New York City's Most Accessible Ruins - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ghosts-of-new-york-eleven-of-new-york-city-s-most-intriguing-ruins

<comment><USER2> > _The site protected the Harbor using a pair of concrete batteries, each > housing a pair of cannons which could fire 30 miles out to sea._

How accurate were the 1917-era cannons at 30 miles?

<comment><USER3> Cannon battles of WW2 [http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/capitalsh...](http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/capitalshipsurfaceactions.aspx)

<comment><USER4> Interesting to see this on HN as we dug out an entrance to a WW2 German bunker yesterday afternoon here in Jersey (the British island). Like urbex _and_ WW2? Photos here: [https://plus.google.com/photos/105983129534664287827/albums/...](https://plus.google.com/photos/105983129534664287827/albums/6061218816958114817)

Some videos also on our group's YouTube page, with a quick walk-through. We already have one of these restored and open to the public, and we were after parts and a bit of exploration.

As for the accuracy, WW2 guns were good enough. This Youtube video on mechanical fire-control computers is very interesting and I've seen it come up on HN before several times. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4)

Lots of this equipment survives today. It was built to last and many people still collect it. We've also got about a dozen French and German cannon dumped from cliffs that we'll recover some day.

<comment><USER5> Is it normal to fire up an angle grinder and not wear eye protection where you live? In one of the pictures you can see spark bouncing off worker's face an inch below left eyeball.

<comment><USER2> The sparks are hot, but don't contain much mass, so I don't think they're as dangerous as they look. That said, as an official paranoid person, I always wear goggles.

<comment><USER5> Data/evidence to the contrary:

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Home and Leisure Accident Surveillance Systems (HASS/LASS) lists angle grinders at #3 in their top ten list of most dangerous tools, with an average of 5,400 injuries recorded. [1]

"Angle grinders are one of the most dangerous tools in any workplace. They are used for cutting, grinding and polishing work. ... Most angle grinder injuries are from metal particles lodging in the operator's eye. However, the most serious injuries are from kick-back, where the disc is thrust back violently towards the operator." [2]

[1]: [http://www.hassandlass.org.uk/reports/2002data.pdf](http://www.hassandlass.org.uk/reports/2002data.pdf)

[2]: [http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/worksafe/angle- grinders](http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/worksafe/angle-grinders)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know nothing about this site in real life, but immediately recognized it from GTA IV.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you're into urban exploration in and around NYC, this video is a great watch: [https://vimeo.com/18280328](https://vimeo.com/18280328)

They visit a few interesting spots like the abandoned City Hall subway station, old sewers, tunnels, and the top of the Williamsburg Bridge

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're not following their Twitter, you should [https://twitter.com/atlasobscura](https://twitter.com/atlasobscura)

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Smallpox hospital looks beautiful. They don't build like this anymore.</comment>


Dr. Seuss and the 236 Words that Changed Reading Forever - <AUTHOR> http://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore/2008/03/on-the-origin-o.html <comment><USER2> I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Not the Cat and the Hat specifically but the way our whole society is becoming one of visual learners and how we should really be looking ways to convey concepts using visual means and as few words as possible.

Put it this way. Without pictures the Cat and Hat's 236 words could never tell the story. It would take thousands. Now look at the nearest 1,000 page programming book you can find and ask yourself (a) whether it could be told with much fewer words and (b) if it would be more efficient to do so.

Anyway, just somewhere my brain has been wandering to that was slightly more crystallized by the post.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Green Eggs and Ham_ uses only 50 words, 49 of which were monosyllabic.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why are plurals counted separately? "Kite" and "kites" are the same word.</comment>


Learning 23 EU Languages - <AUTHOR> https://sharpedgeskill.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/learning-23-eu-official-languages/ <comment><USER2> I learned six languages in high school, because that's just about mandatory around here at the highest level. Dutch, German, English and French, as well as Latin and Old Greek. I can barely read french, barely hold a conversation in German. I'm native Dutch and I like to think my English is pretty good. Because I use them every day. The dead languages Latin and Old Greek i have mostly forgotten.

If you need to learn a language have a purpose for it and think of what you are going to use it for. Otherwise you will just forget most of it. It's really just like with programming languages in that sense.</comment>


Forget Google – it's Apple that is turning into the evil empire - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/06/john-naughton-apple-dominates-market <comment><USER2> I agree with most of this analysis, and it is why, even though iOS/OSX/etc offer great stability, are esthetically pleasing, and well-designed, I won't go the Apple way (I have been using Linux for over a decade now).

Zittrain, among others have written about this as well:

"As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet — its 'generativity', or innovative character — is at risk"

<http://futureoftheinternet.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> The article was quite good until it started making comparisons of Catholics and Protestants to Apple collecting 30% for all sales through their store.

It's like the author just gave up and couldn't figure out a way to end the article.</comment>


Video of 3 year old being frisked by TSA against her will - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TCHSGvNwRY

<comment><USER2> Watching this video makes me ashamed to be an American.

