry but the page doesn't explain it and I can't imagine for the life of me why you would want pre-Servo Firefox.

<comment> mike-cardwell It's all about the change to extensions isn't it? Some people just couldn't let it go.

<comment><USER2> I still find that absurd. People actually want extensions and add-ons that get full access to their computer, can manipulate pretty much any of the browser functionality, and has been known in the past to be abused? (See noscript for example.)

I will admit when I first began using Chrome some years ago I found extensions to be woefully incomplete. But even where integration is worse, I'm super glad about the approach taken with WebExtensions for exposing functionality. It gives a reasonable bound on what extensions can do, and it provides a nice API that is stable.

<comment><USER3> Has Noscript abused its capabilities as an extension in the past? I can't think of (or immediately find) any suggestion that has, but now I'm curious.

<comment><USER2> They sure have!

[https://adblockplus.org/blog/attention-noscript- users](https://adblockplus.org/blog/attention-noscript-users)

To be clear, they intentionally interfered with Adblock Plus for ages, causing a cat and mouse war between the two. Eventually they went too far and there was an apology issued. It will probably be hard to actually find much information about this as I imagine the noscript developers want to keep their reputation cleaner. As far as I know the extension no longer attempts to interfere with Adblock extensions.

<comment><USER3> I did also just find [https://liltinkerer.surge.sh/noscript.html](https://liltinkerer.surge.sh/noscript.html) as well. I thought most of the controversies have been the commercialisation/hostile takeovers of the various (ad|u)block (pro)? extensions, but seems not.

<comment><USER2> The painful reality of internet monetization right now is reading this article to the end only to see horrid clickbait article links right below it. Maybe not as bad as malware, but it really is hard to not be jaded these days.

Edit: I just noticed this was Disqus doing that. So the author of the website isn't even responsible for this and probably makes no money from it. Wow... Hard to trust anyone anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish the creator and users of Pale Moon luck but I just see using this old version of Mozilla to be a loosing battle. As time goes on it will be harder and harder for basically a one person program to keep up with new features.

<comment><USER5> Its platform, UXP, isn't a merely old version of Mozilla-sourced code. It has its own development in the past 10 months, and if you're curious, do a diff between mozilla-esr52 and UXP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How does this differ from Pale Moon? Are the developers/maintainers now working on 2 different browsers?

<comment><USER7> From [https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801](https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801)

Basilisk exists "to demonstrate and make use of the [UXP] platform," according to Basilisk's Github site. Moonchild and/or Tobin (can't remember the exact posts) said here in the forum that it will continue to exist, essentially as a perpetual beta, because it will continue to be used to demonstrate the capabilities of the platform.

Pale Moon will continue to exist, and is currently in the process of being ported to UXP. That will eventually be released as Pale Moon version 28. Once this version of Pale Moon has been released, Basilisk will continue to exist as a separate browser. And Pale Moon will also continue to exist as a separate browser.

<comment><USER5> Just a heads-up, Pale Moon 28.0 was released on August 16.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I first came across Basilisk when I noticed a stage user agent in my website's access log - my site gets so few hits that this stood out. I noticed that Basilisk didn't ping the beacon I use for my hacked-together visitor analytics system - I guess this could be considered bug or a feature depending on which side of the tracking divide you sit.

</comment><comment><USER9> My main question set for browsers these days is all privacy based:

1\. Does this collect anything?

2\. Does this prevent collection?

\-- does it have a vpn option? \-- does it have ad blockers? \-- does it prevent tabs from talking to each other? \-- does it do something clever with cookies?

<comment><USER10> "Does it have a VPN option?"

Isn't asking to be MITMed a contradiction of items 1 and 2?

If you're using a VPN, it should be one you've carefully chosen and individually trust. We shouldn't be encouraging browser vendors to build a first-party mass-surveillance tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why, though?

<comment><USER12> From the article:

>Basilisk is primarily a reference application for development of the XUL platform it builds upon, and additionally a potential replacement for Firefox.

<comment><USER13> Now I would like to know more: why XUL? How is it different than the last time?

I think that this site is not yet ready for wider consumption.

<comment><USER14> My interpretation is that this is mostly a project for the die-hard users who lost support for niche extensions they really liked when XUL left mainstream Firefox... it reads mostly like they intend to maintain it as a time capsule. "No different from last time" is exactly the main selling feature.

<comment><USER15> XUL ist not only used in browser Add-ons. There are special purpose desktop applications written using it.

This is a project my former employer did some 10+ years ago, but I have seen different other such things. For some time I also used XUL as an UI library inside the browser. Quite powerful and relatively close to native UI which is important for some.

[https://blog.mayflower.de/64-Is-XUL-the-next-hot-topic- after...](https://blog.mayflower.de/64-Is-XUL-the-next-hot-topic-after- AJAX.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I know its off-topic, but this remind me about some things, now that Firefox is taking the heat and losing more and more market share..

First about that famous Joel Spolsky post warning about software rewrites using Netscape as an example. Then the fact that Firefox have waited too much to create a multi-process browser which was really a needed rewrite to really catch up to Chrome.

If my memory doesnt fail me, Chrome was launched in 2008 and Firefox came up with the multi-process only 4 years later, in the end of 2012.

And then theres this rewrite of core pieces in Rust, that i'm sure was great for Rust language and community growth, but i dont think it was a good move for Firefox, because it take a lot of effort to stabilize the core pieces, specially while at the same time refactoring a compiler in the middle.

Rust turned out great, with a great performance, but what if it didn't?

Or maybe i'm being a half empty glass kind of person, and Firefox were actually turning out to the same faith, and at least a good tech, Rust came out of all this mess?

<comment> em-bee rust was purposely created for the firefox rewrite.

so yes, rust is the good thing that came out of the goal to improve firefox.

also i seem to remember mozilla exploring multiprocess firefox earlier, but finding that it took more work to get ready.

with all the complaints i have seen over the years about the firefox c++ codebase i am not surprised that this wasn't a trivial task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> " This browser is created and maintained by the team behind Pale Moon..."

These guys [https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd- wip/issues/86](https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86)

How about not.

