Debops - <AUTHOR> https://enricozini.org/blog/2014/debian/debops/ <comment><USER2> > I came to learn that the requirements put forward by sysadmins are to be > taken seriously, because they are the ones whose phone will ring in the > middle of the night when your software breaks.

Oh, if only more programmers thought that way. I consider myself in large part a sysadmin, but I my programming-fu is strong and I am often stunned on how programmers hack something brittle together and how they make huge mess in the OS in deployment, and then claim that packing everything in VirtualEnv, Bundler, and Docker containers is somehow OK.

> I build my software targeting Debian Stable + Backports. At FOSDEM I noticed > that some people consider it uncool. I was perplexed.

Don't listen to them. If you make your software _fit_ in the OS (as opposed to struggle against OS, like e.g. most webapps do nowadays), it's _elegant_ , and elegance _is_ and _will always be_ magnificent.

In a typical Linux distribution there are so many great mechanisms that are neglected by majority of programmers (source packages, foo-dev packages, dependency resolution, initscripts/unit files, syslog and logrotate, to name the few). It's so sad that they are not used more.</comment>


Drone-assisted Swiss construct virtual 3D castle - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/25/virtual_chillon_castle/

<comment><USER2> I wonder when we'll see Google Drones, taking pictures of buildings. Google Maps could become extremely detailed that way.</comment>


DSL Despite Python's Resistance to Abuse: "Whitespace Is My Pepper Spray" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lacebark.io/2014/10/22/dsl-despite-pythons-resistance-to-abuse-whitespace-is-my-pepper-spray/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, except this is not domain-specific language. It's smart Python API, not a separate language.</comment>


Google Chromebook and Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> http://xitijpatel.com/2012/12/16/google-chromebook-and-ubuntu <comment><USER2> If you're 'pretty happy' without 'a good keyboard map, a properly working touchpad, graphics acceleration, power mgmt or hibernation', and you're actually running chromium but with no flash support... how 'unhappy' are you really just running ChromeOS in Dev mode?

That may sound more negative than I mean it, so don't take it that way.

EDIT: I too have an ARM chromebook, running it in Dev mode is a great experience if you basically just need a browser, vim and an SSH client.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's fair and it's something that I've considered.

To be honest, it's the flexibility of Ubuntu's software that I really like. I like having multiple workspaces, and I like having my VPN running so I can access my devices easily.

I realize it's doable on ChromeOS, but I'd rather keep that clean and untouched. It's easy to boot into if I need to. Who knows, after a while, I might change my mind.

<comment><USER2> Be interested to see how you get on with it after a few months. Also be interesting to see if someone gets FirefoxOS running on one of these, won't be me though ;)

<comment><USER3> Like graue said, Firefox OS is for phones only. However, installing Firefox was just about the first thing I did when I got my Cr-48. <http://i.imgur.com/eCWwJ.png>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've got the Acer Chromebook. Rather than dual booting, it was relatively easy to install a Debian chroot environment in developer mode to obtain the few extra dev utilities I really need (rdesktop mainly) that I couldn't get to work from the Chrome store.

Right now I have it set up so that display :0 is the normal Chrome OS x-server and :1 is my chrooted debian environment. This way I can switch between them with a simple Ctr-Alt-F3 or Ctr-Alt-F1.

The guide I found online to do so had subtly wrong instructions, however it was enough to point in the right direction. I've been planning to write up a corrected set of instructions. Hopefully I can do so soon and post here if there is interest.

<comment><USER5> I've been trying to get X displays working in a chroot environment on my Samsung ARM chromebook... I have Ubuntu working fine in a dual boot and in a chroot within ChromeOS, but can't set the display...any help would be appreciated.

<comment><USER4> Here's the chroot script I run:

        #!/bin/sh

        cp /proc/mounts /usr/local/wheezy/etc/mtab

        mount -o bind /sys /usr/local/wheezy/sys

        mount -o bind /proc /usr/local/wheezy/proc

        mount -o bind /dev/ /usr/local/wheezy/dev

        mount -o bind /dev/pts /usr/local/wheezy/dev/pts

        mount -o bind /tmp /usr/local/wheezy/tmp

        mount -o bind /home/chronos/user/     /usr/local/wheezy/root/chronos

        cp /home/chronos/.Xauthority /usr/local/wheezy/root/

        chroot /usr/local/wheezy/

And then in the chroot I have these lines in my .bashrc:

        export XAUTHORITY=/root/.Xauthority
        export DISPLAY=":1"

But I'm not sure they're actually necessary. I think you might just be able to do:

        DISPLAY=":1" startx &

from the command line to start X.

