How an Illinois rest stop inspired a web page - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2799-how-an-illinois-rest-stop-inspired-a-web-page

<comment><USER2> Great idea but 37signals' list is too long. It discourages you from actually reading the whole list.

<comment><USER3> Fair point. I could have gotten carried away with it. The idea is more conceptual than finding that specific answer to your specific question, but it could probably work just as well as a shorter list.

<comment><USER4> On the positive side, adding a yes to the bottom of the list as well as the top was a key refinement. I felt that was missing when I viewed the photo of the original and was pleasantly surprised when I scrolled down to see it added in your version.

<comment><USER5> Exactly! I rushed to the bottom of the page to see if the Yes was there or not? Since after 10-11 items this becomes a game and the next instinct is to start from bottom. Also if someone actually read from the top all the way to the bottom, then the second YES is the gratification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can I add that this copywriting strategy is also _extremely_ SEOactive? If you want to write a page like that, link each scenario to a short landing page.

<comment><USER7> Can you clarify? Do you mean Fried's page as-is is already 'SEOactive' meaning good? Or that every bullet needs links to another page (which would seem to derail the original effect)?

<comment><USER8> I think the original poster is referring to the fact that people may search for those questions, possibly (or questions that relate).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Talking about rest stops and the web.

<http://arch.ksys.ru/tualet.html> \-- _An Unofficial Website of Paid Public Washroom at Grabin Street of Korolev city, Greater Moscow Area_

Sections are _Welcome_ , _Services and Prices_ , _Infrastructure_ , _How to Find Us_ , _About Us_ and _Testimonials_.

</comment><comment><USER10> A really long list of features that a 37signals app _does_ have. Didn't see that coming.

<comment><USER3> Not "features" - scenarios.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Still, sometime even if it's an obvious question, it's a good way to start a conversation. I.e. Can I have some X? -> Of course, the answer is Yes, but still, it's a polite way.. way better than "Give me X".

</comment><comment><USER12> Argh! Top-posting!

<comment><USER13> I am ashamed to say that I didn't notice this. My god, what have I become.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Don't know how I feel about this. It's definitely attention grabbing, but then again I didn't extract any real information from this page. It's simply too long, and who likes reading a bunch of questions?

</comment><comment><USER15> Conveys a lot of information, but all the question marks stress me. My blood pressure rose and I nearly had a heart attack by the end of the page.</comment>


Why are we getting smarter? Further reading on the "Flynn effect" - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ted.com/further-reading-on-the-flynn-effect/ <comment><USER2> Because we set our own definition of "smart"</comment>


Thoughts on default apps on iOS - thomas-st http://thomasst.ch/defaultapps/

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good point. I think Apple will eventually allow changing default apps, but I doubt they will ever be forced to do so. The iPhone is miles away from a monopoly, and getting even further each day.</comment>


Gamma Wave Brain Zaps Induce Lucid Dreaming - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/gamma-wave-zaps-to-the-brain-induce-lucid-dreaming/ <comment><USER2> Lucid dreaming is one of the coolest things we can do. People think that dreams aren't real, but that's far from the truth. They aren't real in the sense that if I find a COOL WATCH or I win $2000 in a dream I can't take it with me to "real life," but when you think about what our life really is, it's a collection of experiences...not accumulation of physical objects.

In dreams you can have the same _experiences_ you have in waking life but even more so. You can take these experiences with you when you are done dreaming. Lucid dreaming takes this even further. You can imagine a problem you have is a tangible object (a bug or something) in your dream and squish it. Although this seems purely symbolic, you can take the feeling of having _dealt with a problem_ into waking life, which will give you more energy to do the same in your interactions with waking life.

Not to mention in lucid dreams you can fly everywhere you want to go, you can have sex with whoever you want however you want, you can be a bear or a toad or a tree, you can be three of yourself at the same time, you can slow down time, you can travel to the bottom of the ocean and you can see distant planets or the inside of a star. Is it real? Yes, because you are actually having these experiences, even if you are the only one having them.

<comment><USER3> This was very nice to see written down. Thank you for that. No doubt as LD becomes more and more popular we're going to see a lot of questionable info on the subject.

Some people are terrified of these experiences, perhaps with their own 'demons' to deal with. Others, many others, consider it one of the grooviest gifts imaginable :)

It's a unique thing, individual, but as it gets more known - we're going to see people trying to fit it into a simple box (as we always do) - and nothing useful will come of that.

Re: Gamma waves, hmm - yeah, isn't that like reading a frequency coming off a CRT and then trying to retransmit that frequency back to derive the original image? You need a serious understanding of the device to be able to do that. Perhaps it _might_ be able to help 'induce' the state with the individual's help - _maybe_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I first read about lucid dreaming 20 years ago when I was twelve. It was treated more as a new age fringe thing back then, but I had a blast experimenting with it. My favorite dreamscape involved a purely abstract state of mind where I could symbolically visualize components of algorithms -- nearly all of my work writing motion detection algorithms that worked in complex outdoor scenarios was refined in my sleep.

That being said, I eventually "gave up" lucid dreaming after 10 years or so. At a gut level it felt like sleep and dreams are best left to the subconscious -- a neural defrag, if you will. Personally I feel much more rested now that I make no effort to remember, much less control, my dreams.

<comment><USER3> I also practice LD (started at age 10-ish, now 38) but can't agree with your 'gut level' feeling. I feel it's what we are meant to be doing, rather than regular dreaming.

I am more rested, and more awake the next day. It continues to enrich my life in many ways. But yes, it's just another arbitrary choice, we're both going by 'gut' instinct.

 _in my first LD at 10, i built a go-kart from tools I created on the wall (where the school black-board was), and then flew out of the window on it_ \- Pretty much a win for a 10 yr old.

<comment><USER5> Is there something specific you do to help you LD? Can you share more about your experience?

 _I also practice LD_

This comment struck me as odd, since I thought LD wasn't something you can induce on your own, but when I Googled how to lucid dream I came across instructions for how to lucid dream: [http://www.wikihow.com/Lucid- Dream](http://www.wikihow.com/Lucid-Dream)

Another question: has anyone had the feeling when they are in a dream that they can't move? I want to force myself to roll over to the other side and something invisible holds me there. I noticed this happens mostly when it's cold.

<comment><USER3> Hey, I posted this elsewhere [http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/52-ways- to-have-lucid...](http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/52-ways-to-have- lucid-dreams.html)

Also: [http://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming](http://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming) (cant believe i'm linking reddit)

I started when I was young, somebody told me it was possible so the following night I tried it - and it worked. Such is the wonder of youth :)

It comes and goes, so it does require continual 'retraining' \- basically find a technique that works for you and give it your best effort. At the end of the day I suspect these 'techniques' are merely 'permission slips' allowing our brain to accept that it's possible. Either way, they can work.

The thing you have described is 'sleep paralysis' when in waking life (at least in the LD circles) - it's a very good sign, apparently you're meant to chill and just let it be. If you really needed to move (emergency), your brain would override the 'state' and allow you to (that has happened to people, the body 'unlocks' immediately).

I don't know what it means in dream life, other than it would be a good cue to remember that you have FULL control in your dream. When it happens next, remember this chat, and make yourself superman.. use your superhuman powers to break free :D Whatevvvver you like, just know that you can actually do that, because many of us do every night.

I'm no expert, since I didn't need to go through any hardships to achieve it. So perhaps there are better people for more 'concrete' advice. Good luck, it's lots of fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note: gamma wave, not gamma particles. Gamma wave refers to an aspect of brain activity. Maybe I'm the only one who was confused by the title but I feel better knowing people aren't being irradiated for the experiment.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, that threw me off as well. For anyone interested in actual brain lasers:

[http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnsys.2014.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnsys.2014.00036/full)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >> If I understand correctly, the participants rated their experience of these three factors on a scale of 0 (strongly disagree that I had such an experience) to 5 (strongly agree). Now if we look to see the scores they gave for how much dream insight, dissociation and control they had, we find that the averages for the gamma stimulation condition are around 0.6, 1.3, and 0.5 respectively. > > That's a pretty low score, even if it's higher than it would've been without the brain stimulation.

Maybe, maybe not. Averages work for some things, not so much for others. Suppose 4-5 are no-fooling-definitely-lucid dreams, and 1-3 are questionable. If the average is being driven by a few dreams falling into '5' and otherwise scores are unchanged, you'd get a worthwhile effect but only a small shift in average on your 1-5 scale. I'd want to read [http://www.blogs.uni- mainz.de/fb05philosophie/files/2013/04/...](http://www.blogs.uni- mainz.de/fb05philosophie/files/2013/04/Voss-et-al-2013_Measuring- Consciousness-in-Dreams.pdf) more carefully looking at how the overall rating distribution looks split by condition and whether the rating scale is masking a binary effect.

<comment><USER9> Yes yes, you are definitely onto something here.

Awfully, the standard deviations of almost every item in their validation study [1, Table 1] is _greater_ than the means --in some cases even twice as big--, which themselves are very low (the majority are below 2, and several are below 1). This is, at a minimum, strongly indicative of bimodality --which would make sense since, among other things, participants were drawn mostly from Bonn University's lucid dreaming student club [p.11]. As a matter of fact, they report they _threw away_ two data sets (!) precisely because of "extreme answering style (all items were scored as 0 or 5)" [ _ibid_ ].

Why they didn't heed these warning signs (and at the very least use medians instead of means from then on) is beyond me.

[1] [http://www.blogs.uni- mainz.de/fb05philosophie/files/2013/04/...](http://www.blogs.uni- mainz.de/fb05philosophie/files/2013/04/Voss-et-al-2013_Measuring- Consciousness-in-Dreams.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Since I was 10 I do lucid dreams. There are days that I struggle half a day to be 100% sure I'm awake and the other half to assimilate it.