It's not a failure to communicate, as the TV reporter says. It's a failure of "Homeland Security" to properly evaluate threats and formulate policies that address them. Hence, we now have situations were three-year olds and senior citizens are treated as potential terrorists.

Sad, sad, sad.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why on earth would a parent subject their child to this? There is no way in hell some TSA worker would lay their hands on my child, for any reason whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hope all the recent coverage and outrage will actually amount to something.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow just wow, why would you do that.</comment>


Show HN: Tweetype – Compete to quickly type tweets in this tongue-in-cheek game - <AUTHOR> https://tweetype.com/

<comment><USER2> NIce, what JavaScript library you used to built this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I used Knockout.js on the client-side. The server is pretty simple, so it's just Express.</comment></comment>


What's wrong with HR? - <AUTHOR>

I keep of hearing of candidates trying to get in touch with hiring managers and hiring managers trying to bypass HR. It seems that way too often HR has the last - negative - word even when it comes to hire technically adept but poorly socially-talented employees, let alone the cases in which CVs go directly to /dev/null. What's your experience? <comment><USER2> "HR" went wrong when they changed from "Personnel" to "Human Resources". The very name "resources" makes those people think that everyone is plug- compatible. Proceeding from that assumption, they feel they can winnow out candidates as if people were a commodity, where price and price alone lets you make a decision.

The "Harvard MBA" mindset of the late '80s, early '90s, where "management" made the difference to any business, and businesses only dealt in "product", also helped this sort of mind set along. "HR" has a "product" to churn out, at a minimum cost to the company.

</comment><comment><USER3> From what I've seen, the problem is that HR only knows what to look for from the job description given by the hiring manager. Typical HR personnel don't have the technical background to properly identify candidates, so you get to play buzzword bingo.

The sad truth is that I know many people in HR as well as hiring managers who weed out resumes for completely arbitrary reasons.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any idea about how to solve this problem? Recruiters cannot do that: Most of them just add another layer between candidates and hiring managers, usually because of lack of a tech background and deep understanding of the business' needs. Any suggestions? Any HR people out there?</comment>


Why Is America So Far Behind Europe on Digital Privacy? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opinion/sunday/privacy-congress-facebook-google.html <comment><USER2> When you have zero tech companies it's easier to do things that impede tech companies.

<comment><USER3> Given that the productivity per capita in France or Germany is maybe 10% lower than in the US, and that those are highly developed countries with centuries of industrial knowledge, you might want to adjust your definition of "tech company" a bit, because if those countries had no technology firms, they'd be quite a lot poorer.

The US has incredibly strong advantages in fields like the semi-conductor industry, but in transportation, pharmaceuticals and aerospace Europe is quite strong. And when you look at hidden champions and the integration of technology into small and medium sized firms, the US heartland has a big problem.

<comment><USER4> Some may argue that to remain competitive in today's environment, some tech companies require a diminished amount of customer privacy, otherwise their foreign rivals will be able to do more and be more successful in the long run.

For the EU, if there is a belief that their tech companies can't out-compete against foreign rivals (Think search engine, social media, cyber sec, etc) and that their data could be used against them in the near future, it may seem intuitive to put privacy checkers to get foreign entities in line with your interests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The word "Digital" could be eliminated from the headline without loss of accuracy.

<comment><USER6> The Data Protection Directive and GDPR don't care about whether the privacy violation involves a computer :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The US is behind Western and Northern Europe in almost every facet of development that I can think of, except for GDP per capita. Education, healthcare, social mobility, political culture, news media seriousness, public infrastructure, etc.

The US is also shockingly institutionally paralyzed and unable to make meaningful reforms in any area, even if they are very popular with the majority of voters. The last one I can think of was ObamaCare, which was not a particularly radical change, but _felt_ like it because of how difficult it was to pass.

It's not particularly interesting to ask "why can't we reform digital privacy laws" \-- the more interesting general question is "why can't we reform _anything_ ".

<comment><USER8> Pretty much. I am rather dumbfounded by some of the political debates I read in social media by Americans when many of these have been pretty much solved here in Europe, with respect to healthcare, education, abortion rights, gun control, etc. E.g. there is living proof that you can keep a country going with free/subsidized healthcare or education for almost all of its population, as evidenced by literally every Western country that is not the US, yet this empirical evidence is brushed away by American detractors with utterly bizarre arguments about economic freedom that don't have a foothold anywhere else in the world. I don't know if detractors are being 1) ignorant of living conditions abroad, 2) not willing to change a system that benefits them personally, 3) fully aware of how things are elsewhere but reject it for ideological reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's because politicians can be more easily influenced with cash in the USA than in Europe. The US supreme court hasn't done any favors in this regard either.

