The FCC Insists It Can't Stop Bots from Lying About My Views on Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170710/10071737756/fcc-insists-it-cant-stop-impostors-lying-about-my-views-net-neutrality.shtml <comment><USER2> Unfortunately this is accurate. The open comment period for proposed rules is by law designed to be as open as humanly possible. Anything the FCC does that filters those comments, or in some way creates a barrier, will open them to lawsuits and members of congress howling about censorship. It's happened in the past and it's a nightmare. The staff has a lot of internal filtering they do (source: I worked on filtering comments for DOE once upon a time) and they can filter out obvious bots, trolls, and crap.

The last thing staff want is for someone to discover later a rule was approved because of mostly bots. The lawsuits and and congressional howling would be crushing.</comment>


Cassette tapes are the future of big data storage - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628875.500-cassette-tapes-are-the-future-of-big-data-storage.html

<comment><USER2> This is sort of like saying that RAM will be replaced by HDDs because HDDs are so much bigger. It's comparing apples to oranges. It's fascinating that tape drives are making a comeback, but to suggest that they can replace HDDs is just a fantasy

This quote:

 _The downside of tapes is that they are slower to access than hard discs because they have to be fetched by a robotic mechanism, inserted in a reader and spooled to the right point. But the Linear Tape File System, which is being developed, expedites this process to make it comparable to disc drives, Eleftheriou says._

indicates that the reporter did not understand what he was being told. LTFS offers an abstraction layer so that software can treat a tape drive like a hard drive. That makes programming easier, but it will not have any effect on performance. A file system cannot, after all, magically bestow random access unto a sequential access medium.

So if tape is to make a comeback in storing data for, say, the web (as implied by the article's opening paragraph, then it's still going to have a HDD based system in front of it as a cache. It would be an interesting future where viewing a post that hadn't been accessed in a few years took several minutes as you waited for that old data to be recached from tape.

<comment><USER3> If tape is cheap enough, multiple tapes could store the same data in a different sequences, e.g. beginning at 0%, 25%, 50%, and 75% of the run length. Initial access could then be quicker, and predictive caching used for the remaining data on the tape.

<comment><USER2> In other words, a tape drive RAID. But since you can use related techniques to improve performance with hard drives, I don't think that will make up much ground for tape drives.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but the point was to get read time with tapes up to that of HDDs.

<comment><USER2> Which a RAID style system probably won't achieve. HDDs start ahead of tape drives in performance. So it's reasonable to assume that HDD + RAID is also going to perform better than tape drive + RAID.

<comment><USER4> They weren't comparing RAID tapes against RAID HDDs, just RAID Tapes against normal HDD

<comment><USER5> No, the discussion was whether they would replace HDDs. From the initial comment:

> It's fascinating that tape drives are making a comeback, but to suggest that > they can replace HDDs is just a fantasy

Tape + RAID vs. HDD with no optimizations is a useless comparison. Why would anyone even care about that?

<comment><USER4> Because brudgers talking about speed, specifically?

<comment><USER2> But it still doesn't make sense to compare HDDs _without_ optimization to tape drives _with_ optimization. Data centers are going to use every affordable optimization at their disposal, so if we want to know "will tape drives be competitive against HDDs" we can't handicap HDDs by comparing mirrored arrays of tape drives to straight, un-optimized HDDs.

With that said, I outlined in another comment[1] why a mirrored array of tapes would have pretty huge drawbacks regardless. Even if you have an expensive array of tape _drives_ (as opposed to one drive with many tapes), a mirrored array will drag your write seek performance toward a constant worst case as the array grows. The same is true of RAID 1 for HDDs, of course, but the worst case seek time of an HDD is orders of magnitude less than that of a tape drive, so HDDs still win.

In any case, if you look at the details of the situation, the answer you come to is pretty boring: tape drives can compete with HDDs in a small slice of real world cases (often when used in conjunction with HDDs), and higher density tape drives will slightly widen that slice.

If you have a situation where you are writing a _ton_ of data, but almost never reading or erasing, then high density tapes will play well to that situation (sans mirroring).

If you have a situation where you are writing a relatively small amount of data over a long period of time, reading it back comparatively frequently, and never erasing anything so that your total storage needs become very large, then _maybe_ a mirrored array of tape drives would make sense, if it were behind a sizable HDD array. But it's a stretch.

[1]<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4690877>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Researchers at Fuji Film in Japan and IBM in Zurich, Switzerland, have already built prototypes that can store 35 terabytes of data - or about 35 million books' worth of information - on a cartridge that measures just 10cm x 10cm x 2cm. This is achieved using magnetic tape coated in particles of barium ferrite._

Where does the gain in storage density come from, New Scientist? This article is so breathless to capture the linkbait of using old technology that just about any useful info has been left out. The prototype, at about 4" x 4" x 0.75", is just larger than a desktop HDD, and can hold about 8.5 times as much data as a 4TB 3.5" HDD.

Does barium ferrite allow for tighter magnetic fields, which would allow for a higher data density? If so, is that material being used in spinning disk HDDs? And how does this extremely physically complex system stack up against SSDs, as they lower in cost?

<comment><USER7> Tape has always been denser geometrically than HDDs. More surface area on a reel vs a platter.

SSDs would be the opposite of tape. Big$/GB low latency vs. Low$/GB high latency. Obviously SSDs would replace almost all other media if it could beat tape on $/GB.

<comment><USER6> When you consider the $/GB, do you consider the cost of operating these as mechanical devices - mechanical wear and fatigue, increased electricity usage, administrative costs (tape storage, space for robot to work, robot repairs, etc), and possibility of damage (dropped tapes)?

<comment><USER7> Yes of course those are considered and the results may surprise you. One of the beautiful things about tapes is that you can store them unpowered. All you power is the robot(s) and the drive(s). 100 tapes sitting idle in a silo will last much longer than 100 hard drives spinning at 7200rpm. SSD's failure rates are _even higher_ than HDDs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Current projections by the trade body Information Storage Industry Consortium show that although hard drives will be able to store 3 terabytes a piece in a decade's time, that still amounts to at least 120,000 drives a year."

huh?

<comment><USER9> I think that's for each individual platter, of which a modern 3 TB hard drive has typically 3 or 4.

<comment><USER8> think its a typo tbh

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Off on a tangent, but does anybody know why they store the data from the radio telescope array for such a long time?

Wouldn't it be more efficient to analyze it, save the interesting data, and get rid of the rest?

<comment><USER11> am not sure re-analysis is that important myself, but it looks like the SKA will be used in a pretty traditional way, with groups of astronomers applying to do particular observations. that means that the processing of data will likely be different for each group, and will probably take place over time (some poor grad student will likely spend most of their thesis - several years - on it).

the other approach - taken with something like the SDSS - is to make a telescope for just one task (typically a survey). then you _can_ process the data and throw it away. i am pretty sure that is what SDSS did, and what, say, the LSST will probably do too (if it ever gets finished).

the advantage of the first approach is that you are much more flexible, which means more likelihood of making a big discovery (particularly when, as with this telescope, collecting area is larger than ever before, which means that you can see fainter and further back in time, making it ideal to study isolated, unusual objects - in contrast, survey telescopes make different technical compromises so that they cover a wider field of view), and also more chances to make and exploit upgrades over time. the downside is dealing with issues like this (another issue is data transport - traditionally you go to a telescope and then take the data home with you; i imagine we're now getting to the point where instead you will process data local to the data storage).

disclaimer: i _was_ an optical astronomer, not radio, and that was years ago, so this may already be old news / incorrect in details. but the general idea should be ok.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Kilometre_Array> <http://www.sdss.org/> <http://www.lsst.org/lsst/>

ps often telescopes do make data public after a certain time. but the idea is not so much to allow reanalysis as to make sure the people who originally took the data reduce and publish it. it's easy to postpone that kind of work, but the idea that someone else might do it and publish first is quite a motivator.

<comment><USER12> SDSS raw data is available online: <http://www.sdss.org/dr7/algorithms/dataProcessing.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> True, but cassette tapes are also the past and present of big data storage. If you have gobs of data you need to stash somewhere, tape is still massively more cost-effective than disk, and this is no secret.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hard drives use more power because they are usually turned on for use, while tape drives use less because they are usually turned off and not used?

Thanks for the insight, New Scientist.

The most interesting item in that story was the claim (probably incorrect, based on the article's overall sloppiness) that LTFS will be "comparable" in speed to hard drive access.

</comment><comment><USER15> I shudder to think of all the guys who will use this article as ammunition the next time their wives ask them to toss out the old cassette collection once and for all.