For me this is really exhausting for three reasons:

1\. the brain needs to properly sleep 2\. they are so rich of details 3\. they condense in 7/8 hours maybe 5/10 years of life

Basically they are what I think is a kind of parallel universe. I'm used to tell the entire "dream" to my GF. She always been astonished by them. They seems absolutely unrelated to anything I saw hear etc... during the day, they are in some case "boring" in the sense that I'm dreaming me in a totally different life, job etc... nothing "exciting" or "strange".

<comment><USER11> Your brain can only generate so much pseudorandom visual imagery per second; an effect that you can exploit to control how much and whether you're lucid dreaming. For example, if you fly up while looking down eventually you'll overwhelm your ability to generate a detailed geography and wake up. Or at least, that's how I manipulate my LD state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Up till my early 20s, I used to lucid dream so much, I thought it was the normal state of dreaming (for everyone). Over the last few years the frequency has declined to maybe a couple times a month.

Of course, you never know how much you'd miss a thing until its gone. In this case, I didn't even know _it was a thing_ before it started fading away.

I'd certainly let my brain be zapped to get this _superpower_ back.

<comment><USER13> What's your sleep cycle like? Do you tend to fall asleep out of utter exhaustion, or do you tend to give yourself a reasonable bedtime and wind down period. I've found that I dream lucidly a lot less when I've let my sleep hygene go to crap.

As an aside, because of being a naturally lucid dreamer, nightmares confuse me and on the rare event I have them -- once or twice a decade -- they freak me out a lot more. That absolute loss of control of one's subconscious mind is near unfathomable to me. I can remember being six or seven and my sister telling me about a nightmare she had and me being absolutely confused about them; the thoughts of being injured in a dream was just something that happened in movies.

<comment><USER12> Interesting .. I tend to "become" lucid in the middle of a non-lucid dream (nightmare or otherwise). Rarely will I be lucid from the get go.

So when I gain "control", the initial scenario is set. Sometimes, it's quite a fascinating "twist" on recent real-life events. Other times it's Alice and the Wonderland style craziness.

Often I think I'm in a partially Lucid dream. I _know_ I'm dreaming, I can mostly do what I want (including completely changing the scenario) but I am also not in control of everything that happens, particularly what characters appear or what they say/do in response to me. It's a bit like living in an alternative universe.

The strangest aspect is how realistic the characters are, particularly the real-life people. I'll be talking to a friend, and get a conversation that is so like that person that I'll often forget that it was said in a dream. This has led to some strange real-life conversations, lol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I recently had a lucid dream for the first time. Really interesting experience. It was triggered by the fact that I plunged to a city at the bottom of the ocean and could still breath. I realized this was impossible and became lucid. I decided to try and have some fun with it so I 'willed' myself to have a gun. It worked, kind of. I had something in my hand that i could shoot with but it was sort of undefined. Kind of like if you are playing a 3d fps and the texture for your gun doesn't load properly. It was kind of amorphous and brown and glitchy. I suspect because I don't know a ton about guns and i didn't really specify what kind of gun or anything. Perhaps next time ill imagine an ak47 and see if I get more definition.

I played around shooting things for awhile but it was draining to keep control so I gave up and became batman, was knocked off a bridge, and broke my back on a cement pillar. I woke up screaming "You just killed Batman!".

</comment><comment><USER15> As a graphics nerd, the handful of times I've had genuine lucid dreaming (when experimenting with it in college) was incredible. In the dream I would would focus on taking in the behavior of light and texture on surfaces and trying to gauge its quality from a computer graphics perspective, and always found the 'simulation' absolutely stunning. I remember encountering a large rabbit once and ran my fingers through it's fur and it felt and looked real. It's mindboggling how well the brain can simulate a fake environment when you go lucid, it's really beyond comprehension to me how it's able to do so. The brain can basically simulate the rendering equation in real time (or trick yourself into thinking it is, which is the same thing really.)

<comment><USER16> > The brain can basically simulate the rendering equation in real time (or > trick yourself into thinking it is, which is the same thing really.)

I believe that your brain is rendering the reality for your consciousness even when you are awake. There is a lot of filtering and processing between your senses and your consciousness. For instance, your eyes produces a lot of noise which is filtered away. They have a blind spot [1], but your consciousness is not even aware of it! So, what you see when you are awake is not really the noisy distorted vision that your eyes have.

In addition to that low level smoothing and filtering, your subconscious has reconstructed completely the reality for your conscious mind: "This is because our brains consist of two relatively distinct regions. One, the cognitive unconscious, makes informed guesses and delivers them to the second, conscious part, which supports our awareness of what we are seeing while knowing little or nothing of how what we see has been constructed." [2]

"All we're actually doing is seeing an internal model of the world; we're not seeing what's out there, we're seeing just our internal model of it. And that's why, when you move your eyes around, all you're doing is updating that model." [3]

So, when your are dreaming, the subconscious mind is just "rendering" something else than reality for your conscious mind.

[1] [http://io9.com/5804116/why-every-human-has-a-blind-spot--- an...](http://io9.com/5804116/why-every-human-has-a-blind-spot---and-how-to- find-yours)

[2] [http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/2604](http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/2604)

[3] [http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/7722763662/david-eagleman- on...](http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/7722763662/david-eagleman-on-how-we- constructs-reality-time)

<comment><USER15> I'm being specific, I'm not talking about "rendering", I'm talking about the rendering equation, which is the mathematical formulation of light transport. I agree it's amazing the brain is able to interpret the light coming into my eyes into a perception of reality, but the startling thing about lucid dreams is that it is also apparently able to very convincingly simulate the external behavior of _light itself_ properly as well, without external stimuli. (Which is currently an intractable problem computationally FYI.) For example, when I turn my head in a lucid dream under conscious control, reflections, texture, etc, behave what appear to be normal, in real time. This blows my mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you want lucid dreaming without having to wait for a Gamma Wave Zapper, there is one alternative. Sertraline (Zoloft). I've been on and off of it a few times in the past 10 years for anxiety. After a few weeks of being on it, the lucid dreaming kicks in. Sometimes I wish I could record these dreams and make them into movies. It's quite the experience.

<comment><USER3> Or you could practice any one of the many natural techniques which many of us use daily. The drugs and gamma waves are unnecessary.

[http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/52-ways-to-have- lucid...](http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/52-ways-to-have-lucid- dreams.html)

I know it's not a 'quick fix' \- but (no offence intended, just IMHO) it feels rather disrespectful to randomly flood the brain with chemicals to make it 'perform.' The chemistry in there is extremely complex, I am terrified to mess around with it.

Much the same way I wouldn't dive into a complex dev project randomly changing methods, unless I knew the larger scope.

<comment><USER18> I wouldn't scorn such "shortcuts." It's difficult for people to put sustained effort into something without having some sense of what the payoff will be like. "Cheating" once or twice can provide sufficient motivation for developing the skill permanently. Psychedelic drugs, for example, can provide a flash of mystical enlightenment that motivates people to begin meditating.

<comment><USER3> At no point did I scorn such "shortcuts" \- read what I wrote without the assumption that I'm anti-drugs. I wanted to point out that you're playing with complex chemistry, and something as strong as sertraline chloride is a serious choice.

Also sertraline chloride vs something like (as an example) DMT - are very much not the same thing. DMT being a natural, powerful psychedelic used for many years in many forms by many cultures.

I wouldn't compare mushrooms to Zolpidem either, though the effects are similar. One is not like the other. Zolpidem _(branded as stilnox at the time)_ gave me very similar effects, I basically had a ??real-life lucid dream?? within 20 mins of taking it. I stopped immediately.

Either way, to each his/her own - I merely wanted to offer a different perspective. If it works for you, go for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >The sweet spot was 40 Hertz. Zapping sleeping volunteers at this frequency, part of the so-called gamma wave band, led their brains to produce brain waves of the same frequency, the researchers found, which triggered lucidity 77 percent of the time, as determined by self-reports from the dreamers after they were awoken.

>Now if we look to see the scores they gave for how much dream insight, dissociation and control they had, we find that the averages for the gamma stimulation condition are around 0.6, 1.3, and 0.5 respectively.

I don't understand. A score of 0.6 for insight means, at best, 40% strongly disagreed that they knew they were dreaming and 60% perhaps _moderately disagreed_ (score=1). Some higher scores for the successes would result in even more than 40% _strongly disagreeing_ that they knew they were awake. I could see it having an effect for a small number of people, but how does that translate into "triggered lucidity 77 percent of the time."

</comment><comment><USER20> Highly interesting effect, but note that the extent of lucid dreaming here is (self-) reported to be rather low:

" _Despite the robust methodology, I think these headlines are getting carried away. Here's why. Lucid dreaming was defined by higher scores in participants' feelings of insight (knowing that they were dreaming); dissociation (taking a third person perspective); and control (being able to shape events). I looked up the paper where the researchers first described their scale for measuring these factors. If I understand correctly, the participants rated their experience of these three factors on a scale of 0 (strongly disagree that I had such an experience) to 5 (strongly agree). Now if we look to see the scores they gave for how much dream insight, dissociation and control they had, we find that the averages for the gamma stimulation condition are around 0.6, 1.3, and 0.5 respectively._ "

</comment><comment><USER21> I had my first lucid dream when I was 16 years old. About 10 years ago I had a dream that I can only express as a self induced DMT experience. It happened during a time where I was in an extreme amount of "outside of myself" anxiety. I didn't know what DMT was at the time and only drew parallels after the fact from listening to interviews and reading a book on the subject. Since then I've had a few lucid dreams where I'm right on the verge of 'ripping open the universe' in DMT-speak. Anyway, it was life changing to say the least so I enjoy articles like these.