<comment><USER10> Don't worry, Europe is just as corrupt as any other place in the world...they just do it more elegantly

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it all comes down to uniquely American cult of individualism, in two distinct streams that separate and then join together. The first is a general anti-regulatory attitude and distrust of government, assuming that those things are harmful to individual freedom even when they're anything but. The second is treating corporations as people. Put those together and you get a belief that the government shouldn't tie companies' hands with privacy laws.

I'm not here to debate whether those attitudes are right or wrong. That's just my theory on how they answer $question.

<comment><USER12> What if--And I'm just riffing here--what if America doesn't have nearly the cult of individualism that everybody seems to think it has?

What if America has a strong authoritarian inclination, as seen by its extreme focus on patriotism and patriarchal style of Christianity?

What if the "Uniquely American cult of individualism" is (a) Something Americans tell themselves in a "She doth protest too much" attempt to avoid facing an uncomfortable truth, and also...

What if the "Uniquely American cult of individualism" is (b) Propaganda that has been thundered by American Media, Advertising, Political Parties, and especially corporations who use it as a lever for avoiding regulation and oversight.

Such as with health care, where untold sums of money are spent every year explaining that Americans have more choice and want more choice and "control."

Or with guns, where again, untold sums of money are spent every year explaining that Americans want to enforce their own protection from crime.

What if the "Uniquely American cult of individualism" is no more real than the Marlborough Man?

I too am not saying these are the only explanations, but they seem like argument that are worth thinking about rather than taking a knee-jerk position in favour or against.

<comment><USER11> Interesting thoughts. I think the part that comes closest to my own beliefs is this:

> (b) Propaganda that has been thundered ... as a lever for avoiding > regulation and oversight.

I think the belief in individualism is real and sincere. It is also exploited ruthlessly, sometimes - but not always - by those who are moving in the exact opposite direction. Where's the authoritarian message in an ad telling you to be yourself, express yourself, stand out from the crowd, etc.? I don't think one needs to assume mass deception (including self-deception) to explain Americans' behavior. While I wouldn't reject your theory outright, in accord with Occam's Razor I tend to start with the simpler theory until the case for some other is properly made.

<comment><USER13> The ads deposing you to "be yourself, express yourself, etc" are doing so not out of any sense of benevolence, but rather to tap into the self image Americans hold in order to brand themselves as part of your ingroup, to sell more of their product.

<comment><USER11> Oh, totally, but that wouldn't work half as well if individualism hadn't become so fetishized already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is a confluence of many independent factors that cut across culture, economics, history, political structure, and geography. This applies to almost every comparison of Europe and America.

A key difference is in the default definition of what "privacy" is relative to. In America, there is a strong notion of privacy from the government but a much weaker notion of privacy from companies. In Europe, it is the other way around. In the specific case of _digital_ privacy, you are adding economic considerations to the equation which just reinforces the existing status quo on both sides since the America's tech industry is vastly larger than Europe's and therefore has much greater skin in the game.

The political dynamics are different because (1) Americans don't trust governments and especially the Federal government, for complex historical reasons and (2) the majority of legal authority to regulate, tax, etc resides with the individual States, not the Federal government, so relatively few things can be implemented "nationally" in the US. If you model individual States as "countries" conceptually, the political dynamics make a lot more sense.

<comment><USER15> > If you model individual States as "countries" conceptually, the political > dynamics make a lot more sense.

No, not at all. US states being somewhat like countries can't put the USA behind the EU. EU states _are_ countries.

<comment><USER14> This distinction isn't nearly a bright line as you think it is, the US is essentially what happens when an EU-like structure has 200+ years to evolve. In the US, States have their own constitutions, legislatures, various legal systems, and almost complete autonomy with narrow exceptions. Around 30% of them operated autonomously as their own countries at various times. Americans have almost no contact with the Federal government, only State governments, and the nature of State governments, laws, and legal systems varies quite widely across the US because they evolved independently.

As a simple illustration, the US has no national ID because the individual States have sole authority for managing the identity of their citizens. Similarly, it is why all contracts denote the State whose legal system has jurisdiction over interpretation of the contract -- there isn't a meaningful Federal jurisdiction over such things. This is also why the US Federal government can't just "pass a law" to do things, what they can actually do is severely limited by what the States feel like allowing them to do. While the States don't flex their autonomy very often these days, almost all power in the US rests with the individual States.

<comment><USER15> I don't think the line is that bright. AFAIK there are quite a few areas in which the EU is more centralized than the USA. The relationship between US states and the federal government does explain certain differences to the EU, sure. But not if you simplify it to "US states are like souvereign countries" because so are EU members. EU and USA cannot be different because of something they have in common.

> This is also why the US Federal government can't just "pass a law" to do > things

In a way, it can do that by changing the constitution. That requires the consent of a majority of states, but this is common in federations. The EU cannot change its "constitution" at all except with the consensus of all members.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it because large American cos are lobbying against such rules ?

<comment><USER17> It's because America invented tech.

<comment><USER12> No, that is not it.

If that was the explanation, then we would say that America is behind the rest of the world on weights and measures because America invented engineering.