Seriously, though, I think that this is great news. If this really gains any traction this could represent a resurgence for some Japanese companies which hold patents on cassette tape technology. After the recent Fukushima debacle, they could certainly use it.</comment>


Using a Framework vs. Developing from scratch - <AUTHOR> http://www.pilanites.com/?p=46

<comment><USER2> I think it would be difficult to avoid using any framework and build everything yourself, but I guess the question is more on what the balance should be. I have found that when starting out a project where you don't have any existing code, you typically need to rely a lot more on existing frameworks. Over time, however, you realize which parts of your application are commoditized vs your core area of focus. You still may use external frameworks for your core stuff, but I have often found myself rewriting and replacing framework-based components as you need more optimization and customization.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your WFH set up like? - <AUTHOR> After months of cramping over my laptop on a sofa, I've finally sorted out a proper desk, vertical monitor, ergonomic keyboard and mouse - and I'm loving it!<p>I've put photos and details on https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/04/my-wfh-set-up/ - but I'd really like to see your WFH rigs. <comment><USER3> Lying in my bed, surrounded with my own filth, hunched over a coffee-stained macbook. I live in a very tiny studio with 1 other person, and have not been in my career long enough to be able to invest in any type of home setup.

<comment><USER4> This except I'm hunched over two 720p laptops with awful displays that have glare at every angle. I probably could achieve more in one day at the office than 5 days at home.

<comment><USER5> Is it the Dell Latitude 7290? I and all my coworkers hate this screen. I didn't know TN panels could be so awful, there isn't even one good viewing angle.

<comment><USER4> It's a Dell latitude. I don't know which model. It's horrible to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Motorized standing desk, with half a solid-core door for a desk top. Variable- terrain anti-fatigue foot mat, 32" 4K Dell monitor mounted to a VESA adjustable monitor arm.

Running a Dell XPS 13 so it's all via a single USB-C cable from the laptop to the monitor. AmazonBasics drafting chair for when my heels get tired.

Oh, and some LED bias lighting behind the monitor for when it gets darker in the room in the evening.

This setup is a dream realized for me. This year I finally got a fully remote dream job and decided to go all-out on workspace ergonomics.

[https://imgur.com/a/ZkAmcfZ](https://imgur.com/a/ZkAmcfZ)

</comment><comment><USER7> Comments here will mostly be biased towards people who have a decent set-up. People like me just working on a laptop at the study table will mostly not comment.

<comment><USER8> Hey, you forgot the noise canceling headphones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have an IKEA bookcase with my laptop on the middle shelf and a monitor on the shelf above it thus making a ghetto standing desk. I shift between this and a sitting desk throughout the day, using the monitor (which is inconvenient to move) as an incentive to stand as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've an iron pipe desk with a red wooden top paired with a similarly designed shelf. They allow me to work at standing height with all the proper ergonomics. My laptop simply goes on the shelf and connects to the rest via a single USB C cable

There's some storage underneath the desk and an anti-fatigue mat. Light strips underneath the shelf for the desk surface

Ergonomic mechanical keyboard w/ silent switches, MX Master mouse, Blue Yeti w/ mechanical arm, decent headphones and a discrete USB Dac mounted underneath the desk, USB hub

I've always hated external monitors and use a tiling window manager, so it's a pretty fine setup for me

</comment><comment><USER5> Thursday will be 1 month of WFH for me, and until yesterday I was being "minimalist" and just working off my 12" 720p work laptop, until I woke up today with incredible neck/back pain.

Now I'm using the Microsoft Sculpt split keyboard, a Logitech M500 (IMO the best mouse in the world, I keep a few new-in-box in case they ever go out of production), and an cheap 24" Acer monitor from Craigslist. Such a huge upgrade, almost makes Windows usable ;)

I also have a pull-up bar I hit during every Teams meeting, which these days means I'm getting a pretty good workout.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ikea desk, with matching wall-mounted cabinets and a free standing cabinet next to it. 15" MacBook Pro connected to 2x28" 4K monitors (Samsung UH750). I just bought a new ergonomic chair from Amazon and it makes a world of difference. Working from home is now so much better than my office in terms of experience. The monitors are bigger and easier on my eyes, and now my chair is just as comfortable as the $1k Aeron chairs we have at work.

</comment><comment><USER12> 16" MBP on an mStand, dual monitors (Dell 27" 4k, Dell 24" 1080p) on a cheap Vivo arm from Amazon. Apple full size (with 10-key) Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. 39" TV mounted above my monitors ("watch" TV while working more than anything else). Aeron chair. Giant L-shaped desk that my wife got for $25 when she worked at JC Penney 15-20 years ago (was used in the registries department or something like that)

</comment><comment><USER13> Very lucky that we moved to a 4-room apartment (away from a 2-room) last year (with wife and 2 kids). Also wanted to build a PC after 15 years of notebook- only work (I do contract freelance software development work for 3 to 12 months at a time and saved up a bit by not buying a new laptop every 1-2 years). Finished the build in January, together with the home office setup.

I really like working on 4K. So I built it with a new Ryzen, and a graphics card that can decently handle 3 x 4K monitors (varying ages, I didn't buy them all at once). They're 27 inch, the left side is for console and server stuff, the middle one for development (mostly JetBrains) and the right one for browsers, research and others (e.g. Spotify).

The table itself is from the DIY store, got like 240cms (almost 8 feet) wooden table top for 60 US$, 2 IKEA table legs for 30 US$ and some wood paint for 20 US$. Plus a Noblechair for 400 US$ (I think this was the first time I ever spent more than 80 US$ for a chair).

Also happy about the my mouse "Model D" from Glorious PC Gaming Race, reasonably priced and very comfy + light (I tried several - even very pricey ones that I sent back - in the past year, this has been my favorite).

</comment><comment><USER14> Desk: adjustable (sitting vs standing), 160x80cm

Chair: crappy office chair that needs an update

Computer: old hackintosh desktop mounted under the desk

Displays: 27" 4K IPS LG and and old 22" Samsung, both mounted on adjusabled monitor arms

Peripherals: Apple a1243 keyboard, Logitech MX Vertical mouse, both on a big (90x40cm) gaming mouse pad, Logitech c920 webcam

UPS: Cyberpower BR700ELCD

Room decorations: NASA space tourism posters, framed on the walls, Saturn V and Lunar Lander LEGO models.

</comment><comment><USER15> Very modest, a PC that I purchased for $200AUD ($130 USD?) a few years ago, a monitor I purchased even earlier and a shitty MS keyboard, on a cheap desk. I am remote connecting to a dev machine with more meat. I have a dedicated room - which I think is the key thing, I feel luck to have this as many people have to share at home with other uses of a room.

</comment><comment><USER16> -Adjustable sitting / standing desk, beefed up and modded with an electric motor from a mobility scooter instead of the hand crank it came with, all on wheels.

-Aeron chair clone.

-2x 27" monitors with one curved 32" in center all on a triple monitor mount. (all 1080p, would love to upgrade to all 4k.) I usually have the side monitors vertical but they can rotate.

-Two led lights mounted on the desk behind the monitors and a c920 webcam that can all be raised and adjusted as needed and a yeti USB mic.

-custom built desktop with Intel i7 7700k, 64gb of ram, dual nvme 500gb m2 drives running in raid zero (effectively doubles throughput.) Nvidia GeForce 1070ti. Mounted underneath the desk in a super quiet case.

-microsoft surface Bluetooth keyboard and a Logitech performance mx mouse

-monoprice Bluetooth headphones.

</comment><comment><USER17> Whatever your setup, make it ergonomic, keep on adjusting it, own it.

[https://youtu.be/d3R0UM0Q0Dw](https://youtu.be/d3R0UM0Q0Dw)

[https://youtu.be/8iuo31_GsuM](https://youtu.be/8iuo31_GsuM)

</comment><comment><USER18> 2x 27inch 4k monitors on cheap "North Bayou" adjustable arms Mac Mini

Desk: [https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-62-in-Adjustable-Height- Wo...](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-62-in-Adjustable-Height-Work-Table- HOLT62XDB12/301810799)

Overhead TV - don't really use it, tried to add some stripe info + magic mirror via raspberry pi... please don't tell my wife I admit to it not being useful.

Picture from January - [https://storage.googleapis.com/hipspec-marketing- images-publ...](https://storage.googleapis.com/hipspec-marketing-images- public/random/IMG_1334.jpg)

<comment><USER12> Mine is similar (my second monitor is only a 24" 1080p however) - I even have the same line of Logitech webcam. I often "watch" TV on the overhead TV, since we have Fire TVs on all of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Same old desk and monitor, but I decide to invest in buying something that support my WFH life: good chair.

I bought the midrange 'Think' chair from Steelcase, and even it's not the top of the line and has compromised features, the quality and comfort is miles ahead of my old cheap $50 office chair. My butt just heal itself just sitting on it Imao. It just worth every penny. That aside, no chair can replace the need to exercise and strengthen your body regularly(especially lower back and glute muscle if you sit all day)

</comment><comment><USER20> My desktop PC, same that I spend the rest of my day in front of. I connect to my works network through VMWare horizon View Client, and from a virtual desktop, I RDP into my work machine.

</comment><comment><USER21> Worked from home for years. Office with large round table, desk, side-table, bookcases, cabinet for equipment.

12-processor 64GB desktop with dual monitors. Multiple wifi plus wired connections.

Multiple laptops, old CPU cabinets against one wall waiting to be recycled, extra monitors strewn about, printers, UPSs, client hardware in various states of disassembly/debug cabled and debug modules. Old disk drives stacked here and there.

<comment><USER22> I am interested in your round table. What do you use it for??

