What accounting software do startups use? - <AUTHOR>

I run a small startup with 2 virtual admins. I am looking for online accounting software which will let me create purchase orders for vendors and track invoices I give to customers. I gave quick books online plus and peachtree a shot. Both failed to do what I needed (poor customer support, no ability to do purchase orders etc). Are there any good hosted accounting solutions for < $50 a month? <comment><USER2> I bought the vile Quickbooks. You know, the classic kind that runs on Windows. (The Mac version gets bad reviews, and it's different from the Windows version.) I have to boot Windows XP in a VM to use the damned thing. I'm embarrassed to tell you how many months behind I am in my data entry.

The reason I'm not broke is that I don't use Quickbooks for invoicing. There are several good solutions for online invoicing. I use Harvest and I think they're great. No P.O.s, though.

The thing that sold Quickbooks to me is the existence of lots of _Dummies_ -style docs -- you are hardly alone in your pain when you're a Quickbooks user -- and the fact that my accountant accepts the files, which is the real killer feature.

I'm still stuck in Gnucash for my personal finances, but I didn't consider using that for the business. I have little faith in my accountant's ability to make sense of Gnucash's files, I'm not confident that it has the features I need, and I can't seem to get it running easily on the Mac. The damned thing seems to be linked against every single library in Linux.

</comment><comment><USER3> i use corduroy - <http://corduroysite.com> \- but i'm a bit biased since i wrote it.

it doesn't do purchase orders because i've never had to use them, but i may be able to integrate what you need if it's not too complex.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wrote a custom system, if you're using rails let me know and you can use it.</comment>


CNLabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelcontactrelationyoungercousinmotherssiblingsdaughterorfatherssistersdaughter <comment><USER2> At first glance this looked like a code smell, but after some reflection I can't think of a cleaner, more readable way to uniquely identify each possible relationship -- especially in a strongly-typed language with an IDE.

Here's the full list: [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/contacts_...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/contacts_constants)

<comment><USER3> You need an intermediate representation (like a tree) rather than attempt to brute force every possible permutation up until some arbitrary point. Even if that weren't the case, it'd be better to give it a more obscure name or create some kind of naming system and then document it rather than demonstrate why self-documenting code can become self-defeating if taken to an extreme.

<comment><USER4> The issue of a tree is you could trivially create nonsensical relationships. An alternative would be some sort of nested attributes / tag set but even that's not excellent.

A second issue is, this is probably a localisation / cultural concern: below, yorwba notes that this relationship is a specific term in chinese kinship: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_kinship#Common_extende...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_kinship#Common_extended_family_and_terminology).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can see why this is needed. English has very broad words for relatives like "grandfather" or "aunt". Most languages have more specific words, especially Chinese where there are separate words for fathers or mothers side, older or younger and sibling or siblings spouse. You also often use these relation words rather than their names when referring to a relatives. If this code was in Chinese, they would all be short words.

English words like "aunt" cannot really be translated into Chinese. If you are translating a book you either try to figure out the exact relation from the context, or just pick one if it doesn't matter. In someones address book you can't do that.

<comment><USER6> Genuinely curious, but is it actually like that in most languages? I wondered if it was maybe an East/West difference, since I haven't come across that in my French & German learning, and I didn't think Dutch or Danish were like that either. But apparently Swedish does have this (eg faster/moster for paternal aunt & maternal aunt)?

(Most of my learning is via Duolingo, so I'm no expert, just curious.)

<comment><USER7> Didn't even English have a bunch of words that were lost as time went by?

We do have quite a few words in Lithuanian (e.g. for maternal/paternal branches and more detailed words for "X in law"). But it was getting simplified in the past few decades. I've heard quite a few words that I couldn't describe without looking at the dictionary.

<comment><USER8> Yup - [https://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/k...](https://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/kinterms/oldenglish.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's also CNLabelContactRelationColleauge. Oops :)

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelco...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelcontactrelationcolleauge)

<comment><USER10> So out of curiosity I Googled it. Either it's a _really_ common mistake or a regional thing. "Colleauge" has 857k results.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22colleauge%22](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22colleauge%22)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 表姐, in case you were wondering.

<comment><USER12> The "CN" is just the prefix for the Contacts framework, it doesn't refer to Chinese

<comment><USER13> 表姐 means older female cousin of a different surname. If surnames are always passed down via the father that implies an elder cousin who is either your mother's sibling's daughter or your father's sister's daughter.

<comment><USER14> So what happens if, by chance, a woman in your family marries someone of the same surname? Does the 表姐 label then not apply where it otherwise would?

<comment><USER15> The phone will freeze until the battery is completely drained. NEVER connect the charger while in this state!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things." [1]

[1] [https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html)

<comment><USER17> And off by one errors

<comment><USER18> If only there were 1 based PLs.

<comment><USER4> They don't fix off-by-one errors, just move them around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For a long time, the Carbon universal headers Included a plain, non-namespaced (c header) MacTypes.h which included:

enum { h = 0, v = 1 };

This could lead to very confusing compiler errors... it was there for compatibility with an anonymous pascalnunion that let you treat a pascal Rect as an anonymous array of two Point structures..

</comment><comment><USER20> Well, there's CNLabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter, which is two letters longer than CNLabelContactRelationElderCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter.

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelco...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelcontactrelationyoungercousinmotherssiblingsdaughterorfatherssistersdaughter)

This is my favorite topic.

<comment><USER21> Ok, we changed to that from [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelco...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelcontactrelationeldercousinmotherssiblingsdaughterorfatherssistersdaughter). Thanks!

<comment><USER22> Does this now hold the record for most frivolous moderator story edit?

<comment><USER4> Not just that, it actively broke and confuses existing discussions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm grateful that Apple at least prefixed this. IIRC, between iOS 11 and 12, Apple added a _Contact_ class somewhere within their standard set of frameworks. I was maintaining an app that used CoreData as a store and did not have prefixed Core Data entity names. And of course it had its own _Contact_ class.

Long story short, I started building against the newer SDK and the app started crashing in the most oblique way possible. Prefixing the entity and class name solved the problem, but I only stumbled on that through a combination of luck, intuition, and half a day of banging my head against a wall.

<comment><USER24> Apple recommends to use at least a three character prefix in your objective-c classes to avoid collisions.

<comment><USER23> I am well-acquainted with Apple's recommendations. The codebase I inherited was not. Unfortunately, Apple's Core Data documentation is also not acquainted with Apple's recommendations: [https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...](https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/CoreData/KeyConcepts.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why is everyone assuming this is about Chinese??? CN is the class prefix for the Contacts.framework library, like every other Apple API. For example:

CoreLocation: CL (CLLocation)

SpriteKit: SK (SKScene)

CloudKit: CK (CKRecord)

CoreVideo: CV (CVBuffer)

LocalAuthentication: LA (LAContext)

So on and so forth...

<comment><USER26> It's not about the "CN" bit. People are talking about why the variable exists at all. Essentially the reason being ventured is that that relationship has a specific name and meaning in Chinese with no English equivalent beyond an exacting familial definition. Imagine trying to express "grandfather" in a language that doesn't have the concept. You might end up with "father's father."

(I know nothing about Chinese. Just reporting what's been said elsewhere.)

