UK scores an own goal with its Digital Services Tax - <AUTHOR> https://www.ekm.com/blog/uk-scores-an-own-goal-with-its-digital-services-tax-2 <comment><USER2> This is an extremely opinionated article:

> People will always support charging more taxes, as long as it isn't them > paying.

I would happily pay more taxes, personally, in exchange for better social care and schools, public services I do not use.

> So, next time you see a tax aimed at the "rich" or a company bigger than > yourselves, remember it will eventually hit you along with everyone else.

This is extremely simplistic and troubling framing, and comes across as a whine. I suspect this outcome was expected, and Her Majesty's Government can sell this as a win to the electorate (look at us taxing the big tech!) while keeping their donors happy. The number of people who do notice/care, and their combined political clout is negligible, and that's the World we live in right now.

<comment><USER3> >I would happily pay more taxes, personally, in exchange for better social care and schools, public services I do not use.

Do you regularly donate to charity then? In UK it's actually possible to voluntarily pay extra tax, but doing that doesn't seem very popular: [https://www.ft.com/content/4b3e6db0-e57a-11e7-8b99-0191e4537...](https://www.ft.com/content/4b3e6db0-e57a-11e7-8b99-0191e45377ec)

<comment><USER2> Yes, although charity is problematic: it means priorities are set by those donating (and more by those donating more), rather than by need.

All private schools in the UK operate as charities, for example. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eton_College#Charitable_status...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eton_College#Charitable_status_and_fees)

<comment><USER4> And it's further complicated by Gift Aid. Seems like a good idea on paper : the charity receives your donation plus the amount of income tax you paid when you earned the money you donated [1]. Looks like everyone wins except the tax man and no-one like him anyway. Except what actually happens is that you're taking tax away from things that it would have otherwise funded like schools and hospitals. So when you Gift Aid your donation to the donkey sanctuary you are essentially saying "I value these donkeys more than I value educating kids or treating the sick". Maybe you really do think donkeys are more valuable than kids and the sick but you're making an individual decision that harms the collective population.

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/donating-to-charity/gift- aid](https://www.gov.uk/donating-to-charity/gift-aid)

<comment><USER5> Can someone gift the money to the donkey sanctuary without taking the tax benefit, so as to not deprive the children, the sick and the military

It appears you are donation shaming - saying the government has a better idea of what to do with tax money than an individual donor

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem here is that it permits tech companies to pass the bill on. These sorts of taxes need to account for the fact that the companies it's leveraged on are monopolies, and can raise prices without issue.

They should've coupled this tax with a ban on raising their rates or passing it on as an additional fee.

<comment><USER7> You're trying to hold a river back with your outstretched arms. Taxes are _always_ passed on to the consumer because they are a cost of doing business. Raise taxes, you raise prices. Always.

Only competitive pressure and consumer discernment will drive down the price.

<comment><USER6> And the problem is that Google, Apple, and Amazon face no competitive pressure. (This is why monopolies are basically the ultimate loophole in capitalist systems.) So short of breaking them up, governments need to introduce price ceilings that begin to make up for the lack of competition.

<comment><USER7> All three are protected by the government in various ways. Amazons entire business was largely built by the government neglecting to enforce sales tax. They had an 8.25% advantage, for many many years, over every brick and mortar competitor in my area.

Where monopolies (or more precisely, market dominance by a single player) exist, crony capitalism almost always exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He's internally inconsistent. He complains amazon etc will simply pass on the cost, but he also complains that they don't have to pass on the cost of things like VAT (which is odd, as my last AWS bill and the kindle book I bought both had vat)

<comment><USER9> That's because a VAT is charged directly, like a sales tax. It's its own line item. It's technically the government charging a tariff on the purchase, rather than the merchant passing on a cost via price increase, though in- effect indistinguishable to your wallet.

<comment><USER8> He seems to be arguing that his online competitors don't have to charge VAT, then he says Amazon specifically charge VAT

I assume he has <£500m revenue, so won't be charging the "digitial services tax", but he's complaining that large companies like Amazon do charge it (even though they don't - they pay the tax, just like they pay tax on people they employ, tax on fuel their delivery vehicles use, property based taxes on warehouses and offices, and indeed other overheads like rent on offices - unlike VAT they don't collect it on behalf of the government)

Amazon seem to be making a political statement on their invoices. They don't have a line item of "London office tax" or other cost centres, only on this. They must be annoyed - they can't charge people more (because they would charge people more without that 2% extra -- they don't price their services based on a fixed profit margin, but on the maximum price they think they can charge before losing customers), so it must be hitting their bottom line (however slightly).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can't seem to access this. Hug of death?

</comment><comment><USER11> Corporation tax tax seems totally unfit for purpose, it just means small companies pay tax and multinationals can dodge it. As a revenue raising effort I think DST is superior.

The issue is that it's difficult to have a frank discussion about tax policy in the UK, because a lot of people basically view tax as a way of sticking one to the capitalists rather than actually doing good. We tax cigarettes to stop people smoking, we tax businesses because why? Their employees pay tax, NI, and their customers pay VAT. The public have a very naive view of business - some business's are exploitative, yes, but the reason why potentially unsavoury companies like Uber are doing well is because they are simply superior to their competitors. I don't want my own moral standards applied to every business transaction, let alone the Twitter mob.

<comment><USER12> We tax businesses because businesses benefit from public infrastructure - health care, education, physical infrastructure - and they're expected to make a contribution just like everyone else.

In fact the UK is very bad at taxing corporations. It subsidises low wages with tax credits, which incentivise corporates to pay people poorly. London is also one of the capitals for money laundering (including crime proceeds) and offshore tax evasion - about to become even more so after Brexit.

So the world would be a better place if basic moral standards were applied to all business transactions. Sadly they aren't, and that causes huge social and political distortions, as well as inconveniencing smaller businesses at the expense of large multinationals.

<comment><USER11> As I said, businesses already pay tax and should not go untaxed but why profits specifically? We have business rates for land, fuel duty for vehicles, VAT for customers, NI contributions etc. We also have a basic form of carbon tax for some businesses although it's not particularly fleshed out.

By moral standards I mean people second guessing consenting economic transactions e.g. no one seems to ask people driving on Uber whether they want to be employees or not, because the Tories don't care and some elements of the Labour party view all employment as slavery of one kind or the other.</comment></comment></comment>


Alex Honnold's next summit: the rest of his life - <AUTHOR> https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27494779/free-solo-climber-alex-honnold-next-summit-rest-life-body-issue-2019 <comment><USER2> I can't remember how or exactly when I came across Alex but it was several years ago. On the one hand I find parts of him highly relatable (eg "learning his lines" and his aversion to asking others to climb with him) and others not (eg I have zero inclination to climb anything).

I certainly respect how much work and preparation he puts into his climbs.

The question is: how is he different to the Everest glory hounds that I personally find objectionable? These are the people who basically pay $50k to "climb" Everest and largely get carried by the sherpas. Ask an experienced tour operator and, weather depending, they'll tell you they can probably get anyone to the top.

There are some key differences:

1\. I honestly think the Everest glory hounds aren't doing it for the experience, for the most part. They're doing it for the bragging rights. It's the next level of Instagram flexing. Like it's the same people who go to Greece and the only thing they do is get a selfie at sunset in Santorini before moving on to the next Instagram stop.

2\. Alex is actually doing things that have never been done before and some thought impossible.

You may view what Alex does as unsafe (I mean, I'd never do it) but it really is his life. Where my attitude turns is when someone has children. You see these stories all the time of [amateur climber] pursues life long dream of summitting Everest and dies leaving [wife and 3 small children].

The defenders will say that person is following their dreams and teaching their kids to do the same. Me? It's purely self-indulgent rationalization. If you're a parent, your kids need you more than you need to be the 6000th person to summit Everest.

Alex has a partner. She can make her own choices though. But your kids? They don't get a choice.

<comment><USER3> He's different than them in that he's the best in the world in what he does, and also he doesn't put anyone else in danger (Everest climbers put the Sherpas who work for them in danger. They also provide them a great living). But in essence both Honnold and said climbers are just living their dreams; for some it's climbing El Capitan solo and for others it's climbing Everest with 20 Sherpas that help you get there. They're all looking for fame from others, Honnold doesn't shy away from media to say the least. I don't think it's all that different to be honest. Honnold isn't helping to make the world a better place by climbing rocks, I see no reason to treat him as a saint (nor as a villain) based on his sports activities.

<comment><USER4> He is using his platform and wealth, that he has from climbing rocks, to better the world though: [https://www.snewsnet.com/people/alex-honnold-on- public-lands...](https://www.snewsnet.com/people/alex-honnold-on-public-lands- advocacy). I can't really think of a better example of a contemporary person who has lived simply, achieved success at a very young age, and immediately jumped in to an advocacy role.

And I think his media presence is drastically different from Everest peak baggers: the media comes to Alex because he is a 1 in 7 billion human being, he does not approach the media in an attempt to brag about an accomplishment. Can you point to anything that indicates he does what he does for "fame from other"? In the dozens of hours of interviews I have watched he never once presents himself this way...

<comment><USER3> Well his making movies about his climbs, so obviously fame is one of his motivations. The fact that he uses his money for a better world is very good but I'm sure many everest climbers are also doctors, philanthropists etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anytime I discussed Free Solo with anyone, including my wife, my feelings about Alex couldn't have been more opposite from theirs.

His bit about empathy and the fact that he's, "just learning [his] lines" is probably relatable to many here.