<comment><USER21> When the boys were young, I found them all over the house, each alone with their game. So I bought the table, drilled holes in the middle for cable routing, wired a switch and power strip. Put all the household computers on the table.

Now when playing computer games, it was a social event. Instead of silence in dark rooms, they were laughing and talking as they played. Discovered lots of cooperative games, had friends over, LAN parties etc.

These days ('kids' are 30) its a place for laptops when family is home for holidays. Otherwise sometimes I print some complex code and spread it out on the table, mark it up. Or lay out hardware that I'm working on. Or do surgery on a desktop box. Or pile parts waiting for assembly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A pair of 27" monitors on adjustable arms and an ErgoDox Infinity keyboard in a fully adjustable keyboard drawer. I've actually modified (without damaging it) a beautiful old maple desk. Everything is adjusted to maximize posture - <USER2> worked from home for several years and remember all the bad habits I had to unlearn!

</comment><comment><USER24> Currently have a Lenovo S30/64gb ram/1050ti4gb with Ubuntu, LG 4K 32" lcd, MS ergonomic 4000kb, anger vertical mouse, cheapo folding table, Arron chair.

It's not pretty but it gets the job done!

[https://photos.app.goo.gl/bdWCUJyuAk5E9emt9](https://photos.app.goo.gl/bdWCUJyuAk5E9emt9)

</comment><comment><USER25> I've got a DIY desk from Ikea, so its really basic.

I am grateful that my work let me take my office chair home because my old chair at home was horrible for my back. Now that I have my nice work chair, I'm feeling much better.

Also thankful that all I need to do my work (and everything else I enjoy) is just my macbook pro.

</comment><comment><USER26> Currently I have a desk with both a large exercise ball and office chair. I try to use the exercise ball more. My laptop is connected to a 27" monitor mounted on to the wall.

I intend to change this so that my desk is more at waist height and get my self a bar stool so I can switch between standing and sitting.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have an external monitor in my apartment that is on a dressing table. Myself and my girlfriend rotate usage of it depending whose work at the time needs the second screen more. The other person sits at the kitchen table. I use noise cancelling headphones for calls.

So far its working out pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER28> I have a:

\- Dell U3818DW 38" curved monitor 3840x1600

\- Dell U2718Q 27" monitor 3840x2160

\- Herman Miller Aeron chair with big (3") wheels on it for carpet.

\- My main computer is a Lenova X1 Extreme (15") running Windows

\- A couple of Lenova X1 Carbon (13") laptops running Linux

\- I'm hooked on Logitech K750 keyboards and MX Anywhere mice

</comment><comment><USER29> I have a widescreen monitor hooked up to laptop that is on a stand so the screen has the correct height. All resting on a desk that can be raised so I can stand part of the day. Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse, and Bose QC35s for meetings.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have been improving my home office since I started WFH about 4 weeks ago. Got myself a Philips 43 inch monitor today. Initially I thought it was too big but then after coding on it for about 3 hours, I am already used to it.

<comment><USER30> For OS I run Manjaro i3wm community edition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Pretty Sweet My Dude! I feel like I leveled up :P Relevant [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHLR3faI7lU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHLR3faI7lU)

</comment><comment><USER32> Desk in the living room. 3 27" monitors on monitor arms, split keyboard, vertical mouse (right), and trackball mouse (left).

</comment><comment><USER33> 13min Macbook Pro on a stack of books

Ikea desk

mouse + keyboard

Sometimes I work on the bed or couch.</comment>


Why is it so hard to be around mentally ill people? - <AUTHOR> http://kevinturnquist.org/whysohard.php <comment><USER2> Judging from what I see on social media, it's not only not that difficult, but politicians are making laws based on their ramblings and behavior.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a different topic altogether.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Sieve - filter webpages and watch changes - <AUTHOR> http://getsieve.com

<comment><USER2> Cool concept, but name collision: Sieve has been the name of a server-side mail filtering language for quite some time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_%28mail_filtering_langua...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_%28mail_filtering_language%29)

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad that you liked the concept. Wasn't aware of the unfortunate name collision. I am open to suggestions. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Siv. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5739784>

<comment><AUTHOR> Liked this suggestion. Unfortunately the domain names getsiv.com and sivapp.com are taken.

Edit: siv.io could be nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very awesome! The implementation is different to what I expected (or to what I would have done).

They seem to run a browser on the server and let the user interact with it to choose DOM elements to monitor for changes. I would have just taken a screenshot (perhaps with <http://urlbox.io/> or perhaps with CutyCapt) and allowed the user to draw boxes over the screenshot. Then repeatedly screenshot the site and whenever the contents of that box changes, alert the user.

The Sieve method has the advantage that you are able to tell the user what the new text is. The screenshot method is significantly simpler.

EDIT: So, in startup terms, the screenshot method could be the MVP :). Provided, of course, that it is considered "viable" not to know the text. If I were a user I would consider it viable - it is still a vast improvement over having to check the site manually.

<comment><USER5> I'm been working on <http://imnosy.com> for a while, and thought about that approach, but ran into difficulties when slight variations to the screen were made. Right now, we're using a diff engine. Sieve looks pretty rad though. Will check that out. Fun space :)

<comment><USER4> This is what the selection boxes are useful for - you can make it ignore changes to irrelevant areas of the page (though obviously that doesn't apply so well to imnosy).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd been mulling over the same concept for quite a while, as a sort of an intelligent update to IE5 for Mac's Subscription manager[1]. It was a very useful tool in my toolbox, and I mourned losing it as that browser decayed.

The main issue with the Subscriptions was that they were global, and would not inform you what changed, just that there were changes. With the increased dynamicness of the web since good ol' Y2K (especially with ads), this model is much less feasible, whereas a DOM-based model is more robust, and allows further automatic data processing.

I never got past small prototypes, so I look forward to Sieve's release since it is basically someone doing my work for me! :)

[1] <http://www.macoptions.com/tips/images/iesub2.gif>

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah IE5! It has been a very long wait. :) We are hard at work to launch Sieve. Optimistically we should be ready in a couple of months.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN! I am excited to show Sieve. Its in alpha state and under active development.

Would appreciate your feedback. Checkout Visual Selector used to let user filter content from a webpage.

<comment><USER7> If what you are doing is essentially a diff for news, then you might be onto something very interesting.

The way news are consumed is currently tiered by the temporal interval which they cover: breaking news, daily news, weekly, monthly, annual summaries. A diff for news can help process the different tiers from a single reader, without the "breaking news" tier taking over.

<comment><AUTHOR> At its core, the essential work is to detect changes important to the user. Adding summarization techniques to further weed out the noise would be a very important improvement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can I ask what sort of libraries you're using for the canvas-in-page-browser- selector? Is it server or client side?

The technology here is spectacular. Great job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your kind words. The stack is a mix of both. Browser runs on the server and sends updates to the client via websocket. Then it is painted on the client. On the client-side a part of noVNC js library is used to capture input and is sent to the browser running on the server.

<comment><USER9> Pretty slick. Could be the seed of a lightweight Browserling competitor, if you could scale it economically.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats an excellent suggestion. We do have plans to modularize the browser component to offer browser as a web service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Might I suggest, re the name collision, to simplify the name to Siv? Sieve is prone to misspellings, and "Siv" has more of a brand feel to it.

</comment><comment><USER10> One of my friend's summerjob is to keep eye on heat rates of some electrical engines (web page, as it seems) and he will surely love this.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is the selection of the relevant part of the page not possible on the client side? Through some iframe magic or something?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not possible select content using iframes due to client-side security restrictions imposed by the browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Btw, the landing page is a Stripe.com rip off.</comment>


Help Test Private Browsing with Tracking Protection in Firefox Beta 42 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/09/23/help-test-private-browsing-with-tracking-protection-in-firefox-beta/ <comment><USER2> I'm pretty far in the pro-user privacy camp, but I feel this conflates things unnecessarily and confuses the end user. Private browsing now keeps your local clean of history and site data on close, but also kind of does some other disconnect/ghostery stuff? If you're privacy conscious you've already tuned your browser, if you're not and believe private browsing does that, you're misinformed.

<comment><USER3> Information regarding a lot of the configuration options for this purpose is scattered across the web. To get some idea for what settings are useful for privacy and security in Firefox, I have found [https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js](https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js) an extremely useful starting point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> IIRC "Tracking Protect" has been available for some time in Firefox, it was just located somewhere in the about:config menu as an experimental feature. Is this the same option simply moved to a menu option visible to the end-user, or something different?

<comment><USER5> Yes, this is using the same built-in Tracking Protection feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I like the mechanism, I am not too certain about the policies. From the paper [1], they use "a subset of approximately 1500 domains from Disconnect's privacy-oriented blocklist to identify these unsafe origins". Further, they update the block list every 45 minutes. Which means, a service which wants to track the user can use domain names outside that block list of 1500, and change it every 45 minutes (in case it becomes popular and the block list catches up).

Am I understanding this right?

Aside, I realize that there are no easy solutions for this. As the paper also says, it is hard to identify which requests belong to third parties because of the prevalent practice of using third-party CDNs.