And we would say that America is behind the rest of the world on Health Care because America invented hospitals.

And we would say that America is behind the rest of the world on justice and incarceration because America invented prisons.

A much simpler explanation is that all these things share the same social and political forces, and America is different from the rest of these world on all these things for similar reasons, and those reasons--whatever we may think they are--are not related to whether America "invented tech" or not.

See also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20140960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20140960)

<comment><USER18> America does have a rather extreme case of "not invented here" syndrome; we rarely consider best practices in other countries as worthy, especially if that other country is not an Anglosphere one.

In fact, that "America invented tech" comment is a perfect example of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wild guess because most of the technology we use is from America (Facebook, Google, Twitter, ...). Edit: Typing this from Africa least people think I am American.

<comment><USER20> Facebook and Twitter are social media companies. I don't think they count as technology companies the way i.e. a company that creates water purifiers and solar panels and such are a technology company. And those products are made in many countries other than the USA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why is Europe so far behind the rest of the world (except China, Russia et al) on digital freedom and freedom of speech?

<comment><USER22> Europe far behind? Europe is the best place in the world when it comes to freedom of speech, consumer rights and press freedom.

<comment><USER23> You can get fined for a dog trick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Europe keeps regulating itself to death and america isn't.

That's why most modern innovation (Intel, Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, Uber, Airbnb, Etc) is coming from the US and not Europe.

If you lived in both continents you would know

<comment><USER24> You could argue that America is unregulating itself to death.

<comment><USER25> The sad part is that platform economies are mostly owned by US companies, and their internal (inside the platform) markets operate on a global scale. So far we haven't seen much external regulation here.

<comment><USER26> Clearly not enough, but there are laws (NetzDG) for censoring illegal posts in Germany.

Much more interesting and important, of course, will be regulation on actual platform mechanisms like vendor lock-in, Apple's non-compete app store policies and such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think it's a relevant and legitimate thesis that this is in part caused by the origin of the major data capitalists (please explain why they are voted down).

I think it is fairly widely believed that the USA government favors US- american companies. The EU might do this less, but would have a clear economic interest in doing so, so I find this very plausible as well. I don't know how many smaller personal data companies there are in the EU compared to the US, but the major ones you hear about (Google, Facebook) are definitely in the USA.

</comment><comment><USER23> The GDPR is an attack on memory. Article 13 is an attack on speech. It's interesting to see the urgency of the push to implement them in the US; before it's too obvious what they are really for.</comment>


Serving small static files: which server to use? - <AUTHOR> http://nbonvin.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/serving-small-static-files-which-server-to-use/

<comment><USER2> i don't really see the point of these micro-benchmarking articles at all.

so what if nginx can serve a theoretically higher number of static files/second more than something else. are you actually serving that much traffic with no headroom in terms of extra servers and load balancers? do microseconds of computational time per request really matter when your outbound packets can get delayed by milliseconds in the network or dropped completely?

there are plenty of reasons to like one server over another, but is .0000000001 seconds/request overhead really one of them? http servers can have wildly different behaviors regarding HTTP streaming, working models, extensions, etc. how about the fact that varnish is a caching proxy that doesn't really replace something like nginx, lighttpd, apache?

he's also backing varnish with a ramdisk that takes 25% of his memory (for a 100b file, no less!) when comparing it to the others. probably not the best designed test out there.

> Again, keep in mind that this benchmark compares only the servers locally > (no networking is involved), and therefore the results might be misleading.

i don't know why anyone would publish "misleading" benchmarks

i know it's less fun and there are no numbers involved, but what about a real rundown of some of the subtle differences between the servers and some of their more unique features (besides async/threaded)? that's something i would find useful reading, but i guess it's not as easy as firing up ab.

<comment><USER3> And in the end, the only meaningful benchmark for you is the one performed on your deployment environment and with your application. These generic tests (if the conditions in which they were performed are clear) can only be used to skim through all the available options to identify those who clearly under- perform (agreed, identify why could be even more useful than the test itself).

<comment><USER2> they're not even worth skimming.

a while back when tornado (for python) came out, there was a whole slew of benchmarks comparing it to twisted. as a guy who uses twisted a lot, i was interested. all the benchmarks said tornado was faster by maybe a hundred or a couple hundred requests/sec and therefore was the superior framework.

the big question is, what difference does it make? not a single article i read mentioned the fact that twisted has a really awesome streaming API, has great TCP and UDP level support, has support for a ton of other protocols (and writing your own), or is insanely useful for non-web projects. i never read about a single feature tornado had either or why one is worth investing time in than another.

same thing for this "benchmark". i might as well write off varnish, since it serves fewer requests/sec than nginx, right? wrong! it's a different thing all together -- no mention of that anywhere in the article though. the author just says (in not so many words) it's a piece of crap compared to nginx.