</comment><comment><USER22> People are already making DIY transcranial direct current stimulation gadgets for themselves. The setup apparently isn't much more complicated than a regular battery and two electrodes taped to your scalp. Someone at Reddit also seems to be working on making a consumer device for the lucid dreaming thing: [http://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming/comments/25aos9/publis...](http://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming/comments/25aos9/published_in_nature_neuroscience_today_lucid/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if staring at 40Hz refresh rate screens could produce a similar effect? I have a screen with a flickering backlight at a frequency just outside perception. If I use it for prolonged periods before bed, I can perceive a 'flickering afterglow' for minutes while trying to sleep.

<comment><USER24> I think that's like playing tetris or 2048 for too long.

(Depending on how long one played, there are overlays of the game in normal vision for quite a while. Or your brain is trying to do the pattern matching of the game to normal objects. (I've seen reports that people's brains were trying to combine cars of the same colour for example.))

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The half a dozen or so times I can remember lucid dreaming I always try to fly. The only problem is that I start floating and can't control it and I start tumbling--it feels exactly like the point when you're tipping back in your chair and you realize you're going to fall.

</comment><comment><USER26> I find normal dreaming much more fun. It's like playing Stanley Parable for the first time, instead of of opening Garry's Mod...alone.

I'll pick a Stanley Parable any day over Garry's Mod.

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the Tip on Stanley's Parable, never heard of it. Sounds very interesting, will try the demo now. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> sign me up!

</comment><comment><USER29> Can I give. Money. To have that?

-The internet.</comment>


Playselfie - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.playselfie.android

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Guys..just created a simple & sleek app to have fun with pictures and Selfies on Android. Do give your feedback.</comment>


Yale psychologists have built a mathematical model for selfishness - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/601634/yale-psychologists-have-built-a-mathematical-model-for-selfishness/ <comment><USER2> I wonder how this stands up against E. O. Wilson's work on sociobiology.</comment>


Fortune's Child - <AUTHOR> http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-in-time/fortunes-child.php?page=all

<comment><USER3> I loved this. The refusal of people in the tech world to engage the world politically (beyond ill conceived political fantasies described to friends in restaurants or strangers in internet forums) really bothers me. I had never thought about it as a prolonged adolescence, but that's pretty apt.

<comment><USER4> And indeed, what political engagement we _do_ see is of the adolescent variety: 'you can't tell me what to do!' rather 'what _ought_ I do?'; 'you should give me X, Y and Z' rather than 'I should give A, B ad C.'

For a generation so deeply self-interested, we don't do a lot of self- examination.

Growing up has always been difficult; our culture, our politics, our technology and our way of life make it avoidable. The result is unsurprising.

Says a grown man sitting alone in his boxers on a computer from a hotel room on a Sunday morning rather than surrounded by the family he never fathered, in the suit he doesn't own, at the church he doesn't attend.

<comment><USER5> Things can change fast. My husband was alone until he met me at 35. 11 years later he had found the family of four small children, the suit, and the church (at least on Christmas and Easter).

If you want a different life you can find it change pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an expectant father of my firstborn, I still feel like I have a connection to what it was like to be a boy and I wonder how true this quote is: "Boyhood is a most complex and incomprehensible thing…A man can never understand a boy, even when he has been the boy."

</comment><comment><USER7> A bunch of assertions without the slights proof, dressed up in excessive verbiage and florally sourced platitudes with the occasional quote by person or person long departed from this world and therefore permanently unavailable for consultation.

Can't we do better? I mean I liked being called an elf wizard but this is exactly the kind of writing that we don't need on Hacker News - <USER2> but with very little substance.

<comment><USER8> Essays don't have to prove things. If they did, they wouldn't be called essays.

There is more than one kind of intellectual substance. Lapham and Lapham's are easily good enough to be here.</comment></comment>


You have to be careful what file extension you would choose on Windows - <AUTHOR> http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-SG/windowsgeneraldevelopmentissues/thread/cf198b8b-a3d4-4107-854c-35634e006a66 It looks like the System Restore would trigger backup of files with certain extensions (574 in count on Vista) every 24 hours.
The full list of extensions is here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa378870.aspx
To me this looks like problem solved completely backwards! Probably when comes to the Windows OS files it makes sense, but not when comes to non-Microsoft Application files. <comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify: It looks like Windows monitors files with specific extensions (from the article above) the full list consist of 574 extensions on Vista:

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa378870.aspx>

If you have a file with such extension, Windows might do some unexpected I/O (backup) once in 24 hours.

The article points to what the people have found out when they've put .RDB as file extension, which gets monitor, rather than say .DB which is not.

The same story from the SQLite author - [http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=PerformanceTuningWindow...](http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=PerformanceTuningWindows)

"Be VERY, VERY careful what you name your database, especially the extension. For example, if you give all your databases the extension .sdb (SQLite Database, nice name hey? I thought so when I choose it anyway...) you discover that the SDB extension is already associated with APPFIX PACKAGES. Now, here is the cute part, APPFIX is an executable/package that Windows XP recognizes, and it will, (emphasis mine) ADD THE DATABASE TO THE SYSTEM RESTORE FUNCTIONALITY This means, stay with me here, every time you write ANYTHING to the database, the Windows XP system thinks a bloody executable has changed and copies your ENTIRE 800 meg database to the system restore directory.... I recommend something like DB or DAT."

<comment><USER2> This seems to me to be a rather daft policy for determining which files are sensitive and which aren't. To be sure, I don't know what the right way would be-- I'm guessing something based on paths would work a lot better-- but this solution clearly has serious problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe they could've checked only for files coming out of C:\Windows, and some from the "Common Files" of "Program Files" or "Program files (x86)"

I came to appreciate Linux/Mac OSX/FreeBSD style of putting everything in place - /bin/ /usr/sbin/, etc.

With Windows it's just folders everywhere :)

For example the German version of Windows might have C:\Program Files named differently

<comment><USER2> There is a notion of special directories under Windows, so you can request the Program Files directory without knowing even what drive it would be on. I do realize that a path-based whitelisting approach would introduce unwanted limitations, but considering the cost of false positives, it may be warranted to accept such limitations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Doesn't this article explicitly point out a rather horrible Windows flaw, or maybe flaws?

First, having an "extension" as a separate part of the file name has some bad consequences: you have to treat a file name as several parts.

Second, having the file name (.exe, .bat. and some others) make a file executable or not. This seems to have contributed to Windows' malware plague by making it easy to fool people into running things.

Third, confusing the application associated with a file and the file's internal layout seems like an unwarranted step, and this confusion is what the article under discussion deals with, no?

</comment><comment><USER4> Yet more semantics around extensions? Ugh. I long for the day when we can use metadata instead of doing funny things with names. I fear I'll be waiting a long time...</comment>


Gear: a koa like web service framework for Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/teambition/gear <comment><AUTHOR> Features

\- Effective and flexible middlewares flow control, create anything by middleware

\- Powerful and smart error handler, make development easy

\- Trie base gear.Router, it is as faster as [HttpRouter]([https://github.com/julienschmidt/httprouter](https://github.com/julienschmidt/httprouter)), but more powerful

\- Integrated timeout context.Context

\- Integrated response content compress

\- Integrated structured logging middleware

\- Integrated request body parser

\- Integrated signed cookies

\- Integrated JSON, JSONP, XML and HTML renderer

\- Integrated CORS, Secure, Favicon and Static middlewares

\- More useful methods on gear.Context to manipulate HTTP Request/Response

\- Completely HTTP/2.0 supported</comment>


Advanced Regular Expression Tips and Techniques - <AUTHOR> http://pypix.com/tools-and-tips/advanced-regular-expression-tips-techniques/

<comment><USER2> My all-time favourite reference for regex syntax is [http://www.geocities.jp/kosako3/oniguruma/doc/RE.txt](http://www.geocities.jp/kosako3/oniguruma/doc/RE.txt) It's compact and clear enough for most cases.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want readable spacing and comments in JS RegExps, my customary plug: [http://blog.mackerron.com/2010/08/08/extended-multi-line- js-...](http://blog.mackerron.com/2010/08/08/extended-multi-line-js-regexps/)

<comment><USER4> Was going to ask that questions. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> These days I try and use _Named Capture Buffers_ where feasible to make my regex code much easier to understand & update.

For eg. Here is one way I would do the first example shown (using Perl this time):

      use 5.016;
      use warnings;
      use re '/x';  # ignore all whitespace in regex patterns

      my $delimiter      = qr/ (?<delimiter>    [\-\.\s])      /;
      my $prefix         = qr/ (?<prefix>       1)             /;
      my $area_code      = qr/ (?<area_code>    \d{3})         /;
      my $first3digits   = qr/ (?<first3digits> \d{3})         /;
      my $last4digits    = qr/ (?<last4digits>  \d{4})         /;

      my $prefix_rule    = qr/ ($prefix $delimiter)            /;
      my $area_code_rule = qr/ ($area_code | \( $area_code \)) /;

      my $pattern = qr/
          ^
          ($area_code_rule | ($prefix_rule $area_code_rule))
          $delimiter
          $first3digits
          $delimiter
          $last4digits
          \Z
      /;

      my @numbers = (
          "123 555 6789",
          "1-(123)-555-6788",
          "(123-555-6787",
          "(123).555.6786",
          "123 55 6785",
      );

      for my $number (@numbers) {
          if ($number =~ $pattern) {
              print "$number is valid : ";
              say join "-",
                      $+{prefix} || 'none',
                      $+{area_code},
                      $+{first3digits},
                      $+{last4digits};
          }
      }

Output:

      123 555 6789 is valid : none-123-555-6789
      1-(123)-555-6788 is valid : 1-123-555-6788
      (123).555.6786 is valid : none-123-555-6786

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm getting "Panda Endpoint Protection has blocked access to this page, Reason:The page contains malware or exploits than could infect your PC." from my office machine - is/was there something there that I should inform the site owner about, or a false alarm that I should let Panda know about?