His comments about deciding to solo mostly because he wasn't comfortable asking anyone to climb with him, and didn't want anyone to see him do something stupid, while ranking in the top 2% on the Mensa test.

I came away sympathetic — recognizing a kindred spirit who's capable of a lot, but had a hard time fitting in with the world, while everyone else just saw a very impressive asshole.

Great article that builds on all of the personal dynamics present in the film.

<comment><USER6> > _I came away sympathetic — recognizing a kindred spirit who's capable of a > lot, but had a hard time fitting in with the world_

If there's one thing I've learned about HackerNews, it's that everyone here is an exceptional but misunderstood genius.

> _while everyone else just saw a very impressive asshole._

I don't know a single person who came away from this film with the impression that Alex Honnold is an asshole. Seems like an odd take, but nothing in today's world surprises me.

<comment><USER7> I thought he was an asshole. Quite apart from how he came across in the film exposing yourself to utterly needless danger is a very bad way to treat people who love you.

<comment><USER8> I get that perspective. Let me ask this: Do you feel the same way about the people in your life who smoke? or eat fast food? or don't exercise daily? or text while driving? I know you can say those are an accumulation of small dangers but it isn't like Honnold never climbed once and decided to free solo the hardest cliff in the world. Do you feel the same about race car drivers? NFL players? We all have our identity and a lot of time it is associated with the things we are good with.

<comment><USER9> I think there are plenty of people who are trying to get their loved ones to quit smoking.

<comment><USER10> But do they think of them as _assholes_ because they are smoking? Or eating unhealthy food?

<comment><USER9> If you eat so badly that you die at 40, then yes that's just as bad as slipping off a rock. Look at it this way, let's say a guy gets married and then starts eating so many big macs every day that he's headed to the grave in a few years. My guess would be that his wife would hate him for that _even more_ than if he was a solo climber.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting to see some negative reactions to what Alex did. His actions bring to forefront a belief which doesn't seem to sit well with many: his life is his own.

And our lives really are, ultimately, our own. Well, at least until we bring kids into the world. We can certainly choose to give up part of this autonomy, but we shouldn't demand it from anyone else.

<comment><USER11> I've been fascinated for a long time by how people get _angry_ at others for taking risks. Ride my mountain bike slowly on a side walk without a helmet? It invokes ANGER in others. Why? Is it an evolutionary trait built into pack animals perhaps? That would make sense. But still, leave me alone! =)

Also, yes internet I understand that falling from a mountain bike at a slow speed can impact your head just as hard as falling from a high speed, that isn't the point, or even _entirely_ true.

<comment><USER12> Because in the real world the consequences of your actions aren't confined to yourself.

Reckless behavior increases the impact on anyone involved in an accident with you, mentally impacts anyone that might see your brains splatter, increases insurance premiums, uses hospital resources, etc.

<comment><USER11> None of that is what actually causes people to be angry. Eating junk food, drinking a beer, driving a sports car, doesn't evoke the same emotional reaction in people, which has the same sorts of consequences if you did some sort of long term impact analysis, which normal people don't do on the spot.

As well, insurance and hospital costs are likely reduced since I'm more often just dead rather than maimed. Plus I'll have less diabetes and heart disease since I'm not sitting inside watching CNN and Fox news all day getting fat and being "safe"

<comment><USER13> A few ideas on why people get angry:

1\. Public health campaigns - They don't get outraged by junk food, sports cars, etc. because there isn't advertising telling them it's unequivocally bad. Government will tell you that not wearing a helmet, smoking a cigarette, etc. is universally bad so it's easier for people to see someone "doing a bad thing". People get angry when other people "break the rules".

2\. They know someone who was affected. I'm guessing if your cousin got hurt because they weren't wearing a helmet, you might carry some emotions that could be released when you see someone else taking the same risk.

3\. Human nature. Back in tribes, if our Uncle was trying to scale giant cliff faces for fun, we'd be at greater risk of less food / losing a war if the tribe let him risk his life for little to no tribal gain. Especially if the young kids thought it was cool and wanted to try it too. People are persuadable and can be influenced. It's not unreasonable to think that glorifying death defying sports or financially rewarding them will result in more people risking their lives.

4\. Bullying. If you see someone doing something different or not fitting in, some humans feel compelled to yell at that person to increase conformity and cohesion.

5\. Low self confidence. They might be highly critical of themselves and see an opportunity to criticize others.

For me, #3 is the most common answer. People in strong, healthy communities feel safer so they probably don't want what they consider a "risky" behavior to spread.

<comment><USER14> I had a negative reaction to his free solo, but I wouldn't say I'm angry about it. I agree with the idea that he is his own person and can ultimately make his own decisions, but there are a couple things that bother me about the free solo that aren't covered here. While Alex may not have been known by the general public before this event he was pretty well known in the climbing community, and is obviously still well known. Therefore he wields an influence over others and particularly kids. Kids do stupid and risky things, because their brains aren't developed enough to judge the consequences of their actions. They want to emulate the pros, which in this case, climbing unroped, could be deadly. Another thing that bothers me about it is the sort of stigma it puts on the sport. Now, free soloing like what Alex did is what a lot of people think climbing is. I've been climbing for the past 12 years, 10 of those outside and on a good day it's nearly a spiritual experience. I love this sport and I find it incredibly rewarding. It is a dangerous sport, but there is a lot you can do to mitigate those dangers. I think when a lot people see the spectacle of 'free solo' they are awed by it, but may also think "I could never do something like that" and so never try to climb. This is why I think I have a negative reaction to the film.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a (very) amateur climber myself, I admire Alex. But the litle I know about psychiatric illness, I could clearly see that Alex is in depression - and that is, IMHO, one of the strongest motivations of him to free solo. In other words, soloing makes him forget the real pain. In case it goes sideways, he just does not care much.

<comment><USER16> > In case it goes sideways, he just does not care much.

I don't think it's that. In some video online it covers Alex getting a brain scan, to determine if the part responsible for fear is maybe broken. It turned out that it wasn't, it was just that Alex was such an experienced climber that he knows with full confidence what he has to do and what his limitations are. Him failing doesn't really factor in the calculus of his mind as a possibility.

<comment><USER17> The brain scan is from the documentary, which if I remember correctly _did_ result in the conclusion that his brain does not function like a normal human's in the context of fear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great book:

"No More Worlds to Conquer: Sixteen People Who Defined Their Time – And What They Did Next"

by Chris Wright

</comment><comment><USER19> Software development can also be very inward-facing (though perhaps it should not be if a company is to succeed). I wonder what is in common between Alex and the 10xer.</comment>


Show HN: PC app for consuming YouTube in moderation - <AUTHOR> https://nassimslab.itch.io/quick-playlist-for-youtube <comment><AUTHOR> I've made a PC app that provides an isolated environment for watching YouTube videos by putting them in versatile playlist. This means that you're not exposed to recommendations, comments and so on because they're too addictive.</comment>


Min.io - sell your digital goods with Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://blog.min.io/post/52534837155/why-min-io <comment><USER2> [http://btcfile.com/](http://btcfile.com/) \- same product, but no commissions currently.</comment>


How Switching from Dev to QA Automation Changed the Way I Work - <AUTHOR> https://stanfy.com/blog/switching-from-dev-to-qa-automation/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for hunting our blog post!</comment>


CS50 IDE – Online IDE for Students and Teachers - <AUTHOR> https://ide.cs50.io/ <comment><USER2> I've been a TA and taught introductory CS courses, and IMHO trying to "add extra tech" tends to get in the way of learning more than anything else, as well as perpetuating bad habits when programming. I don't think giving beginners an "IDE addiction" is a good way to start them off, and believe that intro CS should begin _away_ from a computer: designing with pencil and paper (or a whiteboard) and "thinking before doing" gives students a chance to exercise their brains instead of relying on a stupid "mechanical brain" to hand-hold them.

Then again, the "old school" (literally) way is not as "fashionable" as "look at all the cool tech we're using in education".

<comment><USER3> > I've been a TA and taught introductory CS courses, and IMHO trying to "add > extra tech" tends to get in the way of learning more than anything else, as > well as perpetuating bad habits when programming.

I don't have a good suggestion for intro classes. Basically, everything has downsides. Some people don't want to interact with a computer; some people want to do mega-cool things on the computer; some people don't understand what is going on and will be confused by any extraneous steps. Anything you do is going to consume time and displease somebody.

I can tell you that for sophomore and up CS classes in college, use real stuff. It's a pain to set up and maintain (although it might be easier nowadays), but the students will thank you for it afterward. I made my students use Eclipse and Subversion at the time (I would probably use VSCode and Mercurial nowadays) and had a continuous integration server running every time I gave an assignment. Students could use an IDE or editor other than Eclipse, but I warned them that I might not be able to help them about IDE specific things. Subversion was they way that they could "submit the code" so the continuous integration server would test it.

Even students who gave negative feedback about aspects of the class gave positive feedback about using the "real" tools and not stupid submission systems like Blackboard or its ilk. All of the students noted that they did much better interviewing for jobs than students who didn't have experience with the real tools.

Although, it was funny getting shocked responses from students who interviewed with employers that didn't use source control. Brainwash them early for best results. :)

<comment><USER2> _Students could use an IDE or editor other than Eclipse, but I warned them that I might not be able to help them about IDE specific things._

I had a similar policy, although perhaps directly opposed: I supported only vi(m) or Notepad use, but as long as the source was plaintext (either CRLF or LF line endings, but not a mix...), any editor was allowed. Also, they could use MSVC or other C compilers, but the assignments must work on the course servers with GCC (which students could SSH into and work from, as well as where they handed in.) IMHO starting with a "heavy" IDE like Eclipse or VS just furthers the notion that useful software must necessarily be big and complex, or that such software is obligatory to development; not really a good thing to instill in beginners if we want them to be mindful of efficiency in the future.