<comment><USER18> You know, I just read that whole thread, and I don't see a problem. Maybe they were being jerks about it, or maybe some of that nuance was lost in translation. However, software licensing is a legal issue and legal issues are usually places where you don't want any ambiguity about intent and expected results. I don't think directness is necessarily a problem in this situation (think of how a cease and desist letter from a lawyer would read - it's not gonna spend a lot of time padding your ego).

<comment><USER19> How can you possibly think that 'You will revise your...' and 'I will not be as educational next time' is an appropriate way to speak to someone? That set the whole thing down the wrong path from the start. What a waste.

<comment><USER18> Again, I think the translation barrier may have been a big part in the specific phrasing even if they were intentionally being blunt. I don't speak dutch and can't say definitively if that's the case, but I have spent a lot of time working with people who's first language it not english, and they can certainly come off as harsh at times when they don't mean to.

In this case, it is _entirely_ possible that "You should revise your..." was the intended meaning. I don't think that "I will not be as educational next time" is bad if one is defending a license, especially since the license is pretty clearly written and distributed with the software. There shouldn't have been a need for the maintainer to explain the problem in the first place, but since they were kind enough to do so, I think it's entirely reasonable to say that the next interaction on this topic will not be amicable (to me, that sounds like getting lawyers involved).

Yes, it's very direct. Yes, it's probably a little too far toward outright dickishness. But that's their prerogative as the holders of the copyright, and they have to enforce it as they see fit.

Nintendo does the same stuff and people get annoyed by it, but at the end of the day, it's their right to protect their property.

<comment><USER19> Here's how it could have all been different:

> Hi, thanks for looking at packaging Pale Moon. Unfortunately the way you're > doing it doesn't comply with our licence for these reasons ... Can you > please make the following changes ... otherwise you won't have permission to > distribute this build and we'll have to ask our lawyers to get involved if > you did so.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tips on finding a Marketer for your Startup - <AUTHOR> http://lukethomas.com/tips-finding-a-startup-marketer/ It seems like startups struggle to attract the right type of marketing hire. In this article I discuss the major difference product-market fit can have on marketing roles, and distinct differences between "search mode" and "growth mode." <comment><USER2> This is brilliant. So many Start-Ups out there that are looking for marketing expertise but often don't realise they need a marketer that understands product to market fit as opposed to the growth mode you mention.

I think we'll see more and more marketers that can help create product to market fit over the next year or so.

Great write-up</comment>


Red and Green Callbacks - <AUTHOR> http://joearms.github.com/2013/04/02/Red-and-Green-Callbacks.html

<comment><USER2> I really like that Joe is actively reaching out to programmers and preaching the good word, but the take-away for blue collar programmers like me isn't "use Erlang", it's "use Go or Clojure".</comment>


RethinkDB 1.11 is out: query profiler, new streaming algorithm, devops features - <AUTHOR> http://rethinkdb.com/blog/1.11-release/ <comment><USER3> Awesome release (I'm using the query profiler as we speak).

A side effect of upgrading is that my write speeds jumped through the roof:

I went from ~6K writes/sec yesterday on my rMBP (SDD, 16GB RAM, 2.3GHz quad core) to ~13K/sec today:

[http://i.imgur.com/ZXdFOnn.png](http://i.imgur.com/ZXdFOnn.png) (it fluctuate between 9K and 13K to bulk insert ~600K documents).

Congrats to the RethinkDB team!

</comment><comment><USER4> One feature that I'm waiting for with RethinkDB is unique indexing other than primary key. I frequently use unique indexes, and lacking that feature has been something that has deferred my interest in trying RethinkDB out.

<comment><USER5> Slava @ Rethink here. I'll open a github issue when I get to a computer (and will post it here). We'll see if it's technically feasible and how/when we can schedule it.

<comment><USER4> That's fantastic. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now this is a database whose every release brings something genuinely useful. I am really glad this exists and gives me a good measuring stick to compare to other db's.

<comment><USER7> I also like how almost all of their development process is done completely in the open: [https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues](https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues)

I hope that it ends up as a MongoDB killer within the next few years. They certainly deserve success.

<comment><USER8> RethinkDB and MongoDB, the value is the same.

<comment><USER9> I think the benefits in terms of programming are roughly the same... but in terms of infrastructure overhead, sane defaults and cost, there's quite a bit of difference.

<comment><USER10> The programming model is also much much better.

Explicit control over write durability and out-dated reads alone is a pretty big advantage. When you start to factor in how much better ReQL is and the atomic nature of ReQL queries RethinkDB pulls far ahead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I never post on HN, but I will say I've been using RethinkDB for a couple of weeks now and it's fantastic, the Ruby drivers work great. It's a big change from writing sql for over 10 years, but the pros far out weigh the cons. Going to upgrade now. They are also very helpful in irc.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would invite any Clojure users interested in RethinkDB to try out Revise, a client driver for RethinkDB: [http://github.com/bitemyapp/revise/](http://github.com/bitemyapp/revise/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I am really interested in RethinkDB, and just wish I could convince myself to use it in an actual product. What's peoples' use case for the most part? I mean, I use PostgreSQL and MySQL for most of my applications, and Sqlite for smaller stuff. I've steered clear of the whole "NoSQL" movement up til this point, but Rethink seems to have the correct cross-section of a) features from SQL DB's that I use, and b) features from NoSQL-styled DB's that I want.

tl;dr -- Should I use Rethink as my primary data-store, considering that I don't use many advanced SQL features for the most part?

<comment><USER14> I'd say it's definitely a hybrid of the NoSQL movement and SQL. You have joins, data integrity (not giving a thumbs up "A+++++++ would write again" until data is on disk), and expressive queries. On the flip side, you have real document storage and querying abilities: you can query on subfields of subfields of etc. You can index arbitrary components of your documents. The best part is the auto-partitioning/replication.

As someone who's used it for over 6 months now (4 in production) can't say I've regretted the decision or ever looked back. Every time I've hit a bug or a problem, the Rethink team has stepped in to make it right, even to the point of patching the database for me personally when things got rough (index corruption) and helped me recover all my data into a new instance.