It seems to require being started from the actual virtual console on Ctl- Alt-F2 rather than from the crosh shell or local ssh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has any questions or needs help doing this on their own, let me know, I'd be happy to help.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, please. Is there a way to install onto the internal SSD? And if so, is there a noticeable speed difference?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In regards to upstream releasing an ARM version of Flash, I find that very unlikely, seeing as Adobe has ceased efforts to update Flash for Android 4.0+, likely indicating they are not planning on working on any other ARM based version.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I thought about this after and realize that you're probably right.

However, the ChromeOS version of Chrome does include a version of Flash that seems to work. Moreover, BlackBerry 10's browser comes with its own version of Flash too. So it's out there, but likely not available for distribution outside of closed systems.

<comment><USER7> Hmm, I think Google is managing a derivative of Adobe Flash in some form or another as the version in the latest unstable version of Chrome is around 11.5 which is not what the latest Adobe version is.

Maybe there's a way to get the Flash plugin out of the ChromeOS system image? Not sure how what it'd be linked against, so that could pose a problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely a thought that others and myself have had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> X-Istence I have an older Chromebook (Samsung Series 5, Alex codename) and I now have it running Ubuntu. The only thing that I dislike is that the ChrUbuntu script I used is using the ChromeOS kernel and runnig Ubuntu on top of it, so I am missing support for a whole range of devices because they are not included in the default kernel for ChromeOS... that is going to take me digging some to figure it out and compile my own kernel.

<comment><USER8> Not that much to figure out. The kernel sources are on git.chromium.org and they have a script (prepare-config, I think it's called) that gathers all the defaults that they set. Then just run make menuconfig and it's just like building your own kernel. Just be careful that you don't turn off anything that is needed for the Chromebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yep Ubuntu is the way to go. I was a Windows only kinda guy before I received my CR-48 from the pilot program. I tried Ubuntu for a bit, went to Windows 7 for a while, then Windows 8. Finally a few weeks back I saw some value in Linux for dev environments and went back to Ubuntu. I haven't looked back since.</comment>


Test your web site in 20 different browsers free - <AUTHOR> http://browsershots.org/screenshots/ <comment><USER2> The list of browsers you can test on includes MSIE 5.0 and 5.5. Do people target these browsers anymore? How old does a browser have to be before you say: I'm satisfied if the layout is a little off, as long as it's legible?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can test your web site in all web browsers, operating systems, resolutions, flash, java activex, full screen or not.

A similar service is www.browsercam.com, which charges 19.95 per day up to $1,000 a year.

<comment><USER3> Obviously, free is better than $19.95. But, I think $19.95 per day is a pretty good price too. I would rather pay browsercam.com $20 for instant results than wait around for hours (the current wait time on the browsershots.org cue is over three hours as I type this).

<comment><AUTHOR> You should probably try browsershots, then see how it actually works, and if it's not fast enough for you, try browsercam's free trial. I only mentioned browsercam and browsershots, but if you know any more, you can post them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem! I've seen some web sites that charged hundreds of dollars a month, or by the hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If this had the same title, but without the FREE at the end, I probably would have clicked on it. It kind of goes without saying that most things on the internet, particularly random technical services like this, are free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not? I voted you up to 2 to cheer you up. That was the title of the blog post where I found the link, so I just instinctively wrote that.</comment></comment>


Index cards are pretty cool (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/may/09/health-and-wellbeing <comment><USER2> For several years, I used index cards extensively to track my to-do list and capture notes on the go, inspired by Merlin Mann's "Hipster PDA"[0].

The flaw in my system turned out to be that there was just no convenient way to carry the cards around in my jeans pocket. They always wound up getting bent or wrinkled, and I couldn't find a way to keep the cards together that was both pocket-friendly (a binder clip isn't; it pokes and scratches) and quick-releasing (undoing e.g. a rubber band is just too much work for a quick note).

If anyone's still using a hipster PDA I'd be curious to hear what your physical system looks like and how you carry it with you.

[0] [http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the- hipster-...](http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-pda)

<comment><USER3> I put a Levenger Pocket Briefcase[0] on my Christmas wish list many years ago, and I still carry it around today. As a bonus I always get to show off how big my wallet is compared to everyone else's wallets.