<comment><USER3> > IMHO starting with a "heavy" IDE like Eclipse or VS just furthers the notion > that useful software must necessarily be big and complex, or that such > software is obligatory to development

The problem with starting with Notepad is that students then don't get the idea that the 1) editor can help you and 2) the editor is programmable.

And, sorry, vi(m) (or emacs) is simply a non-starter. We live in a GUI world and fighting against that is a disservice to students. I'm not teaching a class to promulgate a religion; I'm teaching to benefit the students and the _VAST_ majority of them will land in Visual Studio, for better or worse. The remaining minority will land in Android Studio/IntelliJ or Xcode.

> not really a good thing to instill in beginners if we want them to be > mindful of efficiency in the future.

Sorry, efficiency just isn't on my teaching agenda, like, ever. Even if students wind up using algorithms that use terrible O(n^2) (or worse) behavior, I'm just happy to have correct code.

And, please, Javascript is the lingua franca of the web. Talking about efficiency at that point is like trying to close the barn door after the horses have escaped and died of old age, and the barn has burned down 10 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Upvote if you too like ripping phone books in half!

</comment><comment><USER5> Cool little simplified IDE. Great for teaching first concepts which is what CS50 is. It would be cool if we could have an instance in other cloud regions, otherwise the terminal is a bit laggy for my liking in NZ.

<comment><USER6> It's likely that we'll support other regions in the future.

<comment><USER7> It's currently down for me on the latest Chrome.

<comment><USER6> Could you please report the issue to email@example.com? Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > This application will be able to read your private email addresses.

Why do you need this?

<comment><USER6> For communication purposes.

<comment><USER8> Why do you need to communicate with me before I even get a chance to demo the app?

<comment><USER6> For communication at anytime in general, not necessarily before using the app. If you're uncomfortable with us keeping a record of your email at any point in the future and would like us to delete your account, please feel free to drop firstname.lastname@example.com an email from the same email that was linked to your GitHub account at the time of signing in to the CS50 IDE and we'll be more than happy to help you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This IDE was one of my favorite parts of the class.

You open it in a tab and immediately have an ubuntu instance + file system + terminal + text editor running. It has an excellent GUI, it's fast, if you mess up horribly you can just close your tab and restart the instance, and it's a standard environment for all the students which makes teaching assistants' jobs easier. It's so convenient I've used it instead of my own computer at times.

For more context, the class almost immediately dives into C and later gets into web programming, and being able to open up a tab, create `hello.c`, `CTRL-s`, `make hello`, `./hello`, or quickly run a publically-facing webserver is a great combo of convenient, simple, and realistic. The class used to use a VM which was much more of a hassle to set up, a lot slower, and overall not as nice of an experience. When being taken by 800 students a year at Harvard and hundreds of thousands a year online, that change alone has probably introduced a lot of people to programming.

</comment><comment><USER10> Would be nice to try before/without signing in with Github

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the feedback! The main reason why we use GitHub sign in is that all CS50 students need a GitHub account to submit their work and use other CS50 tools anyway and that makes it easier for them to get started with the CS50 IDE. We might support other ways to sign in in the future though.

<comment><USER2> _is that all CS50 students need a GitHub account to submit their work_

Have you considered the privacy and ethical implications of the obligatory use of a third-party service (with its own policies on privacy and PII) for a course?

I know GitHub may be seen by most in a better light, but to me this is as treacherous as obligatory use of Google or Facebook services for courses.

(I've worked in the CS education sector, but where students submitted work --- and worked on --- the institution's own servers.)

<comment><USER11> GitHub is owned by Microsoft.

What pii is involved in this? There's an email address that need not apparently be your normal address. A throwaway GitHub works fine, does it not?

Many, possibly at this point most, institutions use tools like canvas, turnitin, etc. Not to mention Google docs/GAFE, or that many schools have official email provided by either google or Microsoft.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. No students are forced to associate any real information with their GitHub account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As much as I would hate the idea as a student, online IDEs that fully record the progression of a CS assignment could go a very long way in preventing cheating in CS coursework. That's a decent startup idea.

<comment><USER13> This already exists. The Moodle VPL plugin I use has transparent version control.

<comment><USER14> Man, VPL is the weirdest combination of old and new. It works, though, I'll give it credit for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is mostly powered by amazon cloud9, which is really cool in itself. [https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/](https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/)

<comment><USER16> We use Cloud9 here quite a lot, with great results. I was going to ask what was the differentiator between this and Cloud9, but judging from your post, I am assuming it is a 'cut down' version of C9 with a lot of the bells and whistles removed?

So I assume that it spins up a micro EC2 instance each time someone wants to use CS50?

<comment><USER6> > I am assuming it is a 'cut down' version of C9 with a lot of the bells and > whistles removed?

In a way, yes. The CS50 IDE mainly targets students or teachers who are taking or teaching CS50 ([https://cs50.harvard.edu/](https://cs50.harvard.edu/)) or similar introductory courses. The UI is simplified in a try to be more accessible to users with little or no prior CS or programming experience. It also comes preloaded with a bunch of tools and libraries that are used in these courses so that users don't have to deal with the hassle of installing and configuring them and instead focus more on the course actually tries to teach.

> So I assume that it spins up a micro EC2 instance each time someone wants to > use CS50?

It's actually backed by containers rather.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Documentation link broken

<comment><USER18> Mine works on the second refresh. Can't get it to break again. A bit strange...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Somehow I cannot access the website since a few days ago. It just spins and says "Preparing your environment" but never loads the IDE.

<comment><USER6> Could you please report the issue to firstname.lastname@example.com? Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Doesn't render anything in Safari after I authorize it "to read [my] private email addresses."

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately this is a known issue on Safari because it doesn't support certain headers that AWS uses. We're working with the Cloud9 team to resolve this asap though.

<comment><USER20> Please please please get the Cloud9 dev team to resolve this! There has been an issue open for over _3.5 years_ now [1] on the pre-AWS C9 and 1.5 years on the AWS support forums [2] and the main reaction from the C9 devs seems to alternate between "this is Apple's fault" and "wait what browser does iOS use again?".

Very frustrating that this is a web app and they can't make it work in one of the most-used browsers of all time. iOS13 even uses the full desktop Safari engine and it still won't load.

[1] [https://community.c9.io/t/mobile-support-phone-tablet- ipad-p...](https://community.c9.io/t/mobile-support-phone-tablet-ipad-pro- etc/925)

[2] [https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=270292](https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=270292)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is this out of UC Davis? There was a fellow working on something like this over there a few years ago

</comment><comment><USER13> Is the code open? Can I put this on my own server?

<comment><USER6> An older version of version of the Cloud9 core SDK is open source at [https://github.com/c9/core](https://github.com/c9/core). Instructions for downloading an older offline version of the CS50 IDE are available at [https://cs50.readthedocs.io/ide/offline](https://cs50.readthedocs.io/ide/offline). Unfortunately the new versions are not open source at the time of this writing.</comment></comment>


Marketing to China - <AUTHOR> http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.822899 <comment><USER2> Very much worth reading, especially the last comment today by Felipe Albertao on how they will pay for education.</comment>


200 Days Drawing Challenge – Here Is the Result - <AUTHOR> https://www.lunadio.com/blog/200-days-drawing-challenge/ <comment><AUTHOR> What about your challenges guys? Can you share the outcome?</comment>


Ask HN: A VC wants to talk to us, what to expect? - <AUTHOR>

I've been working on a bootstrapped startup for about a year (applied but turned down for the last YC class). Like most founders, I think it is a great idea and I've continued to work at it because it's something I enjoy doing. Recently we've gotten some traction with a conference invite, some press exposure, and a couple of paying clients due to research we conducted and published on our blog.<p>Yesterday I received an email out of the blue from an investor at a large VC who is interested in speaking with us. I've never spoken with a VC and am a bit nervous about it. Could anyone tell me what to expect in terms of questions they might ask and generally how I might prepare for the call. Thanks! <comment><USER2> First, don't be nervous. You've got some publicity, you've got paying clients, things are going well and will continue to go well if you have this call or not.

Second, only raise money when you're ready to raise money. I'd make it clear from the start that you're not raising at the moment so the VC doesn't interpret your conversation as a week pitch. Tell the VC that when you're starting your fundraising process you'll naturally get in touch with them.

Third, who's actually calling? Is this a partner or is this an associate? Associates are often just gathering information about areas they think might be interesting - they're just looking to get educated / educate their firm, and they figure you'll be willing to help them out for free. Sometimes associates are doing due diligence on a potential investment by calling up competitors and seeing if they say the same things about the market.

In general, the conversation won't be that technical. They'll want to understand what you do at a high level, get your opinion on the size of the market you're in, figure out if you're going to need to raise, figure out how you're making money / plan to make money, etc. Don't feel compelled to tell them anything you wouldn't be comfortable telling everybody.

Also, it's a two-way street! Ask them a ton of questions about what they're doing, which companies they've been looking at, what they think of your market, who they think your competitors are, what challenges they think you'll face - take everything said with a grain of salt, since you know your business better than they do, but sometimes you can glean interesting bits of information that way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks this is very helpful information. He introduced himself as an "Investor", but his linkedin profile shows his job title as an analyst. I'm guessing that is probably at or below the associate level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Analysts are like scouts for VC firms - they're assigned or decide on a vertical, then talk to as many companies as they can in that vertical.