My advice: if you are happy with PostgreSQL, stay with it. It's not worth switching databases if you are happy just for the hell of it. But if you're looking to build a new app and need to scale the database to more than one master three slaves without the ops nightmares and you don't mind learning something new, definitely give Rethink a shot. The guys building it are really smart and the community around it is excellent (and growing steadily).

<comment><USER13> I'm actually very meh on PgSql to be honest, so I think I'll talk your advice and give it a try!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm consistently impressed with every new release from RethinkDB. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER16> Since I almost never post to HN this must be the story to do so:

I have used rethinkDB in production since may (and obviously in dev - <USER2> since v 1.1). It's kick ass. The things you immediately fall in love with is the awesome admin dashboard, data explorer, and of course the very beautiful query language.

Full disclosure: I am not employed by RethinkDB, I am just a fanboy and user :)

Thanks again Rethink!

</comment><comment><USER17> Awesome job guys. Could not be more impressed by your team's continual improvement of this rock-solid DB.

</comment><comment><USER18> @Slava and others. When it comes to database, you know, there is always a fear... A new company, young (extremely talented though) folks, etc.

You need to put out in the front page of your website use cases. Real world use cases where one can read testimonials and facts, regarding RethinkDB capability, readability and stability.

It will help people to make the step toward trying it, and if they'll try, and get satisfaction, they can end up using it in production.

<comment><USER14> I think Rethink is general enough that they don't need use-cases listed on the site. It's not an in-memory database geared towards real-time analytics, it's not a clustered map-reduce system for number crunching, it's a document-based database with real durability and a great query language. Use your imagination.

You're right though about the fear of putting your company's data into a new system. However, I think they've taken the right approach by warning people of the risks while at the same time working as hard as they can to mitigate any of the risks.

Getting people to trust you is a slow but steady process, and I think they're playing it right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is there any way to upgrade clusters without downtime? It seems the import/export requires a shutdown, and nodes running different versions cannot join the same cluster, correct?

<comment><USER20> Import/export don't require a shutdown, but upgrading does. Like you said, you cannot connect two nodes with different versions for now.

The versions will eventually be backward compatible (probably as soon as we'll be production ready). But for now, you will have a downtime. Sorry for that, we'll try to hit the production ready milestone as soon as possible.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the response. Communication of the status of the releases was very clear, so we were aware that not everything is 100% production ready. At least it's good to know for sure that we have to plan for downtime when upgrading, and aren't simply missing some less obvious way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> RethinkDB was dead simple to get up and running, and it has been a joy to work with for one of my side projects. Keep up the fantastic work!

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm happy for Rethink, but sad that it has caused Marc to quit DOTA. Someone tell him to log on!

</comment><comment><USER23> Great Job guys. Keep up the good work.</comment>


Mixing R, Python, and Perl in 13 lines of code - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/02/09/mixing-r-python-and-perl-in-13-lines-of-code/ <comment><USER2> Right after I posted that, I realized I was missing a line, so now it's 14 lines.</comment>


FreeBSD developer Kip Macy charged with tenant terror - <AUTHOR> http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/04/24/kip_macy_arrest/

<comment><USER2> I don't know all the details here, but I'll say this: This doesn't sound like the Kip Macy I know.

Unfortunately, since the first piece of advice lawyers give their clients is usually "don't say anything to anyone", I suspect it will be a long time before the full story comes out.</comment>


Ask PG: Why when I go to /CLASSIC does it show "Unknown"? - <AUTHOR>

I had my caps lock on today and went to http://news.ycombinator.com/CLASSIC instead of http://news.ycombinator.com/classic and all I got was a white page saying "Unknown." I just checked and this happens with several urls (http://news.ycombinator.com/LEADERS, for example).
I'm a Windows guy and IIS (the Windows built-in web server) isn't case sensitive. I also don't care to search around and figure out what web server you are using (apache?). So the question is: is this by design or accident? And if it's by design, why?
And BTW - I don't care one whit if you fix it or don't; it doesn't affect my usability at all. I was just curious. <comment><USER2> If you look in the source code of this site you'll discover that it doesn't lowercase that part of the URL:

      (def parseurl (s)
        (let (type url) (tokens s)
          (let (base args) (tokens url #\?)
            (list (sym (downcase type))
                  (sym (cut base 1))
                  (if args
                      (parseargs args)
                      nil)))))

In fact it only calls 'downcase' on the type (which is the HTTP verb).</comment>


Xbox One Will Be Able To Upload Game Recordings To YouTube - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/07/xbox-one-will-be-able-to-upload-game-recordings-straight-to-youtube-starting-tomorrow/

<comment><USER2> I really think Xbox could win the battle for the living room.

I'm more excited for it as a media center than as a game console. The fact that they let you pass through your cable box to an HDMI-IN shows me that they have been paying attention. I believe this was something that the Logitech Revue pioneered but unfortunately didn't take off due to being too slow a unit. I've been waiting to see who might support this and so far it only looks like Microsoft has. You may not appreciate it, but being able to flip between games/sites/cable instantly goes a long way in making your living room experience seamless, and I really think that will be the difference in this short term (while people still own cable boxes) if Sony/Apple/Google don't follow suit.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. I think the one flaw in their system, at the moment, is the xbox needs to be on all the time if your cable box is connected to it; if it's powered off, there is no HDMI pass-through.

<comment><USER4> Oh, hmm. Does anyone know how much power it uses when idling?

<comment><USER5> Here's an article about the PS4 and XB1's power consumption. Looks like the XB1 draws 18W on connected standby.

[http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/173127-ps4-xbox-one- power-...](http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/173127-ps4-xbox-one-power- consumption-analysis-points-to-sony-advantage-and-future-efficiency-gains)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great, more long ass unedited amateur videos.

I used to upload gaming videos (moments/montages) to youtube. The share feature is nice on PS4 and Xbox one, although the reason for my comment is I quit uploading, because I always received copyright notices from YouTube, and even if I won an appeal...it still lead to copyright notices AGAIN later. Aside from the notices, my friends and I were monitoring through Adsense, after the notices would happen, I'd noticed that earned adsense revenue would be subtracted from FINALIZED earnings. I wrote a blog about this out of anger [1].

Anyways, the reason I stopped uploading was, because to actually get views and subscribers, editors need to....edit....their videos. Although when I uploaded, it taught me how to edit and compress videos, I realized I was editing and reviewing footage a lot more than playing.