<comment><USER27> > Imagine trying to express "grandfather" in a language that doesn't have the > concept.

Or, for a more concrete example: "daughter-in-law". Many of the English "-in- law" relations may seem foreign to cultures with different conceptions of the extended family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I spent 10 minutes laughing about this and the worst part is my wife asking why am I laughing and I _cannot_ explain why

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, you cannot

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> NativLang did a video about kinship systems that is relevant here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOi2c2d3_Lk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOi2c2d3_Lk)

</comment><comment><USER30> Upvote for breaking HN CSS on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER31> A good example of poor naming. Explained:

Your younger cousin sister, either from one of your mother's brothers and sisters, or from one of your father's sisters.

Or two characters in Chinese: 表妹(BiaoMei). If she is from one of your father's brothers, she's your 堂妹(TangMei). The latter is regarded as being closer because you share the same family name, but nowadays it just doesn't matter any more.

Some of the other commenters think it's 表姐. No matter who is right, you see, the long name bears no clear meaning even for Chinese.

<comment><USER32> The other commenters are saying 表姐 because it was originally "Elder", not "Younger". The moderators decided to change it and break all the discussions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can HN add wordbreaking css on mobile?

This breaks the width of the page on mobile.

<comment><USER34> Looks like a good place for some zero-width spaces.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero- width_space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-width_space)

<comment><USER35> Those aren't automatic, though.

<comment><USER34> HN already supports title edits, so it's simpler than changing the CSS, and it's easier to read because the breaking is on the internal word boundaries. Here's the title with the zero-width spaces added:

CN Label Contact Relation Elder Cousin Mothers Siblings Daughter Or Fathers Sisters Daughter

EDIT: HN strips zero-width spaces and replaces them with normal spaces, so I can't post it here.

<comment><USER36> Then the title would not make sense anymore. Adding a simple css rule would also be futureproof, because i'm quite sure this is not going to be the last time an absurdly long title word appears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Does this page have some sort of camel-case aware word breaking? As I resize the page I notice it always remains broken at a word boundary and never breaks inside a word.

Ok, I see it now: there are wbr tags between the words on the page. TIL.

</comment><comment><USER38> Anybody care to introduce me to this? Why does it have to be father's sister but mother's sibling? And how does elder and younger cousins behave differently?

<comment><USER4> This one seems to come from chinese

* in many EA and SEA culture, there's a difference made based on the age differential aka different term of address to people older than you v younger than you, also gender

* chinese (and likely others) also make a difference between patrilineal relationships and matrilineal, so there's a term of address for people related through the father's brother (and thus sharing your family name) versus other parent's sibling (not sharing your family name).

The combination of the two yields what you have above:

* cousins through your father's brother (sharing family name) are 堂 (táng) all others are 表 (biǎo)

* older brother is 兄 (xiōng), younger brother is 弟 (dì), elder sister is 姊 (zǐ) and younger sister is 妹 (mèi)

Therefore an older "sister" (same generational rank) through an other line than your father brothers would be 表姊 (biǎozǐ).

<comment><USER39> Well we mainlanders prefer 姐(jie). Biaozi sounds the same as bitch so it's never heard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Java Swing took verbosity even further than that. I present to you a 92-character class name [1].

> > InternalFrameInternalFrameTitlePaneInternalFrameTitlePaneMaximizeButtonWindowNotFocusedState

Thankfully, I think they fixed it in the newer version.

[1]: [https://twitter.com/peterlawrey/status/577176384520384512](https://twitter.com/peterlawrey/status/577176384520384512)

</comment><comment><USER41> Needs CNFathersMothersNephewsCousinsFormerRoommate

<comment><USER42> You missed a sibling or younger or elder in there somewhere.

<comment><USER43> It's a Spaceballs reference. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Is this just one of those exceptional cases when having a strict variable naming convention doesn't work out?

<comment><USER45> Seems to be working fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I guess I'm confused as to the specificity of this. Why are a paternal uncle's daughters not included? Why only elder?

Also curious as to why this is important enough to have a specific type of contact for?

</comment><comment><USER47> It's kind of nice seeing the homepage with a fixed row height per story! I guess it will not last bit that was a nice thing that came of this. Thanks, OP :)

</comment><comment><USER48> For those using Refined Hacker News[1] for Firefox on Android, you can add this to the _Custom CSS_ field to prevent the overflow:

        tr.athing td.title:not([valign="top"]) {
            word-break: break-word;
        }

[1]: [https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker- news](https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news)

</comment><comment><USER49> Winforms has some gems:

DataGridViewColumnDividerDoubleClickEventArgs

ListViewVirtualItemsSelectionRangeChangedEventHandler

<comment><USER50> There is also this classic:

[https://github.com/mattl/opensource.apple.com/blob/88cbaab4a...](https://github.com/mattl/opensource.apple.com/blob/88cbaab4a42e97cbbfe6b660f2f0945536821be6/src/system_cmds/system_cmds-735/shutdown.tproj/shutdown.c#L132)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is a joke right? Please explain if not. Why wouldn't you just name the variable relationship (or CNRelationship to adhere to nonsensical globals) and abstract the method for getting there to other logic?

</comment><comment><USER52> Camel case needs to die, it's been too long and it's not funny anymore.

</comment><comment><USER53> Could these ever be swiftified as enums?

</comment><comment><USER54> Well first cousin anyway.

</comment><comment><USER55> Help, this post is breaking Hacker News mobile because the title is too long without spaces.

</comment><comment><USER56> wat? :D

</comment><comment><USER57> That label is so long it's breaking the HN front page layout for me on mobile.

<comment><USER58> Yup. @dang, can you fix this?

<comment><USER21> In principle yes, but I tried in 4 (edit: 5) browsers and couldn't reproduce the problem, and it's late here and I'm running out of steam. So you may have to suffer overnight. Sorry about that.

Edit: ok, thanks to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_character_property#Whi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_character_property#Whitespace) I put in a bunch of _& NegativeMediumSpace;_. I hope that fixes it because I need to sign off now. If it isn't fixed, it would be helpful if someone would email firstname.lastname@example.com so we see that in the morning. Short term memory does not survive the firehose.

<comment><USER59> It probably shouldn't be visible in title tag: [https://i.imgur.com/a1RLCt0.png](https://i.imgur.com/a1RLCt0.png)

<comment><USER21> You're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯</comment>


Yelp Claims Google Broke Promise Made to Regulators - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-rival-yelp-claims-search-giant-broke-promise-made-to-regulators-1505167498 <comment><USER2> Don't know if Yelp does allow any search engines to scrape, but if they'd allow duckduckgo to scrape and help build some marginal competition against Google, it might give them more leverage overall.

<comment><USER3> Looking at their robots.txt, they allow Google but not DDG.

<comment><USER4> Huh... Looks like they have a whitelist that allows Bing, Google, and Yandex (among others), but not DuckDuckGo: [https://yelp.com/robots.txt](https://yelp.com/robots.txt)

Does DuckDuckGo respect `robots.txt` files with onerous implicit restrictions like that? If I were them, I'd probably just write it so that if Googlebot is allowed then DuckDuckBot is too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Used to like Yelp as an alternative to Google owning everything, but they are destroying their brand using shady app-hijacking tactics.