If the analyst likes what he hears you may get a shot at the partners who actually make decisions.

He'll ask as many probing questions as he can to try to really understand your business. Keep in mind that he likely will be talking to everybody in your space and may well be funding a competitor. Don't let the excitement of talking to a VC lead to sharing information you'd prefer to keep confidential.

My advice is:

\- Ask plenty of questions up front: what exactly is his interest, are they actively looking to invest in this space, what is their typical investment profile, who else are they talking to, how did they find you, what made them interested in you, and so forth.

\- Keep it brief. Give enough to show you are serious and have real traction, but don't get overexcited and go overboard.

\- Spend as much time showing why your team is worth investing in as you do showing off your business. Early stage investing is mostly about team, so do your best to show you're dependable, committed, and get things done.

\- Your goal is to get a meeting with a partner. The person you're talking to is not a decision maker, so all you want from this conversation is to get another conversation with one of the decision makers.

Good luck, and if want to chat further leave an address of some sort and I'll get in touch.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would have a cogent answer to where you see the company going. You need to be able to convey a realistic vision of the company's goal and the path to getting there. And that destination needs to be large enough and lucrative enough to justify a minimum VC investment.

You may have a team of talented hackers but if you don't have this vision, you could very well end up hacking away at a product which fails to grow b/c your actual market size isn't big enough, you're target customers don't need your product, or they don't want to pay for it.

So you'll need a justifiable answer to your market size and who would actually open up their wallets to pay you.

Lastly, don't bullshit him/her. VCs see through this pretty easily, so be confident in what you know, and honest about what you don't.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sure would be cool if you had c based tools (c, c++, objective-c etc) and a user interface toolkit to go with it for Android development.

<comment><USER5> Not sure why I was down voted on this but if this were the case it would be easier to port code between the iPhone and Android. Currently, it is a total rewrite which sucks quit a bit.</comment></comment>


The Tide Is Turning (and Is It Ever) - <AUTHOR> https://cleantechnica.com/2020/06/18/the-tide-is-turning-and-is-it-ever/ <comment><AUTHOR> Mods: Title is from the article. Update accordingly, it ain't great to be honest.

Highlights:

> In the US, renewables are expected to see fifty times as much net capacity > added in the next three years as nuclear and fossil fuels combined.

> This particular item was widely commented on in the media, as SDC releases > often are. But the issue everyone covered was the fact that renewables > accounted for 100% of installations in April [1]. It seems nearly nobody > noticed the paragraph above.

> I was stunned by the idea that renewables would outpace fossil fuels plus > nuclear by a factor of 50 over the next three years. In fact, I double- > checked the data at FERC. It is true, as you can see for yourself in the > Energy Infrastructure Update for April 2020 [2].

> Another thing, however, is that the news from the real world suggests that > coal, in particular, is declining faster than FERC, or anyone else, could > have expected. Every week, I seem to see two or three announcements of coal- > burning power plants being closed ahead of schedule. These are retirements > that FERC has not yet taken into account.

[1] [https://cleantechnica.com/2020/06/09/renewables-provide- all-...](https://cleantechnica.com/2020/06/09/renewables-provide-all-new-us- electricity-capacity-in-april-oil-companies-shedding-jobs-but-investment- community-remains-oblivious/)

[2] [https://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2020/apr-energy- inf...](https://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2020/apr-energy- infrastructure.pdf)</comment>


4K gyro-stabilized aerial video of San Francisco  - <AUTHOR> http://fstoppers.com/teton-gravity-research-shows-off-most-advanced-4k-gyro-stabilized-camera-platform <comment><USER2> Let me get a little whiny and off-topic here: the video is beautiful, but I wish people mostly stopped using Vimeo until they make their player more resilient.

It doesn't seem to degrade video quality if your bandwidth is low, it seems that my bandwidth to Vimeo is generally lower than with YouTube, it handles buffering very poorly, it's jittery on some less powerful computers, and the player itself loads noticably slower than YouTube.

For this reason, I hesitate to share the video with others, even if it's great. People going through their feeds have better things to do than wait and give up on content I attempt to share.

<comment><USER3> I think that what you are perceiving as a "bad player" comes from Vimeo's focus on image quality over other factors. YouTube's compression algorithms are more lossy than Vimeo's, so there is less data to send. This is great for serving Justin Bieber to millions of people every day, but less good when you are a photographer showing off a macro photography reel. Longer load times are a fair tradeoff for most of Vimeo's customers.

I should add that I am in the US, and had no problem running that video on a modern computer, so I don't really how badly it was running on yours.

<comment><USER2> I think you're spot on that in general, the speed-quality tradeoff creates a legitimate case for content producers to choose Vimeo.

However, that's not really my complaint, but rather how slow buffering is handled by the player. In my case, the player responds to my low bandwidth by repeatedly attempting to play fractions of a second of choppy video at a time. When the player is struggling with buffering, I believe it should either downgrade the video quality or make me wait until I can watch the full video (or at least a few seconds of it) without interruption.

Strangely enough, even when the buffering progress bar makes it seem that I've loaded the next few seconds of the video, I'll get jittery video (as if the indicator is just wrong).

These are mostly player issues, and they're mostly what's putting me off about Vimeo. Now, I've been experiencing this for years on various computers and connections (of course, I don't remember the times where everything worked fine), but perhaps this is only affecting a fraction of users that I happen to belong to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where can I get it in 4k? I don't really care about the fact that it was taken with a 4k cam without being able to download it in said quality...

<comment><USER5> Didn't hunt for the source of this one but I did find some true 4K examples here:

<http://media.xiph.org/video/derf/>

CTRL-F 2160p

<comment><USER6> RED posted this to vimeo which they say is 5K: <http://vimeo.com/25424362#at=0>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Now imagine this is put on a drone!

<comment><USER8> What makes you think it isn't already?

<comment><USER9> The article below the video, that clearly shows the system mounted on a full- size helicopter.

<comment><USER10> I think the implication was that the military (or drone hobbyists) likely already have similar tech on their UAV platforms. Though maybe not capable of 4K.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is an entire movie that was shot using this technique:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40U5D2eI7_8>

<comment><USER6> There are many, many, many movies shot like this. The company who shot this, Teton Gravity Research, along with all their competitor snowboard and ski movie makers, use it. Nature documentaries like the movie Earth used it.

This is one of the first though, to do it in 4K.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There were many shots like this in the Dark Knight Rises of Gotham (Manhattan). They were fantastic.

<comment><USER13> Totally off topic, but wasn't that shot in Pittsburgh?

<comment><USER14> Parts were shot in Pittsburgh, LA, Manhattan, and London. The Freedom Tower under construction was obviously visible in some skyline shots.

In one scene Batman and Bane were fighting on the steps of Wall Street. From one angle the shot was filmed in front of the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh and another angle was actually on Wall Street.

<http://moviemaps.org/movies/7y>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> link to video: <http://vimeo.com/62831216>

</comment><comment><USER16> SF is beautiful, being a programmer I wish I could live there. Oh well :(

<comment><USER17> San Francisco is not beautiful. There are nice residential parts, and it isn't a boring place, and there are lots of great technology companies. But this city is not beautiful. Have a walk around the civic center if you doubt.

<comment><USER18> I disagree. There are parts of the city that are terrible, but there's so much that's lovely, and the physical environment is almost peerless. Corona Heights park; Glen Park canyon; Ocean Beach; the Embarcadero; Holly Park in Bernal Heights -- gorgeous.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately mostly what I see is feces on the pavements, noise, litter and bad smells and whole lot of unhappy grumpy people making their way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 4K camera + <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wescam> ? Very pretty, but I am not seeing innovation here.

<comment><USER20> What is with that obsession with innovation? What's wrong with maturity? Too often I come across the comments of a "no innovation there, it's a crap" kind and I wonder where does this attitude come from.

<comment><USER19> Hardly. If the article was title "Captivating 4k images of cites at night" it wouldn't have garnered any HN traction. The implication here was that either 4k or the image stabilisation was note-worthy from a technological point of view. 4k is new/hot-ish (the low-light sensitivity is quite impressive in these shots), but those stabilisation rigs have been around for decades. At first I though someone may have put a Red onto a drone .. (someone still can!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Might have been more interesting without the annoying Hollywood music. Or maybe it would still have been boring. I'm confused why this is top of HN right now.

<comment><USER4> Especially with in fact misleading title. Where's 4k here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I particularly like the way that the Jet Ranger changes colour in the photos

</comment><comment><USER23> That is looking beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of the intro to Law & Order.</comment>


JetBrains 0xDBE: New Intelligent IDE for DBAs and SQL Developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.jetbrains.com/dbe/ <comment><USER2> I just downloaded this. I signed up for all of JetBrain's IDEs, so I thought it worthwhile to see how this works for developing with Postgres (only relational DB I use now).

After just short while with it, the IDE seems nice enough but I need more time to kick the tires.</comment>


Istio – An open platform to connect, manage, and secure microservices - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/istio/istio <comment><USER2> Istio adds to Kubernetes:

\- Automatic load balancing for HTTP, gRPC, WebSockets, and TCP traffic.

\- Fine-grained control of traffic behaviour with rich routing rules, retries, fail-overs, and fault injection.

\- A pluggable policy layer and configuration API supporting access controls, rate limits and quotas.

\- Automatic metrics, logs, and traces for all traffic within a cluster, including cluster ingress and egress.

\- Secure service-to-service communication in a cluster with strong identity- based authentication and authorization.