[1] [https://medium.com/p/6caf19d2c542](https://medium.com/p/6caf19d2c542)

<comment><USER7> With Starcraft 2 there's a feature to "watch a reply with a friend". Perhaps this is an easy way for them to get the same functionality without having to build in a replay viewer

There's also a whole audience of people on twitch who watch live streams of games with merely the player commenting into their headset as they go regarding why they're doing something (sometimes not even that!).

So there's two instances without editing already in wide use today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if this will clash with content-id systems. It'd be interesting to see a DMCA takedown from a game studio against a video uploaded through xbox's featureset.

<comment><USER9> I talked with one of the people in the content ID section a little while back and I don't think it'll be a problem based on the mechanisms for takedowns. You might get a big mega-takedown request once in a while but that will probably be denied in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if Google wanted this or Microsoft pushed for it. I think Google Hangouts with the Xbox One and Kinnect would be a great combination.

Will Microsoft allow it when it would make Skype look bad or do they just want users on their platform? Youtube uploads suggests to me they want functionality from any source to get an edge on the competition.

<comment><USER11> _Youtube uploads suggests to me they want functionality from any source to get an edge on the competition._

Definitely this. PS4 users constantly complain how, in order to get a video on YouTube, you must upload to Facebook, download the video, then upload to YouTube.

Granted, we're getting USB output soon enough, but direct upload to YouTube would be ideal.

<comment><USER12> That's so baffling. A while back I used...I think it was Timbuk2's backpack/messenger bag customization interface, which is fantastic for actually designing/ordering a product and has a "share" button, but it inexplicably only lets you share to Facebook. (And maybe Twitter and G+, I forget.) They actually generate a URL, _don 't let you see it_, but will put it on Facebook for you.

I cannot comprehend what sort of thought leads to an implementation like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Come on Google! Return the favor and make a native YouTube app for Windows Phone so users can watch said videos.

<comment><USER14> @barista: You've been hellbanned for 95 days. I look at your comments history and I cannot guess why.

<comment><USER15> You made me curios enough to browse barista's comments history and they are _very_ biased pro-Google anti-Microsoft, to an extent almost all of the comments focus on that. The account does seem fishy.

<comment><USER16> You mean anti-Google pro-Microsoft surely?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This did make me chuckle: _"...when's the last time you heard someone talking about their favorite viral OneDrive video? Never? Yeah. Probably never."_

<comment><USER18> Well to be fair OneDrive is not actually competing with Youtube, it is competing with Google Drive and Dropbox.

Off topic but who do you actually consider a real competitor to Youtube? The only other major service I can think of is Vimeo. I have been getting frustrated with Youtube's random takedowns, ads and disabling of fullscreen in most websites. I think there is a potential for some new startups here.

<comment><USER19> Twitch.tv is probably the biggest competitor in the gaming area... maybe even bigger than Youtube for game uploads.

edit: looks like twitch is supported, definitely as well as youtube, and includes live broadcasting of gameplay... [http://www.xbox.com/en- US/live/apps/Xbox-One/Twitch](http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/apps/Xbox- One/Twitch)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Doesn't the PS4 already do that? I mean they demo'd a continuous recording feature at the original announcement last year. Uploading those recordings to YouTube/Facebook/etc seems like a natural next step for that.

<comment><USER21> They use UStream and Twitch for live video streaming. I know on Twitch, you can save videos also, but I don't know if you can do that from the PS4.

Either way, it's going to make for a more captive audience than Youtube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> You could do this with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on the 360 years ago. You can also do it with BF4 on the xbone. (since launch)

</comment><comment><USER23> when i played 'dance central' for xbob 360, my friends and i loved the little session where they take a few pictures of you dancing. i have no idea why they didn't let you post those to facebook. comic gold!

</comment><comment><USER24> so, Microsoft is not going to compete in the market for online video and concede that battle to Google? Im surprised, given how much grief GOOG has given MSFT over developing a YT app for WindowsPhone.</comment>


Geocities 2.0: Website Creation Tools for The Social Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/geocities_20_website_creation_tools.php <comment><USER2> The Weebly guys are destined for greatness. How can you _not_ succeed with 600,000 (and growing at a mind-blowing pace) registered users making websites through your system? The opportunities for upgrading them to premium products (even super cheap ones), getting a cut of products sold (if they go the route of enabling product sales), getting a cut of ads, and selling related services, are just overwhelming.

I find it really interesting to note how much less popular all of the others in the space are. It goes to show how much execution matters (Weebly is the best of the lot, and Synthasite is a reasonable second place, and their growth indicates that). Timing also matters...Weebly was launched a few months before the others, as far as I know.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you solve mortality? - <AUTHOR> Which current and future technologies would benefit fixing the human 'robot', and why is it currently not feasible?<p>E.g. would you approach it from the 'immortal jellyfish' perspective, from cell regeneration, 'transporting' into an earlier version, transfer of the mind, etc.? <comment><USER5> May I ask why we need to battle mortality? People tend to forget our body's limitations and that all the extra years add to the end, not in the middle. Not to mention the implications it might have on reproduction. People wont want to have children and slowly our numbers will decline. Also this will bring up an issue depriving ourself's of new Isaac Newtons, Einsteins and all the other bright mind and great people who would have been born and now they aren't. We always forget that strength lies in diversity. And lastly, do we really want to give immortality to people who do not contribute anything to our society? How do we determine who is worth the while to live for hundreds of years? And how will we convince the other parts of society that this is beneficial for all of us? Too many questions on a human level which are ignored, or it looks like they are ignored...

Instead of spending all our time in the shadow of mortality why not we just step out in the light and enjoy life in its brief moment and make the most of it?

Don't get me wrong, I would like to live forever, but it might have greater risks for mankind then the benefits it holds.