[0][http://www.levenger.com/FOLIOS-579/POCKET- BRIEFCASES-304/Bom...](http://www.levenger.com/FOLIOS-579/POCKET- BRIEFCASES-304/Bomber-Jacket-Pocket-Briefcase-14130.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to consume stacks of them. Schematics, notes, CD catalogue, address book. It was by far the easiest format to keep structured data in paper form. I still miss them, but searching files is much quicker and database tables have a power all their own.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's also possible to buy better index cards from the Internet these days, at sites like Jet Pens: [https://www.jetpens.com/search?q=Index+cards&v=2](https://www.jetpens.com/search?q=Index+cards&v=2) or the Goulet Pen Company: [https://www.gouletpens.com/e13271/p/E13271](https://www.gouletpens.com/e13271/p/E13271) . Oddly, perhaps, the Internet has enabled the proliferation of great papers and pens.

</comment><comment><USER6> Niklas Luhmann's indexing method was really advanced and simple. There was article in HN, but I have lost it.

<comment><USER7> [https://www.ft.com/content/0de32666-b9fd-11dd-8c07-0000779fd...](https://www.ft.com/content/0de32666-b9fd-11dd-8c07-0000779fd18c) from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852785](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852785), perhaps, but I can't get past the ft.com paywall.

[http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2007/12/luhmanns- zettelkas...](http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2007/12/luhmanns- zettelkasten.html) from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13851727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13851727) is accessible and describes the gist of the system.

The summary is an arbitrarily deep tree/list of nodes. The notation for index card headings is similar to the way we typically do outlines (1, 1/1, 1/1a, corresponding to the typical 1, 1.1, 1.1.a, etc.). Searching was easy as you could find cards grouped by the first index, then the second, then the third (so 1/1a is next to 1/1b, and anything that might sit between them is a _child_ of 1/1a). So for a physical system, despite its size, it remained manageable. References to cards located in other branches allowed for an effective-cross referencing system, and could be paired with things like index (no pun intended) or topic cards which might list a bunch of related indices.

I suspect the physical limitations may have made it more manageable than an equivalent set of mind map nodes or a wiki, and the simple indexing (and consistent, never changing, once a number was assigned it was assigned) means everything is "static" once in place, but can have an arbitrary number of children to expand on it. This means no rewriting cross-references and/or indexes.

With a wiki you might be tempted to retitle (or find the perfect title) for a page, with this it's simply done. If you think of a better descriptor you can put it on a new card and include the index as the reference.

<comment><USER4> I built a website around this a while ago just to play around with, complete with index card looks.

<comment><USER8> Egged on by Luhmann, whom I read obsessively in my youth, I started a Luhmann- like hyper-text. Been doing it for a long time now. There are several implementations based on Luhmann's Zettelkasten, e.g. [1, 2, 3], but I've not used those myself, so can't comment on their usefulness. My own system is just HTML, grep and a few handwritten scripts. It's extremely lightweight.

It's been spectacularly useful for me. In my experience such a system becomes more useful with time, and with effort put in for curating. I spend maybe 2-3 hours every day with my private 'index cards'.

I guess most prolific writers in human history have been following a "write down every idea and refine it later" type system. But it must be so much easier now, with smartphones, computers, internet etc.

[1] [http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/en/](http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/en/)

[2] [http://www.verzetteln.de/synapsen/](http://www.verzetteln.de/synapsen/)

[3] [http://zettelkasten.de/tools/](http://zettelkasten.de/tools/)

<comment><USER9> I'm interested in _your_ system. Do you explain it fully anywhere? To the extent that it's something that I could try?

<comment><USER8> Thank you for your interest. I'm afraid I have nothing in public.

The technology is near trivial, mostly scripts to generate HTML5/CSS on demand, and grep for searching. The magic comes from how I use it. Short summary.

\- Write down every idea, and every insight. Write down half-baked ideas. You can later refine it.

\- Don't censor yourself. (That's why I don't write a public blog.)

\- When writing about some subject X, think carefully about how to link X to other pages. When making a link to another entry, read/browse the entry and let what you read give you inspiration about looking at X from another angle. This can be rather inspirational.

\- Curate carefully, I spend maybe 3-4 hours every day on your ZK. Have a long-term view: this is to be used your whole life. To longer you do it, the more useful it will become.

\- Be clear what you want from this system.

\- The whole system wasn't useful for the first couple years. Why? Because I could still remember what I had written. That changed after about a decade.

<comment><USER9> That's very interesting. Do you use it for ideas exclusively, or "personal logging"/journaling too?. I've found a program called Connected Text[0], which bills itself as a "personal wiki", and. I'm also looking at refining my use of OneNote Desktop which I've been using for years, and it has a [[link]] feature.