Istio on its own is powerful and flexible. It can also be hard to understand, setup, and manage, plus can be brittle.

(disclaimer: I'm co-founder of Vamp.io, a canary test & release system for DevOps teams that works with both HAProxy and Istio)

What Istio imho misses is a user-friendly way of setting up, managing and automating Istio configurations for microservices topologies to quickly achieve automated canary-releasing and A/B testing pipelines. Call Vamp a canary-releasing and A/B testing "control plane" for Istio/K8s if you will.

Basically the potential of service-meshes like Istio lies in "driving" it from higher-level metric/KPI-based automation systems.

We wrote several blog-posts on how to make use of Istio, starting here: [https://medium.com/vamp-io/taming- istio-76fab339f685](https://medium.com/vamp-io/taming-istio-76fab339f685) (more blogs on Istio can be found here [https://medium.com/vamp- io/tagged/istio](https://medium.com/vamp-io/tagged/istio))

Hopefully this gives some more insights in what Istio is, what it isn't, and how you can leverage it in your pipelines and architectures.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. Your comment is exemplary, just super-helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like the concepts behind istio. I want to be able to use istio, but I had it running in a test/dev environment, and it would just randomly start saying 503 for my virtual services. Removing and adding the virtual service would fix it for a couple of days. I didn't have time to really spend debugging it, and I didn't see any obvious errors in the logs. :-/

<comment><USER5> Yeah I'm always worried about using a product in the middle of an architecture that has 800+ open issues on GitHub.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, Kubernetes has 2137 issues open right now :)

<comment><USER7> I don't think there's any defense to this. If you look through the open issues you find stale issues, feature requests with no planned work, already resolved issues left open, "we'll get to it in a couple of releases", etc. Nobody is managing the queue.

I know it's a big corporate product, but this is a sign of bad project management, imho. At the very least they could offer to let a community member go through and clean it up if they won't do it themselves.

<comment><USER8> They have a bot which cleans up inactive stuff, marking it as stale, eventually closing issues stale with no activity. Anything worth keeping open is re-opened or a maintainer will tell the bot to un-mark it as stale.

<comment><USER7> It takes four months to close an issue with the bot. But before it closes, someone comments or removes the tag.

There are 195 issues marked stale going back two years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can somebody explain what istio does in simple words?

I see that it hooks into micro/services communication, but why do we need that? isnt policies enforced by cni plugins? and can microservices communicate already with k8s and mesos default setups?

is istio an network abstraction layer for k8s and mesos? why would anyone want that, is there anybody who changes scheduling runtimes often?

<comment><USER10> Kubernetes already gives you basic service discovery network policy and a network abstraction layer, but Istio is more about abstracting and enriching communication patterns on (sometimes) Layer 4 and (more often) Layer 7.

It allows you to use kubernetes manifest to centrally control policies such as: \- Canary load balancing (pushing a certain percentage of the traffic to a canary release) \- TLS Mutual Authentication \- Retries with exponential backoff \- Circuit breakers \- Instrumenting your traffic for distributed tracing (e.g. with Jaeger) \- Adding your own custom HTTP headers

All of that is transparent to your microservice. This comes instead of having to repeat the service mesh logic that does everything above in each microservice. From the microservice 's perspective they're just sending simple traffic without implementing retries, circuit breakers, HTTPS or instrumentation. Istio takes care of all the rest using sidecars and and ingress controllers.

<comment><USER11> Is the Kubernetes native (for lack of a better word) service discovery used in many real world use cases? The sense I've gotten talking to people who use kubernetes is that they fall into one of two camps:

\- they're moving "legacy" infrastructure off EC2 or similar onto Kubernetes and their service discovery stack is already in place. They end up bypassing cluster IPs and dealing directly with pod IPs. \- they're starting with Istio or something similar from the get go because the native service discovery is hard to grok and leaves out a lot of the nice things that Istio gets you for free (once you've set it up)

There's lots of overlap, but I've not heard of anyone making a strong argument for the native service discovery.

<comment><USER12> Unless I've misunderstood you, if you're dealing with pod IPs instead of service DNS addresses you're not fault tolerant and you might as well not even bother with K8s.

<comment><USER11> Well you're not necessarily dealing with a single pod IP. Two versions of skipping cluster IPs are either having smart client libraries that are capable of multiplexing between different IPs, or using something like consul DNS to resolve a URL into multiple pod IPs and rely on client DNS to do the right thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The elephant in the room with Istio is that the more functionality you move into sidecars, the harder issues become to to test and reproduce. This is because Istio is transparent to applications and runs out of band so it is much harder to write tests to verify your application works with the latest Istio manifest that is deployed. In theory great for operators as they get more control over network comms & security but bad for developer workflow.

<comment><USER14> It's hard to imagine something easier and more reproducible for developers than connecting to localhost and having your request routed to the correct endpoint automatically, whether you're on a disconnected laptop or in production. That's the power of the ambassador pattern, which Envoy enables.

<comment><USER15> When the request is routed correctly, yes, but the question is when it's routed incorrectly (perhaps because information you're providing to Istio is incorrect but you haven't realized it yet, perhaps because of bugs in Istio).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Running >100 Kuberenetes clusters with a team is already quite complex. Teams already struggle with Kubernetes core concepts and we have to make sure the time spent does not grow, because of some nice to have features that are not business relevant. Adding more complexity adds a lot of costs and most of the people looking into features like istio might see that it provides less value as promised by the advertisements. We use instead of service mesh is simple and flexible ingress controller, which can be used as api gateway [https://opensource.zalando.com/skipper/](https://opensource.zalando.com/skipper/). With simple annotations (core Kubernetes concept) we can do blue/green deployments, A/B tests, shadow traffic, you can build complex http routing as you wish and change everything in http in the request or response path. IMHO there is no much value left that service meshes provide: mtls and network policy maybe, everything else skipper provides. Blue/green with a simple kubectl plugin: [https://github.com/szuecs/kubectl- plugins](https://github.com/szuecs/kubectl-plugins) More advanced automated blue green deployments via [https://github.com/zalando-incubator/stackset- controller](https://github.com/zalando-incubator/stackset-controller). Skipper also supports several openapi providers and is used by several production users.

We add dns names for cluster internal communication through coredns templates to this api gateway. [https://opensource.zalando.com/skipper/kubernetes/east- west-...](https://opensource.zalando.com/skipper/kubernetes/east-west-usage/) You can adapt it step by step and stop without a bid all in approach as service mesh vendors promote.

If you have not enough you can get even more advanced and add hpa by requests per second.

We use all of these in >50 production clusters with regular shop and order traffic far beyond 10k requests a second. We are interested in features, but even more in stability. We are interested in the community and will fix most of the issues you will show us to make errors less likely happen for us, too. We don't sell software nor support, that's why we have less advertisements and don't show up on every kubecon.

I hope to read you in our community channels: [https://github.com/zalando/skipper/blob/master/readme.md#com...](https://github.com/zalando/skipper/blob/master/readme.md#community)

</comment><comment><USER17> How does the K8s / Envoy / Istio stack compare to Nomad / Consul from Hashi?

<comment><USER18> Once you install Istio, all your traffic goes through Envoy sidecar proxies automatically injected to your pods. Consul just provides service discovery (like DNS, which Kubernetes offers by default). By proxying traffic, Istio lets you program how your traffic works (traffic splitting, policies, monitoring, ...).

<comment><USER19> Consul 1.2 supports service mesh deployments with a new feature called Consul Connect. It includes a sidecar proxy.

Good podcast episode about Hashicorp today: [https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2019/02/04/scaling- hash...](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2019/02/04/scaling-hashicorp- with-armon-dagdar-and-mitchell-hashimoto/)

<comment><USER18> Oh lordy, I guess everyone's making service meshes now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The cool thing about Istio is that you do not have to modify your current K8s application. You simply need to reroute who your microservices call. So instead of calling another service or message queue; you configure all of your calls to call the envoy proxy. Then the proxy takes over and gets configured according to the control plane definitions.

One of the great things about Istio is that it is a super interesting and informative way to better understand the Kubernetes, Docker, Helm stack.

When I first started learning Kubernetes it wasn't clear to me how a small startup or company could leverage the power of Kubernetes because in reality you need some scale to make it worthwhile.

However, once you can play with, observe and better understand some application infrastructure which sits on top of Kubernetes like Istio the light goes on in your head and things get much more interesting.

Here is a really nice short simple introduction to Istio

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC- zVlo1F3mUbExQ96fABWcQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC- zVlo1F3mUbExQ96fABWcQ)

And here are the playlists...

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC- zVlo1F3mUbExQ96fABWcQ/pla...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC- zVlo1F3mUbExQ96fABWcQ/playlists)

</comment><comment><USER21> Thou idea is cool it product in itself. As you need a k8s person you would need istio person. It has lots of interconnected components, it own configuration primitives (lots of them) and if any of them misconfugured or wonky (looking at you mixer) you will have to spend days debugging it (mixer produce 10k of unreadable logs a second).

It's great if you know it's codebase. Not for general case.

<comment><USER20> The complexity of our world today in the software space is truly astounding. Agreed you would need an istio person, but that can be the same person who is the k8s person. If you have a company with large enough scale to be contemplating istio and service meshes in general; then if Istio makes your life easier in terms of dev ops in general, it might actually be worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Citadel - A centralized component responsible for certificate issuance and > rotation.

That interests me, while I know nothing about istio, I'd love to have something like his for me personally, if I understand correctly this could centrally manage certificates used as password and their management?