I believe one approach is to disable cookies, javascripts and other sensitive functionality from _all_ third-parties, without any biases or curation, and to provide the tools to enable them selectively. The only drawback is that it won't fly with non-tech-savvy users. However, I think the tech-savvy segment is large enough and growing, to make it worthwhile.

This is the approach that the uMatrix addon, and gngr, the browser that we are developing, take. It would make me very happy if other browsers integrate such a facility within them.

[1]: [https://kontaxis.github.io/trackingprotectionfirefox/resourc...](https://kontaxis.github.io/trackingprotectionfirefox/resources/papers/trackingprotectionfirefox.w2sp15.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Would be great if you could explain exactly how this differs from using an ad/tracking blocker, e.g. Disrupt or mu-block.

<comment><USER8> See the whitepaper[1] and blogs by Monica and Mozilla[2].

It works like a combination of safebrowsing and Disconnect. Basically they cache a list of "bad" URIs and block them at request-time

[1] [https://kontaxis.github.io/trackingprotectionfirefox/resourc...](https://kontaxis.github.io/trackingprotectionfirefox/resources/papers/trackingprotectionfirefox.w2sp15.pdf)

[2] monica-at-mozilla.blogspot.com</comment></comment>


Seed funding from NASA: 5K per month for lying down - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/nasa-offers-500.html

<comment><USER3> Its not the worst source of funding suggested on this forum. See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132400>

<comment><USER4> Are we sure about that? From the Wired Q&A:

"We give them approximately two weeks of recovery time on the unit. We monitor them and give them rehabilitation exercises. That's _usually_ enough to bring them back to normal functioning..." [emphasis mine]

"They will lose 1 to 2 percent of their bone per month. That's not going to come back within two weeks. So, we bring them back at six months and then a year later to look at their bone density...

"What we tell people is that they will lose bone and _it may never return to their prestudy levels_. It's entirely possible, but a significant number [of people] do return to their normal density..." [emphasis mine]

\---

Hmm, malaria plus some chance of recurrent malaria, vs loss of muscle tone requiring physical therapy plus potentially permanent loss of bone density? Not an easy call, really.

At least their simulation of space travel doesn't include the cosmic radiation or the risk of explosive decompression.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if doing jumping jacks on the bed counts.

Talk about cabin fever. I don't think I could do it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if they'll let you develop your product while in bed.

<comment><USER7> In another post they had an interview with one of the researchers - <USER2> each of the test persons who comes in should have a goal (one of them was learning a new language). So this might not be so bad an idea after all.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are companies open to let engineers do a trial week instead of interview - <AUTHOR> I'm a software engineer in San Francsico with a good amount of experience on the frontend and I'm struggling with interviews. I'm in the middle of freelancing contracts, so I have time to do a trial position at companies instead of doing an interview. Does anyone know of any companies that are open to this arrangement or know of any services can that can facilitate this type of agreement?<p>I know interviewing is a skill, and it's something one can learn, but I'm just curious if there are other ways to get over this hurdle. <comment><USER2> I'm piloting a new platform where we pay you to write code (in a realistic GitHub repo) and talk (video chat) to an independent engineer about your solution.

Strong candidates complete the exercise in 4 hours and are paid $70 an hour.

If the independent engineer likes what they see, we refer you to the final round of interviews at a hand selected group of companies we think are awesome (competitive salaries/benefits, great products/teams).

Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you are in SF/NYC and are interested.

Also shoot me an email if you are interested in being the independent engineer who interviews candidates. It's completely mobile, pays up to $150/hr is a great way to make extra cash, learn new things, and meet new people. We're looking for vast array of specialties, but mostly just really really smart people.

</comment><comment><USER3> Offering a trial position wouldn't help you in negotiation and may reflect a lack of confidence/skills.

I can relate to the trouble that you are going through. I usually volunteer for onsite interview as that helps me present a version of me at work. I communicate like i would while i am in the job. This also helps you adjust yourself by looking at people and environment.

In case you want to put your best forward through work, try researching on company, build a small project around the space and publish in github. take feedback from friends or senior colleagues on this project.

Good luck with your search.

<comment><USER4> Having a poorly paid job is better than not having a job though... especially given the American healthcare system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's a possibility if targeting earlier stage companies or startups.

Larger companies are unlikely to make a drastic change in process to suit one or a few candidates, especially considering this idea is something risky from a legal & social perspective.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd love to see some research done on this. Please share any of your findings here</comment>


What SimpleGeo could have been - <AUTHOR> http://blog.danrhodes.com/what-simplegeo-could-have-been

<comment><USER2> _"it's likely that whatever Urban Airship is going to do with the service will most likely revolve around location-based ads, rather than SimpleGeo's original vision."_

The original vision for the company was to make mobile games...

SimpleGeo's biggest problem was a lack of any vision. They sucked in a bunch of data from outside sources (Yahoo WoE, census data, weather APIs, factual.com, etc) and got a bunch of engineers to just work on whatever interested them.

The products they did manage to produce were intended for an audience technical enough that they could source the original data and build it themselves if they really needed to. When you play that game, you have to price requests an order of magnitude or two below what they did.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nobody's going to make any money _just_ by aggregating & providing access to data points. Geo isn't as hard as everyone thinks it is. PostGIS absolutely does intersects with arbitrary polygons, for example.

Where people will make the money is by providing new, interpolated data layers; it's one thing to say "get the weather at location X!" and another to say "show me the best intersection to get a cab" or "show me where the closest taco truck is likely to be given today's weather & past behaviour". I understand Simplegeo was trying to provide the access to the data to enable people to answer these questions themselves; why not just sell them the answers?

</comment><comment><USER4> > I don't know of any freely available database where you can provide an > arbitrary polygon of geographical coordinates and it will return the points > within that polygon.

MySQL geo extensions do this, explicitly. See:

[http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/relations-on- geometry...](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/relations-on-geometry- mbr.html)

I'll give you that you can only really do MBR queries, but it's easy enough to approximate this to arbitrary polygons (and functions to do so are google- able).

I've always felt that all the worry about Geo being hard was mostly FUD. You can easily build a highly location aware application on a grid system without even using any true geospatial index and indeed one of the largest local sites does (see my profile)! Shapefiles aren't really all that horrible either since Tiger (i.e. US Census data) has gotten a lot better in the past couple years. You can relatively easily hack together a geocoding service in a fews days provided you have enough caffeine.

<comment><USER3> I guess, to nitpick, he means "any currently existing, freely accessible POI databases which support arbitrary polygon selection". Eg. most services which support "geospatial queries" (Flickr, Yelp, etc) only support MBR or simple geometry queries rather than true polygon intersects. Which I also misinterpreted but is also true (to my knowledge anyway). He's not saying it's impossible to set one up for yourself using PostGIS etc — if anything, that's his point.

I agree with you that it's simple enough to set one up for yourself that the value offered by a service is minimal.

<comment><USER4> Well he lists MongoDB and PostGIS as DBs that don't allow polygon selection, but your alternate interpretation is more truthful.

Yelp does do arbitrary polygon intersections on the backend for neighborhood queries, but I guess this isn't exposed in any API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Most location databases (such as PostgreSQL and Mongo) let you query based on all points within a certain radius, but any features requiring more advanced querying are hard to come by. For example, I don't know of any freely available database where you can provide an arbitrary polygon of geographical coordinates and it will return the points within that polygon."

PostGIS (an extension for PostgreSQL) does this really well.

The most notable thing about SimpleGeo (to me) was that they were able to build PostGIS-like features on top of Cassandra. That's certainly attractive from a scalability perspective.

I was really excited to try SimpleGeo out, but decided it was just easier--and less risky since I don't have much NoSQL experience--to use PostGIS. It also wasn't clear to me whether you could store NON-geographic data in SimpleGeo (such as user accounts). A (very) brief look at their docs seemed to suggest you couldn't, and using multiple datastores seemed messy to me...

</comment><comment><USER6> I have to disagree with most of this except the data problem. Building out a cloud database and API specific for storing and querying geo data is not enough of a value proposition. It's just not that hard of a problem to roll your own, which is what most serious applications would do. They're the ones with money. In fact, in some cases using SimpleGeo is a limitation because it doesn't have the robustness of full databases. The part I will agree with you on is the data problem. There's a huge amount of great geo data out there with no clean repository. I kept telling them to focus on data and sell that, not the service. Oh well. Someone (factual?) will get it instead.

</comment><comment> captain-asshat While certainly not free, SQL Server 2008 introduced some pretty nice spacial data tools. It can find points within a radius, capture points within a polygon, intersections/unions, and quite a bit more. It also has full support for true spacial indexes which makes dealing with large amounts of data very fast.

I've just completed a project using these tools quite extensively, and found them a really nice way of handling all my geo data. Being T-SQL, there's not much to learn to make use of it either.

</comment><comment><USER7> Geo-data is effectively 'read-only', it seems to me..

There are things local people know about, which still diffuse by word of mouth - and I still see paper notices posted on lamp-posts and at supermarket boards. This is why I did an experiment and built lokenote.com

I havent nailed it with lokenote, but it hints theres something there... Im aware this is a first, imperfect approximation of the kind of tool that will enable people to annotate locations. Sometimes you need to build these experiments to see what works or doesn't.