<comment><USER7> The site has no potential malware or virus, its clean. your Panda Antivirus is detecting it wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> i never understood why non-capturing syntax requires extra work - '(?:' vs '(' \- seems very backwards.

<comment><USER9> I think it's simply because capturing groups are much more common than non- capturing groups. Even though non-capturing is "simpler", it's less common, so we default to capturing and use the more verbose syntax for non-capturing.</comment></comment>


Machine Learning Generated Gradient Colors - <AUTHOR> https://www.designwithai.com/aigradient <comment><USER2> Kinda cool... which part is machine learning? Just the likes and dislikes? Still cool. gj</comment>


Creating a JSON editor with React.js and immutable data - <AUTHOR> http://arqex.com/991/json-editor-react-immutable-data

<comment><USER2> This is exactly similar to what I am working on, but with XML and XSD instead of Json, so the scope is larger and harder; but the way I planned it is the same. I started with Immutable.js and where looking to use its cursor system, or the one from Immstruct or using Freezer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Freezer.js creator here. If you have any question that I can help with just shoot it.</comment></comment>


Organics found on dwarf planet Ceres - <AUTHOR> http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i8/Organics-found-dwarf-planet-Ceres.html <comment><USER2> Not the same link, but the same story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667934](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667934)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've wondered whether life could be restricted to an area say the size of a city park as a very small "favorable condition" region of a planet. Ceres has more surface area than California, Texas, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado combined...

I'd imagine it'd take a long time for some decent amount of planetary coverage, even if everything happened favourably.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's been awhile since I took chemistry, what is the precise definition of 'organics' in this article?

<comment><USER5> > aliphatic organic molecules

This means hydrocarbons that lack highly stable cyclical structures (e.g. benzene rings). Examples include alkanes, alkenes, alkynes like propane, ethylene, propylene, cyclohexane, etc.

<comment><USER6> >This means hydrocarbons that lack highly stable cyclical structures

What is special about lacking stable cyclical structures in this context? Does this have any bearing on, say, a link to life?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> on a related topic, what is the highest resolution image of ceres that we have?

</comment><comment><USER8> recent nasa images have detected the fungal mass generally associated with a whole foods franchise

</comment><comment><USER9> Humans are searching signs of life w.r.t how life on earth evolved which should not be the way I would say.

<comment><USER10> We don't know what else life looks like, so we can't really look for it.

<comment><USER11> One strategy: look for unexpected order/pockets of low entropy. If you find some matter organized in a way that's unlikely by pure chance, that's a good lead.

<comment><USER12> That's one of the ways they are searching for life. It's starting to show it's age but A Pale Blue Dot is still an excellent read</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Looking for dev help with crowdfunding platform - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
I'm looking for some dev help with a crowdfunding platform I built for Makers/Inventors/Developers. We have a couple of hundred users and growing, but I'd like to offset some of the development work so I can shift my attention to marketing and sales.
I'm currently the sole founder/dev. Our stack is Rails/Heroku.
Email me: dan [at] techendo [dot] com <comment><USER2> Hello Dan,

I work for FundraisingScript which is a white label crowdfunding company that provides a SaaS to clients who would like to build a scalable crowdfunding platform. Using our SaaS individuals, organizations and companies can build and manage unique crowdfunding websites with little or no web development experience.

You can visit our site here : www.fundraisingscript.com/?id=shabbir

We can surely help you with your crowdfunding platform and work with you to fulfill your vision.

You can check i had drop one mail on your mentioned email id- firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


3 Million Verizon FiOS Customer Records Leaked - <AUTHOR> https://www.novainfosec.com/2012/12/22/3-million-verizon-fios-customer-records-leaked/ <comment><USER2> _Verizon spokesperson Alberto Canal told ZDNet in an emailed statement: "We have examined the posted data and we have confirmed that it is not Verizon Wireless customer data. Our systems have not been hacked."_

Supposedly it belong to FIOS customers and not to Verizon Wireless customers.

[http://www.zdnet.com/exclusive-hacker-nabs-3m-verizon- custom...](http://www.zdnet.com/exclusive-hacker-nabs-3m-verizon-customer- records-7000009151/)</comment>


Ask HN: How would you extract data from scans of hand-filled paper forms? - <AUTHOR> Hello, HN!
I've stumbled across a public data set that consists (largely) of scans of paper forms that were filled out by hand, often in idiosyncratic ways.
Besides the usual checkboxes and simple text fields, there are:
* illustrations of different options selected on some forms by being X'd, on others by being circled, and in others by scribbling an identifier for the option (eg "A")
* Supplementary data on separate pages (sometimes with handwritten tables) that are formatted differently for every submitting organization
* Various measurements expressed as both fractions and decimals
... and other complexities, such as the forms themselves changing over time.
How would you solve turning these scans into a clean dataset? <comment><USER2> I'd create an online version of the form and make it very clear and easy to use.

I'd then mechanical turk it, with some emphasis on accuracy not speed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. How much would the data entry cost per page of the form?

<comment><USER3> If the data has high value, then the issue is capitalization of the business rather than cost of the process. If the data is not high value, then committing programmer time might not make any more sense as a business proposition than paying mechanical turks.

All with the caveat that most data is not high value. And if the goal is to monetize the data, it is probably better to find a buyer first rather than processing the data first. It will not only address the capitalization issue, it will also help prioritize by value the many possible and various ways of capturing the data in digital form.

<comment><AUTHOR> As with many other data sets (particularly ones that originate as some sort of by-product), the value of the aggregate grows with broader use, rather than exclusivity.

There would likely be so many opportunities to monetize this data indirectly, that I don't think it makes sense to do anything _but_ make it public and free. Let a thousand flowers bloom, and devil take the hindmost.

OTOH, any software or capabilities developed to accomplish the work would also be quite valuable, I think, with this particular dataset serving as a decent PoC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think your problem is too complex for OCR. The best solution is to hire hundred of guys to do it manually for you. If you want quick and dirty solution by computer you can try Ambar ([http://ambar.rdseventeen.com](http://ambar.rdseventeen.com))

<comment><AUTHOR> _> I think your problem is too complex for OCR._

The problem is _definitely_ too complex for OCR, particularly anything that can't handle hand-written text.

I need a solution that, at a minimum, can look at a scan of the form, determine which pixels are the form and which are the scribbles filling out the form (and for which fields), and turn the scribbles into data.

Ambar looks interesting, but doesn't look like it can handle hand-written text at all (the examples look like they turn the signatures on documents into line-noise, even ones that are very legible).</comment></comment>


Smart automatic image cropping based on areas of interest - <AUTHOR> http://cloudinary.com/blog/smart_automatic_image_cropping_maybe_you_can_always_get_what_you_want <comment><AUTHOR> When you automate the cropping of user-generated images in your Web application, some images inevitably get cropped in less than ideal ways. This article demonstrates how a content-aware algorithm can help to keep the areas of interest in your crops, regardless of the overall image layout. Includes code examples.</comment>


YouTube Takes Manhattan - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/business/media/youtube-takes-manhattan-.html

<comment><USER2> "People think of YouTube as a West Coast company..."

I hope I'm not alone in thinking of it as an internet company. I've never wondered where it was located in the physical world, nor do I care.

<comment><USER3> Well it is a West Coast Internet company, headquartered in San Bruno between Google's Mountain View HQ and San Francisco. In fact I know quite a few Googlers who moved to Youtube because it was closer to the city and saved them an hour+ googlebussing ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That area in Meatpacking / Chelsea is home to an increasing number of established brands. You have YouTube and MLB.tv in Chelsea Market; Google across the street; IAC on 18th; and then BetaWorks a few blocks south.

</comment><comment><USER5> Vimeo HQ is just around the corner too

</comment><comment><USER6> ...and then it takes Berlin?

<comment><USER7> I'm glad someone got the reference! I hope to see LC soon ... he just finished a tour of Europe, maybe the US and CA next?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your vision for the next web? - <AUTHOR> What are your thoughts/vision/best or worst case scenario for the evolution of the web? <comment><USER2> Open and non commercial, like Firefox. Perhaps based on streams, as in this: [https://www.wired.com/2013/02/the-end-of-the-web- computers-a...](https://www.wired.com/2013/02/the-end-of-the-web-computers- and-search-as-we-know-it/)

Imagine having a tool (or choice of tools) to combine and filter RSS feeds from friends, organizations you're interested in, news sites... Probably would need a way to pay for content, so as not to rely on ads.

<comment><USER3> Digg reader can combine RSS feeds from various sources for you (similar to what Google Reader did; RIP).

The foundation of the web is open source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My vision is that the next internet will exist in the hydrogen-fusing heart of nearby stars, such that interstellar travel will be required to see web pages. I know this will not be popular but the technology would be really cool! I'm also convinced that this can be funded by sales of toenail clippings, so that part is easy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ship it.</comment></comment>


Richard Branson reveals prototype for supersonic passenger aircraft - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/15/richard-branson-supersonic-flight-virgin-boom <comment><USER2> I was just thinking about the Concorde last week. I just spent 48 hours door to door with layovers and car trips from NJ to East Java, Indonesia. The flight from NY to Hong Kong is 15 plus hours, and from Hong Kong to Indonesia is 5 plus hours.