<comment><AUTHOR> a) mortality deprived us of the Isaac Newtons, Einsteins and all the other bright minds already

b) why would there even be a discussion on 'who deserves' to be immortal? is there currently a discussion on who deserves to live based on what they contribute to society? crime would still be crime, and dealt with as it's always been dealt with

c) let's distinguish between mortality based on aging and mortality based on other unforeseeable causes ( violence, accidents, etc. )

d) mortality currently binds us to our solar system, and humanities' possible ultimate demise

e) we are at a stage where human evolution has stopped. the way to push it forward is now through our own means

my question was rather related to the technical issue - as it is a technical issue. not if it's desireable or not; that's besides the point and has to be dealt with separately

<comment><USER5> a)I understand it's a technical question. But as with every technical question, we have to ask what the changes will be on society.

b)Mortality gives way to other minds to step forward like Stephen Hawking and others. Would have been such a good thing to have an immortal Isaac Newton for a millennia? Would have he realised the the laws of physics outside of earth's standards. Could have an immortal Einstein refine his theories and change his mistakes and adapt to newer findings? Could have had a Stephen Hawking any chance to share his knowledge beside immortal Einsteins and Newtons?

c)It is a discussion about who deserves it. As for expensive treatments which aren't affordable by anyone in our society right now. We all now this. These treatments or solutions won't be free of charge. Only the rich will afford it. You know, money talks...

d)It's not only mortality that binds us to earth. It's our whole biological build up. Which fits only the life on earth. What about the warp drive, worm holes, etc... These aren't good enough for humanity to reach for the stars?

e)Also we don't have any clue about what effects it will have on the human body to live on another planet.

f)It is silly to say that evolution has stopped for the human race. We are biological creatures which can adapt to its surrounding as any other. But having immortality and not producing offsprings will actually lead to an evolutionary dead end. Having no genetic mutation will prevent the species to create natural immunity against diseases etc...

g)I only wanted to point out that maybe it is not the best thing to cheat death. It is natural. It's not a disease. Stop treating it like one.

As I said. As we are concerned about A.I., so should we concerned about this as well. Logic dictates to examine a possible solution from every angle as possible. Not to put ourselves and the whole humanity into a dead end.

<comment><AUTHOR> a) that's not how technology works, that's not how progress is decided. somebody goes out there and makes it

b) that's just an ignorant way of thinking. similar to the poster below who wouldn't want to live with an older generation of people because of their ignorance - which just shows his ignorance; it's not up to you or us to decide how long people should live or playing out 'what if' scenarios and wondering if humanity is better off because somebody died. it's pointless

c) any technology that is available to rich people becomes with the progress of time more affordable and available to the masses

d) if you die before you reach the next solar system, what's the point of starting the flight? see the fermi paradox and the great filter. mortality could be one of the great filters for interstellar expansion

e) that's... completely besides the point of this discussion

f) we are currently at the state quite complacent and well-adjusted to our environment. no big hardships, no predators - we're the dinosaurs now. what different strain of the homo sapiens would have to evolve now randomly to surpass the current strain? dinosaurs didn't evolve into highly intelligent beings, although they've been around millions of years

g) that's a complacent and dangerous "it's always been this way". cells stopping to reproduce themselves are a malfunction, and it can be technically solved; the same way as we can repair robots, machines or other electronics

mostly fears, complacency and wrong assumptions. taken into account, but not useful as they act as distractions and take attention from the topic - <USER2> was the technological hurdles of fixing the human robot

<comment><USER5> a) the more we venture further into the unknown the more cautious we can get, and we should get. Even, if you say, that's not the way it is. It might be better. Not saying it IS better, but might be...

b) I just proven my point. Humans are ignorant bastards. You can't deny the fact that this will create massive problems in society.

c) Yeah, but during that time, wars will erupt and kill millions who already could have been saved. Lose money, lose the greed out of humanity and everything bad. Then we can talk about free immortality for everyone.

d) We are soooo far away from proper interstellar travel with technology, that putting a handful of people in a tube and sending them far away while the rest of us dies here whilst they're travelling. I still think we will find answers regarding how fast can we travel. What about huge colonisation ships, on which people can live for generations? The great filters are mostly speculations. Some stuff we look back on and go, 'Hey that was a filter. Thank god we survived it!'. And there are always more answers for one problem. Oh and you forget there might be another issue. Living in space during the venture. That is hard for the human body, even if you live forever. So unless you change into robot, which is not as good, because solar winds, radiation, etc... What if we let humans evolve into space life?

e) Maybe, maybe not...

f) That is silly again. Over the years much has changed in our body. Just go and have a look at old castles, houses in Europe. A few hundreds of years ago the people were much shorter. Our body structure changes and adapts, but so does everything else in us. We are still evolving as we speak. Maybe the environment for the dinos was a bit harsh. Humans couldn't have evolved in that. Not to mention live. That's why being a dino was they way to go. A lot of people agree that it is a freak accident, that we have such a calm few thousand years without any huge issues in climate and vegetation. Now it is better, because we can shape our surrounding. Of course this spirals down into us killing everything that moves and has meat, fur, tusks, whatever... Mother nature is not stupid, there was a reason why the dinos couldn't evolve but still they were the dominant species. And it would be foolish to say they didn't. Not every dino lived in the same prehistoric age at once. They evolved from each other. Only an alternative history would know what would have happened, if dinos remain here.

g) Ok, than why do we have organisms which live basically forever and we're not one of them? And why aren't these immortal creatures not the true rulers of Earth by now? I'm not a biologist, but I do see a relation here between the necessity of death and evolution. As we mix our DNA we create better and better offspring. Immortality kills the need for offspring.

This is not off-topic. It would have been off-topic for me to comment: ' Hey what about vanilla flavoured ice-cream? How the hell they do it!?'

Anyway I enjoy this argument. It wont hurt you get a bit out of your comfort zone. Sorry if I annoyed you in any way.

Oh and I would love to have a cyber-brain as they have it in the Ghost In The Shell world. If my body dies I could still transfer my brain into something else. Like a big robot or something, or just a jar. Maybe creating this kind of hybrid solution would be the answer. If we can continue with our current body to evolve, but have our brain picked out if we want to... Maybe that would help. And the human robot doesn't need fixing, it is good as it is and what it will evolve into. Stepping outside of it might be a better solution then fixing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it's something of a tragedy that sentient life-forms die before they're ready to do so, before they've crossed off the last item on their bucket list, so to speak.