I dont think the storing/retrieving of geo-data is that hard a problem, you can roll your own nested squares approach, or reuse whats there now, eg. Mongo 2d indexes.

Rather, I think the problem is making a nice way to integrate the location dimension into our tools/web apps more seamlessly. eg. a dating chat app might just favour partners close to your location without being told what postcodes to look in. I see this as a 'too many knobs' type problem ( a bit like those search forms you see that have options for 10 different dimensions to filter on, which are better replaced by a single text search field, with hidden smarts. )

So how to bring location to the people, so its useful, effective, un-intrusive and read-write ? I dont think that question has been answered.

[edit readability]

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure I'd regard it as read only.

Whilst it's true a lot of data appears to be read only (of the kind, what is where?), even geological features change given enough time (or little time if we're talking water features in a world of global warming).

Given that what we're discussing is mostly man-made features, such as physical buildings and the businesses that occupy them... these are open to change. Buildings get built, demolished, and far more frequently modified.

And then there are problems like "Where can I park?". Most parking in London is street parking rather than car parks, and parking restrictions change frequently enough that it isn't static data.

Once you concede time is a dimension that affects spatial information, you open yourself up to far more interesting possibilities: What is happening nearby? Where are my friends? There's traffic up the road, what's causing it and should I detour?

This is massively changing data. It could be expressed as a read-only stream of 'events' that 'occur' at different places (check-ins, tracking data)... but the data is refreshed so frequently that storing as a read-only audit trail of events just disguises the fact that people will perceive the information as permanently changing.

I think the hardest part of dealing with geospatial data is ensuring that it is fresh enough to be valuable data. And that is to work from the point of view that everything changes constantly.

<comment><USER7> yes.. I didn't mean to say location information is time-static.. I want there to be better tools / web UI to supply current location information. So the person in the street can flag something, and other people can make use of that.

By 'read-only' I mean its not easy for people to supply location information thats current. I put into Lokenote app an expiry date tumbler - eg. Street party for a few hours, blocked drain for a few days, building site for a few weeks.

Because of overhead at the moment, youd probably only enter location information that is going to be there for a long time.. but if it were easier to share that, wed see a more dynamic and relevant picture over smaller time scales.

Wikipedia, etc, have made an effort to standardise so that wiki articles can be tagged to a location, but I think theres a whole mass of less formal information thats really useful thats not being captured or used - ants would leave pheremones to signal other ants, we currently leave paper notes on lampposts, there should be a better way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anybody know which database was powering SimpleGeo, the tech/stats etc. behind it and if they wrote any of it themselves?

<comment><USER10> I seem to remember that they were using a customized version of Cassandra to store the geodata

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is disappointing. We have a webapp and (small) GPU datacenter that can extract tens of billions of polygons per day from remote sensing imagery (gis.incogna.com). I felt quite happy to see SimpleGeo working on a decentralized approach to the storage component.

</comment><comment><USER11> I agree completely. I hope this article has legs.</comment>


Kaggle - Improving data analysis algorithms by running Netflix-style contests - <AUTHOR> http://www.kaggle.com/

<comment><USER2> Is this pronounced the same as Kegel?

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

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a great idea -- can't wait for the next competition (I'm ready to demonstrate myself)

<comment><USER4> Do read the fine print though. Usually you sign away all rights to your algorithm and source code. You might be OK with it, but just be aware of what you sign and for what kind of compensation (not necessarily monetary).</comment></comment>


Troubleshooting Yourself in the Foot - <AUTHOR> http://spin.atomicobject.com/2012/10/29/troubleshooting-yourself-in-the-foot/ <comment><USER2> The article says that successful debuggers made better use of a mental model. I've seen people do lazy debugging many times: they change a line here, build & test, change a line there, build & test, and it doesn't appear as if they're stopping to think at all. I've seen people dive right into this without reading the code at all. I call it "debugging by superstition." Perhaps they were already in the zone and had the code perfectly laid out in their head, but then you'd think their jerky attempts would have worked. :-)

At the other end is what Raymond Chen calls psychic debugging. This is where you have enough experience to be able to guess the root problem from seemingly-unrelated symptoms. This has a superficial resemblance to debugging by superstition, but it's quite different.

</comment><comment><USER3> So... the takeaway is to stop adding bugs to programs you write? Heh, I've been trying to do that since day 1.

Seriously, now, it appears that experts are more akin to taking the scientific method approach to debugging: isolate and bisect down to the point of the bug. Novices just haphazardly change stuff until stuff appears to work.

I think a lot of us can think of friends and co-workers who fit these profiles.</comment>


Funky FireBug Bug You May Have Noticed - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/firebug/browse_thread/thread/392b51d60423618e/f95fac660539d44d?lnk=raot

<comment><AUTHOR> If you have noticed websites hang sometimes when you have Firebug running, this is probably why.

The solution is either to:

a) download the patch linked on the page b) roll back to Firefox 3.06 c) or, if you don't use the script tab much, you can just disable it</comment>


Peter Thiel's Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/peter-thiels-embrace-of-trump-has-silicon-valley-squirming.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <comment><USER3> From Peter Thiels perspective its a smart move because he's the only one willing to do something this crazy. This gives him a "monopoly" (as he likes to say) on political access as it relates to the tech world if Trump wins. In short it looks like a bet. Personally I find Trump an archetype of everything I'm trying to get away from in life.... but that is not the point. Also this is just my opinion and maybe their is no greater agenda and Peter Thiel just likes him.

<comment><USER4> +1 good comment! I read Thiel's Zero to One book twice, and you might have nailed the reason.

BTW, off topic, but this campaign is crazy. I don't like either Clinton or Trump, and have mentioned to friends and family that I will leave the presidential part of the ballot in November blank or vote for Jill Stein. It just seems wrong to me to vote for someone I simply don't like. For this honesty, I have several friends who are all over my case for 'wasting my vote.'

<comment><USER5> Your vote actually counts for more, at least in non-swing states. If Stein gets 5% of the popular vote (not electoral collage) the Green party gets funding next election and more recognition as a party. It's the first step to ending the two party system. You're right to vote who you like best, not who you think actually has a chance to win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are quite a few Trump supporters in the Valley, but they simply stay quiet because they will get 'racist' yelled at them and it will potentially hurt their careers.

<comment><USER7> Don't you think being a Trump supporter =should= hurt most people's careers? It's pretty poor judgment, for starters.

<comment><USER8> Pat, that is a pretty disgusting thing to say. Please reconsider if political viewpoints are worthy of career punishment.

<comment><USER9> They aren't... but can we make an exception?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is interesting to me. The lack of diversity in the tech industry is definitely something that will be harmful in the long run. Diversity is necessary to improve the relevance of new ideas in tech and to promote them to broader audiences from different cultures.

The trend towards making a pariah out of anyone with opposing points of view can be equally harmful to promoting diversity of thought. Making people afraid of speaking their minds can hardly help the flow of new ideas or positively impact the industry. While I likely don't agree with the political ideology of a speaker at the RNC, I definitely agree with the right of anyone to do so without being held captive by the threat of activism at home. Boycotting and protesting people with different political views may feel good in the short run, but it is unhelpful to promoting freedom and equality in the long run.

If they can't say what I find reprehensible today, how do I know that views I hold dear will be "allowed" in the future?

<comment><USER11> Wait. What does the relevance of a new idea have to do with the ethnic composition of the people with the idea? Isn't that a racist statement? Fascinating.

My favorite part about the liberal mind are its obvious contradictions and, thus, the unintended consequences of its thought process.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Declaring a general fault in a <EntityType>'s mind isn't often the best way to endear the neutral or opposed to your point of view.

<comment><USER11> Anothet characteristic of the liberal mind: it cannot be endeared to an alternate point of view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson might set a record this year for highest votes attained by a third party candidate.

<comment><USER13> Perot got 18.9% of the popular vote in 1992. Gonna be tough to beat.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1992)

<comment><USER12> He is at 13% now and needs only to be at 15% to enter the national spotlight of increased media coverage and access to the general debates. His polling numbers are increasing with a notable momentum as general support of the Republican candidate and Democratic candidate are both at all time lows.

As long as the majority of voters think of Trump as a broke racist narcissist and Clinton as an apathetic or unethical elitist he may well have a chance.

[http://heatst.com/politics/gary-johnsons-polling-numbers- rea...](http://heatst.com/politics/gary-johnsons-polling-numbers-reach-all- time-high/)

<comment><USER13> 13% huh? That's a bit better than I thought. Definitely sounds like he has a shot of making it to 15%. I'm all for it. I'd love to have him in the debates. I really liked this ad they made:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHEpTh3kqR8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHEpTh3kqR8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Shame on Thiel. Robert Reich - "

Yesterday, Trump argued that the United States should investigate every American who practices Islam. "We really have to look at profiling," Trump told CBS's "Face the Nation." And that the government should investigate mosques in the U.S.