<comment><USER12> Cert manager [1] also automatically provisions and rotates TLS certificates.

[1] [http://cert-manager.readthedocs.io/](http://cert-manager.readthedocs.io/)

<comment><USER21> Citadel does this only for internal certa. It does not provision lets encrypt (at least didn't several months ago)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone else get intermittent 503 "upstream error or disconnect" when running istio? We get this fairly regularly and have to patch services to get it to run again. Would love to share ideas if anyone faces similar issues.

</comment><comment><USER24> The promise of ISTIO is great, but the complexity it adds are not worth it IMHO. If you want to run the BookInfo demo app, ISTIO will work great for you. If you want to run anything else, buckle up. I'm sure there are people running ISTIO successfully, but there is little information out there about how they do it, at least not with gRPC.

We fell for the hype and tried running ISTIO for a production workload and spent months trying to get it working with little success. Our use case was to load balance gRPC traffic amongst a small number of services on K8S. Regardless of which load balancing algorithm we used or the amount of traffic that was pushed at it we could not get ISTIO to actually spread the traffic in any sort of reasonable pattern. For example, if we had 8 containers running 4 would get a ton of traffic, 2 would get a small amount, and 2 would just have heartbeats.

We tried to get help, but the RocketChat channel was a ghost town and got little response on the Google group. Lots of people asking questions but no one answering. Some friends at Google told us there's an invite-only Slack channel, but we could never figure out what secret incantation we would need to do to get access there. Evidently only people at Google, IBM and Lyft are allowed into that one.

I'll contrast this to the LinkerD2 (linkerd.io) project. We ripped out ISTIO and installed LinkerD2 and it just worked. We didn't have to spend days hand writing YAML files to configure our VirtualServices, DestinationRules, Gateways, and ServiceEntries. One command and the whole thing was installed and running. We injected the sidecar with their cool CLI utility and boom we had a service mesh that actually load balanced gRPC properly. The LinkerD2 dashboard is a very powerful tool to visualize how your traffic is being routed, response times, success rates, etc. When we had questions, we could pop into the LinkerD2 Slack and someone from the team got right back to us with suggestions and sincere offers to help. The CEO of Buoyant even reached out personally to us, a fledgling Miami startup.

We also had issues where ISTIO would route requests to the wrong micro-service at random. We would run the same request multiple times and get different results every time. After moving to LinkerD2, those issues completely disappeared.

LinkerD2 is still a very new project, but as far as we have experienced, it is far more production ready than ISTIO. I can only imagine how far along LinkerD2 would be if it was given a tenth of the resources that are pushing ISTIO.

Our experience was back in the Fall of last year, but we tried ISTIO again last week and had the exact same results on a new installation. Once again, we had to pull ISTIO out and put LinkerD in and were able to get the system functioning immediately.

ISTIO did do a great job of load balancing HTTP/HTTPS traffic, it's just gRPC that is a long way off from being ready for prime time. Maybe if you have an army of consultants at your disposal it will work for you, but as a startup I'd stay away.

</comment><comment><USER25> Another alternate for Istio would be to use a custom xds-server (control plane) and Envoy as sidecars.

With few caveats

\- Can become a configuration nightmare if not managed properly

\- Not as sophisticated as Istio

On the positive side

\- There won't be a lot of moving parts as in Istio.

\- Envoy has excellent documentation for debugging

\- Get things done with all the perks of Envoy

<comment><USER26> I hope someone builds this out at some point, a no fuss alternative control plane for envoy would be great.

<comment><USER25> I wrote one [https://github.com/tak2siva/Envoy- Pilot](https://github.com/tak2siva/Envoy-Pilot)

Although my team is evaluating Istio, currently we are using this to keep things minimal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So this is like Kubernetes is to Docker, just to Kubernetes ;)

<comment><USER28> One way of interpreting this simile is to say that as just as one technology has subsumed (become the focal point) another technology, so does a service mesh as a layer on top of a container orchestrator. A fifth layer as described in The Enterprise Path to Service Mesh Architectures --> [https://layer5.io/books/the-enterprise-path-to-service- mesh](https://layer5.io/books/the-enterprise-path-to-service-mesh)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This seems very interesting but I'm also getting HTTP response codes. Also, how does this compare to something like Nodered?

<comment><USER30> TBH node red always came across as a toy / prototyping tool.

Istio seems to be used in production a number of places.

Edit: also node red seems to be more about coding and istio seems to be more about configuration.</comment></comment>


MapD makes the GPU a first-class citizen - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2017/startup-mapd-fast-big-data-mapping-0111 <comment><USER2> MapD home: [https://www.mapd.com/](https://www.mapd.com/)

Past discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9764726](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9764726)</comment>


MRelief launches end-to-end food stamp enrollment service - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/08/mrelief-launches-end-to-end-food-stamp-enrollment-service/ <comment><USER2> I applaud the effort, but the bureaucratic structure of these government programs are Byzantine for a reason. The more people they keep from successfully enrolling, the less has to be paid out.

Rather than government partnering with the private sector to implement even more technical crap and everybody patting themselves on the back for a job well done, why don't they take a step back and realize how fucked up the fundamental administrative process is and just fucking _fix it_?

MRelief may get one to the door, but it doesn't provide any greater accountability once you're there. Maybe the system actually works in California (blue state?), I don't know, but in other parts of the country even if someone holds your hand to get the application submitted you get to look forward to your paper applications going missing/stuck in processing purgatory, online application portals being down for months on end, ignored phone lines that ring to full voicemail boxes, social workers terminating your account over requests for documents that were never actually requested (or that you already provided multiple times), notices of scheduled phone interviews that consistently show up in the mail after the fact and all manner of other shady nonsense.

Any excuse that can be played to kick you off the books is fair game, and it's not like you can get a hold of anyone to appeal it-- your only option is to re-apply, but meanwhile you're not their problem for a few pay cycles.

For the brief period of time I had to take advantage of food stamps, it really opened my eyes as to what sorts of bullshit gets heaped upon the people who need it most.

<comment><USER3> It's not so much deliberate as it is inherent in the system.

Workers are poorly paid and don't have any real incentive to care. The process is byzantine and form-dense because it's the government: bureaucrats don't have much else to do but create and update processes and policies, and the politicans who make the actual laws are always doing favors for one group or another, which creates complexity and need for excessive documentation about which group you fit into.

<comment><USER2> I realize government is fueled by apathy and paperwork, but this isn't workers sitting around doing nothing and barraging applicants with forms...everything about this system suggests the opposite-- social workers are incentivized to actively kick people off the books. It's a cost center, not a revenue generator.

How many times a year does any other agency need copies of your children's birth certificates or social security cards? How many times a year does the DMV need to schedule phone interviews with you to ask the exact same questions you answered on the application and in every subsequent interview? This is actual work they're having to do, and lots of it.

When you go to file your taxes, how often is the only channel available to you a fax machine, the receiving end of which is always conveniently out of paper? Not to mention the hundred pages (in the case of Medicaid) you're expected to shove through it at $.10 a page, since who the hell has a landline or fax machine at home anymore.

There's no number you can call, no email you can write, no mail ever reaches their office and anything hand-delivered ends up languishing in the inbox under the desk. You can physically go to the office and spend all day in the waiting room, only to be told "we're working on it." They're completely inaccessible.

Every time they demand your attention, it's an opportunity for them to say you failed to respond...the consequences of which are always immediate termination. Anybody who's played the rebate or health insurance games should recognize how this works. Both systems are designed to minimize payouts by disqualifying as many applicants as possible.

But again, hopefully California is different, and I'm glad to see people get utility out of this service. It's just sad that it's necessary in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Everything you mentioned was probably originally created as a well-intentioned response to the fraud that sadly is rampant in social assistance programs.

<comment><USER4> Or at least, in response to the unsubstantiated suspicion that fraud is rampant in these programs.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can you use twilio to create a tech support call center? - <AUTHOR>

It looks like twilio doesn't provide everything needed to create a tech support call center -- in particular it doesn't offer VIOP phone service?<p>In the past Ive worked at a company who's asterisk sever would often overload and calls would drop or get choppy. What are the best solutions for a tech support call center?  Do you have any recommendations? <comment><USER2> I've heard that FreeSWITCH vastly outperforms Asterisk (sorry, no experience with it myself), although feature-wise it's a little bit lacking in comparison at the moment.

<http://www.freeswitch.org/>

<comment><USER2> FreeSWITCH's self-comparison to Asterisk: <http://www.freeswitch.org/node/117></comment></comment>


1998 Gates: I can't figure out why Jobs is even trying; he knows he can't win - <AUTHOR> http://macdailynews.com/2010/04/11/1998_bill_gates_i_cant_figure_out_why_jobs_is_even_trying_to_be_apple_ceo/ <comment><USER2> Revenge is a dish best savoured cold...</comment>


"Technology 1934" A look at state-of-the-art research at MIT 85 yrs ago [49mins] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsO_67xzymQ <comment><AUTHOR> The 'VooDoo' magazine as seen in the film (@45mins) can be viewed here:

[http://web.mit.edu/voodoo/www/archive/pdfs/1933-May.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/voodoo/www/archive/pdfs/1933-May.pdf)</comment>


Aaargh! Physicists! Again! - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/11/20/aaargh-physicists-again/

<comment><USER2> Hate to say it, but I have a chembio degree and find the viewpoint that cancer cells use reactivated genes to do what they do brilliant. When cancer starts spreading it is called metastasizing. Often this spreading uses complex functionality of other types of cells like fibroblasts, which tear down and recreate the extra-cellular matrix, or like white blood cells which can squeeze through and move around like an amoeba.