<comment><USER4> If you're trying to identify and eliminate bottlenecks, benchmarks like this are tremendously helpful. If the theoretical limit of a component exceeds the practical limit of other resources, I know I can look elsewhere to improve performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Old post, as a side note, i've performed some tests with nginx and his configuration 1-2 weeks ago on linode and the results on the smallest linode were nearly 10-15% less than what the author report in his post (quite good imo).

If someone with a less optimized configuration is wondering what in his test configuration allows him to obtain those results, here is a brief recap:

1- Tests performed with ab with keepalive enabled on both the client and server

2- open_file_cache or similar options: this enable file caching, so basically the server is no more i/o bound

3- Furthermore, enabling tcp nodelay (that disables nagle alg, usefull when we have small tcp responses) and disabling access logging (this depends on how logging is implemented, if non-blocking and on a separate thread (not a worker) disabling it doesn't improve the results) could help a bit.

Being a cpu-bound test, having the client on a separate machine would have likely increased the results but i doubt it would have changed the performance ratio among them, after all in every test we had the same client with the same overhead.

<comment><USER5> I don't know what open_file_cache does specifically, but if you have enough memory to cache the file, then linux would have enough memory to cache it as well? In that case, aren't you really overcoming being IO bound, but rather avoiding the file opening/closing overhead?

<comment><USER3> The open_file_cache_* options in nginx (but other server have similar options) allows to cache in memory the file so the disk is used only when the cached value is no more valid (timed to 30s lifetime on the linked tests). After a quick refresh of how the buffer cache works, i'd say that you are correct and that with the option above the server is also using a simpler data structure to retrieve those cached pages (no blocks list to traverse, no access locks). The difference in performance with and without this option was huge in a quick test, enabling the server caching i saw the number of req/s increase 400%-500%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2629631>

Also, "The client as well as the web server tested are hosted on the same computer", which is pretty poor design, to be honest.

<comment><USER7> _"Doing a correct benchmark is clearly not an easy task. There are many walls (TCP/IP stack, OS settings, the client itself, …) that may corrupt the results, and there is always the risk to compare apples with oranges (e.g. benchmarking the TCP/IP stack instead of the server itself)."_

By hosting the web server and the client on the same computer, he is testing one aspect in isolation of others. This is a good thing, and is generally the way in which scientific tests advance knowledge.

<comment><USER6> Except he isn't just testing one aspect in isolation of others. He's actually introducing an entirely new aspect (the client) which is a substantial load and won't be there in production.

<comment><USER8> the extra load incurred is the same across each test (same client, same args, same tuning) thus the extra load is the same across all tests, so the results are still valid, just not the highest performance possible.

<comment><USER6> Complex systems have complex interactions. You can't just just hand-wave this away by claiming that the interactions will be identical for all cases without actually demonstrating it.

<comment><USER8> Ok, so as the client processes more requests with the server the resource use increases, so in theory the higher the benchmark numbers the faster the server would actually respond without the extra load of the client. So (in theory) the server with the highest performance actually performs better than perceived (assuming that the tester is hitting resource bottlenecks somewhere on his server during the test, which isn't shown).

Luckily this benchmark is incredibly simple. It's not a complex system as the test is using a single set of data with two pieces of software in a single contained environment; the only thing that changes is one piece of software and one configuration: the server. Separate the server/client and your test is still the same, only with extra resources for the server and client to take advantage of (and less network bandwidth and higher latency). Knowing how http clients work, and knowing how http servers work, is it possible that the client or server could be utilizing resources in such a different way after being separated as to skew the results in a significant way?

I don't believe so. Even if you saturated a 1Gbps network link, you will see differences in CPU time between processing of requests and differences in memory use, and unless they are all fast enough to saturate that link you will see some servers process more requests than others. If you want to verify this you can follow the benchmark's set-up and try on two separate machines and let us know if there's a significant difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Look at those memory usage graphs, does this means those servers are leaking memory?

With the notable exception of nginx, of course.

<comment><USER10> He writes:

 _"Regarding the resources used by each server, Nginx is the winner in term of memory usage, as the amount of memory does not increases with the number of concurrent clients."_

So I guess the memory consumption is caused by the number of concurrent clients, and not by a memory leak.

<comment><USER9> You are right. Then it would be interesting to see how much of the memory is freed after all the clients disconnected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think benchmarks like this are very harmful. How many small static files you can serve per second is just one (not very important) criteria when choosing one of these servers.

I think more important criteria are:

1\. Stability. How often are you woken up in the middle of the night because your web server is shitting the bed.

2\. Configuration. Can you configure it to do all the things you will need it to do? Have others who have come before you been happy with it throughout the entire life of their product, or have they outgrown it?

3\. Simplicity. Can you set it up to run efficiently without weeks of study on how this server is properly deployed? Is it easy to mess up the configuration and take your site down when making a change?

4\. Generality. Are you going to need something else to sit in front of your dynamic pages, if you require them? This is also a factor in stability, if you have 2 server solutions, all else being held constant, that is twice as likely to break down or get broken during a configuration change as just one. Actually, it is much more than twice as likely, since you are spreading your competency to learn the ins and outs of 2 pieces of software, so you are less capable on each than you would have been if you just had one server solution to worry about.