Never before has a major party's presumptive nominee for president of the United States urged that an entire religion be singled out for investigation. Each day, it seems, Trump comes closer to the fascism America went to war against in 1941. Why doesn't Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and every Republican leader withdraw their endorsement of him and disavow this hatefulness? To nominate this bigot for the highest office in America is a slap in the face of American values, constitutional rights, and the pluralism America stands for. Trump must be dumped. "

" One by one, Republican leaders are falling in line behind a man who says undocumented workers "bring drugs, crime, they're rapists;" who claimed "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the Twin Towers collapsing; who says black criminals are responsible for 81 percent of homicides against whites, which turns out to be a racist myth from white supremacist website; who tells a Jewish group "I'm a negotiator, like you folks;" who bullies, humiliates, and threatens his opponents, including a federal judge now hearing a case against one of his businesses; who suggested President Obama wasn't born in the United States, that childhood vaccinations cause autism, and that human-caused climate change is a hoax; and whose hateful and demeaning attitude toward women is best summed up in an interview where he said "women, you have to treat them like shit."

By falling into line behind Trump, Republican leaders are lending legitimacy to such hatefulness, bigotry, and lies. Shame on them. "

<comment><USER4> I don't disagree with you (I refuse to vote for Trump or Clinton).

It was interesting to hear the the Muslim speaker at the republican convention last night. I didn't think that his speech was so good but later he made some nice points on a CNN interview. Anyway, I was surprised to see him as a speaker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Courage is in even shorter supply than genius."

-Peter Thiel

<comment><USER16> "A witty saying proves nothing." \- Voltaire

<comment><USER15> That's why Peter Thiel not only speaks intelligently but also takes action. While I have serious misgivings about the move, I stand in awe of the courage he has. I suspect it comes from the same reservoir he drew from to invest in SpaceX over a decade ago when it looked _insane_ to people, or to start Paypal. I don't always agree with the man, but I have tremendous respect for both his genius _and_ his courage.

<comment><USER16> Sure. But those accomplishments have nothing to do with his pro-Trump views.

<comment><USER15> It's not about having a given view.

Doing what you believe when most your peers agree with you is easy. It's about having a view, knowing it's unpopular and _still_ having the courage to publicly state it and face the mob that is extraordinary.

People who do that sometimes change the world (and other times get burnt at the stake).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Given the libertarian/Randian streak that runs through silicon valley, support for Trump doesn't seem too outlandish. Especially when you consider his non- dedication to the typical right-wing 'family values' that aren't really popular in that region of California.

<comment><USER18> > Given the libertarian/Randian streak that runs through silicon valley, > support for Trump doesn't seem too outlandish.

What? Exactly what libertarian values does Trump espouse?

<comment><USER19> Decreased regulation, meritocratic systems, and property rights

Why is this being downvoted?

<comment><USER20> When he says things like "I will force company X to do Y" I find it hard to take him seriously as a small government or pro-property-rights candidate.

My personal prediction is that if elected he will grow the size of government dramatically, quite likely more than Sanders would have if elected and certainly more than Clinton (who is the "conservative" candidate in this election if that means status quo). He will also grow the _power_ of government, which is more important and significant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > After that, he suggested, things went south because, among other things, > women were given the right to vote.

Wow, does Peter Thiel really think that women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

<comment><USER22> That doesn't necessarily follow, but I'm curious to hear the answer. You can think people should be allowed to do something, but that them doing that thing is harmful.

For example, look at all the people that lamented the fact that plebs voted for Brexit. A lot of anti-democracy talk around the time of that vote.

<comment><USER23> That's a good point about Brexit because I noted even here on HN a great deal of overt resentment toward people who are older who largely voted #leave - <USER2> though their votes were less valid because of their age.

<comment><USER24> That is a reasonable point if you consider Brexit is a hard-to-reverse decision. Older voters have to live with the consequence of their vote for much less long, and unlike an ordinary political vote, the outcome can't be reversed in another five years. Older voters have a different balance of interests between "Stick it up the bureaucrats to blow steam off" and "Irreversibly change the UK's relationship with Europe" than younger voters.

Maybe we should've weighted votes by projected life expectancy...

On the other hand, the vote also affects people who can't vote or aren't even born yet, and there's no weighting system that can deal with that. Maybe that's a reason not to have referenda on these sorts of questions.

<comment><USER23> If older people make voting decisions based upon a decreased impact in long- term consequences, how does that square with the statistically provable riskier behavior engaged in by younger people? If anything, I find that older people care more about the long term because they tend to think in terms of impacts on their progeny. It's just as likely that older people have decades of experience from when the UK was not a member of the EU and have relevant experience that tells them that the UK will be just fine without the EU. There are dozens of ways to spin it and show that older people might have a better perspective on a given issue.

But this is exactly the kind of cherry-picking arguing that healthy societies shouldn't indulge in. Women have the basic human right of being able to vote. As do old people. We respect everyone's right to vote despite the fact that people tend to vote in their self-interests and aren't always that logical in doing so.

 _Maybe we should 've weighted votes by projected life expectancy..._

Is that a joke? I'm hoping that's a joke.

<comment><USER9> > If anything, I find that older people care more about the long term because > they tend to think in terms of impacts on their progeny

That's why Millenials are currently thriving and have such immense gratitude to the boomer generation for forward thinking policies that ensured prosperity going forward.

Or not.

<comment><USER22> 100% agreed. Everything is someone else's fault. Nothing is ever my fault.

Because someone had it easy by a fluke of luck, I deserve to have it easy too, and if I don't, that is that persons fault.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe he's betting on Trump bringing Palantir more business with the concentration camps Trump plans to build. Or he might just be a stupid, racist asshole who can relate to Trump and enjoys others' suffering. Who knows what makes scumbags like this tick?

</comment><comment><USER26> They're uncomfortable with him supporting Trump but fine with him using his billions to underwrite legal campaigns against people he doesn't like?

</comment><comment><USER27> I would think that if any major voting bloc were to turn against Silicon Valley, it'd be Trump's populist base.

</comment><comment><USER28> why is he even considering supporting a party that views homosexuality as a sin?

</comment><comment><USER19> > Mr. Thiel will have a direct line to a chief executive who hints at a > penchant for making big things happen for his supporters.

Look at this masterfully subtle insinuation that Trump will be corrupt.

The NY Times never fails to impress.

> This year there was an opportunity for a Republican to make overtures to > tech — but with Mr. Trump, that chance seems to have passed.

>[...]

>it almost seems like he's gone out of his way to smite Silicon Valley leaders on the issues they care about,

Yes, like bringing in scores of cheap H1Bs as veritable indentured servants (their right to reside in the country is is tied to their employer). This drives down wages – of course SV VCs and founders want this.

Of course the NY Times does not elaborate at all on this point

> "As a black guy in Silicon Valley, I just find it very hard to support a > candidate who has been called racist," Mr. Johnson said.

Oh my god

<comment><USER29> Well, it is not surprising why Thiel supports Trump: SELF INTEREST. It _has_ to be.

Thiel seems like a remarkably smart guy who would never fall for the fool BS coming out "The Donald's" mouth. He must be in it for the influence he can leverage out of the orangutan-man from being a delegate, an influential SV player and and sizable donor.

What will really be interesting is the (what I expect to be) PURE pandering baloney he gives during his speech at the RNC. Obviously, he can't just say "the real reason" he supports Trump.

Pass the popcorn, its going to be interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> He's not a murderer, unlike the other option

<comment><USER31> Please don't do this here.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12130976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12130976) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER32> Probably, any thread with 'Trump' or 'Hillary' is going to get bad, fast. Everyone has an opinion on them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Good.

<comment><USER16> Why?</comment></comment>


BSkyB buys O2 and BE broadband businesses from Telefonica - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21627614

<comment><USER2> I'm an extremely happy Be customer who is scared of the change!

Since <http://www.bethere.co.uk/broadbandchanges> won't load for me, the closest thing I can find is this: <http://www.o2.co.uk/broadband/broadbandchanges>

<comment><USER3> Seconded, here's to hoping they keep BE as a separate entity..

<comment><USER2> It might be time to move back to Zen, but I need to re-assess the ISP landscape fully. Gah, I could do without this pain in the arse!

Good luck to you too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> As I wrote on G+ ([https://plus.google.com/u/0/101717671794140160212/posts/e8aA...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/101717671794140160212/posts/e8aAqnoZ6qg)), BE have told me that nothing will change, network-wise, for at least 6 months.

</comment><comment><USER4> But Sky is known for being slow and having bad customer support. We've had our problems with O2 but as soon as I raise a complaint they look into it and commonly offer discounts/refunds for any issues.

Will have to move to another ISP #sad

</comment><comment><USER2> Does anyone know if I'll be able to get out of the 12 month contract that I agreed to with Be in August because of this?</comment>


How do you get more undergrads into startups? - <AUTHOR>

How do you get more college undergrads to consider startups as a career option? <comment><USER2> The biggest part of the problem is that startups aren't ONE company. There's no centralized Startup Hiring authority and there's no centralized Startup Database. Undergrads have to find them to work at them, and that's a pain in the butt.