Evolution, and cancer causing mutations that result in a successful cancer, often just randomly breaks and fixes functionality like this and it happens to work. The linked critique has one point where it says "polished exteriors of urbane and civilized modern cells" which is complete nonsense. Modern cells are full of broken crap. Heck, enormous portions are just dropped into the genome from viruses and aren't even human. He really showed his ignorance at that point.</comment>


Capsela, the game that changed my life - <AUTHOR> http://joseoncode.com/2012/02/01/capsela-the-game-that-changed-my-life/ <comment><USER2> > In this vide you can see even a remote control that I never had. I read also > in wikipedia that there was a model with an interface to Commodore 64, a > Lego Mindstorms predecessor!

Lego Logo predated Capsela and was mostly inspired from Seymour Papert's 1980 book, Mindstorms. It ran on an Apple II through a special daughtercard and was amazing.

I got to play with Capsela as well, but only ever the basic kit without any expansions. Mostly because of the astronomical price of the parts. I wouldn't be surprised if there is someone with a 3D printer trying to design a printable modular motorized construction kit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing this bit of history. Very interesting given Seymour Papert is the inventor of Logo.

Do you have any link, reference or picture about lego logo?

<comment><USER2> The kit was never sold to consumers, schools only. So there were limited numbers and not much information. This was the best I could find:

[http://www.applefritter.com/content/lego-tc- logo](http://www.applefritter.com/content/lego-tc-logo)

My memories of it are a little fuzzy. I only got to use the system for 1 year, when I was nine years old. There was no assistance, I had to open the Apple and set up the driver card myself, taught myself logo too. I spent every recess inside just to get more time on it. (The kit went to a different school every year.) Unfortunately I didn't grok algebra until the following year, so my programs were essentially simple lists of commands with no math and (at most) limit-switch logic.

<comment><USER3> I recall using Logo in 3th grade at a Purdue University CS summer camp program. The camp was 1 week long and we stayed in the dorms like real university students - very cool! However, I don't recall any Apple computers. I think it interfaced to a PC using a serial cable. The next year the camp upgraded to Mindstorm kits and we used pbForth instead of the GUI RoboLab. pbForth's author, Ralph Hempel, came down from Canada to teach the camp. It was a true treat! Imagine a bunch of elementary students successfully learning Forth in a week!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember these, they were semi-popular in France when I was growing up in the 90s. Sadly Santa Claus never brought them to me :(

Similarly engaging toys:

Meccano ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano)), a French brand of metal rods, plates, gears, etc. that you can assemble together to form functioning small scale models (usually of vehicles). E.g.: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Meccano_0...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Meccano_001.jpg)

K'nex ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27Nex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27Nex)), my personal favorite as a child- rods and plastic connectors that you can use to build vehicles, small scale models, toy guns, etc. I really liked them a a kid because while LEGO are more about building static dioramas/models, K'nex is more about building dynamic/usable contraptions. For example they had really cool kits to make solar powered robots that would crawl around and were very easy to modify; unfortunately these days they seem to be more focused on branded content (e.g. Mario Kart, Angry Birds).

Logiblocs ([http://www.logiblocs.com](http://www.logiblocs.com)), plastic blocks from the UK with electronic components encased in plastic that are easy to plug together, allowing kids to assemble projects such as alarms or a basic voice recorder. E.g.: [http://www.logiblocs.com/images/understanding_spytech.gif](http://www.logiblocs.com/images/understanding_spytech.gif) . Their website seems to be stuck in the 90s :)

Littlebits ([http://littlebits.cc](http://littlebits.cc)), in a way a modern reinterpretation of Logiblocs - electronic components that snap together using magnets, sold as kits.

And of course Lego, but no need to talk about these :) Although the LEGO Mindstorms series should get a special shoutout.

Those are all the ones I can think of, but I'm sure other HNers will have contributions. I wonder if there's room to do a construction toy these days, given LEGO's titanic market and mindshare. I was very excited about Goldie Blox recently, but I thought it fell kind of flat - their models aren't very extensible/modifiable in the way that LEGO or K'nex or Capsela are.

<comment><USER5> Another Addition: Construx:

"Unlike other building toys such as Lego, Construx feature beam-like pieces of varying lengths that snapped on to cubical connector knots in order to build large shapes. These are relatively secure even though no nuts or bolts were used. Panels allowed assembly of flat surfaces. Hinges, motors, wheels, and other movable parts expand the number of different shapes that can be built, and make moving creations possible."

I had two motors and could build simple robots. Due to the long size of the pieces, one could build truly gigantic things. I build really big helicopters, AT-T Walkers and whatnot. I played with this much more than with Lego. Also, the pieces had a bit of a 80ies future style look, which fit well for all the Sci-Fi things I was building.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construx](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construx)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=construx&safe=off&biw=1202&b...](https://www.google.com/search?q=construx&safe=off&biw=1202&bih=670&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=pD2dVLyxHsS0UdKChPAK&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ)

<comment><USER6> I absolutely loved Construx growing up. I also had the motor box for it and distinctly remember my father explaining how gear ratios can increase torque by trading off turning speed using the rubber o-rings and yellow pulleys. One advantage Contstrux had over Lego is that once assembled, they were pretty rigid and sturdy toys. A great creative toy for kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fortunately Capsela is still alive:

[http://www.captoy.eu/toys/iq-key-and- capsela-358/](http://www.captoy.eu/toys/iq-key-and-capsela-358/)

<comment><USER8> Thanks, came here to ask if this still exists. No children but I'm probably going to buy a set. Mainly because of the floating devices: I used to have close to the entire range of Lego Technics, but there was none of the things which could float.

<comment><USER9> I read the comments to see if anyone had posted this yet. I Had a few small sets of Capsela when I was a kid and by far the most fun was making watercraft. I will forewarn anyone, especially those with kids, that if you let them play with Capsela in the bath -- with soap and dirt and grime and whatever else -- they will get nasty and perhaps unrecoverably ... maligned.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I think that's what killed mine for good. The floating things are cool, but don't use them with the electrical pieces!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The toys I remember best from my childhood were all the building toys - LEGO, Capsela, k'nex, and this one where you built towers with beams and blew them up with a timed bomb. I had cars and action figures and such as well but can't really picture them and remember as well as the construction toys.

</comment><comment><USER12> It looks very interesting.

I just want to mention "Fishertechnik" as another alternative to Lego. Not sure how common it is in the US, but it seems to be available on Amazon: [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_10/191-8762533-9514...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_10/191-8762533-9514645?url=search- alias%3Dtoys-and-games&field- keywords=fischertechnik&sprefix=fishertech%2Caps%2C652)

As a kid I enjoyed it much more than Lego. It is more about gears and motors, and back then there were also specialized kits about electronics, pneumatics and robotics.

<comment><USER12> Opps, just realized I misspelled it, it's called Fischertechnik, not Fishertechnik :-)

Also as an additional point: one reason I liked it much more than Lego is that the system for connecting the pieces is much better. It doesn't fall apart (as Lego is prone to), so it's possible to make machinery that actually does stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This was brought into my school when I Was 7 or 8 for an afternoon.

Working with my classmates, it was the first time I didn't feel like an idiot. I just simply 'go it' and knew how it worked.

I was quite let down when they took it away, and fobbed me off with an excuse that I can't remember now.

It would take me over a decade to find that part of me, but we got there in the end.

Thanks for the reminder (and the name) of this great toy.

</comment><comment><USER14> Oh gosh, I think I had a Capsela set. I didn't recognize the name but the pictures brought back a nostalgia wave.

I don't think I ever got into them in the same way I got into tinker toys or lego though.

</comment><comment><USER15> LOVED these as a kid. I loved building all sorts of fans and paddleboat things. Only bummer was that my mom who knew jack about electronics was hyper- paranoid that I was going to electrocute myself playing with them in water. I used to sneak them into the bathroom and put them in the sink behind her back.

</comment><comment><USER16> I tried to create a perpetual motion machine out of Capsela when I was 9 by connecting a propeller to the wheels, so the propeller turns when the wheels move. I was really puzzled when it didn't work! But I still remember that machine clearly 30 years later.

</comment><comment><USER17> I had Legos, K'nex, Meccano, a _lot_ of Legos, Capsellas, lose PVC pipes I screwed around with in the bath, some roller coaster ball thing I forgot the name of, two spaceship things featured in Lego mag, and probably another modular toy system I forgot about.

Capsela was really cool, but I mostly remember that the tolerances or the connectors were loose enough that some didn't connect properly, and some other just stuck together forever.

And now I program.

Correlation not causation, _but_...

</comment><comment><USER18> I remember being upset my parents wouldn't buy me video games or action figures like GI Joe, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and whatnot, but looking back I'm really glad they bought me LEGO, Meccano, Capsella, etc instead.

I know LEGO still exists of course (despite LEGO's focus on movie tie-ins, Technic and Mindstorms still seem like good products) but are there other similar newer products worth considering?

<comment><USER19> Perhaps look at Snap Circuits - they're sort of like electrified Legos: [http://www.snapcircuits.net/](http://www.snapcircuits.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wow, so _this_ is what this toy was. I got several non-working pieces from a yard sale when I was in 5th grade, and had no idea what to make of it -- other than it looked seriously cool. Since it was non-functional, the pieces mainly became incorporated into Lego play-time.

Really neat to see the full extent of the product.