It's a dark pattern to limit access/force app downloads for access to content on mobile. I hate rooting for google, but I'll root for open web any day.

<comment><USER6> Heh, you should hear their shady business tactics. It would be a shame if your business suddenly had 1 star on yelp.

<comment><USER7> I'm unconvinced. I have read a ton of anecdotes and 2nd-hand accounts about this, but I've never seen any experiment or any piece of hard proof that yelp or its representatives hold your rating over your head if you don't sign up for advertising. It seems like an easy scenario to test out.

I'm totally open to being convinced, but I'm skeptical right now that they are in fact that shady. I'm more inclined to believe that it's a placebo effect from suspicious people suddenly paying more attention to ratings after a sales call, and also attributing any negative dip in rating to the phone call they recently had. There are also third-party groups who call claiming to be able to list your business higher or rate it better, and I'm suspicious that some people confound these callers as yelp representatives.

And linked from elsewhere in the thread: [http://www.latimes.com/business/la- fi-yelp-ratings-20140905-...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yelp- ratings-20140905-story.html) \-- it just seems like with no scientific study backing the claims and case after case being lost, I think the onus of proof is on the people accusing yelp of these threats.

<comment><USER8> I've seen it first hand. My friend is a veternarian who was working in a very expensive neighborhood in California. Every time he got a 5 star review, it wouldn't display on his Yelp page. A few 1 star reviews did appear though. Yelp would call him and tell him essentially the 5 stars would reappear if he advertised with them. He had no choice but to pay and they all appeared, driving his average back up. How would you propose to prove it? And what would proving accomplish since many folks already believe it?

<comment><USER9> It's trivially easy: link to the page. Put up or shut up. If what you're saying is true, it will be obvious.

These stories are always about "friends" or "relatives", but nobody ever provides the link to the _evidence_ , despite that being the easiest thing in the world to provide.

<comment><USER10> Specifically, Internet Archive links that show the before/after situation, with reviews appearing that were made before "before" but only appear in "after".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hmm these comments really bother me - people seem to miss the point that Google is using its monopoly power to block out competition. This concept is very, very frightening and we should all be worried. This is no different than when railroads would block competition and promote their own products.

<comment><USER12> Doesn't Yelp have a reputation for much shadier business practices (i.e. extortion)? Maybe they're not a very sympathetic underdog in this fight.

<comment><USER13> Yelp is definitely not a sympathetic party, but that doesn't invalidate or weaken their claim. Particularly if, as they claim, Google is specifically violating an agreement with the FTC.

<comment><USER14> Yelp is indeed sht company and needs to be investigated for its own shakedown techniques. But this doesn't mean that Google isn't behaving in an anti- competitive way.

Side note, Yelp literally called my partner who ran PR for non profits art org and asked to be paid $$ or else competitors ads would run on their page. Literal words. One would pay for NOTHING except not having competitors getting promoted on your own pages.

Partner laughed and hung up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://yelp.com/robots.txt](https://yelp.com/robots.txt)

There is some fun stuff in there, like this?!

            Disallow: /biz/outlook-autumn-market-fundamental-catwalk-flimsy-roost-legibility-individualism-grocer-predestination-0
    	Disallow: /biz/outlook-autumn-market-fundamental-catwalk-flimsy-roost-legibility-individualism-grocer-predestination-1

<comment><USER16> Be careful w/ these urls - I visited one and it appears my IP is now blocked from accessing yelp.com.

<comment><USER17> That's really interesting. They might be trying to blacklist scrapers that don't properly respect robots.txt files.

<comment><USER12> Why would a scraper who doesn't respect robots.txt be accessing that file?

<comment><USER18> If I was building an unruly scraper (which, in case our new overlords are listening, I would never do), I would read robots.txt so that I had a clue where the secret information that the company did not want me to read was located.

I'm not allowed to look in /documents/source/? Perfect. Let's start there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Removing Yelp from my phone. Never liked it anyways.

Love Google and Foursquare.

</comment><comment><USER20> I am guessing that this is going to end up be a PR nightmare for Yelp once Google let's the hounds loose. They have been such an easy target in the past.

<comment><USER21> Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER22> [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yelp- ratings-20140905-...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yelp- ratings-20140905-story.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Did you know the name Yelp comes from "Yellow Pages"?

</comment><comment><USER24> Non-paywall link (twitter redirect): [https://t.co/5sCeMykOWW](https://t.co/5sCeMykOWW)

</comment><comment><USER25> Yelp is a Rival to Google...? This claim surprises me.

<comment><USER26> Google is so big it's basically a rival to any company that sells computer software or services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Since when is Yelp a Google rival?

<comment><USER28> Since Google+ reviews show up in search results for things like restaurants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yelp and Whiny seem to really rhyme together.</comment>


Senators Introduce Bill That Eases IPO Regulations - <AUTHOR> http://skimthat.com/article/4520/senators-introduce-bill-that-eases-ipo-regulations <comment><USER2> Are small IPOs good for companies? That's a question that's honestly on my mind.

My gut reaction is like "anyone who wants to go public w/o this kind of scrutiny shouldn't," but that's completely from a non-informed place.

Anyone have any strong opinions about the value of small cap companies on the NYSE / NASDAQ?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's important for smaller companies to have access to the market so they can raise capital and compensate employees with stock options. Could make it a stronger company without needing to change the business model or grow the company.

<comment><USER3> 1\. They don't have a right to a market

2\. There's already a market available to them: the internet

3\. Smaller companies already can and do satisfy the regs.

4\. Why shouldn't they have/want to change an nonviable business model?

5\. What about risk?

<comment><USER4> I dont think you understand the issues. The article and the other posters are talking about the ability of a small company to issue publicly traded shares via an IPO.

2\. The internet is not a capital market. If you try to issues shares in the US or to make a market in them you will quickly be visited by the SEC.

3\. No. I worked for a $35m revenue company a few years ago which wanted to go public. The cost of preparing for the offering would have been in excess of $3 million. That pretty much eliminates IPOs for small companies.

4\. ???

Once a company goes public, it is subject to the costs of Sarbanes-Oxley which entails costs of $3 million and up per year.

Sure, simplification of the IPO process for smaller companies entails more risk, but the trade off is a more vigorous startup arena. I once did some back of the envelope calculations that convinced me that the yearly cost of SQ exceeds all the losses from Enron.

<comment><AUTHOR> _"I once did some back of the envelope calculations that convinced me that the yearly cost of SQ exceeds all the losses from Enron"_

But without the trust that the regulation adds, there would be the potential for more Enrons and less people willing to invest in the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't seem like a major barrier to IPO. As an investor, I'd rather the company spend the extra money to fully comply with regulations.

<comment><USER4> The costs of an IPO and the costs of complying with Sarbanes Oxley are so high that no company with revenue less than $100m can afford to go public. I would like to see changes so that smaller companies can afford to go public.

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't it easier for a company < 100m to get money from private investors?

<comment><USER4> Not necessarily. The amount needed could be too large for angels or might not meet the requirements of VCs. It might be too risky or it might be a nice solid company without high growth prospects.

The problem with private capital is that there has to be an exit strategy, acquisition or IPO. If IPO is closed off because of cost, private capital may be closed off for the same reason. I would like to see less restrictive regulation in this area, not for ideological reasons, but because denies small, but promising, companies access to public markets. Regulation is still needed to keep out fraud, but I dont think is should attempt to deny risk.