[0] [http://www.connectedtext.com/](http://www.connectedtext.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you like organizing your thoughts in index cards, consider checking out Gignko App (created by friend to write his physics PhD): [https://gingkoapp.com/](https://gingkoapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Hmm... you could paint a wall with magnetic whiteboard paint, and then get one of those packs of 100 magnetic whiteboard cards - write on the wall if you want, and then write on the cards too - erase the cards if you want, or just lift them off and move them around... I might do that.

</comment><comment><USER12> For whatever reason, whenever I need to work out a problem on paper quickly, I find myself reaching for a post-it note or index card instead of my notebook. I'm not sure why I prefer the smaller format for scratch work.

<comment><USER13> I suspect there's an important psychological factor in the idea that the post its or cards are disposable while the paper in the notebook is bound in.

I had to work to learn to use my lab notebook for this kind of thing. In school I only recorded lab setup and results. Once I got a "real job" I realized (well it was sternly told to me) that even random calculations and stupid incomplete ideas could be very important to my employer at some point in the future if something related later came out. This included crossing things out in a way that was still legible.

When we'd sign each other's notebook pages nobody ever commented on the half- assed stuff in my notebook and I saw it in others' too.

<comment><USER14> > Once I got a "real job" I realized (well it was sternly told to me) that > even random calculations and stupid incomplete ideas could be very important > to my employer at some point in the future if something related later came > out.

I got this lecture too, but (unfortunately?) all that really changed was that my post-it notes were stapled into my notebook.

<comment><USER15> I had to laugh, but technically, aren't you getting the best of both worlds?

<comment><USER13> I think you are as well but it does mean the person signing has to include a signature that spans both the post-it and the book's paper to show that the post-it wasn't put in later. Also it raises questions as to what is not getting recorded (which is absurd since of course you could simply use a notepad and hand copy in what you want, but this is human nature and suspicion, we're talking about).

I understand the US Secret Service has analyzed lab notebooks in some major disputes.

(To the best of my knowledge nobody has ever looked at my notebooks after I was done with them).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


This Guy Can Multitask: Driving While Reading A Book, A Kindle And A Phone - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/03/this-guy-can-multitask-driving-while-reading-a-book-a-kindle-and-a-phone/

<comment><AUTHOR> This dude is even crazier: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmpX4jCpbDI></comment>


Ask HN: Do I really need school? - <AUTHOR>

Do I need school to be an online entrepreneur? Im not a coder, most of my technical or field knowledge limits at SEO, UI, Biz Dev, etc.<p>Do I really need a college degree to build something big online or even offline? <comment><USER2> Obviously, you don't _need_ a college degree to build something-- so that's the wrong question to be asking.

The college experience can be an extremely valuable one. Or, it can be a total waste of time. It depends on your attitude, your goals, and your effort (among other things.)

Are you in a situation where college is an option for you?

</comment><comment><USER3> See my article on this very topic: <http://danieltenner.com/posts/0004-college-vs-startup.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> You probably don't need a university degree to do most stuff. I think there's quite alot in the signalling theory of education: <http://is.gd/ihEWy>.

That said, if you're going to rely on any technical disciplines in your plans - I'm thinking maths based subjects - I bet you'll reap rewards from the content as well as from having the badge.

Depends too how confident you are that you aren't going to need the badge.

</comment><comment><USER5> As someone who made very decent money writing code at 18, and consequently did the 7 year plan for undergrad (several "I make big money, why be in school?" moments), I'd wholeheartedly recommend finishing a degree. It's absolutely not necessary for success, but circumstances change and not having one is severely limiting. Not only do startups have to make pivots, often a person's individual career must as well (be it to another type of career, moving to a more bureaucratic organization, etc.), and a degree is well worth it when/if that time comes.

</comment><comment><USER6> As others have been saying, you don't need school. There have been plenty of successful business people who dropped out of school, or just never went to college in the first place.

I would suggest going to school, however. Not only is it insanely fun, but you obviously learn a lot. Also, the networking potential of college is probably unmatched.

</comment><comment><USER7> Need? No, definitely not.

But college can help a lot: if not by teaching, then by building relationships, and meeting people.