I have been doing these types of flights for 8 years, and would gladly pay for a 4 to 6 hour flight, or my company would justify it by having me at meetings earlier and shorter trips (less hotel stays etc...).</comment>


Ask HN: Which books describe modern devops? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems [https://g.co/kgs/9QF2Kv](https://g.co/kgs/9QF2Kv)

The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations [https://g.co/kgs/1cffqN](https://g.co/kgs/1cffqN)

The DevOps 2.0 Toolkit [https://g.co/kgs/ULqmRc](https://g.co/kgs/ULqmRc)

DevOps: A Software Architect's Perspective [https://g.co/kgs/trJVDi](https://g.co/kgs/trJVDi)

Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale [https://g.co/kgs/LTMEay](https://g.co/kgs/LTMEay)

<comment><USER3> Do you think devops and sre work are the same thing?

In my experience, devops interviews are mostly concerned with your ability to write scripts against APIs and operate puppet or similar tools.

SRE interviews usually assume you will be working with home grown configuration management, they test programming and a lot more Linux and Unix basics.

Just my observation from interviewing for both titles.

<comment><USER4> Ask 15 people what "DevOps" is and you'll get 15 diff opinions. It's a not well defined term and companies use it for all sort of things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If by "modern devops" you mean "they say it's appropriate in a Cloud Native environment" here's some I like or are on my reading list:

      * Seeking SRE

      * Database Reliability Engineering: Designing and Operating Resilient Database Systems

      * The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality

      * Infrastructure as Code: Managing Servers in the Cloud

      * Cloud Native Infrastructure

      * the Scuba Paper from Facebook Research

      * Kubernetes in Action

      * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

      * Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment

      * Cloud Native: Designing Change-tolerant Software

      * Understanding The Linux Memory Manager <-- kind of old (ie references the coming 64bit memory transitions), but super good

      * Spring Microservices in Action <--- read even if you're not a Java or Spring head, asks questions like, "maybe you should think about service discovery, routing, tracing, etc"

<comment><USER4> This one seems like a great list. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The most fundamental DevOps book -> The Phoenix Project: [https://goo.gl/84ELVc](https://goo.gl/84ELVc)

<comment><USER4> Hm, no it's not. That book is geared mostly towards product owners, VP of Engineering, Team Managers, CTOs and the like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Practice of System and Network Administration, Tom Limoncelli and Christine Hogan.

The Practice of Cloud System Administration: Designing and Operating Large Distributed Systems, Volume 2 -- by the above plus Strata Chalup.

You need both.

</comment><comment><USER8> Probably not exactly what you are asking, but "Site Reliability Engineering" from Google is available to read on-line:

[https://landing.google.com/sre/book.html](https://landing.google.com/sre/book.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Like the SRE book from Google. Its also worth checking out how companies such as Netflix put reliability into practice.

Spinnaker

[https://www.spinnaker.io/](https://www.spinnaker.io/)

Chaos Monkey

[https://github.com/Netflix/chaosmonkey](https://github.com/Netflix/chaosmonkey)

Principles of Chaos Engineering

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

</comment><comment><USER10> The other recommendations here are pretty good. I'd add "Infrastructure as Code" as well.

</comment><comment><USER11> Chinuoachebe

</comment><comment><USER12> How do you define "modern devops"?

<comment><USER13> Not ancient, I suppose :)

<comment><USER12> Yeah, but what about the other word from the term? It's not well-defined and its definition varies vastly from person to person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Modern devops as in what used to be sysadmin..

<comment><USER14> Downvoting this is just being disillusional..

Take a look at the DevOps job postings of lately, tell me that what employers wants you to do is not exactly the same as you did 10 years ago as a sysadmin..

<comment><USER15> I don't disagree with you but I'd point out that the creation of DevOps was based on the idea that the bridge between Sysadmins and Developers was too large. So why don't we train up some developers on Sysadmin skills?

At least at my company, with two exceptions, if you want to be part of the DevOps team you need to pass a developer interview first.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Lister - My Shopping and To Do List app for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lister-shopping-to-do-lists/id550271852

<comment><USER2> did we ran out of business problems that every other app out there is a todo list or shopping list? what problem are you solving that the thousands others out there are not? no sarcasm or criticizing, but really another todo list app? if you manage to explain the difference, you might be on to something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly I can't necessarily. It's just a personal preference. I like using this a little better than some other options. Trying to take a piece of the market share. Possibly combining shopping and todo in one app, but that's not terribly exciting.

I've done apps that were completely unique to the market at the time they were released that solved personal problems of mine. They didn't sell nearly as well as some of the apps that I've done that already had a big market and competition, but my app did a few small things better/differently. This is just an attempt to make a great looking list app that works well. A small piece of a really big pie can still be a good thing.

Also, we are around 700k apps on the iOS market. Most of the obvious things have been done. Taking market share is a perfectly viable way to make a business. Just ask Pepsi.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dev here. if you have any questions or comments just let me know.

also, free codes: T7Y3MHEHRN46 RWMN93TN6ALT J3AMYTXLYP3E</comment>


Ask HN: Advice on which stack to use\learn in order to grow as a developer - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I currently work full-time with a variant of Web Forms (think PHP early years style of putting code and HTML together multiplied by dozens of files.). I was told that later this year we will probably upgrade to MVC (not counting on it though, since they said the same last year).
Anyway, I feel like I'm stuck in time and want to improve my skills. My only opportunity to work with more "modern" code is when I do some freelancing, but I am still somewhat limited by my clients choices.
I want to build something, sort of, similar to a price-comparison web app and improve my skills during the process of developing it. It will require a lot of APIs integration, good database architecture, etc.
I narrowed down my options to 3 languages:
- JavaScript (NodeJS): I like Javascript and already work with it quite a bit (just on the frontend though). I'm curious about grunt, npm, etc.
- C# (MVC): I've never worked with Asp.Net MVC. I could use this as an opportunity to learn so I can be ready when we upgrade. It will also improve my "curriculum" since I'm mostly a C# developer - and it would look weird that I wouldn't know ASP.net MVC.
- PHP (Laravel): Most of my freelance work is on PHP (usually on a custom framework). But I've never worked with this framework which seems to be extremely popular nowadays.
Any advice?
Thank you. <comment><USER2> NodeJS is great because it's just JavaScript, and you can use JavaScript everywhere.

I'm saying this as someone who's been doing web development since the 1990s and have used at least a dozen of the most popular frameworks over the years.

Other than NodeJS consider Rails, as it is chock full of best practices in terms of security, testing and code organization.

IMO tools like Django or anything from the Java world lag far behind in terms of features and tend to carry too much baggage from their past.

Others will disagree with some of this, which is fine, but YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER3> Try ELixir/Phoenix. It is the future. Yes, it is very different from others frameworks but this is just a (future) advantage.

<comment><USER4> I was going to pick this up, but then I looked at the Web Framework Benchmarks and I got a bit disappointed: at it's best Elixir peaks at 40% of the performance of Node.js, and 5% at it's lowest.

Another worrying metric is the number of errors: Phoenix is almost the only framework where these benchmarks show a very high number of errors across all tests.

[https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r12&hw=...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r12&hw=peak&test=update&l=2hwjk)</comment></comment>


Building a TCP API: How we built our realtime app, Filmgrain, part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.filmgrainapp.com/2013/07/02/how-we-built-filmgrain-part-2-of-2/ <comment><USER3> Props for trying a new approach, Just Because. Here's some feedback:

> newlines make sense as indicators for the end of a message

Until someone decides to inject a newline into your JSON, then you've got a problem [1]. Just use a length-prefixed encoding, there are tons: bencode, tnetstrings, etc. Also, JSON objects delimit theselves, although you could use a proper stream parser to handle fragmented messages better. A secondary transport like websockets (as others have mentioned) would also give you framing for free.

> Load balancing

Just use DNS. You're already making a DNS request for S3, so here you have a redundant HTTP request, and leak network-level operational details in application logic.

[1] Ignoring HTTP-style newlines here for moment; common implementations are battle-hardened, but it doesn't mean newline-terminated protocols are really a good idea...

<comment><USER4> You know how to give feed back! Thanks! +1

Would length-prefixed also cause issue if malicious client send numbers that are too big, just like malicious clients now can send json with newlines?

I been using websockets in my editor for a while, but for a mobile app they seamed like they just had extra stuff we did not need. But I am warming up to them now.

Honestly we thought about it, did not use DNS because its scary. The errors and propagation slowness can cost you a ton of uptime. I feel safer with a static DNS.

<comment><USER3> Set a upper bound on the length of the message, and everything within it -- constrain string lengths, numeric ranges, nesting depth, etc. This should be built into the parser. Discard messages that are truncated, malformed or don't conform to the schema (don't forget to check types...).

Load balancing is ultimately your call, and HTTP might be the simplest solution if very quick turnaround is critical. But don't be afraid of the Internet's plumbing, understanding it will make you a better engineer. For example, you can still have fail-over to any of the DNS A records (completely transparent with any decent HTTP/websocket client), or if you're _seriously_ concerned about availability, anycast/multihoming. But I'd put money on you having more downtime due to errors on your end or with your provider, than with DNS.

Basically, these problems have been studied for a long time, so it's valuable to be comfortable with the various approaches. FWIW, adding extra A records is just a couple clicks on Linode, and they don't make you pay for each request to boot, unlike S3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> HTTP lets you inherit a large and diverse body of infrastructure - <USER2> balancing, monitoring, testing, logging, etc etc.

Also, some combination of websockets and/or keep-alive would yield most of the benefits of using just TCP.

<comment><USER6> Most of the complex HTTP infrastructure exists to support a the complex HTTP protocol.

Get rid of HTTP, and pretty much all of the complexity of the HTTP stack evaporates.

<comment><USER4> Exactly! You said what I could not say, but thats exactly how I feel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After ages fighting slowness and lag on an HTTP-based API for some hardware (Hue lights) that could save 98% of its bandwidth using a TCP interface, I was thinking just last week that HTTP obsession is getting out of hand, and that I'd like to see more developers using TCP directly. Good on you.