So, given all this, my advice to anyone trying to make an initial decision on what webserver to use is: (Apache|nginx) (pick one only) should be your default until you believe you have a compelling _reason_ to use something else. Both are capable of doing more or less everything you need, have lots of extensions, are widely used, and have comprehensible configuration. Once you have mastered whatever one you use, you will be able to tune it, debug performance problems, and spend the minimum possible amount of time doing server configuration and testing, and maximum time implementing features and supporting customers.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've tested and admired the performance of G-WAN, but the closed-source nature of the project may be a bit of a showstopper for some. Development appears to be narrowed to Debian derivatives, making successful installation of the binary on other Linux/UNIX platforms challenging. It would be nice to be able to inspect and modify the source in order to optimize and compile it for the desired platform.

</comment><comment><USER11> These results are valid if your static content all fit in memory. I would expect interesting diversions in performance if a certain proportion of requests would have to hit the file system.

Also an interesting piece of noise missing is slow clients holding on to the connection. If you're serving up multi-megabyte files, I would guess this could become a major factor.

<comment><USER8> part of why you use caching servers or proxies is to avoid hitting the filesystem, since it's very costly compared to memory (or even network to an extent). the ramdisk in this case is performing the function of the caching server but at much increased speed and much reduced overhead.

afaik the only way you could get over a couple thousand RPS while reading from the filesystem is due to inherent caching of the VFS and disk buffers by the operating system.

and in an asynchronous web server, connections should not be held up by slow clients. if they use a model where one thread or process handles each client connection you could definitely get starvation of resources or connections, but asynchronous models should just process stuff as it comes in and not "wait" on a slow client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Off topic, but WordPress has made blogs unreadable for iPad users. I can't even scroll through this article without the screen jumping erratically past many pages of content.</comment>


Google Kubernetes vs. Circuit? - <AUTHOR>

In this Google I/O talk:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsk0pWf4ipw#t=190
 Take a look at Google's @cmcluck describing Google's next generation DEVOPS infrastructure:
"[Kubernetes and Docker] radically change the game" by bringing "resource isolation".
The Circuit, http://gocircuit.org, on the other hand, additionally brings "human resource isolation" and eventually removes the need for OPS engineers.
Which is easier? Which is more understandable? Which is more flexible? <comment><USER2> Both are heavily in flux, but google has more experience running containers at scale than anyone. The underlying features in the Linux kernel, cgroups, that containers use, were written almost entirely by google.

Give it 6-12 months and look at both would be my suggestion. That being said, I'd bet on the google stuff as they understand this problem better than anyone.</comment>


Show HN: Vanity URLs for G+ - <AUTHOR>

In case you wanted a vanity URL for google plus and it was taken on another site feel free: http://googplus.me/ <comment><AUTHOR> <http://googplus.me/> <\---- clickable</comment>


Nook outnumbers Kindle in March, says Digitimes Research - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100426VL204.html

<comment><USER2> "the nook accounted for 53% of e-book readers shipped to US vendors"

I suppose Amazon's primary business is not shipping e-book readers to vendors. Without more information (% of kindles shipped to vendors as opposed to direct sales), the numbers are pretty useless.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting info. When I have talked to authors to bring their work to Fifobooks, many were not even aware of the nook.

<comment><USER4> This ? _FiFoBooks.com, a marketplace of DRM-free ebooks,_ <http://fifobooks.com/>

The DRM-free part is interesting, the iTunes-style Mac/PC app apparently needed to buy, or even see prices ... not so much.

But news of how it's coming along, if there's some you can publish, would be interesting.

<comment><USER3> We have now updated fifobooks - the entire catalog is browsable on the web, and you can buy and download books (epub, mobi, or mobi dx). Because you download the ebook file, you can put it on any ebook device imaginable, including mobile phones such as Blackberry and iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These are interesting numbers. This posted teaser says:

 _Worldwide shipments for 2010 will reach 11.40 million units, up from 3.82 million in 2009_

If you click through the ad for the paid report (goes here: [http://www.digitimes.com/Reports/Report.asp?datepublish=2010...](http://www.digitimes.com/Reports/Report.asp?datepublish=2010/3/19&pages=RS&seq=400) ), it has a neat index, prefaced by:

 _Digitimes Research estimates that in 2008 worldwide e-book reader shipments were only 700,000 units, with Amazon and Sony being the major vendors._

(so, Y/Y 2009 = 5.4, 2010 = 3)</comment>


Best free resources for learning Node.js - <AUTHOR> Let's see em! <comment><USER2> These are some excellent resources for you to get started with node and free too.