</comment><comment><USER8> A college degree MAY be something you don't need BUT ALSO something that MAY be required of you.....</comment>


LibreOffice HiDPI Patches - <AUTHOR> http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=3444

<comment><USER2> Note that this is an ex-MS Office developer, contributing to LO to fix a personal annoyance.</comment>


PHP vs Java, Which one is going to rule the Tech World? - <AUTHOR> http://innoppl.pen.io/ <comment><USER2> There is nothing about java in the article (ba article title) and it as usual tries to compare a framework to a language.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_choice></comment>


Facebook Now Growing by Over 600,000 Users a Day - And New Engagement Stats   - <AUTHOR> http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/12/16/facebook-now-growing-by-over-600000-users-a-day-and-new-engagement-stats/ <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who sees this as a bad thing?

I'll concede that I haven't put a whole lot of thought into it, but no sites come to mind that have ever been successful at creating a "community" that had value and interest to all ends of the user spectrum. It seems that targeted sites have always been more successful that something intended to appeal to pretty much anyone (ref: Prodigy, AOL, GeoCities, MySpace (getting eclipsed by FB and starting to fragment into certain niches)).

Sites that serve a point purpose for a wide user base (Twitter) seem to have a shot at success, but I think FB is sinking under the weight of its users.</comment>


Drunk oil broker trades millions of barrels illegally - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/careers-hr/people-management/news/index.cfm?newsid=20917&utm_source=ycombinator&utm_medium=sb&utm_content=rplant&utm_campaign=sb <comment><USER2> They reduced his fine becasue it might cause him financial hardship. Can you believe that...</comment>


Show HN: Cross Cloud Latency – A tool that measures latency from AWS to GCP - <AUTHOR> https://cclatency.com/ <comment><USER2> This is using "ping", i.e. ICMP echoes. That's easy to implement, but problematic in more ways than you might at first think. Firstly, some network elements may be configured to give ICMP echo request/response packets a different delivery priority, which could invalidate results for your probably- not-ping-based application. Secondly, a virtual machine may have more jitter in scheduling the transmission and the response. Thirdly, you don't get a picture of how congested the route is - is it good for a gigabit blast, or only a trickle of data?

But there's a deeper problem: ping measures round-trip time.

Interesting fact about IP routing: quite often, route out != route back. There's no requirement that paths in the Internet be symmetric, and very often, they aren't. What's more, congestion is often one-way.

So let's say you have a 92ms RTT between two sites; you can't know, from the ping alone, if that's an even 46ms each way, or 53ms one way and 39ms the other, or perhaps even 83ms + 9ms. If your application is sensitive enough to latency that this tool might be interesting, then it's quite possible that such asymmetric results are also relevant.

(obviously the speed of light can give you lower bounds on the split, if you have knowledge of DC locations).

There have been substantial projects to accurately measure one-way latency. For example, the RIPE Test Traffic project from the RIPE NCC ([https://www.ripe.net/analyse/archived- projects/ttm](https://www.ripe.net/analyse/archived-projects/ttm)) was a large-scale and long-running observatory that kept more statistics besides, such as packet loss. Sadly the successor to this service appears not to measure one-way latency. For precision, it required both an appliance and a GPS antenna to be installed, so major cloud providers were unlikely to cooperate.

<comment><USER3> > Secondly, a virtual machine may have more jitter in scheduling the > transmission and the response.

I have very recently been over exactly that with a customer that had considerably increased network latency on some VMs on his VMWare cluster when the CPU was under load. From the very beginning I was pointing to the hypervisors scheduler, and ended up measuring the time when the interrupt handler for the network card was active to receive the packet (which no linux or program setting could really influence). It took some convincing and arguing, but they found the magic setting on the hypervisor that made the problem go away (aptly named Latency Sensitivity).

I'm sure both AWS and GCP teams have that under very tight control, but especially the cheapest instances with the smallest and burstable CPU budgets that you would run for such a project are probably running with the noisiest neighbors on the most oversubscribed hardware.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. I've seen on a particular cloud provider too where, although the VM was idle it was discarding 20%+ inbound packets. That only seems to happen with providers that overcommit their VMs or don't configure their NICs correctly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's pretty amazing, nice work!

The company I work for has a similar tool (no fancy API yet, though) which shows the latency from some AWS regions to "the world" via different transit providers.

You can check it out at [https://latency-test.datapath.io/](https://latency- test.datapath.io/).

The reason we only have three AWS regions at the moment is that we're using real hardware to do the measurement on network level.

</comment><comment><USER6> Its interesting that the latency in the example from GCP to AWS is all the worse than AWS to GCP. Does anyone know the reason? The biggest argument for GCP is mostly their really great network.