<comment><AUTHOR> If private equity doesn't see value (because of limited growth or too much risk) why would the public markets see it differently?

I see your point about exits but there are enough private equity companies that are OK with holding companies indefinitely so long as the company is viable.

The biggest reason to worry about an exit is liquidity and fear of being the last sucker to invest. Liquidity can be addressed by going in the private market and fear of being the last sucker can be addressed by not buying the company in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ah, lowering the barrier to entry to the stock market. Can't think of any way this could go wrong.</comment>


Buy Digital Ocean Servers with Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/212r4b/buy_digital_ocean_servers_with_bitcoin/

<comment><USER2> Scott, I think it is fantastic you are working on this. I've been thinking this concept for a while now: [https://www.stackmonkey.com/blog/](https://www.stackmonkey.com/blog/). Taking a slightly different spin on it...

</comment><comment><USER3> Why not link to the actual site, instead of the reddit comment? [http://bithost.io](http://bithost.io)</comment>


A Muslim President? The Abolition of Religious Tests - <AUTHOR> https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/muslim-president-abolition-religious-tests <comment><USER2> According to the average Trump supporter, you've already had a Kenyan born muslim in office for many years.</comment>


Structural engineers are unsung heroes - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/feb/11/roma-agrawal-structural-engineers-are-unsung-heroes-interview-shard <comment><USER2> I don't understand people who _aren 't_ fascinated by engineering generally and infrastructure specifically. I love knowing how stuff works, even if I don't understand it at the technical level an engineer does.

So much of what we use we take for granted, but it really is worth seeing what goes into making potable water come out of your tap. In middle school, I toured the Baldwin water plant in Cleveland, OH. There is a huge hall full of sand filters that filter out the schmutz after the water is chemically treated. It's one thing to know abstractly that drinking water is filtered through sand to make it drinkable. It's another to see the process in action on a grand scale.

In Boston, I highly recommend seeing the Chestnut Hill pumping station, which pumped water from the Chestnut Hill reservoir. It long predates the availability of sufficiently powerful electric motors, and the three steam engines are a testament to how much work went into pumping water around prior to the development of electric pumps.

I believe the last of the steam engines was decommissioned in the early '70s. I'm told the pumping capacity has been replaced by electric pumps in a single 3m square building, which somehow doesn't convey the same sense of awe and indebtedness to the engineers who make running water possible.

Gotta share a longtime favorite joke:

What's the difference between civil (structural) engineers and mechanical engineers?

Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the best general Engineering books I've read is 'Design Paradigms'. It's an excellent book about the importance of understanding failures in Engineering. The author is Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University, so all the examples are roads/bridges/etc.

As a Data/SWE guy, I still enjoyed reading it a lot.

[https://www.amazon.com/Design-Paradigms-Histories- Judgment-E...](https://www.amazon.com/Design-Paradigms-Histories-Judgment- Engineering/dp/0521466490)

<comment><USER4> Ooh, that reminds me of another excellent book on failure, Sidney Dekker's "Field Guide to Understanding Human Error": [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1472439058](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1472439058)

It's about investigating airplane crashes, and in particular two different paradigms for understanding failure. It deeply changed how I think and talk about software bugs, and especially how I do retrospectives. I strongly recommend it.

And the article made me think of Stewart Brand's "How Buildings Learn": [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140139966](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140139966)

It changed my view of a building from a static thing to a dynamic system, changing over time.

The BBC later turned it into a 6-part series, which I haven't seen, but which the author put up on YouTube, starting here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0)

I especially like that in the comments he writes: "Anybody is welcome to use anything from this series in any way they like. Please don't bug me with requests for permission. Hack away. Do credit the BBC, who put considerable time and talent into the project."

<comment><USER5> That first episode should be required viewing (repeatedly!) by all architects, physical or software. Geeze.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is true. While dealing with building architects on many occasions during my internship, they would say silly things like, 'Can you not just avoid this girder/beam/pillar?'

My boss would coldly say 'Do you mind removing brake pedals from your car to make it prettier'?

<comment><USER7> I hope as you progress through your career you learn to be more respectful of diverse ideas. I'm a software engineer, I have to have discussions with designers and business people who also sometimes ask for things that just aren't reasonably doable given time and budget constraints. It's our job as professionals to explain this using a tone and words that educates others on what the technical constraints are.

<comment><USER8> > I hope as you progress through your career you learn to be more respectful > of diverse ideas. I'm a software engineer, I have to have discussions with > designers and business people who also sometimes ask for things that just > aren't reasonably doable given time and budget constraints. It's our job as > professionals to explain this using a tone and words that educates others on > what the technical constraints are.

Funny. I inferred the tone as having levity. One, or both, of us is projecting.

<comment><USER9> [http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/02/different- worlds/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/02/different-worlds/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Although it might seem a sane and reasonable business, the world's great engineers, she believes, were "very eccentric characters, all very tenacious, the sort who were cheeky at school and didn't do what their parents wanted them to do"."

<comment><USER11> That's all very nicely put, to fit a lot of people into that mould don't you think? Very 'horoscopic'.

Everyone is disagreeable & eccentric to some extent when they were young, including the world's great engineers/theorists.

There's more to this equation, add parameter of hard work, a bit of obsession (or 'passion', whatever that is...), a bit of environmental 'push', and THEN perhaps that might yield a 'great' individual who does that one thing very well.

<comment><USER12> In other news, 100% of known engineers is human.

A much more interesting piece of information would be how many people have those characteristics, but do _not_ turn out to be great engineers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Structural engineers have one of the most stressful jobs as well. Work is incredibly precise with deadly consequences under tight deadlines with a lot of egos in the way. Massive respect to those who thrive in this profession.

<comment><USER14> > Structural engineers > stressful

Pun intended?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Coming from the profession, I often think that the problem is quite the opposite -- that there're too many engineers with an outsized ego. In almost every way, aside from schooling, the structural engineer's trade is no different than any other construction trade, and has a contribution -- framed in financial terms, or in terms of common good -- on the scale of that of a (qualified) tradesman.

<comment><USER16> _> the structural engineer's trade is no different than any other construction trade, and has a contribution -- framed in financial terms, or in terms of common good -- on the scale of that of a (qualified) tradesman. _

Not sure how to read that or how you meant it, but a good or bad engineer can have a big financial effect on a project in a way that a tradesman couldn't.

<comment><USER15> A construction project is overdetermined to a degree that few other enterprises are. In terms of compensation, an hour of a practicing structural engineer (aside from Calatrava & co.) is worth about as much as a carpenter's (who's paid his dues, so at about the same level of investment as engineer's into his profession). In terms of know-how or sweat equity or risk minimization, it's near impossible to say who, if anyone, contributes disproportinately more than others.

<comment><USER16> Are you talking about the on site engineers supervising the project build (kinda menial work), or the up front design engineers working with the architects?

For the former yeah I can kinda see where your coming from, but for the latter there is huge scope to affect how the project turns out financially in a way that a carpenter or supervising engineer just doesn't have.