Second problem is that startups can't waste a lot of time training kids right out of school. They need talented, seasoned, battle hardened developers right out of the gate, because there are going to be a lot of late nights ahead. There's nothing wrong with letting the kids cut their teeth somewhere big and stable right out of school.

...says the undergraduate who works for a startup.</comment>


Software engineering principles - <AUTHOR> http://robohub.org/software-engineering-principles/

<comment><USER2> Very helpful list! reminds me of the book Clean Code</comment>


Exploring Programming Language Architecture in Perl - <AUTHOR> http://billhails.net/Book/front.html <comment><USER2> Isn't this like trying to build a Space Shuttle by using the Hindenburg as the starting point?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's more like trying to explore an interesting and challenging topic with an extremely powerful and flexible tool. Good guess though.</comment></comment>


What is your definition of a hacker? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Tinkerer. (For probably 90% of situations it can be explained that simply)

"Tinkerers reversed engineered the new government X" "Tinkerers were able to crack the new Purple-ray disc standard"

I think it _sounds_ nicer to say "hacker" than "tinkerer," but again, 90% of the time you can just replace one with the other if you need a quick way to explain it to someone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone who likes to figure out how things work. This usually involves breaking things and using them for purposes other than what they were intended for, which is why they get such a bad rap.

</comment><comment><USER4> People who can just get shit done. The guy or gal you bring an idea to and they say, "Hmm - let me think about it for a while." The next time you talk, they completely have mapped out the starter solution using interesting models.

</comment><comment><USER5> Problem Solver. In, around, over, and thru. Not being stopped in the pursuit of your goal, no matter how large or small. If there is not a tool to fix it, then make your own.</comment>


Mygazines is back (scanning and sharing magazines online) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mygazines.net/ <comment><USER2> [http://www.mygazines.net/publications/index/computers_intern...](http://www.mygazines.net/publications/index/computers_internet/programming/?v=recent_published)

 _Sorry, no results matched your query._

:(</comment>


PSI: Pressure stall information for CPU, memory, and IO - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/759658/ <comment><USER2> Handling OOM livelocks is exciting, and they have a good explanation for why the current OOM-killer fails:

> One usecase is avoiding OOM hangs/livelocks. The reason these happen is > because the OOM killer is triggered by reclaim not being able to free pages, > but with fast flash devices there is _always_ some clean and uptodate cache > to reclaim; the OOM killer never kicks in, even as tasks spend 90% of the > time thrashing the cache pages of their own executables. There is no > situation where this ever makes sense in practice.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting!

After reading it, I realized I was actually hoping for information at a lower level than VM for memory pressure. Actually finding live, actionable information about DRAM bandwidth usage, delays caused by the hardware system of caches including TLBs, L1/2/3 caches and main memory contention, etc. I have not found that existing tools are insufficient in monitoring/dealing with VM swapping - OTOH I usually seek to keep that at zero and leave a little swap just to allow for some chance of alerting and recovery before OOM killer kicks in.

<comment><USER4> Can you give a little more detail about the kind of information you'd like from the hardware?

<comment><USER5> How much time does each CPU core spend running/waiting for L1/L2/L3/DRAM? How often are those stalls due to cross-core contention for the same bit of memory? Which execution units are in use? What's the limiting factor on throughout?

That's what I can think of in the first two minutes, anyhow. It all comes down to the last one.

<comment><USER6> Intel CPUs provide a crazy amount of performance counters. I bet that the numbers you want are in there somewhere. Look into the perf tool.

<comment><USER5> Alas, I'm using AMD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Digging the LKML thread, this appears to be the corresponding userland component for the OOM use-case:

[https://github.com/facebookincubator/oomd](https://github.com/facebookincubator/oomd)

There was also more minimal proof-of-concept example posted by Endless OS guys:

[https://gist.github.com/dsd/a8988bf0b81a6163475988120fe8d9cd](https://gist.github.com/dsd/a8988bf0b81a6163475988120fe8d9cd)

</comment><comment><USER8> Sounds good. The next step would be to start using this instead of load average in all the appropriate places, like batch(1), etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> Curious that there is no mention of the existing "memory" cgroup. On some desktop Linux, you'll find it here:

      ls -l /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/

The 000-permission 'pressure_level' file controls asynchronous notifications to apps, advising prompt shedding of load. This is apparently the mechanism alluded to in a Googler's recent blog post, writing from the point of view of Go server coding: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17551012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17551012)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm happy to see a new take on trying to produce a meaningful load metric.

<comment><USER11> Especially as it promises to disentangle IO and CPU load.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have long looked for an efficient metric for measuring VM pressure. Hope to see this, or something like this merged.</comment>


On the Pricing of Apple Watch - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2015/02/apple_watch_pricing <comment><USER3> There is one massive different with usual watches.

Expensive watches are often sold under the idea you will never have to buy another watch, and neither will your children, or your children's children. I will reasonably surprised if any new Apple Watch hasn't been made forcibly obsolete by Apple within 5 years or so, and shocked if it is still functional in 10.

Furthermore (and more worrying perhaps for people paying that much money), once a model of Apple Watch comes out with a better CPU, then your watch is no longer the latest-and-greatest, whereas older watches don't have the same degree of last year's begin inferior (of course, they can still go out of fashion).

<comment><USER4> Yes, exactly, this seems so obvious that I don't understand why Gruber is ignoring it.

The iWatch will be obsolete in 24 months at most (less if you are the type who values status and want a "$20,000" watch as the next model will probably come out 12-18 months later)

Maybe there are enough uber-rich people that are ok buying $20,000 watches every year, but that seems like a really, really small market.

Then again, maybe the bands will remain the same, so if the primary investment is in the band, then that could last a bit longer. Even then I'd expect that every 2-3 years they will have a form factor switch that will make all previous bands obsolete.

We'll see.

<comment><USER5> Phones were once something you bought once and rarely bought again, but that changed and now we all buy new phones once every 2'ish years.

<comment><USER6> Sure, but I pay ~$400 every couple of years for a phone. I also bought a Moto 360 for $175 (normal non-sale price $250). I may replace that in a year or two when the tech has improved enough to justify the update.

Either way, these are still mostly luxuries (I could get a passable smart phone for under $100 and any old watch for $30-50 or just not wear one) but it wouldn't be the first time a company put out a range of products so people of different budgets can become customers while still offering some high-end model for status seekers to shell out for and mortals to drool over.

I'm not interested in the Apple watches at the moment but it makes sense for them to sell a "mere mortal" version for $300-500 as they typically charge a bit more than competitors for their name and reputation for polish. If they sell a Rolex-grade version for rock stars and wealthy heirs then I guess it just adds to the status of the brand as a whole even if nobody normal would ever buy one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Eww, that just reminds me of the fact that some people are wealthy enough to spend 20K for some status symbol, a sum of money I would try to build awesome stuff with. At the same time, I realize that those who can't afford a MacBook might think in similar terms about me, so thank you Apple for making me feel bad and to remind us once again how fucked up everything is.

</comment><comment><USER8> It could happen, but that would be very aggressive and experimental. The perfect watch, the Rolex GMT, has a base price of about 8k in steel, and goes for about 26k in 18k gold, for a 3.5x multiple[1]. (Ignore diamonds, etc. Not relevant to this discussion.)

So a 10x multiple on plain 18k gold over steel would be quite aggressive. And I don't know of any other watch where the exact same base watch is available at 25x less from plain 18k gold. You can get high-quality swiss movement homages to the GMT at around 1k, but they are clearly different watches and movements.

Apple has of course done their homework on it and I have no understanding of the asian market, but if the pricing is that aggressive I would be surprised, particularly with the android competition.

[1] [http://www.jomashop.com/rogmii.html](http://www.jomashop.com/rogmii.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> 10 years from now Apple won't be a tech company, they will be an international luxury brand that creates products in many different areas. This is just the first step.

<comment><USER10> I don't think they'll ever make anything that isn't fundamentally a computer or an accessory in support thereof.

Of course, you're right that over time that will mean creating products in more and more different categories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> when Jobs returned to Apple, he gave a big speech about how market share never mattered to BMW, and that Apple should become the BMW of personal computers.

it did, and it went on to become much, much more. but its huge fame today is pushing the Mac away from being BMWs.

all of which makes me desperately wish there was a Lamborghini or Ferarri of personal computers. most people might only need a computer to look at Facebook, but if you're doing animation, making electronic music, _and_ building web applications - all of which I am personally doing, often - <USER2> you absolutely need a great GUI and a Unix-like foundation.

if you're reading HN because you want to do a startup, please, give us the Lamborghini of personal computing. we will buy. Apple knows it, but they don't have time to care, because they're going to make so much more money selling digital watches to the people who drive actual Lamborghinis.

<comment><USER12> The Mac Pro is pretty much exactly that though. If you need a more specialized machine, you'll probably need to consider building your own machine in the first place with your specific needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you buy a Rolex for $20k, it's not just that your watch will continue to be _functional_ for 20 years or more. It's also that you can believe with a fair degree of confidence, based on a long history, that your 20 year old Rolex will still be a classy piece of jewelry at that time.