Sure, "immortality" in humans would present a variety of potential problems, but new technologies often do. Should we not have created cars, planes, nuclear power, etc. because of the risks we foresaw? Let's deal with the issues as they arise, rather than use them as an excuse not to try in the first place.

How would I approach the problem? "All of the above." Follow all plausible and ethical courses of action to see where they lead. It's too early to tell which method(s) will be effective, but if something is physically possible in this arena I expect we'll try it sooner or later.

</comment><comment> honza-xxx use baculovirus to serially and temporally express telomerase and keep the telomere count between 3000-8000 for all cells in the human body. Then figure out some way to flush out senescent cells

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently there's some work happening now with mice, to activate a gene that selectively eliminates senescent cells ( from Google ) - but gene manipulation after birth is unfeasible, isn't it? What other ways could there be?

RE: Baculovirus, have you seen any attempts at this?

<comment> honza-xxx Yes, plenty of labs use this regularly on mammalian cells and mice etc. Nobody has used it clinically though ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Improve end of life care and the way people die.

Start making it acceptable for people to talk about death - how they'd like to die; what they want to happen to their organs or body after their death; what kind of funeral they want.

It's really important to let your family know how you feel about being hooked up to machines or how you'd feel about living with dementia or similar.

</comment><comment><USER8> Transfer of the mind, definitely. Hardware independence. Plus possibility of backups. Even if your body is completely vaporized in a blast, you can come back if there is a backup of you.

Forget immortality through the extension of the biological life of the body; yonder lies folly.

<comment><AUTHOR> The issue with backups / teleporting / transfer of mind is always the question if it's just a copy of you living on, or still the same consciousness. E.g. if you die on the spot, and a copy takes over for you with your memories.

However yes, that would be a much faster approach to space colonisation - <USER3> would remove the need for spaceships.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reproduction

</comment><comment><USER10> [http://calicolabs.com](http://calicolabs.com)

[http://humanlongevity.com](http://humanlongevity.com)

[http://genopharmix.com](http://genopharmix.com)

[http://sens.org](http://sens.org)

[http://buckinstitute.org](http://buckinstitute.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any information on their current status and their biggest issues/blockers?

What I'm wondering about the different approaches is if they could receive bigger breakthroughs by sharing / crowdsourcing their issues and getting a wider attraction / reach. E.g. sometimes the answers to a problem lie in another industry

Like e.g. the fold.it game helped decyphering the crystal structure of an AIDS causing virus in 10 days, while scientists were battling it for 15 years

<comment><USER10> See:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V48M5j-6zdE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V48M5j-6zdE)

and

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbYgza4NNk8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbYgza4NNk8)

To name some of the top roadblocks:

\- Cellular garbage collection

\- Inner-workings of Mitochondria and cell death/apoptosis at the wrong time.

\- DNA repair genes

\- Telomerase production/use

Analyzing genomic pathways associated to these is key. Understanding why the expression of genes varies or decreases/increases at the wrong time is also key.

Being able to use Cogntive computing/biomicry/AI/Machine Learning etc to analyze the hidden connections and relationships between phytochemicals, genes, proteins, pathways and environment is the next frontier.

We're working on it and could certainly use additional crowdsourcing approaches.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any specific ideas of a massive road-block that would benefit from a Mechanical Turk approach? E.g. issues that would require an AI, but if split into a lot of tiny problems, that could be solved as a whole?

<comment><USER10> I've been giving this some thought and have some ideas on a few directions we can go in. For example, cognitive biomimicry/AI can be trained to predict certain things like answering "What is the capitol of Austria?"

With statistical inference and probability, a system can provide a number of answers to questions. A crowdsourcing component can be used to rate the answers the system provides thereby allowing the system to learn via feedback loops.

Apply this to Life Sciences, molecular biology, genomics/proteomics and we may have a system intelligent enough to produce new hypothesis in the area of life extension research or a system intelligent enough to combine two pieces of knowledge to come up with something new, a discovery or series of discoveries.

I have some other ideas too, look me up at firstname.lastname@example.com if you want to collaborate on these.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We've proven we can increase the lifespan of nematodes by what is equivalent to 300 years in human lifespan. If we can at least make it 150, then we have a chance at 300 and if we make 300 we have a chance at 500 and so on.

We can then truly solve for space travel and populating other planets and we'll have lifespans that enable us to travel for extended periods of time - <USER4> Universal requirement for the human species.

<comment><AUTHOR> On a sidenote : It's interesting to see Elon Musk advancing into space travel, whereas Peter Thiel advancing into trying to defeat mortality. Those seem very closely related industries that clearly do benefit from each other.

Re: The Nematode lifespan; What happened to the C60 buckyballs diet? Apparently rats that underwent a specific diet of C-60 fluids had nearly double the lifespan ( 22-26months vs 42 months ) [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961212...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961212003237)

<comment><USER11> Exactly. Space travel depends on lifespan. We have to solve for lifespan first. It's the largest human goal and most impactful.

Yes, we are almost there and I don't think people realize how close we are. Make the world a better place? How about making the Universe/Multiverse a better place!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the most clever business model you've heard about? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 1\. blood donation, Goodwill, etc. (You asked for "clever", right? I would say that convincing people to "donate" something, for free, and then selling it for a profit, is a pretty clever business model.)

2\. Google/Facebook data collection in exchange for "free" services. Very clever.

EDIT: I'm not meaning to sound cynical, but rather I thought about the question, & these are the first things that came to mind.

</comment><comment><USER3> I admire many of the profiles from the Blue Collar Millionaires show. One couple stands out, they turned a simple auto tow service in cash making machine, brilliant > [http://jacksonville.com/business/2017-01-09/jacksonville- cou...](http://jacksonville.com/business/2017-01-09/jacksonville-couple- appear-blue-collar-millionaires)

</comment><comment><USER4> Gambling and drugs have great working models.</comment>


Ask HN: Phnom Penh shared workspaces and real estate insights - <AUTHOR>

I'm a copywriter who will be in Phnom Penh for 3-6 months and need a space to work to service my clients back in Australia. Just a desk and internet is all I need. Would love a mix of expats and locals or even just locals.<p>Real estate - I'm travelling with two small kids, so looking for a quiet area on the south side of Phnom Penh (partner is working near the Genocide Museum). Not really into the apartment + pool + gym thing, or the gated community thing. I guess I'm looking for an area that is small-townish, or village like, with the benefits of being close to or part of a major urban centre like Phnom Penh. If that doesn't exist, would love any tips on where or how to find quiet streets/neighbourhoods. <comment> thomas-b I'm working in the city center (BKK1) for an IT company with both locals and expats, (W.E Bridge Technologies, should show up on google maps). So not quite the location you are looking for.