<comment><USER15> A structural engineer in the US, at a minimum, requires a Professional Engineer license. The licensing requirements are similar elsewhere in North America, and in Britain. In some states (such as California), to practice structural engineering requires a Structural Engineer license. So anytime I mentioned structural engineering in this thread, it goes without saying...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I see no mention of Florida anywhere

<comment><USER18> The article is from February.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> i dont understand why people who write code consider themselves engineers. they arent liable if their code breaks. they have no professional licensing system. they dont even need an education.

<comment><USER20> There's a lot of debate about what kind of activity software development is. The camp that doesn't see it as engineering argues that programming is a craft, or that code is "grown".

I think one of the key differentiators for engineering is that something engineered should work by design after it has been built (not including regular maintenance of a machine). A defect requires a special process to repair all built instances.

In software development, defects are a regular occurrence requiring continuing changes, and requirements change as well. Of course, that's very different from a bridge or a combustion engine for example.

Automated testing can help push software development _toward_ an engineering mindset.

BTW - you're right that most software devs don't need licensing or formal education, but it comes off as pejorative. While those could help set standards, some of the most talented people I've worked with have neither (and some of my class mates in college don't affirm a benefit for formal training).

<comment><USER21> In software development you are solving new problems continually. If you weren't you could just call a library function with some parameters and be done with it.

Structural engineering is much like calling library functions with certain parameters and then making sure it all works and is safe. You know how what you are constructing differs from existing buildings and use that to decide what to do. You don't (usually) invent new ways of building things or building things that are unlike anything that was built before.Therefore such projects are well-known engineering practice, and your skill and knowledge of those practices can be tested and you can be licensed.

Some software development is like that too but most is not, you are creating new designs all the time because your software is for new purposes, not to replace something existing with perhaps a slightly improved version. It's hard to license anybody in "inventing new things".

<comment><USER16> Would it be too presumptuous to assume you have less structural engineering experience than you do with software?

You seem to be forgetting that vast majority of software development is churning out the same old buggy barely maintainable CRUD apps in dull enterprise environments or for tight fisted agency clients.

<comment><USER22> Precisely. I would have been less charitable in my response. Most software development is plumbing. To say we're solving new problems all the time and then to set that in some unclear opposition to what structural engineers do... I mean, just like software, each SE's project is different and yet similar across cases. That's uninformative, to say that least. So if you want to contrast them, it's best to actually know what you're talking. Also, I always hated occupational narcissism. It's a sign of narrow-mindedness.

(Besides, the question about whether software development is engineering or craft is very much real. John Allen, John McCarthy, Bertrand Meyer and Peter Denning have all written interesting things about this subject.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How A Blog Post Got 10K Google +1′s And 60 Inbound Links In 48 hours - <AUTHOR> http://trendblog.net/how-to-go-viral/

<comment><USER2> And?

I don't mean that in a flippant way. I'm curious about what this huge number of shares equates to in real terms. Beyond the amorphous "SEO link juice", how does it translate into sales? Additional "onboarded" users? Increases in revenue? _Anything that would count as measurable traction_? There is a tangible difference between highly sharable content and highly effective content. If you're trying to make a difference to your bottom line, effective is better. Although, of course, sharable _and_ effective is better still.

<comment><USER3> Some content serve different purposes. There is content that is meant to drive conversions to a product, or newsletter, etc. Then there is content meant to improve social signals, drive brand awareness, and link juice - all for SEO purposes.

I imagine this post is of the latter. If it's of the former, then yes he should've mentioned how effective it was in driving conversions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why is this SEO bullshit on the front page?

<comment><USER5> My guess is that a sufficient number of people found it sufficiently interesting.</comment></comment>


Russia considers 'unplugging' from internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47198426 <comment><USER2> This has nothing to do with cyber warfare. Its just pushing the envelope towards full censorship of the internet.

They get the systems in place, they run drills to get the population used to the idea, then they close specific sectors, then they close everything and have special "open sectors" and then you're fucked.

Don't fall for it.

<comment><USER3> First, you overestimate western media influence on Russian population, which is essentially so minor you can completely disregard it. Even domestically fewer and fewer Americans(Brits) take American or British media seriously.

Second, many governments (not just Russian one) have been very effective at censorship without disconnecting from the Internet. China is the only county that does both censorship and 'the Great Firewall'. Saudi Arabia is perfectly capable of very strict censorship without doing what China did to the very same extent. AFAIK Facebook, YouTube, Twitter are all accessible in KSA and are used by millions of Saudis on a daily basis.

<comment><USER4> >you overestimate western media influence on Russian population

They don't want to turn off western media, they want to turn off people like Navalny and thousands of government critics who use facebook, telegram and youtube, plus Russian anti-gove media located abroad for the safety reasons, like Meduza.

They've already tried to block telegram and failed, now they are going a more radical way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The test is also expected to involve ISPs demonstrating that they can direct > data to government-controlled routing points. These will filter traffic so > that data sent between Russians reaches its destination, but any destined > for foreign computers is discarded.

> Eventually the Russian government wants all domestic traffic to pass through > these routing points. This is believed to be part of an effort to set up a > mass censorship system akin to that seen in China, which tries to scrub out > prohibited traffic.

The internet is fragmenting.

<comment><USER6> There is no way they can afford to fragment the internet. They need open source libraries, they need access to information, they need access to education, etc. If they do that they will gp backward economically.

<comment><USER7> I wish I believed this as strongly as you do. The Chinese internet is isolated in a lot of very meaningful ways and the Chinese economy is not going backwards. There's probably a drag but it's not significant enough to stall progress.

You can unfortunately retain a lot of the utility of the internet while simultaneously sucking out the ability for it to be effectively used for political activity if you're willing to build the infrastructure required.

<comment><USER8> "There's probably a drag but it's not significant enough to stall progress."

I think it's rather the opposite. Why do you think tencent, alibaba, etc., exist in China, instead of the US alternatives? It's simply because there was a wall in place. Honestly, I'm not sure why more large countries aren't doing this - it's an easy way to build your own digital industry up.

<comment><USER9> That's the thing - I'm not sure Russia can produce their own competent tencent, alibaba, and so forth. I wonder if they're going to wall off their section of the Internet, then realise it's painful and open themselves up to Chinese companies.

It would be wise for someone in the Russian government to say "You will end up shining the shoes of the Chinese!" _a la_ Italo Balbo at this point.

<comment><USER10> Services don't have to be competent to be profitable.

In addition, I'm sure there's enough tech skill and manpower in Russia to create most any web service given enough incentive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's a smart thing to do (to have such a plan) even if no cyberwar ever takes place. There are so many possible scenarios of what could go wrong and having autonomous but functioning internet is absolutely necessary.

<comment><USER11> What's the value in protecting the domestic internet from a cyber attack? Critical national information services absolutely, but if Reddit goes down, it's not a matter of national emergency. The conceit COULD be for disseminating information, but a text message system would make more sense in that regards, plus good old fashioned TV and Radio.

<comment><USER12> If Reddit goes down, it's not a matter of national emergency, but if say, all major news websites do, then you're probably fucked

<comment><USER13> I'm old enough to remember this happening 17 and a half years ago.

Two airplanes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, and word starting coming in of another plane crashing into the Pentagon building. Talk of terrorism spread, and American airspace was shut down, and another airplane crash was reported. All the news websites were down, except for Chips & Dips, which had disabled images and was mostly text anyway.