Whereas even if there's some kind of upgrade program to prevent computer-part- obsolesence, nobody knows if smart watches will even be a thing in five years. Maybe in five years, Microsoft HoloLens will have blown away the smartwatch market to the point that every important wearable is glasses, not a watch. Or maybe they will be watches, but they'll have moved to a snap-bracelet deal where there's a much wider screen. Or maybe wearables will just be dead, dead, dead. Nobody knows.

</comment><comment><USER14> This speculation is insane. An Apple watch is no mechanical masterpiece like luxury watches in this price region. No watch lover will pay such prices for cheap Chinese electronics. If Apple pulls that stunt, the are geniuses in marketing.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like what the cellphone makers were saying about Apple when rumors of the iPhone began to circulate.

And I would disagree entirely with your argument. An iPhone [1] is truly a masterpiece of engineering and programming. An Apple watch will have a lot of that heritage, and will sell accordingly.

[1] I would classify most of the highend Android smartphones the same way.

<comment><USER14> I am really not sure, but maybe people will value the watch that way. We will see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Considering the rapid obsolescence of electronics, why would I put a quickly decaying piece of hardware my wrist? In the luxury/heirloom department, I much prefer high end mechanical wristwatches. Those have an appeal that will last much longer (decades) then quickly outdated hardware (months). I only have to look at the replacement cycle for cell phones, which is already insane.

<comment><USER17> The point is you aren't most people and most people simply don't give a rip about mechanical watches. Just like most people didn't use blackberries in 2007 even though that was the most popular high end phone. The people that did have blackberries by and large preferred their blackberry's features -- just as the people who like mechanical watches prefer mechanical watches -- but that didn't mean Apple's new product didn't/can't find a market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A $20k (or even $5k) gold Apple watch will be a litmus test for me - anyone I encounter will automatically be someone I wouldn't do business with. The idea of a gold Apple watch is akin to gold-plated cars / guns for drug dealers. The only value it adds it to show you have money.

The fact that Apple would even consider it only demonstrate the corrosion of values and vision to me.

<comment><USER19> basically everything in traditional business atire is just demonstration of wealth if you really dig into it.

what about the other ten thousand solid/plated gold watches? rolex watches containing gold are probably all over wrists of people you would be happy to do business with.

don't get me wrong.. 5k for an iwatch is ridiculous

<comment><USER18> I have no problem with expensive goods, even gold watches. It's the part of "slap some gold on my Apple device" that is counter-intuitive.

There's no way Steve Jobs thought "what we're really missing is a gold version". It's not zen. It's gaudy.

The few extremely-successful people I've met that have impressed me have been very low key. Can you imagine PG wearing a gold iWatch???

<comment><USER20> There's a word for judging people by what they wear or how they look...

<comment><USER18> [https://newbeautifulera.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/how- nature-...](https://newbeautifulera.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/how-nature-says- do-not-touch-a-classic-far-side-comic/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think it is interesting how Apple might bring and entire industry into the general public.

I mean, I knew you could get very, very expensive watches, but now this is suddenly that is brought in front of everybody.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think his $5k estimate is much stronger than his $20k estimate.

An Apple Editions is not a Patek Phillippe. There is a dramatically different replacement cycle which means that any attempt to cut and paste lux strategies is going to either fail entirely, or narrow the market so thoroughly as to be indistinguishable from failure.

<comment><USER10> That's assuming there's no upgrade story to be told at the launch event.

I agree it would be a little weird coming from the modern Apple, but I just can't see a marketing pitch that sells even a "merely" $5,000 device that's functionally equivalent to a $350 one and essentially guaranteed to be obsolete within 5 years.

Obviously there's a market that can afford to treat such a luxury as disposable, but that doesn't seem like a large enough market to justify creating the Edition line.

They're going to sell these things (at least partially) through upgraded Apple Stores, and presumably those stores will have to offer (possibly off-site) jewelry-like fitting and repair services. How much of an engineering obstacle would it be, really, to guarantee that the next N generations of Watch internals will be able to be retrofitted into the Editions? Probably with a nice markup on the labor, too! After all, if there's one thing they're good at, it's continuous miniaturization.

I think it would dramatically expand the market for the high end models. If it extended down to the stainless tier, I'd certainly buy a much more expensive Gen 1 version.

<comment><USER23> Or the watches will have significant trade-in value because they can ditch the electronics and melt down the gold.

<comment><USER13> Gold currently sells at $1200 per oz. Looks like smart watches are typically around 2oz in weight, though presumably a gold smart watch would be heavier. On the other hand, presumably also a large amount of the weight is non-gold. And you'd obviously pay a penalty for the cost of removing the non-gold bits and recycling the gold.

So, overall: The pure commodity value of the gold might significantly defray the cost of a hypothetical $5k aWatch, but not very much of the cost of a hypothetical $20k aWatch.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Enkel – A clean and simple RSS Reader - <AUTHOR> https://enkel.fyi/ <comment><USER2> What does this offer over the competition for instance like Feedly which free tier offers more than this paid tier and whose paid tier offers much more than this paid tier?

Clean, modern, dark mode, etc all our standards. So curious why this was created vs the competition?

<comment><USER3> I can't even create an account with an email in Feedly. And Inoreader has recently updated design and became unusable: too much bells and whistles.

So, there's no more simple and clean rss-readers that I know of.

<comment><USER4> > I can't even create an account with an email in Feedly.

umm, you can? It isn't obvious from the UI, but you can definitely create one - [https://feedly.com/v3/auth/login?newUser=true](https://feedly.com/v3/auth/login?newUser=true)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please provide a demo, that should make decision to use (or not use) your software faster.

<comment><USER6> I second this. You can limit the ability to add new sources to keep from clobbering feeds. While any non static demo is clearly tricky, it is very helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 'Enkel' translates to 'simple' in Danish (and some other Nordic languages as well).

<comment><USER8> It also translates to "only/sole/single" from Dutch.

<comment><USER9> In Danish it can mean 'only/sole/single' as well. Very strange. Danish has about 1/3 the amount of words that English has.

<comment><USER10> Depends on how you count: [https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq-how-many- english-wo...](https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq-how-many-english- words)

Also, there are several everyday situations in which the English language has fewer nuances than the Scandinavian. "Flere/mer" (discrete vs. continuous amounts, "Flere trær" vs. "mer melk") comes to mind. In English, that's just one word: "More trees" and "More milk".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would love to know if it's gonna run on my OS!

Edit: just realized this is a web app, so the answer is probably yes

<comment><AUTHOR> You're not the first person to ask this today, so I defiantly need to clarify this! But yes, a web app, I've added the mobile meta too so you can add it to the app drawer of your mobile device if you so wish :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really dig the minimal ui and the illustrations you choose :) Also thumbs up for using Laravel (I guess) and Vue.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was hoping to find something I could use on my PC, only to find it is a service, not an RSS reader.

</comment><comment><USER14> Bazqux.com did this, better, about 7 years ago. Zero desire to ever try out an alternative rss client.

</comment><comment><USER15> there is no way to delete your account

<comment><AUTHOR> I do need to add this button, I just had other areas of the app that took my attention. In the meantime, drop me an email email@example.com or use the support form on the site and I'll get your account removed :)

<comment><USER15> Just bringing it to attention

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Email us at firstname.lastname@example.com if you want some tips about how to present this to HN. (Same invitation goes for everybody who wants such tips.)

Edit: here's what I sent the users who emailed:

If you're sharing your own work and there's a way to try it out, put "Show HN" in the title. Make sure you've read the Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).

Posts without URLs get penalized, so when you submit, put your site in the URL field and leave the text field blank.

Add a comment to the thread giving the backstory of how you came to work on this, and explaining what's different about it. That tends to seed discussion in a good direction.

Include a clear statement of what your project is or does. If you don't, the discussion will consist of "I can't tell what this is".

Include links to any previous HN threads that are relevant. Readers like those.

Drop any language that sounds like marketing or sales. On HN, that is an instant turnoff. Use factual, direct language. Personal stories and technical details are great.

For Show HN, the product/project needs to actually exist and there needs to be a way for people to try it out. It can't just be a landing page or market test or fundraiser or a blog post or a curated list or other reading material. Please respect this rule. If we allowed "Show HN" on all those things, nearly every post would be a Show HN.

Please make it easy for users to try your thing out, preferably without having to sign up, get a confirmation email, and other such barriers. You'll get more feedback that way, plus HN users get ornery if you make them jump through hoops.

If it's hardware or something that's not so easy to try out over the internet, find a different way to show how it actually works—a video, for example, or a detailed post with photos.

Don't have your username be that of your company or project. It creates a feeling of using the site for promotion and of not really participating as a person. You don't have to use your real name, just something to indicate that you're here as a human, not a brand. If you'd like to change your username, email email@example.com.

If you're comfortable doing so, put your email address in your profile so we can contact you if we notice anything, and also so we can send you a repost invite. We do that sometimes.

Make sure your friends and fans do _not_ add booster comments in the thread. HN users are adept at picking up on those, they consider it spamming, and they will flame you for it. If a friend or a fan has something interesting to say, that's fine, but comments should not be promotional.

</comment><comment><USER17> Real men write their own rss readers.</comment>