<comment><USER8> HTTP _is_ TCP. Or rather, HTTP occurs over HTTP. There's a lot of confusion of terms flying around in this thread. TCP is a transport layer technology. HTTP provides signaling and data transport via TCP (actually, HTTP doesn't care what the transport layer is; e.g., you can do HTTP over IPX/SPX if you'd like). What's really being said is that HTTP is stateless, and stateless HTTP isn't always the best solution.

When you say "an HTTP-based API for some hardware (Hue lights) that could save 98% of its bandwidth using a TCP interface", I really raised an eyebrow. You're already using a TCP interface. I think what you meant to say was that you it could save bandwidth by using a stateful protocol instead of HTTP, or even a custom binary protocol.

<comment><USER7> Yes, I know HTTP runs over TCP. I expected the context to be sufficient to infer that I meant a non-HTTP, single-connection, non-JSON protocol over TCP/IP. Being able to send one TCP packet with a payload of "SET 1,hsb,280,255,0" is faster than a complete TCP handshake, followed by an HTTP PUT to a lengthy URL of a JSON-formatted message. The CPU load on the puny processor in the Hue bridge would be significantly reduced as well.

Has anybody done HTTP over IPX?

<comment><USER8> In an engineering context, it's necessary to be specific. Otherwise, someone unfamiliar with the terms being used might come away with the wrong idea.

IPX is virtually dead, but it would be entirely possible to do HTTP over IPX if you had a web server and client that could bind to an IPX interface.

<comment><USER7> I'll be sure to specify a specific protocol over TCP over IPv4/IPv6 over any suitable layer 2 interface if I'm ever specifying such a system for implementation.

On HN, I would hope that anyone confused by the terms knows they can look them up on Wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPX)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite)

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as being pedantic :) I really do think the distinction is important. It's a foundational element of the language that ties software and hardware together. It's the reason we have things like the OSI model.

A couple of years ago I had a temporary run in telecom, working with a company on a nation wide VoIP roll out. This was the first project where I was working on technologies that were completely outside the realm of your typical web application. I was surprised to find so many similarities. SIP, for example, looks a lot like HTTP. The distinction between messaging and media gave me new insights in to web programming.

As I learned more and more about telephony, it became obvious that the common language between web and telecom technologies was the separation of layers in the various protocols that make up each stack.

Knowing, and respecting, the language that is used to communicate these concepts helped me transition quickly between technologies. Because of that, I try to make an effort to share this knowledge with others.

My intent is to inspire, not to chastise :) I didn't do a very good job of that in my original comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I get that there's more than request-response. Why not use Websockets instead? What do you plan to do if your mobile users want a browser-based experience?

<comment><USER4> You get what many people dont! When we will need a webapp we would write a WebSocket protocol then. Why write stuff you don't need too? TCP with json was just surprisingly simple and effective for our realtime twitter+move app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like you re-invented the wheel.

Google Cloud Messaging and (to a lesser extent) websockets would have been better solutions.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wouldn't web sockets have worked here nicely?

<comment><AUTHOR> Web sockets are great for getting TCP in the browser but since we're only building mobile apps right now, we don't need the HTTP layer, instead we're using straight sockets.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A Search Engine for Developers, Marketers, Web Designers, and Hackers - <AUTHOR>

Watup Hackernews,
We have created a new type of search engine that searches on the full source code of webpages, not just the on-page text.  It's called NerdyData (nerdydata.com) and we're launching today!
Our search engine is different from search engines you've used before. Traditional search engines are geared towards providing answers, whereas our goal is to give you the best list of results for a query. Our crawler has visited over 140 million homepages and collected terabytes of HTML, Javascript, and CSS code. We've also designed several search interfaces that allow anybody to query against the source code of webpages, or download a list of sites containing a specific term.
We even offer a search interface specifically for SEO's and marketers that allow you to search within specific HTML tags like meta descriptions and meta keywords.
About us: We're two 23 year olds who recently graduated from Stony Brook University in New York, and we are ridiculously passionate about making search better for our fellow nerds out there.
If you'd like to know more, you can email me at email@example.com
Thank you so much for you time! <comment><USER2> I thought it would be really cool until I realized the whole credit thing. It often takes many permutations of a search to find the results you're looking for. If each attempt costs money and the whole thing might be a waste in the end then it's hardly worthwhile.

I've always been annoyed that Google won't search for symbols. As a programmer that makes searching for certain things anywhere from difficult to impossible. I was hopeful that this would be a search engine I could use to search for code snippets or queries that involve symbols.

Let's say, for example, that I was browsing through some PHP code and saw a double dollar sign ($$) and wanted to know what it was used for (yes, I already know, it's just an example). I might try searching for something like 'PHP $$'. This search engine is useless for that. That's the real problem I need a search engine to solve.

<comment><USER3> Check out [http://www.symbolhound.com/](http://www.symbolhound.com/) for a programmer friendly search engine.

<comment><USER2> You just made my day :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This could be great. You need to monetize in a better way. Make searching free for everyone (cause no one is going to pay for it). Then, package up some pre- built searches (backlink search, competitor stuff, etc), build a special interface, and sell that to SEO's as a tool. This is just my first thought. You have data from over 140 MM pages. You can almost certainly use that data to make a product worth money to someone.

I just can't imagine selling searches will work. The big players in the space have made search into a human right. I know you have to make money somehow but charging for searches almost has to be the wrong answer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Whoa... Searches must be based on IP. Shared with a co-worker and they can see all of my searches, and I can see theirs.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting service. At first it didn't occur to me why would I want to search the source code, but your examples were good.

What is the logic behind the search criteria? I entered `<div id="main">`[1] and the first result is LinkedIn with `<div id="main-wrapper">` highlighted, which shouldn't match my query directly as I entered a closed tag. Some of the other results also didn't contain exactly what I was searching for - e.g. `<div id="main" class="main">`, `<div id="main" class="clear">` etc. A technical explanation on this would be great.

Also, one minor note - David's photo in the front page footer is broken [1]

[1] [https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=<div](https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=
/searchPage=1/sort=pop

[2] [http://www.arc.losrios.edu/Images/Images- arc/Foreign_Lang_De...](http://www.arc.losrios.edu/Images/Images- arc/Foreign_Lang_Dept/Faculty%20pictures/no%20image%20avatar%20man-1.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks pretty cool. I really dig the design. I was a little annoyed that I seem to have 10 credits without noticing and used them up just messing around. (I can't really tell because clicking on the credits doesn't do anything). It would be nice to make this more obvious up front. Anyway, I can see this being a pretty useful tool in some scenarios.

Also note that "Locater" is spelled "Locator" (sidebar on the left)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [http://nerdydata.com](http://nerdydata.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> Just a small request - it would be _way_ cool to have a "site:" filter like in Google searches. A lot of the results found are irrelevant to me as it is.

Cool site - great work!

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a Refine Tool that allows for AND,OR,NOT filters. It's only available for paid users, but really allows you to push the limits and get the exact query you want. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there any content filtering? When I went on to Image Locator, then "See an example" it will search for imgur.com. The first page of results shows 'thebiglistofporn.com', 'entensity.com'(Not sure if it's NSFW, but it looks it from the thumbnail.)

I know it's not too much of a big deal, but porn thumbnails wasn't something I was expecting to see on a websites example page.

<comment><AUTHOR> We do not filter content, but thanks for letting us know about that thumbnail on the example page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Search terms like consumer_secret ou api_secret and you'll find lot of things... :( [https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=consumer_s...](https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=consumer_secret/searchPage=1/sort=pop)

With great power, comes great responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER11> Love it - great idea and great presentation. I only tried a few cursory searches but it was definitely bookmark-worthy. Kudos :)

I'd love to hear you guys talk about the risks of searching for "dicey"/risky characters/terms and how you protect your data/server from malicious searches.

<comment><AUTHOR> When the launch craziness winds down, we plan to start a blog and nerd the fuck out. We had so much fun making this and want to help others get past the insane obstacles we faced while building a search engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't get how to use the seo search. How do I search for all websites that have a certain name in their title for example?

        <title>name</title>

Just returns the exact match.

And how do I search meta descriptions and meta keywords?

<comment><AUTHOR> SEO Search is a premium feature which lets you search inside of pre-parsed html tags. You can learn more about it here [https://search.nerdydata.com/documentation/#seoSearch](https://search.nerdydata.com/documentation/#seoSearch)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Did we mention our "Basic" account is free and gives you 200 credits to use? [https://search.nerdydata.com/pricing?hackerNews](https://search.nerdydata.com/pricing?hackerNews)

<comment><USER10> No , because yesterday it was 49$ or 99$ Idon't remember exactly :). Good move I think to let people like me use it and find value in it as the promise is great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anyone tried comparing to [http://searchcode.com/](http://searchcode.com/) ? I haven't - just ran across it right now doing an unrelated search.

</comment><comment><USER13> This would be a very good tool to find XSS vulnerable websites.

<comment><USER14> Or find all sites with a vulnerable installation of wordpress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> while it is good, i am wondering what it can do which google can not? For example i searched for android accountmanager and results i got were far less productive than what google returns me back. If you want to build it, build it the way it perceives user perspective well

</comment><comment><USER16> This is awesome. Especially for finding use cases and implementation examples of front-end libraries.

<comment><USER17> That was my first thought, too. I checked out where my various projects are being used on the web, something I've been wanting to see for some time, and was pleased to learn about various properties using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> your site has a really bad user rating? [http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/nerdydata.com?utm_source=a...](http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/nerdydata.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=warn- viewsc)

<comment><USER19> I've never trusted wot. They are abused by groups of "wot cops" that organize in the forums and target web sites to bash (deserved or not).