<comment><USER7> Asymmetric routing, probably. Can't know for sure without bidirectiional traceroutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Website down as of 2017-Jul-10?</comment>


Stephen Hawking: Beware smart machines - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27260080

<comment><USER2> Link disambiguation: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen- hawking-tr...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking- transcendence-looks-at-the-implications-of-artificial-intelligence--but-are- we-taking-ai-seriously-enough-9313474.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> A dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7614391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7614391).</comment>


Creating a C# ("Roslyn") Analyser from scratch – For beginners by a beginner - <AUTHOR> http://productiverage.com/creating-a-c-sharp-roslyn-analyser-for-beginners-by-a-beginner <comment><AUTHOR> Mirror: [http://productiverage.neocities.org/creating-a-c-sharp- rosly...](http://productiverage.neocities.org/creating-a-c-sharp-roslyn- analyser-for-beginners-by-a-beginner.html)</comment>


OpenBSD imports LLVM - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/bob_beck/status/772205499949481985 <comment><USER2> Does this mean that they will change GCC with LLVM? I would like to see that at least on amd64.</comment>


How Physicists At Fermilab Build a Bridge - <AUTHOR> http://joedoliner.com/?p=36

<comment><USER2> That strikes me as an obvious and not particularly noteworthy solution.

Disclaimer: I have a Physics degree.

<comment><USER3> Remember these are physicists so this solution only came after they spent hours trying to throw string across (you may neglect air resistance) float string across (you may neglect the mass of the string) and jump across (assume a spherical physicist in a vacuum).

The mathematicians came up with the string solution, but only after a few days of attempting to drop the ball of string from the bottom to the top because they had a different convention about coordinate systems.

<comment><USER4> I'd have expected the physicists to be first with the string theory. The mathematicians should have spent at least one week discussing knot topologies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Slight catch. if you suspend a rope pendulum from a horizontal string, if the string flexes at all, it will essentially act like a longer pendulum perpendicular to the string (where the string moves) than it does along the string. The result is that the pendulum's swing has a different period along either axis, and it will trace out a lissajous pattern, not a straight line in its swing. And that sort of wrecks the idea of a focault pendulum.

Oops!

Better make sure your cable is REALLY tight.

<comment><USER6> If you can stretch a cable across a "chasm" chances are that you can pop an I-beam in there instead. That would solve that problem.

<comment><USER4> Because I-beams are perfectly rigid and don't flex at all?? I'm guessing "would render that problem so small as to be unnoticeable" but maybe the pendulum is so light that effects are drowned by random noise or don't exist - there must be a potential well to climb out of before lateral forces cause axial flexing so I'm probably wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another cute thing about Wilson Hall at Fermilab is that the front doors faces precisely due north. Not because they were constructed with painstaking precision but because the physicists have redefined Fermilab's coordinate system such that north is defined as the direction Wilson Hall faces.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you every have a chance to visit fermilab, I highly recommend it. The 20-story pendulum is only one of many cool science geek things unrelated to the accelerators you can see.

<comment><USER8> IEEE used to offer special tours. Don't know whether they still do.</comment></comment>


4chan has been blocked in NZ "for security reasons" - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/b1aqz4/pol_member_commits_mass_shooting_in_new_zealand/ <comment><USER2> Kiwi here. This block was not initiated by the government, as far as I can tell. I believe certain ISPs blocked the sites preemptively, as the block is not in place on my connection.

Thankfully, NZ has no mandatory internet filtering, though the department of internal affairs offers a child porn blocklist which some ISPs apply.

<comment><USER3> > the block is not in place on my connection.

Spark (NZ ISP) gets there ok for me.

Edit: on further testing, some things are broken. 4Chan works fine, which is puzzling.

<comment><USER4> Spark managing director Simon Moutter:

>Our Spark security experts are working hard to close off the websites attempting to distribute the hateful stuff originating from the perpetrators of the massacre in Christchurch. We hope it causes minimal inconvenience to legitimate internet use by our customers.

[https://twitter.com/simonmoutter/status/1106418640167952385](https://twitter.com/simonmoutter/status/1106418640167952385)

<comment><USER5> "working hard to close off ..."

Suggests ongoing and continuous effort, but that thread suggests it's a simple DNS blackhole.

I imagine they added the domain(s) to their blacklist and flushed the cache (or removed specific entries). And this doesn't prevent access.

Sounds like using a tragedy for marketing. Maybe I'm being too cynical?

<comment><USER3> You can't be too cynical. If you aren't already aware, Spark was part of Telecom before the NZ government broke it up. The then CEO controversially described using confusion as a marketing strategy.