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

[http://nodejs.org/documentation/tutorials](http://nodejs.org/documentation/tutorials)

[http://nodetuts.com/](http://nodetuts.com/) (video tutorials)

[http://blog.modulus.io/absolute-beginners-guide-to- nodejs](http://blog.modulus.io/absolute-beginners-guide-to-nodejs)

When you are done, look at this list of extensive node at Stackoverflow:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353818/how-do-i-get- star...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353818/how-do-i-get-started-with- node-js)

<comment><USER3> > [http://howtonode.org](http://howtonode.org)

Very infrequent updates. I was told that it shouldn't matter, but ran into several problems immediately when I tried some of their tuts.

> > [http://nodejs.org/documentation/tutorials](http://nodejs.org/documentation/tutorials)

Only lists NodeSchool. Why not just list NodeSchool?

> [http://nodetuts.com/](http://nodetuts.com/) (video tutorials)

Last updated a year and a half ago.

[http://blog.modulus.io/absolute-beginners-guide-to- nodejs](http://blog.modulus.io/absolute-beginners-guide-to-nodejs)

So basic it's almost useless. It introduces you to including modules, package.json, and callbacks, but if you want to actually go further, there's not much help.

>When you are done, look at this list of extensive node at Stackoverflow:

>[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353818/how-do-i-get- star...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353818/how-do-i-get-started-with- node-js)

Pretty out of date as well.

OP: There's not a ton of resources for jumping into Node easily. The majority of the ones I've found haven't worked for me--however, that could just be me, not being an experienced programmer. I just took the Real Time Web with Node.js course at CodeSchool, and it was pretty good. I learned a lot, familiarized myself with certain modules and functions, and was able to come out of it feeling positive about the experience. Highly suggested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I likes lessons on CodeSchool. [https://www.codeschool.com/courses/real-time- web-with-node-j...](https://www.codeschool.com/courses/real-time-web-with- node-js)

</comment><comment><USER5> Quick overview of the way Node works: [http://www.nodebeginner.org](http://www.nodebeginner.org)

Great tutorial to get up and running with a web framework (Express), database (MongoDB), and simple, functional app: [http://cwbuecheler.com/web/tutorials/2013/node-express- mongo...](http://cwbuecheler.com/web/tutorials/2013/node-express-mongo/)

I realize the title suggests free resources, but I've also found the $9.99 book Hands on Node.js to be very helpful.

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe a bit out of topic but take a look at this [https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome- nodejs](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome-nodejs) and this [http://nodeschool.io/](http://nodeschool.io/)

</comment><comment><USER7> If you're looking to use Node specifically for web development, I've found [http://scotch.io](http://scotch.io) to be quite useful.

</comment><comment><USER8> The first thing to understand: Node.js is not a programming language. It is a JavaScript platform.</comment>


Ask HN: Why IMDb sucks? - <AUTHOR>

IMDb really sucks in loading movies/shows trailers. Loading 1.5 minute trailer almost takes more than 10 minutes and this is huge. On the other hand YouTube is very good. Can't they optimize it at the level of what YouTube is offering? <comment><USER3> Youtube is more distributed, has more hardware, more available bandwidth and can be served from closer to you. So probably they can't change that quickly. But the whole experience is probably related to your location. It's not the fastest service around, but for me trailers stream faster than the playback speed. (I'm guesstimating the size of their network since the was the only thing they did as youtube itself, then google could only add to that - <USER2> amazon has enough spare capacitly to top that? I don't know, but wouldn't expect it - not as distributed as google at least)

Maybe you're just too far from them (from the network topology point of view).

<comment><USER4> I experience the same slowness on IMDb as well, and I have 50Mbps internet in Los Angeles, CA. Surely IMDb would make sure they serve up fast video in the entertainment capital of the world?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Loading happens instantly for me regardless of stream quality (just tried watching the Django Unchained trailer). I would imagine IMDB is serving their assets with EC2 since they're owned by Amazon these days.

<comment><AUTHOR> What did you spy on me? :) I watched the same trailer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Streaming video is YouTube's core competency, so I would expect them to do it better. That said, IMDb is an Amazon company, and Amazon offers streaming video, so I expect better.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know IMDb is owned by Amazon.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: CSS for developers - <AUTHOR> Hello, I am an experienced (full stack) developer however I always struggle when it comes to playing with CSS. When there's a CSS guy (designer) available everything is smooth, however if I need to do even simple things with CSS I struggle for much time and resort to trial and error and probably hacky solutions.
Most of my projects just use the stock Bootstrap without any changes; if something (even something small) needs to change then my nightmare begins :( Also, in various projects I need to work with non-CSS designers (i.e people that create the site in photoshop or something similar) and then I need to replicate that design (from a bunch of images) to CSS; this is a huge PITA for me and usually I just avoid such projects.
Now, I believe I am familiar with the basics of CSS (selectors, box model, display, positioning, floats, responsive etc) however I can't undestand the whole picture.
What I would like to be able to do is replicate as faithfully as possible (I mean replicate with CSS) an existing site starting from scratch, i.e just with an empty index.html and my own css (let's forget bootstrap for now) plus maybe a basic reset-stylesheet. Is there a book I should read for learning this? Is there some on-line course/tutorial? Something else that you recommend? Maybe a framework? This mainly has to do with laying out things, having proper classes to reuse styles and being responsive, I don't care that much about colors, shadows, borders, fonts, etc since they can easily be copied over.
Thanks ! <comment><USER2> Quick question: Have you tried to formally learn CSS?