<comment><USER21> I had a small starter kit (basically, just a little two-legged blue robot that walked around using some clever rack-and-pinion gearing), and played around mostly with one at a friend's house.

Fast-forward 10 years, I've just graduated high-school, and I find a massive box full of them at a garage sale, for cheap. Floaters and chains and everything. Coolest damned toy in the world. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wow, I had this too. Thanks for the nostalgia trip! I loved this way more than Meccano, but not as much as Lego.

</comment><comment><USER23> It was discontinued, but looks to be available again here (old parts or comparable with new)

[http://www.iqkey.jp/](http://www.iqkey.jp/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Not Icelandic, Swedish!

Anyway, I too had one of these and what I loved most was that you could build boats with propellers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll fix the post.

I loved propellers and floating vehicles although I didn't have a pool to test it out back then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For me it was Capsela and Gakken Denshi Blocks:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gakken_EX- System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gakken_EX-System)

Denshi blocks were one of the most significant educational toys that I had as a kid growing up in the 70's and 80's, and many an afternoon was spent with my Space 1999 Eagle model, a Capsela "moon base", and me "inside with the computer" (Denshi blocks) commanding 'the system'. Ah, to return to those halcyon days when modular toy systems gave my systems-management skills a sharper edge. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow I didn't know about denshi blocks, very nice and powerful. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER25> You're welcome! I await the Denshi Block revival and subsequent recognition as one who was there and that, and all that. ;)

Seriously, if you do anything with Denshi blocks, let me know. I keep trying to get my local hackerspace denizens to reproduce the casing and update it with the 3d-printing and the laser-cutting and all the other potential energy to be applied, but there are always so many other interesting things to do ..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Curious - Is calling a building toy a "game" a regional dialect thing, like soda vs pop? I have never heard of Legos, K'nex, Tinkertoys, etc. referred to as "games" before.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I've been thinking about this and it was my mistake, it doesn't make sense to call it Game in English nor in Spanish (original article).

Game (juego) is often used here as a synonym of toy like in "board game". I call it "juego de construcción".

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I remember these fondly! I also remember overflowing the bathtub in the name of science more then once with those water modules.

So what's the equivalent toy these days?

</comment><comment><USER28> Hey, I had those! They were neat. I don't know that I'd have said "game" \- "toy" is probably more appropriate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much, few others pointed out the same mistake. I'm not a native English speaker and I wrote this first on Spanish, although in Spanish is also a toy or construction toy.

I just fixed in the article without breaking the url.

Thanks again

<comment><USER28> Happy to help :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just spent the past hour playing with a capsela clone that we got our daughter for Christmas :-) I had these as a kid too, although the legos were better in some ways: less prone to destruction and more "abstract" in tht you could create anything you could imagine.

[http://iq-key.com](http://iq-key.com) is the manufacturer.

</comment><comment><USER29> I had Capsela (I, for whatever reason have always called it Capseula) as a child, too. Some of it was donated to me by a neighbour and some was purchased. That, along with Lego and knex made up my 'constructive' learning. I also had logiblocks, which allow you to build basic circuits, and I was very fond of them indeed.

Thank you for this flashback.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is the great thing about 3d printers, as Linus Towards said: _" if I had one of these (3d printers) when I was a kid, I would have done amazing crazy things"_.

We teach little kids basic freecad, openscad design and give them communal access to the printers too.

Some of them are really great designers. It is amazing when they start thinking on their own.

</comment><comment><USER31> Loved this in the 80's. Wonderful thing about this toy is that it was very accessible, you could do something fun in one or two capsules and grow from there. No need to build an entire model before something works. Adding e.g. gears took seconds, which gave a very intuitive feel for the mechanics.

Lego, Meccano, Capsela. Great childhood memories :)

</comment><comment><USER32> For me, it was Lego Technic that played the role that Capsela played for the OP. One of my fondest memory as a child was when I created a mechanically programmable excavator 3-joints arm by mixing ideas from some of the suggested models... I just wished that modern-day Lego didn't have so many specialized, single-use parts.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wanted one of these so bad when I was a kid. I did have a couple of these awesome science/engineering type of toys, as well as a load of lego.

The one that stands out in my mind still was a little solar steam "engine". Once heated by the sun would draw water through it with a loud "putt putt putt" sound.

</comment><comment><USER34> I had this when I was a kid. Stuck the wires into a mains socket once, sent sparks flying, blew a fuse and probably closely escaped electrocuting myself. Oh well, lesson learned about 230v AC at an early age.

And yes they were ace. What's the modern equivalent for a 5 year old? Maybe something with a robotics spin?

</comment><comment><USER35> Oh wow, thanks for some nostalgia! I grew up in Ukraine and played with this :). It wasn't exactly the most reliable thing (like lego bricks are, for example), but definitely fun memories!

</comment><comment><USER36> Absolutely LOVED Capsela! Eventually, I started applying a lot of the modularity concepts to my Lego Technic projects by recreating the gearing sets and interconnects in Lego. Great stuff!

</comment><comment><USER37> I also had this toy!

Another lesson applicable to coding that this toy taught me was about the basics of standards, compatibility, and lock in. I believe I only had single set of Capsela, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get them to satisfyingly inter-operate with lego, mechano, or any other building-toys. Getting more was a non-starter (pre-internet). My dad had brought it back from a business trip to SF where he visited FAO Schwarz, and I'm not even sure they sold other sets.

<comment><USER38> There was definitely more than one set. I remember that I had one and my friend had a different, larger set. According to wikipedia [0], they've been rebranded and are available (in Japan at least) [1].

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsela](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsela) [1] [http://www.iqkey.jp/](http://www.iqkey.jp/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I had the big kit. It was one of the most awesome toys. I looked into buying one again but there seem to be a lot of poor reviews of the newer versions. They don't make them like they used to, and the old versions are pricey retro items. I thought about 3D printing something similar, but for the amount of time involved it's worth it to buy the real thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also I wouldn't recommend buying a used set. The joints can't hold two pieces together after some time.

<comment><USER40> From what I remember as a kid, they'd develop little cracks along the facets of the connectors, which killed the friction that keeps everything stuck together.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly, these cracks are made when disassembling models, sometimes is very hard to remove the connector

<comment><USER41> That's one thing I can say for Robotix: the pieces that move are virtually indestructible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Geez. I want to say this is 1985. I had a bunch of Capsela kits. I really loved them. Thanks for bringing back some wonderful memories.

</comment><comment><USER43> Oh my god. Those manual scans gave me a serious case of the flashbacks. I must have spent hours reading it when I was in grade school.

</comment><comment><USER44> I had this too. Great stuff. I'll have to see if I can get one for my kid. She's digging lego's right now.

</comment><comment><USER45> Back in 1994, this LEGO Technic set [1] impressed me beyond anything else related to toys until and after that time.

[1] [http://www.leg-technic.hu/images/sets/6/lego-8880-super- car....](http://www.leg-technic.hu/images/sets/6/lego-8880-super-car.jpeg)

</comment><comment><USER46> This brings back happy memories. I had a few of these growing up in India. Definitely the best toys I had!

</comment><comment><USER47> I also had these when I was a kid (and Legos, K'Nex, Erector sets, model car kits, etc).

These didn't have as much of an impact on me as some of the other toys. There isn't really as much flexibility as there is with sets like Legos or K'Nex.

</comment><comment><USER48> I just found a completely new, unused (things are still in plastic baggies) Capsela 400 box at the thrift store. This is one seriously great toy. I don't know whether to let my daughter play with it or sell it on eBay...

</comment><comment><USER49> Thanks, I'd completely forgotten I had this as a kid until just now.

</comment><comment><USER50> My school had this in the late '70s! It was fantastic fun!

</comment><comment><USER51> For some reason, I used to play with some non-functioning Capsela capsules along with my Lego sets. Thanks for writing this; I didn't know what they were called.

</comment><comment><USER52> Man I had one of these when I was a kid! It was great!

A trip down memory lane when I was looking for my old Legos and found this (well part of it) in the box as well.

</comment><comment><USER53> I knew that name sounded familiar.

</comment><comment><USER54> k'nex changed my life

</comment><comment><USER55> I used to have this set.</comment>


What is Your Real Name? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/27/what-is-your-real-name/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> Just to give him credit up front this is more coherent than 99% of the stuff he posts. So kudos on that front. But it doesn't seem to have a point beyond "I hate anonymous people because they pick on me".

As far as that goes I like anonymity. An anonymous person can give you the unvarnished truth without fear of reprisal and as someone who values that truth I'm willing to put up with a few trolls to gain access to it. But maybe that's just me.

<comment><USER3> Thing is, once it becomes coherent you realize it's still only about him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You know, sometimes it takes a day or two to forget some stupid thing you did on the internets. People will move on to the silliest thing of the day and soon you never existed for them. Why gillmor decides to bring back this total embarrasment is out of my understanding.

Let it die, steve, let it die.

<comment><USER3> I just read the article and it's all pretty frothy and baseless. Are you saying there's story behind this rant?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What exactly is the context on this? Am I right in gathering he did something silly and people are attacking for it?

Welcome to the internet....

</comment><comment><USER6> Compare and contrast this attack on anonymity with Glenn Greenwald's:

[http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/02/27/hastings)

</comment><comment><USER7> NO Steve Gillmor the biggest problem you have right now is refusing to enter the conversation because you are to afraid of comments coming from those who do not use their real name.

No matter what the name, our country forefathers posted under fake names in newspapers to talk about the cause of freedom..every movement, cause world wide uses this strategy.

So Steve Gillmor join the human race! You might like it..</comment>