[https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10380894)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> First, my condolences to all the affected. Nobody should experience a shooting, least of all a mass shooting in a place of worship against innocent people, including children, in a coordinated attack by foreign organizations. I hope the NZ government will grind the organizations responsible for this attack to dust, with help from their friends and allies and our taxpayer dollars.

Second, it's very important to not be taken advantage of. Whether it's funeral homes raising the prices of coffins, or governments taking away civil liberties, people have a habit of accepting bad outcomes because they (very understandably) can't think straight. Oftentimes, those decisions are very difficult to reverse when things calm down and the scales fall from your eyes. An alert, vigilant citizenry is the keystone for a democratic society.

If I was the NZ government, I'd be _very_ interested in screening foreign travel into NZ and banning firearms on arrivals. I'd also be _very_ interested in what the AUS government will be doing about domestic terrorism and spillover, and would scream for greater intelligence sharing. I'm highly skeptical that banning a website will even partially address this issue; I'd rather honeypot it and trace any terror cells for physical locations. And I would increase funding for domestic security, and demand machine-readable receipts for said funding available to anybody with the proper security clearance.

There's no unicorn technical solution to the problem of terror and fear. Technical solutions must be weaved into an overall change in social paradigms and political strategy to address the task at hand. I do think that's our place in this world.

</comment><comment><USER7> Context:

No similar event has occurred in New Zealand before.

Guns are not readily available in New Zealand. You can get one suitable for sport, but it is a serious process to get your license first. I presume these guns must have been illegally imported from somewhere.

I think New Zealanders are mostly reasonably liberal, even laid-back, although we do have our share of "rednecks" too.

Size, geography, and population of NZ is somewhat similar to Oregon.

Generally our government is reasonably well run and the less fortunate get some care: I suspect because the families and friends of our politicians have varied backgrounds (it is difficult for politicians to live in an elite bubble).

Generally we don't like being told what to do by our government, or anyone from overseas.

Personal opinion:

I am from Christchurch, and I think censorship is dangerous, but there needs to be some way to prevent the _easy_ access to forums and videos of violence, hatred, and abuse.

I don't want my friends, or their family watching this mentally damaging video. I know friends and the children of friends that have watched the livestreamed video, because it is easily available.

This block is unprecedented here, and has little legal or technical infrastructure in place to enforce it.

NZ will sort our shit out about this, hopefully without too much interference from the societies that caused this atrocity in the first place.

<comment><USER8> > there needs to be some way to prevent the easy access to forums and videos > of violence, hated, and abuse.

Why? There is no evidence viewing it leads to violence while there is plenty of evidence of the dangers of censorship. I feel like we are back in the 80s with the PMRC clutching their pearls, talking about how heavy metal music is causing children to worship the devil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Link is inaccurate. 4chan and 8chan are not blocked on my NZ home connection. I can only presume this is a preemptive action by certain ISPs.

There is no mandatory internet filter in NZ.

<comment><USER9> Do you use custom DNS? It's possible that they're just modifying the DNS servers of ISPS.

<comment><USER2> Now that you mention it, I do use unbound on my router. I should check to see if you're right, though I can't right now.

There is no mandatory block in place, that much I am sure. Such a thing could not be put in place without me hearing about it, I'm sure about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That anybody'd even think to block a website on such grounds is worrying.

That it actually happened is alarming.

<comment><USER11> Shutting down a largely toxic website that fuels the flames of extremism is an order of magnitude less alarming than 50+ people losing their lives.

I don't really see much value lost in taking 4chan down, just like it's not a big deal if Stormfront or an Isis affiliated site was blocked.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want, with no threat of consequences.

<comment><USER12> >Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want, with no threat of consequences.

No, it means the government cannot prevent you from saying whatever you want. Its frightening how widespread opposition to free speech has become (especially among the younger generation who has been conditioned to accept authoritarianism).

<comment><USER13> we deprive children of their liberties for 12+ years and put them in a box where they are taught explicitly and implicitly that all that matters is appealing to authority, so why is it any surprise to see them so drawn towards authoritarianism? for that matter, why would they care about freedom of speech at all when they never get to use it? it might as well be as foreign to them as the polar bear.

<comment><USER12> Its no surprise at all - I agree completely. Its extremely ominous all the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Controversial opinion incoming: perhaps the audience for sites like 4chan/8chan reflects a curiosity created to some extent by the ever narrowing range of permitted news topics allowed by the MSM.

<comment><USER15> A range which has been narrowing recently, meanwhile the chans have been popular for decades now. I agree with you in part; 4 & 8 have been gaining popularity because people just don't trust the news, but it's not because of fake news that people are joining. It's because the news doesn't agree with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> But not 8chan? Where he was a user?