I think you can get by with layouts on 80% knowledge from just tweaking things but to really be able to go start to finish on a frontend layout, I would suggest investing the hours to know things like what the difference is between a fixed, absolute and relative positioned element or the difference between padding and margin.

There are plenty of youtube series and the like, they just require the investment of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of these things (absolute, fixed, relative and static layouts or padding/margin/border and the boxing model) I know. The problem (I think) is that I can't get the full picture.

As you say, I want to avoid tweaking things and using trial and error to fix things :/

Formally learning CSS as you propose is a path that is time-consuming but with high success probability so I may try it. Could you recommend me anything for that path? I'd really prefer reading instead of watching videos.

<comment><USER2> Would recommend going through Shay Howe's course. He covers the subtleties well.

[https://learn.shayhowe.com/](https://learn.shayhowe.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

<comment> shay-howe Let me know if you have any questions too, I'm always happy to help!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello Shay, thank you very much! The content on your site is excellent; I have read the Course 101 and already feel much more confident on my CSS skills (and especially the really confusing things like floats and positioning).

Really great work!

<comment> shay-howe Thanks, I really appreciate it and that's great to hear!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Slack Machine – A sexy, simple, yet powerful and extendable Slack bot - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/DandyDev/slack-machine <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone!

This has been my main side-project for the last couple of weeks. I wanted to build a better Slack bot framework in Python. I hope you like it!

If you have any questions, suggestions, ideas, etc., feel free to ask!</comment>


Open Letter to Facebook Employees - <AUTHOR> Dear Facebook employees,
I am writing not in my capacity as a shareholder, but as a concerned citizen.
You have worked tirelessly to build a world-changing platform that enables almost 1.8 billion people to connect and share what matters to them.  What you have accomplished is unprecedented in the history of the world.
The thing is, communications technologies don't just passively reflect what already exists in society.  They shape society.  From the printing press to the earliest peer-reviewed scientific journals of the Royal Society, from the wireless to radio to television, each new communications technology has evolved with it social institutions that govern how people communicate on that platform.  This is not about politics -- Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative.  It is about the rules of debate, whether a communications technology facilitates or destroys a culture where argument is grounded in evidence, reason, and respect.
You are not just building a communications platform.  You are building the future.
And right now, the future you are building has a lot of swastikas in it.  It's a future where bald-faced lies get more shares than evidence-based argument.  It's a future where propaganda trumps reason.
Is that the future you want for your children?
The choice is really yours.  No one can stop you from building a communications platform that foregrounds civility, rational evidence-based argument, and tolerance.  If you build it, that platform will support a society where the best ideas from the right and from the left, from all races and from all creeds, are shared and discussed and respectfully debated.  A society where the best ideas are successful, not the best propaganda.  It's up to you.
Move fast.  Break things.  Before it is too late. <comment><USER2> "Is that the future you want for your children?

I would like a future that protects everyone's speech, not just a specific political group. I want my children to be able to express their opinions, without the fear of physical attacks.

Many conservative bloggers have been banned from Facebook, not for harassment or hate speech, but for merely stating an opinion that does not agree with the current narrative.

I've seen some of the most abusive and vile comments after the election not about minorities, but about Trump supporters. When will Facebook start banning these people for hate speech? Will it ever happen?

I thought after the election that we really could start fixing our divided nation, but the truth is now here: nobody really wants to fix the divide, they want the other side buried and silenced.

"It's a future where bald-faced lies get more shares than evidence-based argument. It's a future where propaganda trumps reason."

This has been happening since Twitter started. I stopped looking at all social media because of this.

Wikileaks and the hacked DNC emails showed us that the mainstream media regularly used its power to spread anti-trump propaganda and nearly destroyed him like they did Bernie Sanders.

<comment><USER3> What you see is what your friends show you. Facebook is an echo chamber in an increasingly polarized society.

From what I can tell, facebook is occasionally awful to everyone, about equally. It takes down posts it shouldn't, because it's not trained ethics experts deciding, it's low paid contractors/workers trying to follow guidelines for removing content and banning people in an messy world.

It's just that people only hear about their friends issues with the site, because their friends are like them in outlook, and because the algorithms behind facebook that surface posts tend to prefer posts that are like other posts you clicked on.

Now, it's my understanding that a fair bit of fake news was created by people looking for ad word revenue on both sides. I think FB deserves critique for allowing false news stories to spread, and it should be non partisan, because regardless of who won the election, we can all agree that false stories about the candidates didn't benefit anyone except the people getting that ad revenue, and certainly not the voting public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Completely agree. Not sure why you're anon.</comment>