Actually, the site had already changed its name by then. I sometimes see some usernames here that I remember from there.

<comment><USER11> I wasn't old enough to be on those sites, but I do remember being glued to the TV pretty much the whole morning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any sources on the quote in the article, _" Eventually the Russian government wants all domestic traffic to pass through these routing points. This is believed to be part of an effort to set up a mass censorship system akin to that seen in China, which tries to scrub out prohibited traffic."_ ? I searched and all I came up with was several sites saying the exact same thing, literally word for word, or otherwise saying so without any sort of source or rationale behind it.

This seems like a very logical test for all countries to carry out. Certainly not enough to suggest it's some sort of precursor to Chinese level censorship if this action is all that's based on.

<comment><USER5> >> Eventually the Russian government wants all domestic traffic to pass through these [government-controlled] routing points.

> Certainly not enough to suggest it's some sort of precursor to Chinese level > censorship if this action is all that's based on.

That technical capability _is_ an essential precursor to building a clone of the great firewall. After that, the censorship is just a matter of adding firewall rules.

<comment><USER15> True, for blocking outgoing AND incoming connections.

Everyone in western media assumes the primary motivation is outgoing connections / censorship.

<comment><USER16> Maybe because hacking an average Russian citizen's PC nets you no benefits (I mean aside the usual low-level cybor crime that already happens) however controlling the media that person accesses then gives you a great deal of domestic power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I would be very tempting to muck about with them such that when they finish their test and attempt to plug in again nothing actually happens and there's still no traffic flowing

</comment><comment><USER18> BBC says in bold:

> Russia is considering whether to disconnect from the global internet > briefly, as part of a test of its cyber-defences.

Sounds scary. But than clarifies:

> The test will mean data passing between Russian citizens and organisations > stays inside the nation rather than being routed internationally.

Which contradicts the previous sentence: Russia is not planning to disconnect from the global internet briefly.

I so disappointed at BBC for spreading misinformation.

</comment><comment><USER19> Even though they are doing it for all the wrong reasons, I suggest this is probably going to be a good exercise for the internet, because these things could happen, and we have no idea what the fallout will be.

Randomly downing a few servers is often seen as good practice in ops to test for resiliency, and see how well things hold up as they are supposed to.

We will all learn a lot from it.

Of course it won't be good for Russians in the long run ...

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't have a source handy but they tried this a few years ago -- the same exact thing. They failed because Russia has so many connections to the net. Let's hope they fail again.

</comment><comment><USER21> Surprising it's Russia, not China, doing this first, as senior ex-Googlers like Eric Schmidt and Kaifu Lee brought up this "two internet" thing [1] [2]

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google- ceo-p...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google-ceo-predicts- internet-split-china.html) [2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/the- splinternet-an-internet-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/the-splinternet- an-internet-half-owned-by-china-and-the-us.html)

<comment><USER5> > Surprising it's Russia, not China, doing this first

China _already did_ do this first. All their internet traffic already passes through government controlled choke points, and their citizens primarily use domestic Chinese-only systems, at least partially because foreign competitors are blocked. The things Russia is testing here are some basic capabilities of a great-firewall type system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Recalls the Maginot line, in the case of cyber warfare. How man taps are there? Perhaps more sensible for managing the information presented to their own population in emergencies.

<comment><USER11> Now I'm wondering what the cyber warfare equivalent of Sichelschnitt will be - where will be the big blindspots that they are ignoring?

<comment><USER23> space based internet by SpaceX/Musk.

<comment><USER24> I was wondering the same thing about satellite based internet, but was thinking the old school versions rather than a SpaceX solution. I have not read up on any of the SpaceX plans or what their coverage would look like (US focused, global, etc).

The one thing that I would be somewhat concerned with trying to operate like this would be simple radio games. Would digital uplink transmissions be easily traceable? Not knowing the size of antenna required, how portable would it be? How much effort would it be for the uplink to be detected, triangulated, and goon squad dispatched?

<comment><USER25> I would obfuscate through a physical relay. Let them find the upload antenna, but without any idea where the signal originated. Or perhaps raise the cost of triangulation through spam radio, upload antennae broadcasting garbage.

But if this is in war, Russia can just stand more radars up and watch the packet radio bandwidth plummet, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar) :

"extremely powerful ... 10 MW ... broadcast in the shortwave radio bands ... appeared without warning, sounding like a sharp, repetitive tapping noise at 10 Hz ... the Russian Woodpecker. The random frequency hops disrupted legitimate broadcasts, amateur radio operations, oceanic commercial aviation communications, utility transmissions, and resulted in thousands of complaints by many countries worldwide. The signal became such a nuisance that some receivers such as amateur radios and televisions actually began including 'Woodpecker Blankers' in their circuit designs in an effort to filter out the interference"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if this was why the Russians demanded that Apple put iCloud servers there.

[https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/09/11/apple-begins- stor...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/09/11/apple-begins-storing- russian-icloud-data-within-country-complying-with-new-law---report)

<comment><USER27> We have law from a few years ago that demands that all services that operate users' personal data to store it in Russia. It's more about having the power to access the data if needed without asking a service to provide the data first. Just come and grab it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> BBC coverage links to ZDNet article: [https://www.zdnet.com/article/russia-to- disconnect-from-the-...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/russia-to-disconnect- from-the-internet-as-part-of-a-planned-test/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Satellite internet might be a nice way to escape censorship, though it's fairly easy for the government to detect if you are transmitting stuff at the sky...

<comment><USER30> > though it's fairly easy for the government to detect if you are transmitting > stuff at the sky...

Not with a steered beam. Unless another satellite is riding shotgun on the one you are aiming at you will need some manner to receive the signal directly in order to triangulate. That's easy when the transmitter is non-directional but very hard when the direction is 'up' and the beam is focused and aimed at a specific satellite. You'll still get quite a bit of spread but you will need multiple simultaneous receptions in order to be able to pinpoint the origin of the transmitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Interesting that they chose April fools day to test this.

<comment><USER16> > Interesting that they chose April fools day to test this.

They didn't:

> The test is due to happen before 1 April but no exact date has been set.

<comment><USER31> Ah, I see

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Maybe this drill is a preparation for democratic election free from foreign influence?

</comment><comment><USER33> At least the political subs on Reddit will be quieter for a day or two.

</comment><comment><USER34> we'll always have ham radio

<comment><USER25> A good xkcd question might be, how much power does it take to jam all frequencies with radio noise, per acre ?

Maybe you will have to transport yourself out to the tundra to get clear signal.

<comment><USER34> should I read about faraday cage forest design ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why wouldn't they? They've shown that it can be weaponized, and now are afraid of being on the receiving end.

<comment><USER36> They've been on the "receiving end" of it for years already, contrary to popular perceptions the Russians didn't really invent any of this [0].

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy- op...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation- social-networks)</comment></comment>


How do you use hacker news? - <AUTHOR>

I have never really made any friends online and very rarely have meaningful back and forth with anyone online.  So my question is how do you use hacker news?  For instance, do you spend more time reading comments or the stories... Have you ever made a meaningful friendship from hacker news or reddit or any other sites like that?  do you interact mostly with people you already know in the real world?  I feel like I'm missing something. <comment><USER2> I spend more time reading comments than stories, and because of that my favorite posts are the "Ask HN:" variety. The userbase here is interesting and intelligent enough to generate content that makes me think.