I could advise you to contact elevatedrealtyco.com (not affiliated in any way), they helped me find my place, and they only charged landlords last time I checked.

The condo pricing is really overpriced in the area (especially BKK1), but it will probably go down, too many condos in construction/just finished and most are unoccupied so I'm hoping prices will go down...

<comment><AUTHOR> Ended up in a bland condo close to the Russian Market with a short term lease. We'll see how that goes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I can't help you but mentioning Phnom Penh brings back holiday memories :-). Have you been there before? I remember lots of poor children begging tourists. That part was quite sad.</comment>


Active on Twitter? Check out my app, iWagerr: Track and share casual bets - <AUTHOR> http://www.iwagerr.com/?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I was wondering (hoping?) if my app might be interesting to some people here.

WHAT iWagerr makes tracking and sharing casual bets with friends easy. Use iWagerr to challenge your friends on Twitter and keep track of your win-loss record.

WHY My friends and I found it pretty frustrating that there was no easy way to track or share those casual bets we have with one another (e.g. "I bet you that I can down 10 tacos in 20 minutes or I'll pay for dinner next time!" or "If Chelsea beat Manchester United, I'll eat my socks."). iWagerr makes this whole process a lot more fun and simple.

Please do try it out, and let me know your thoughts! Thanks.</comment>


Show HN: Encourage children to use the net more 4 learning with Pihole 5beta - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/1stOctet/YouWillUnderstandWhenYouAreOlder <comment><AUTHOR> Pleasant surprise to see my post on the front page. I don't mention this in the original reddit post but the nodejs code comes from our 2016-2018 failed startup that at one point was invited to be on the TV show shark tank.

</comment><comment> _-___________-_ Can we edit the '4' in the title to 'for'? This isn't a teenager's chatroom and it took me a minute to successfully parse the sentence as a result of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I am not able to from my view. It took several tries to squeeze my title into the 80 characters.

<comment><USER2> 4->for

with -> w/

Anyone have opinions on whether that's a more readable abbreviation?

<comment><USER3> Not a fair comparison. In common parlance, there are no other uses for "w/" than "with". Certainly "4" usually means 4.

(Edit: Turns out that if 80 is the limit, "for" would've fit. Hah.

        $ len "Show HN: Encourage children to use the net more for learning with Pihole 5beta"
        Length of 'Show HN: Encourage children to use the net more for learning with Pihole 5beta' is 78

... I also would've left out "more" because... am I really wanting to encourage my kids to be on the net more than they are already?! ...

Perhaps something like "Show HN: Shape your kids online time with PiHole 5Beta"... but anyway cool project. It does shape things like Khan Academy as punishment / work, though. Like... If you only give your kids broccoli, they'll like broccoli. If you give them candy, then say "you can only have more candy after you eat 5 bites of broccoli", they'll f'ing hate broccoli and covet candy as their new god. But the real world is messy like that, eh? :-D )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Windows 10 laptop my son uses keeps on changing its Wifi MAC address, which in turn makes the DHCP server give it a new IP. It's annoying. (I tried some registry changes I found on some website but didn't work.)

Doing this kind of thing requires the child to have a consistent IP. (I tried a static IP, it causes problems if he ever takes the laptop out of our house.)

(Thinking about a scheduled task which reports its IP to the home server, so at least I know what it is all the time...)

<comment><USER5> Maybe try:

1\. Start -> Settings

2\. Network & Internet -> wifi

3\. Find the WiFi adapter, and click 'Advanced options' link

4\. Set 'Random Hardware Addresses' to 'off'

On Android (well, at least on Pixel), this can be turned off on a per-wifi- network level, so you can turn it off for your home network, but still have it on (default) for all others.

<comment><USER4> There is no "Advanced options" link. There is "Change adapter options" and "Change advanced sharing options".

I can't find "Random Hardware Addresses" anywhere

<comment><USER5> Here are the official instructions:

[https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027925/windows- how...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027925/windows-how-and-why- to-use-random-hardware-addresses)

<comment><USER4> They don't work. That option doesn't appear.

I'm not sure if this is a Home vs Pro issue, or if this is an issue with which Windows 10 Build one is running, or an issue with which particular Wifi driver is being used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> well, until they figure out how to set a local DNS server.

<comment><USER7> If they did that, then hopefully they learnt a thing or two about networking :)

But I do wonder if bandwidth limiting certain types of applications would be more effective, like reverse qos. There was a post a week or so ago on HN about adding delay to websites that sucks away productivity.

edit: I went and did that on my home router (a ubnt ER-X) and was pleasantly surprised by how granular its DPI and QoS categorizes applications (by protocols, by domain, IM, social network, P2P). It even allows you to make your own categories of apps that are (ab)used often, and rate limit access to them on a range of local IP. I'm hoping that this would be more subtle than an outright block, and the not so instant gratification lead to voluntary reduction of mindless consumption.

<comment><USER8> I would definitely set that up for some time waster sites for myself, especially if I could borrow OP's idea to adjust the delay based on progress towards other goals. In my experience, Apple's Screen Time limit is just too easy to ignore, but on the other hand I'd be worried that mucking with DNS would disrupt me when I really need to get something done urgently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice idea, does anyone have an idea what german-language learning sites have a point-system ?

<comment><AUTHOR> The 2 sites we currently support are available in many languages.

[https://s.typingclub.com/docs/user-guide/account- setup/forei...](https://s.typingclub.com/docs/user-guide/account- setup/foreign-language-setup.html)

[https://de.khanacademy.org/](https://de.khanacademy.org/)

If anyone wants us to create a plugin for a particular learning site, please create an issue on github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't like it. That's showing kids that automated surveillance is acceptable.