As far as the site goes, it looks like they used to be a more generic seo search engine, as recently as a few months ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good god, my attention span just reached terminal velocity. I like. Very cool and original.

</comment><comment><USER21> Do results sort based on mozRank, Alexa, PageRank? Or something proprietary?

</comment><comment><USER22> First off Stony Brook! Second, open crawl? Third, what's your stack?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Go Seawolves!

2\. We built our own distributed crawler with a couple of dope servers.

3\. Not ready to share our stack setup yet (work in progress) but we will have a write up shortly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Honestly, I'm not a fan of the name.</comment>


The Totally Normal Town Where Everyone Worked on Weapons of Mass Destruction - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-totally-normal-town-where-everyone-worked-on-weapons-of-mass-destruction <comment><USER2> I thought this was going to be Amarillo, Texas, because of the Pantex plant.

There was a book from the early 1980s focusing on the religious beliefs of some of the nuclear weapons workers there

[https://www.amazon.com/Blessed-Assurance-Home-Amarillo- Texas...](https://www.amazon.com/Blessed-Assurance-Home-Amarillo- Texas/dp/0815605080)

which tried to convey some of the cultural and psychological tensions about working on these weapons, and how people dealt with them.</comment>


Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video] - <AUTHOR> https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/09/jack-ma-harvard-rejected-me-10-times/?utm_content=buffer051b7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> It is an interesting claim. I think Harvard would still reject him, he doesn't seem to fit in with what a "Harvard Man" is.

The mistake is thinking that Harvard wants all the successful people in the world to go there, as far as I can tell they don't. Every private University recruits from their "tribe" whether it is 'quirky' at Reed or 'cosmopolitan' at Harvard, while not discriminating on race, religion, Etc they _do_ pick people who create a community "like them".

The weird conflict comes in when someone like Jack, who by many accounts would have not "fit in" with the community at Harvard (he would have been fine at MIT I suspect) but Jack gets focused on "Harvard is the 'best' so I really want to go there." which isn't focused on the question of whether it is the best _for him._

I really encourage folks to find a college that fits them rather than picking a college by some score it has. If you are lucky the college will reject you if you don't fit and that will save you from a bad experience there, if you are unlucky you'll get in and hate the experience.

<comment><USER3> >while not discriminating on race

Affirmative action IS discrimination on race. AFAIK Harvard has been sued because of that not too long ago - I don't know the outcome though.

<comment><USER4> Not necessarily, if hypothetically silver people make up 20% of the population, but due to cultural bias in testing they make up 10% of the student body you could correct for that bias without discriminating.

For an actual example, rich people tend to look better on Harvard applications, but preform worse at Harvard than poor people. Adjusting for a bias in the application process would not be discrimination based on income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I grew up in a Chinese household, and I swear, Chinese people are way too obsessed with university branding. It's not even about quality of education, it's a cultural status phenomenon. If you take 10 mothers, the dick size of each one is directly proportional to the US News (yes, specifically US News) ranking of the university of her child. And if Timmy, some random kid in school, had a 2380 SAT, then as a fellow Chinese kid, you'd hear about it somehow.

Thankfully my parents weren't this crazy, but I've seen Chinese families spend thousands on SAT preps, or parents discouraging their kids from playing sports to chase a 4.4 GPA. I hear it's even worse in areas like Cupertino.

I mean, I respect the pusuit of education, but this obsession with college is a poisonous byproduct. Those kids aren't even better off after college anyways. It's all pride. Look at Jack Ma. 22.5 Billion dollars, and Harvard is still like Gatsby's Daisy to him.

<comment><USER6> Asian-Americans (including Chinese-Americans) have to have better grades and test scores to have the same chance as your average white American to get into an elite university, so I can see why Asian-American parents would think it's necessary for their children to focus so much on improving their test scores.

<comment><USER5> Tbh I don't take this for fact. My alternate theory is that schools aren't rejecting Asians for being Asian, but rather they are rejecting profiles that are common to ASians. How many apps do you think Cal receives every year with 4.3 GPA/2200 SAT, 4 yrs key club, no sports, and an essay about being nervous in a piano recital? If you get ten of those, and maybe one application from a kid in Inglewood with an 1850 SAT and a childhood fraught with gang violence, then I can't blame Cal for taking three from Category A and one from Category B, leaving seven families angry that their higher SAT was rejected.

The disconnect for some Asian parents is that they're stuck with the Chinese idea that highest marks always equals best university. As a result they push push push their child to test higher on the SAT, GPA, farm community service hours, play more piano... But they don't realize American schools aren't solely score based, and at the end of the day, there comes a point where the University just isn't impressed by the same profile over and over again.

As a supporting anecode, I'm Chinese, and I was admitted to a competitive department at UCLA with a 3.7 unweighted GPA in 2009, which was far below the average for whites, or asians. So I don't think there's a conspiracy against Asians.

<comment><USER6> I certainly do think what you have described it's a well accepted stereotype, and it may well be true in your anecdotal experience, but I don't think there's been any real evidence that Asian applicants, as a whole, are nothing but test taking, piano/violin playing robots or are as a whole less well- rounded (by whatever measure) than white applicants.

As for your own experience, prop 209 passed in California banned the state, including state universities, from considering race, so you were not judged by any heightened Asian standard like some other schools.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I dont want to accuse asian kids of being robots - that would be unfair, for example, to some non East Asian kids who dont have privileged upbringings. I just want to provide a counterpoint. And I was not aware that the AA ban was a California only prop, but that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised that people still find such claims interesting. Colleges like Harvard are so popular that many people like Ma are inevitably going to be excluded. It doesn't mean much. There are at least three things going on:

1) Harvard has to make its decision on the basis of limited information.

2) Even if Harvard had perfect information, there are probably more 'ideal' candidates in the world than Harvard could hope to admit. Most are still going to be excluded.

3) Just because Jack Ma has become successful doesn't mean he would have been a good fit for Harvard. Success in entrepreneurship is not the ultimate educational goal for all (or even most) people, and does not necessary reflect all the qualities that a school like Harvard wants in its students (except, cynically, the ability to make big donations later in life...).

So where does this leave us? Don't beat yourself up if you don't get into Harvard. Most successful people didn't. But, at the same time, actually going to Harvard (and schools like it) remains an incredible opportunity for those who _are_ admitted and have suitably aligned educational goals.

</comment><comment><USER8> Colleges such as Harvard that base admissions decisions on grades, standardized test scores, traditional social/leadership signals (club x, sports team y), alumni connections, geographic/ethnic background, and writing/storytelling skills (i.e., the "personal essay") are going to miss a lot of brilliant, innovative people and future leaders. The 17-year-old Steve Jobs (free spirit), Barack Obama (slacker), and Jack Ma (failed entrance exam) would never be admitted to a place like Harvard, at least as undergraduates.

<comment><USER9> Barack Obama went to Columbia, which is literally in the same league as Harvard. He also went to Harvard Law after undergrad, so I don't think he fits your narrative.

We don't need to include _how_ an elite university selects their students to claim that they are going to miss a lot of brilliant and innovative people. The mere fact that they admit only thousands of people a year make this necessarily so.

<comment><USER10> Didn't he start at Occidental and transfer to Columbia?

<comment><USER11> Correct, but Occidental is still considered today to be a fairly selective liberal arts school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In my opinion elite universities are more for traditional career paths. They are nothing for entrepeneurs.

You waste too much time with exams.

There should be an opportunity to get credits for entrepeneurial work at university.

Edit: I am engineering alumnus of a so called elite university in germany and struggled much with exams because I just wanted to do more practical work which one can sell.

<comment><USER13> > _They are nothing for entrepeneurs._

This is absolutely false. Great colleges are extremely hard, and in top programs kids are always fighting for life to not get kicked out.

To me, CMU taught invaluable lessons in hard work, getting kicked in the teeth over and over, surviving mostly on coffee and alcohol, and persisting till success comes along. All these lessons help while starting a startup.

A great college program will make graduate's problems feel small in comparison to what they put him through.

Besides, starting a company is not the only entrepreneurial work one can do. Is Sundar Pichai less or more entrepreneurial than Zuckerberg? There are far more ways to inhibit courage than starting a company.

<comment><USER12> As you mentioned those universities are extremeley hard what means time consuming. Starting a company is time consuming too. Doing both at the same time is nearly impossible.

But when you are studying it is the best time to start a company. It would be better if colleges would honor this instead of just ignoring.

<comment><USER14> >But when you are studying it is the best time to start a company.

What?

Most people would argue that having knowledge of the field, experience and contacts; the sort of thing you get after working in a field for a while, is going to help more than the slightly increased physical stamina you have as a very young person.

<comment><USER12> Later you have a family and responsibility for your children. In college you are free and can take risks.

<comment><USER14> I certainly agree that children are a big responsibility, and take a lot of time... From what I've seen, though, of small businesses? Experience matters even more. I know a bunch of Entrepreneurs who are also parents. I don't personally understand how, I don't think I could handle being a parent even with an easy office job, but many entrepreneurs seem to be able to be a parent and run a business at the same time. I can't tell you how many of the informal meetings that are also dinner parties had children underfoot, but it's a reasonably large percentage.

Even if you do think that having a child will slow you down, being older doesn't automatically mean you will become a parent... the technology in that field is pretty good at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> He claims that out of 25 people, he was the only one rejected for a job at KFC. That to me is more inspirational. On the other hand, could he be lying about some of these hardships to make him seem more relatable?

<comment><USER16> "I applied for jobs 30 times - got rejected. I went for the police, they said 'No, you're not good.' I went to even the KFC, when KFC came to China, to my state - 24 people went for the job...23 people were accepted, I was the only guy. And when I went for the police, 5 people - 4 of them accepted, I was the only guy who did not receive it."