I have not made friends here, and I don't expect to. Not that people here aren't friendly - indeed, HN is the most civilized discussion group I've seen. Rather, I just don't enjoy making friends for the sake of making friends, and don't go out of my way to add people to my real-world social circle.

I have made one "friend" from the old Joel on Software discussion board. He's a guy who I convinced to take a shot at grad school in computer science after a bachelor's in Chinese didn't take him where he wanted to go. Unfortunately, he lives in LA and I live in Denver, so we haven't met yet - but I would consider him worth meeting in person.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeh i also read more ask hn than stories...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You make friends by being one.

It's really that simple. The circumstances, places and methods of communication are entirely irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER4> I use it to keep up to date. There may be some obscure (or not!) project detailed here that may benefit me either now or at some later date. A lot of things that are written about here aren't yet stable on the hype curve but it at least provides food for thought.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am very new here and not sure about establishing friendship here. Honestly I don't have a lot of time digging into every piece of news. I think I spend more time reading the comments than the stories themselves ... very often you learn much more reading people's reactions.

<comment><USER6> I'm new here too. I had lurked for awhile but finally made a username. I come here for the particular mix of stories that inevitably interest me, but more for the comments. I don't comment much yet, both because I'm new and also I feel a little intimidated at times - everyone here seems very smart and experienced. I'm intelligent but the experience, well I guess that will change with time. :) I'd like to make friends, I guess we'll see there too.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I think "intimidated" is the word! Very often, I find others knowing a lot more than I do and talk a lot more intelligently than I do ... but hopefully this will wear off a bit with time.</comment></comment></comment>


Unseen Academicals (Discworld) - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/Unseen-Academicals-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0061161705

<comment><USER2> The UK cover is a billion times better: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/0385609345/ref=dp_...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/0385609345/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=266239&s=books)

<comment><USER3> Especially since it features a fairly prolific member of the Pratchett Usenet (alt.fan.pratchett) community :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I nearly had a heart attack when I realized I forgot about the next Discworld release. At least I know what I'll be doing this weekend! Living in the bookstore again...

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a brilliant read.

With that said; you can tell in the first chapter or 2 his disease is having an effect. The first chapter especially has some clunky moments :( After that it warms to it's stride till the end when it finishes somewhat cheerily for a Pratchett book...

It's a sad sad shame that we might not see many more brilliantly witty Disc World novels :(

<comment><USER6> If you weren't aware of his condition, would you have attributed the "clunky moments" to a brain disorder? Even some of Pratchett's earlier books have had the occassional problematic chapter.

<comment><USER5> Possibly; all his previous books have had a really careful plot. This one felt, as a whole, a little more meandering.

You right though; I was expecting it to be different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was hoping for some discussion of the crab-bucket and the hammer. These are, I think, relevant topics for this site.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is the first Discworld release since I've left the UK, I think. Why are the American covers always so terrible?</comment>


The Creepy, Kitschy and Geeky Patches of US Spy Satellites - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-and-geeky-patches-us-spy-satellites-180953562/

<comment><USER2> There's a whole cult of collecting military and police shoulder patches.

Machines for making those are now widely available. TechShop has CNC embroidery machines.

</comment><comment><USER3> trevor paglen has written/spoken about this topic extensively, e.g. [http://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would- Destroyed/dp/193...](http://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would- Destroyed/dp/1933633328) from 2007 and various talks on youtube, e.g. from 30c3: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTVgPw7TR_k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTVgPw7TR_k)

<comment><USER4> Indeed, Paglen's been great on this. See also his Cabinet article [http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/24/paglen.php](http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/24/paglen.php) which goes beyond NRO to other beloved organizations (e.g. "a secret Air Force Base near Groom Lake).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Better the devil you know

That's a little chilling, even for the NRO.

<comment> andrey-p Quite a few of these are bordering on over-the-top evil villain territory.

The Great Bear one, and its caption, just made me giggle.

<comment><USER6> My guess is that the bear is related to Ursa Major. That's a pretty obvious guess, but _how_ it would be related to Ursa Major, I have no idea. :-/

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major#Mythology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major#Mythology)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands My best friend's Dad was a Nasa Engineer and would always bring back packs of NASA launch stickers for the neighborhood kids. This reminds me a lot of those.

Some of those had some really cool designs like the ones in the story.

Here's a small sampling I found on ebay:

[http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sop=1&_nkw=nasa+sticker&_frs...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sop=1&_nkw=nasa+sticker&_frs=1)

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh, patches, as in insignia.

I was very confused when I got to the page....

<comment><USER8> I was confused, too. My default interpretation of "patch" is a file for modifying an existing binary. Second place goes to the swatch of material used to repair holes in fabric or plastic. The last time I thought of the kind of patch the article was referencing, it was for my scout uniform.

To upgrade to version 1.1 of the repair material for the embroidered insignia, you will need a patch patch patch.

<comment><USER7> In Canada, we called them badges, or at least that's what I remember: Scouts and Venturers were a long time ago.

But, yeah, that was exactly my confusion too. I was expecting really bizarre "diff -c" output....</comment></comment></comment>


Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960) - <AUTHOR> http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html

<comment><USER2> I highly recommend this book [1] on Licklider's life, because it's also one of the best books on the computing movement from the creation of the early machines through the Xerox PARC years and slightly beyond. It's also the only one recommended by Alan Kay[2].

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider- Revolution...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider- Revolution/dp/0670899763/)

[2] [http://email@example.com/msg04144.html](http://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg04144.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> A relevant Wikipedia article on the context of these 1950s/1960s ideas: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_amplification](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_amplification)

</comment><comment><USER4> "Displays seem to be in a somewhat better state than controls."

Fifty years on, this still seems to be the case.

</comment><comment><USER5> An interesting remark on user interfaces: "Laboratory experiments have indicated repeatedly that informal, parallel arrangements of operators, coordinating their activities through reference to a large situation display, have important advantages over the arrangement, more widely used, that locates the operators at individual consoles and attempts to correlate their actions through the agency of a computer." This remains surprisingly rare outside the military. Few systems support a working environment where each user has a small screen, and there's a big screen available to the whole group. Our user interfaces are still designed for a single user.

One common feature of military command centers is a display switching system, so that anybody in the room can look at anybody else's screen. NASA also does this. When something important is happening at one station, others can look at it without people running around standing behind someone else.

Today we could easily do more of this. Meeting rooms should be set up for this. But they're not, even when they have a big screen.

</comment><comment><USER6> It always makes me smile when guys like J.C.R. Licklider, Douglas Engelbart, William Ross Ashby, Herbert Simon, Alan Newell, Terry Winograd, etc., show up here. These guys were (or are) so far ahead of their time. It might seem strange to think that there's a lot to be learned from reading material from the 60's, but I'm convinced there is.

I'm personally convinced that we aren't even close to fully realizing Engelbart's vision in particular. I think anyone involved in the technology industry would be well served to read up on his writings - as well as catching up on the other writers/thinkers mentioned above.

<comment><USER7> One thing I love about reading old papers/essays/articles is that it makes it so clear the particular things we take for granted now. It is remarkably hard to step back and get that objective point of view about the current state of technology with no help from the past.