Now, I'm sure they will not find that very funny, so that may be an opportunity to teach them what automated surveillance is about...

<comment><USER11> If I would let my kids decide what's for dinner every day we'd eat pancakes 7 days per week with candy for desert.

<comment><USER10> Good you take that example. that's exactly the kind of stuff my son brings on and on and on. And each time, _I_ (not my computer, spend some times explaining that he has to expand his tastes bits by bits, that if he doesn't do it it'll become more and more difficult, etc. That's a bit exhausting a times but it pays (we're looking at an ROI on a scale of ten years here :-) ).

But that little discussion we have reminds him that I'm the parent and that I do that for n good reasons. He also has a space to disagree and sometimes I just cook what he loves and take care of doing it exactly how he wants it.

A computer is 10000 light years away from that, AFAIC...</comment></comment></comment>


Lunar bases may need to be quake-proof (2006) - <AUTHOR> https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/15mar_moonquakes <comment><USER2> This will probably be a very unpopular point of view here on HN, but I think it needs to be said: if we can't figure out how to build a long-term sustainable society here on earth, there is no way we're going to be able to build a long-term sustainable society on the moon, or anywhere else. And the only way to build a long-term sustainable society is to figure out how to build an economy that does not rely on exponential growth. We haven't done that yet, and until we do, no technology will save us. Even if we could colonize new planets at will and expand at the speed of light, that only gives us polynomial (t^2) resources. Polynomial resources can never sustain exponential growth. Worrying about moonquakes is the ultimate bikeshedding.

<comment><USER3> > if we can't figure out how to build a long-term sustainable society here on > earth, there is no way we're going to be able to build a long-term > sustainable society on the moon

I have to ask, what do you mean by sustainability here? Biological life has existed on earth for about 2 billion years, the human race for a million years and civilization for thousands of years. So in what sense is life on earth not sustainable, and what would have to change for you to consider it sustainable?

In the ultimate long run life anywhere isn't sustainable; the sun will eventually die and then the universe itself will experience heat death. So what's your cut off?

<comment><USER4> >what do you mean by sustainability

Biological life existed for 5 orders of magnitude longer than civilization without the sort of devastating consequence civilization has wrought.

The cut off is civilization suggesting that it is no more disruptive than biological life to the long term sustainability of itself, but that is just obviously not looking like the case right now. Exponential population growth in a resource-constrained system will hit a limit and the result will not be pretty.

<comment><USER5> "Exponential population growth in a resource-constrained system" is how biological systems have behaved for billions of years. It may not be pretty but very natural.

<comment><USER6> True. But also: natural sucks, and we want a better outcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. Never heard of that before. I didn't think there could be regular quaking in non-seismically-active bodies.

> _March 15, 2006: NASA astronauts are going back to the moon_

This broke my heart.

<comment><USER7> According to the article, the moon _is_ seismically active.

> _That 's the surprising conclusion of Clive R. Neal, associate professor of > civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame > after he and a team of 15 other planetary scientists reexamined Apollo data > from the 1970s. "The moon is seismically active," he told a gathering of > scientists at NASA's Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) meeting in > League City, Texas, last October._

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Building a moon colony seems far more practical and useful than a Martian one. On both you'd need pressure domes, shielding, etc., so why not be a couple days away rather than a year? You can have a much quicker cycle of trying and adapting than on Mars, a couple orders of magnitude faster.

Because of the moon's low gravity, it is a fine place for manufacturing big, heavy equipment for space travel.

And lastly, the technology developed for a sustainable moon base ought to transfer well to Mars.

<comment><USER9> I used to be of the same opinion as you, but there are actually some good counter arguments:

1) Two week day/night cycle: This means it would be hard to power your base with solar energy. You'd need massive battery banks. Or another power source. You could try nuclear, but cooling might be a challenge without air or water. Mars has a slightly longer day than earth, which makes solar power much more viable (though solar insolation is less than on earth)

2) No atmosphere, so all Oxygen has to be brought in (unless we find it somewhere else on the Moon). Also any carbon needed to grow plants needs to be brought in. Mars has a thin atmosphere, but we could get Oxygen and Carbon from it.

3) It's not clear if we can find water on the moon. Mars almost certainly has water underground, and for sure at the pole.

4) The lower gravity might have long term effects on humans. Though to be fair, we don't know if Mars gravity will be harmful as well.

<comment><USER8> Ironically, a lot more on-the-ground investigation has been done on Mars than the moon. I suspect there's a lot more useful stuff waiting to be found. All we've looked at from the moon are a few pounds of rocks from a handful of sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why would they turn off those seismometers? What a shame.

<comment><USER11> The seismometers were part of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages (ALSEPs), which were powered by radioisotope thermal generators. RTGs use the heat from decaying radioactive elements to produce power, and gradually produce less energy over time as the isotopes decay into more stable elements. By 1977 the ALSEP RTGs were only producing enough power to run either one experimental package _or_ the radio transmitter at once; they probably would have stopped working altogether in a few more years anyway and it's better to have a controlled shutdown rather than a failing radio transmitter cluttering up the airwaves. Wikipedia also mentions "budgetary considerations", and apparently they wanted the ALSEP control room for another project as well.

Edit: I've just found [1], which adds a few additional details: first, they were designed for a lifetime of one year, so 1977 was well beyond their expected activity; and second, after they were decommissioned they continued to send carrier signals (but no data) which were used for various purposes.

[1]: [https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/HamishALSEP.html](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/HamishALSEP.html)

More detail than you ever wanted to know can be found in the ALSEP termination report: [https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/misc/documents/b32116.pdf](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/misc/documents/b32116.pdf)

<comment><USER12> What kind of isotopes was nasa putting in their ALSEPs that the output dropped off over mere years?

<comment><USER11> They were using Plutonium 238, which is the most common RTG fuel. The Wikipedia page on RTGs has a fairly comprehensive overview of the possible candidate fuels[1]; one advantage of 238Pu is that it requires the least amount of shielding, an important consideration when launching things into space.

Pages 101-105 of the termination report I linked to above have the power output curves for the various RTGs, showing the decay curve (1 lunation ~= 1 month).

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Fuels)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Please add 2006

<comment><USER14> Thanks! Updated.</comment></comment>