Much more motivational than being turned down by Harvard...I seriously doubt he's lying, given that he failed middle school/high school/college exams multiple times.

<comment><USER17> It could be that he wouldn't have been good at any of those things too, and this was apparent to the people interviewing him.

I had real troubles with school, and jobs where I had no interest in, luckily I tripped into an industry I enjoy working in!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's kind of funny how people who have made it as big as Jack Ma are still obsessed enough with Harvard to mention almost as a badge of honor that they were rejected from Harvard. As if to say "see Harvard was obviously wrong here". Harvard or any top school in no way can accept anywhere near all of the applicants that are qualified to attend those schools. As such there will be people that will be rejected and accepted almost arbitrarily at the whims of the admissions staff and or quotas of one type or another.

<comment><USER19> 10 times is a lot worse than being wrong once, however.

<comment><USER20> On the other hand:

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Without being knowledgeable about Harvard admission process, I would expect that the same evaluation done for one application would hold, at least in part, for the following ones submitted by the same person ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe that's the best thing that ever happened to him? If he had gone to Harvard, he could very well have ended up as a well-paid, well-connected cog in a huge corporation.

Whatever, I find it useless to think about what 1-in-a-billion entrepreneurs do or don't do. Harvard is a fine university and anyone who gets admitted should count themselves lucky and privileged. Those that don't, well, there's plenty of other excellent options.

</comment><comment><USER22> There is so much more to this video than Jack Ma's rejection from Harvard. His company, Alibaba, is second only to Walmart in e-commerce business. He talks about Alibaba's success internationally (places like Russia and Norway). He also talks about the company's relationship with government regarding technology projects and privacy.

<comment><USER23> Thank you. That's really a small part of the video. I get the sense that most of these comments are coming from people who didn't watch it.

<comment><USER24> Agreed. Having watched the video after reading the comments, I am actually rather disappointed at some of the negative things written here.

The interview contains a lot of other more inspiring stories than just his Harvard rejections.

For example, he talks about how he comes from a pretty bad elementary school, how he learned about the internet, how Alibaba got its name, how none of his capital came from the government, that Alibaba's workforce is actually ~47% women, how he rather would be respected than be rich, and his philosophy on businesses helping people.

Near the end, he says: "I believe when you have 1 million dollars, that's your money. When you have 20 million dollars, you start to have problems, worry about inflation, worry about which stock to buy, this and that - When you have 1 billion dollars, that's not your money. That's the trust society gives you. They believe you can manage the money - use the money better than the government, than the others. So I think today, I have the resources to do more things. With the money we have, with the influence we have, we should spend more time on the young people."

<comment><USER23> He also said that his goal is always to keep his employees happy, so they in turn keep the customers happy. Lots of companies out there have that backwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The qualities that make someone a successful entrepreneur often make them a poor student / employee. The same disregard of authority that makes people say "Why can't I do that? Who is going to stop me?" tends to lead you to more interesting conclusions than solving 40 problems from a math textbook.

But keep in mind that Harvard's goal isn't to recruit the best students; it's to create an environment where the well-connected can co-mingle with accomplished academics. This is why Harvard and other Ivy League schools admit "legacy" students: it's an explicit recognition that sometimes, who you know does matter. If you have a good mix of smart people, driven people, and politically savvy people from powerful families, they can help push each other to great heights.

I'm not so sure if the model works as well anymore, but also keep in mind that Harvard is almost 400 years old. It worked well for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER26> Great entrepreneurs don't necessarily make great academics and vice versa.

<comment><USER27> @jcfrei, I agree. One has to take into consideration the circumstances one is raised in, culture etc. That plays a huge role also. When you read about Jack Ma, although he failed to get a job at KFC, that did not deter him but rather egged him on. He is/was just a hustler with a keen eye to identify opportunities in the worse situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Classical education is DEAD. I see this worldwide and there're countless examples about it. 1\. Smart people do not get accepted for various reasons 2\. There's no personalization of classes - people are not machines and shouldn't be treated to study the same thing in the same ways. No creativity inspired. 3\. Big gap between businesses and universities.

and on and on..

<comment><USER29> The technical founders of Google, Facebook, even Apple all went to world class schools.

<comment><USER30> That seems to play into the parent's point though:

       * Not-so-exceptional people are not granted admission
       * Exceptional people are demonstrably exceptional even before admission

There is no path for unexceptional people to find exceptional success by simply going to the right school, like certain interest groups want you to believe. The flaw is thinking that academia and business are supposed to be intertwined at all, of course. They are completely separate institutions for a reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> On being asked what he worries about:

 _I worry today that a lot of young people lose hope, lose vision, and start to complain. We also had the same problem - it 's not a good feeling being rejected by so many people. We were also depressed. But at least later, we find that the world has a lot of opportunity, how you see the world, how you catch the opportunity._

</comment><comment><USER31> I think the interview is worth watching entirely as it's so much more than a rejection from an elite institution such as Harvard. Rejection from KFC, from even middle school -- these stories are just as powerful if not much more so.

</comment><comment><USER32> Above all, what matters is your true grit. There're MIT's in India, too. A renowned aerospace scientist, former President of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was an alumnus of Madras Institute of Technology (MIT). The current CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella got his engineering degree from Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT). Think about the autodidacts listed at:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autodidacts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autodidacts)

</comment><comment><USER33> Alibaba is indeed a force in China (and less-so globally) but the stock price is doing pretty poorly (down below IPO price.)

[https://www.google.com/finance?q=baba&ei=fFT4VanDAdLisAHx9r7...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=baba&ei=fFT4VanDAdLisAHx9r74Bw)

It's a bit weird to see him lauded at WEF when, say Twitter, which is also below IPO price, is in fire-fighting mode (without CEO, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm surprised they let him apply ten times. I was rejected from Stanford three times and didn't allow me to apply a fourth time.

<comment><USER35> As long as you're paying application fees, why should they stop you from trying?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was going to post this when I saw it. Beat me to it. Thanks for sharing! And agree, the KFC story is powerful.

</comment><comment><USER37> thelastpsychiatrist has a great exposé on the Harvard cheating scandal that speaks to the 'everyone passes xyz classes' claims.

[http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/09/the_harvard_cheating_...](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/09/the_harvard_cheating_scandal_i.html)

</comment><comment><USER38> how successful do I need to be in order to be accepted into Harvard MBA from a western province university with mediocre GPA?

How much much under the table damn it.

You have no idea how much social capital an ivy league degree gives you in Korea, no idea! (ex. generous bank loans, women, social status, tv shows, your own kpop girl group wow!)

</comment><comment><USER39> Most inspirational part:

 _" If everybody agreed with me, if everybody believed my/our idea is good, we'd have no chance!"_</comment>


Origami-Style Cardboard Tents for Homeless in Brussels - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/world/europe/belgium-cardboard-tents-homeless.html <comment><USER2> I'm absolutely baffled as to why we still have _ANY_ homeless people in any first world country. The cost to get them all into housing is barely a rounding error against most countries annual tax revenue numbers. The US, for instance, takes in about $2.6T/year, there are about 500K homeless people. Even at a cost of $1000 per month per person to provide each one shelter we are talking $6B, or 0.23% of the annual tax revenue, or just 1% of our annual military spending. And mind you $1000 per person per month is on the high side.

<comment><USER3> Because the dominant ideology in America (grotesquely) equates Capitalism with justice. The poor and the weak must suffer and die to prove the rightness of Capitalism's ordering principles. And to stand as an object lesson to anyone who might think about veering to far outside these boundaries.

Rationality doesn't even begin to enter into the equation in the way you describe. It's about reinforcing a system of human sacrifice as insane and archaic millennia as old pagan traditions for the sake of preserving this order.

<comment><USER4> Brussels is not in America, though.

<comment><USER3> I was referring to the parent's example and most of Europe adheres to an only moderated form of this ideology anyway. Germany especially.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "Cardboards are light, they keep the heat, and _if they don't get wet_ , > they are pretty resistant,"

Yeah, that might be a difficult bit in Brussels, where is rains (or snows) 13 days per month during the winter.

Has any of these kinds of projects (giving portable "tents" to homeless people) ever had a lasting impact? I remember quite a few articles about their initial phase, none about their status a year or more afterwards.

<comment><USER5> The article specifies they hope they will last 2 weeks to a month. I actually consider that to be a feature, not a bug. When I was homeless, I replaced my tent every 1 to 3 months for cleanliness reasons. Most homeless people are not as fastidious as I was in terms of overall cleanliness. My opinion: the lack of cleanliness worsens health issues and makes their problems more intractable.

<comment><USER4> That's a very good point, which I hadn't considered, thanks. The dampness might even make it more important that they replace the tent.

<comment><USER5> Yes, mold is a very serious health threat and is common in areas where homeless people often sleep, especially in bad weather, like under a bridge near a river. Mold infections are notoriously hard to treat and are probably underdiagnosed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People are already building geodesic domes and portable yurts out of plastic corrugate. If you want it to be more permanent and weather-proof, upgrade to something water-proof. The plastic corrugate still has an insulation advantage over even a fabric tent.

[https://www.homedepot.com/p/48-in-x-96-in-x-157-in-White- Cor...](https://www.homedepot.com/p/48-in-x-96-in-x-157-in-White-Corrugated- Plastic-Cardboard-10-Pack-WC4896-10/202489118)

<comment><USER7> I remember reading a book by Buckminster Fuller, and he mentioned designing geodesic domes out of wax coated cardboard. That was decades ago. The assembly instructions, using a large stapler, were printed on the cardboard. The same could easily be done with a more modern material such as that corrugated plastic.</comment></comment>