> They will remember that such-and-such a person did some possibly relevant > work on a topic of interest back in 1947, or at any rate shortly after World > War II, and they will have an idea in what journals it might have been > published.

For all that the title evokes visions of cyborgs, Licklider here is really just asking for a search engine and the ability to plot some points on a graph, which is beautiful because these are things I do everyday, and they are indeed so useful and commonplace that I take them for granted, but even I couldn't always do these things in my lifetime.

I also found the following incredible as a train of thought:

> Yet there is continuing interest in the idea of talking with computing > machines. In large part, the interest stems from realization that one can > hardly take a military commander or a corporation president away from his > work to teach him to type.</comment></comment>


Apple inks $600M deal to acquire assets and talent from Dialog Semiconductor - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/10/apple-is-paying-300m-in-cash-to-buy-a-part-of-dialog-semiconductor-and-expand-its-chipmaking-in-europe/ <comment><USER2> Apple taking the application processor business in house has gone very well, they currently have a substantial tech lead in the smart watch market due to their processor advantage over the outdated qualcomm most android devices are stuck with [1]. They have a similar (but smaller) advantage in phones, though that is also due to a very large die size as they can afford to spend more per product.

Presumably they are looking at moving power management silicon in house as well to consolidate that advantage. At there scale, they will be getting custom silicon from Dialog already, but there's probably some comms/cost benefits to dealing with a department rather than an external company.

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/review-googles- wear-...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/review-googles-wear- os-2-0-cant-fix-its-obsolete-smartwatch-hardware/)

<comment><USER3> It sounds a bit like the GT Advanced situation.

Apple starts a relationship with a company, the deal becomes the VAST MAJORITY of the company's revenue, the company wants to get out of the buisness of being an apple supplier, because IF they scale to that size and lose a contract, they have huge cuts to make. So apple comes in, buys a substantial part of the company, and now the company can continue to operate without fear of downsizing. Any downsizing will be apples doing not theirs.

<comment><USER4> When you get most of your money from one or two sources you aren't really in control anymore. I can totally appreciate not wanting to be beholden to anyone.

The last consulting firm I worked for had over 70% of their revenue coming from two contracts, and neither contract used any of the tools or philosophies the consulting company claimed to espouse.

Ended up being the case that all the reasons I wanted to work there were just marketing messages and my sense of betrayal soured the relationship.

That the guy in charge of developers left about a year after we parted ways... every time I think about those people I wonder if he knew it was all bullshit or if he just got tired of dealing with attitude from stressed out developers and never understood why they were pushing back.

<comment><USER5> > The last consulting firm I worked for had over 70% of their revenue coming > from two contracts, and neither contract used any of the tools or > philosophies the consulting company claimed to espouse.

Assuming you're talking about philosophies that are considered good practice because they lead to more sustainable design practices and smoother development later, I have doubts those _ever_ survive in long-term consulting contracts. The way pressure flows in those scenarios always leads towards emphasizing speed of development. Anything else requires multiple points in the management path both in the local firm and client firm to be willing to forego short term cost for potential long term gains, and if any one of them is out of alignment it causes problems.

<comment><USER4> But why wouldn't you pick a cut-rate consulting firm in that case instead of one that claimed to be doing deep work in a number of areas?

<comment><USER5> The point is not that people don't _want_ to encourage behavior that pays off in the end, it's that it takes alllinks in the chain to be vigilant about it to happen. Anywhere in the line between the the client company's CEO to the consultant company's developer if someone decides to cut corners because of time, cost or some other unknown reason, that will flow down through each subsequent level to the actual developers. There's probably five people in that chain _minimum_ (including the developer, the client CEO, the consultancy CEO, and any managing coordinators), and any one of them can easily change this because of their own pressures. It's an inherently fragile system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dialog used to sponsor a load of events in my department at uni, no one ever bothered telling us what they actually did, so it was always a bit comical, but now we know.

I think the fact they're only acquiring the relevant part of the company is a fantastic move. It really shows apple is focused on what they're doing and not just buying their way into markets like Cisco or Intel.

</comment><comment><USER7> The MI band which uses their chip gets great battery life.

</comment><comment><USER8> I assume this is also heavily influenced by the recent Qualcomm court case where Apple was hit with infringing on one of their power management patents.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is pure speculation, but I wonder if this has anything to do with the AirPower wireless charging mat's development?

<comment><USER10> Since the issue with wireless charging is power efficiency, having good power engineers onboard will likely help. That said, they are almost certainly buying them for the PMICs inside hardware devices first, and for accessories like AirPower second.

But it's not a bad way to start shipping advanced power electronics like GaN, which dialog has chips for.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> so I guess Apple didn't want to acquire the entire company and all its ~1,900 employees?

<comment><USER11> For a company worth $1B before the announcement, Apple paid $300M for 16% of their Staff and IP, and $300M for future order. For Dialog that is a much better deal than selling all of itself when Apple has not use for the other 80%.

<comment><USER4> Relevant snippet from their wiki page:

> Dialog Semiconductor is the exclusive designer of power management > integrated circuits (PMICs) for the Apple iPhone, iPad, and Watch, which > made up more than 70% of Dialog's 2016 sales. Its share value halved from > April to December 2017 after private bank Bankhaus Lampe changed its outlook > for the company from "hold" to "sell" in the belief Apple would replace > Dialog's PMIC designs with its own...

Take the money, get rid of the sword over your head, and keep working on your smart home tech with your new valuations and nobody yelling Frog and expecting you to jump. There are worse ways to run a medium sized company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Glad I didn't go with Dialog for a BLE chip. Kind of puts their line at risk for future development.

<comment><USER13> They are really great chips for power consumption and price. I have used them in several products and the team behind them really knows what they are doing.</comment></comment>


Quickly and efficiently search attachments on gmail with attachments.me - <AUTHOR> http://attachments.me/

<comment><USER2> Hilarious video.

Ben Coe is a great guy, definitely the right guy for the job. Knowing him personally makes it hard to take the plunge into using the service, but for someone worried about them misusing the data, know that he was a solid dev over at FreshBooks where he was entrusted with millions of users financial data. He's trustworthy and they already have a number of users, so there won't be any human eyes on it.

Disclaimer: I went for lunch with Coe today, we're good friends.

</comment><comment><USER3> The document indexing is nice, but not nice enough to let some 3rd party hook into my gmail account.

A simple has:attachment label:labelname and some search text is good enough to find years old attachments for me.

<comment><USER4> I had a similar idea recently, although I was thinking mostly about images. But now that I see this, I also feel that I don't want to give away my email password. Actually so far I haven't even moved my emails over to GMail, still running my own server...

What could be a solution to this problem? Would it work better as an app for Google App Engine, so that people could just install their own version of it?

<comment><USER5> Right now we use OAuth as much as possible, so that you don't have to give out your credentials -- we've been thinking about taking some other steps to eleviate these concerns, in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> it bums me out that the thumbnailing breaks the aspect ratio of images.

can i use it to mass delete attachments out of my gmail account to free up space?

<comment><USER5> Hey dreww, did you signup for an account early on? I've taken steps to fix the aspect ration recently :) Right now we don't allow you to delete attachments out of your Gmail account from attachments.me -- great suggestion though.</comment></comment>