<comment><USER17> You are right, Users like these were booted out of 4chan and formed 8chan. 4chan got it because it's more popular

<comment><USER18> Have you never been to the /pol/ board? 4chan is very much still a hate filled place that encourages harmful actions.

<comment><USER19> Have you never been to a board other than /pol/? There's plenty of other harmless exchanges going on. 4chan is not primarily a political site.

<comment><USER11> Sure, shut down /pol/ and /b/ and you solve most of the 4chan problem for the moment.

<comment><USER20> These people tend to be extremely online, I am skeptical blocking a couple websites will change their overall behavior or ideologies. I suspect they'd just make a different website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reddit itself is being censored right now banning users left and right due to shooting video

<comment><USER22> Just noticed r/watchpeopledie was banned about an hour ago: [https://reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/b1hjtn/rwatchpe...](https://reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/b1hjtn/rwatchpeopledie_has_been_banned_please_discuss/)

Which makes sense, if Reddit wants to ban the Christchurch video. Banning just that video and not the many others posted and discussed daily would be a difficult needle to thread as a coherent policy.

<comment><USER5> This event doesn't seem to change the moral justification, or otherwise, for r/watchpeopledie? So why ban the sub now, rather than impose heavy moderation (or indeed do nothing?)?

<comment><USER22> I'm arguing that there isn't a particular moral justification; it's driven by public relations. And one can hardly claim that Reddit was caught unawares by the potential for controversy -- r/watchpeopledie was quarantined half a year ago [https://www.newsweek.com/reddit-quarantine-subs-toxic- contro...](https://www.newsweek.com/reddit-quarantine-subs-toxic- controversial-moderators-1144663)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Confirmed. NZ ISPs are blocking access to Liveleak, 4chan, 8ch, a certain farm, Mixtape, Mega, and many other sites that are not complying immediately with the takedown orders.

>Even @Bitchute is removing the video mirrors.

[https://twitter.com/eldarmark/status/1106463828768747520](https://twitter.com/eldarmark/status/1106463828768747520)

>Earlier today Bush said he was aware that footage of the shooting had appeared on social media and police were doing everything they could to get it removed.

>"It shouldn't be in the public domain."

>Facebook Australia-New Zealand policy director Mia Garlick said videos which appeared to show the Christchurch shootings had been taken down.

>"New Zealand Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced and we quickly removed both the shooter's Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video."

>Spark managing director Simon Moutter said the company was working to close off websites attempting to distribute the footage.

>"Our Spark security experts are working hard to close off the websites attempting to distribute the hateful stuff originating from the perpetrators of the massacre in Christchurch. We hope it causes minimal inconvenience to legitimate internet use by our customers."

>Vodafone NZ spokesman Richard Llewellyn said: "Industry players are working at a technical level now to block some of the hate sites involved in this content."

>Spark spokesman Andrew Pirie said technical staff had identified three primary sites where footage had been posted but there were a number of "copycat" sites popping up.

>The internet providers had joined forces to block access to these sites, he said.

[https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12213076)

<comment><USER10> They're using the chance to get every site they can blocked. It's a new take on the good old "think of the children" to erase anything they'd like to for everybody, children or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why do these people think censorship works? The more you don't want me to see it, the harder I will try to see it. I think this is pretty universal human nature. Instead let's use this as a learning opportunity.

<comment><USER24> > The more you don't want me to see it, the harder I will try to see it.

That comes into play only after you know there's something to see.

<comment><USER5> So we should suppress the news?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My ISP banned 4channel.org/lit ... a place for discussing literature and philosophy. Bit dumb.

<comment><USER26> the left wing plan to destroy the world with their hypocrisy

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> 4chan currently read only for me in NZ. cannot post to any board, only view. Appears sys.4chan.org is not resolvable.

</comment><comment><USER27> I cannot post to 4chan from NZ at this time. Appears sys.4chan.org is currently not resolvable.

</comment><comment><USER28> Isn't working for me either however using a vpn lets me on

</comment><comment><USER29> this is all bullshit

Your shutting down rightwing websites and free speech the phase hate speech" is nothing more than an essuse to take away NZ freedoms and religious rights in Orwellian attack on right wing voters and attack on freedom of association and discrimory laws both of which are illegal in NZ.

leftwingers are currently the only ones with free speech so what you are doing is outright illegal no matter the jusifcation

</comment><comment><USER30> Leading media, New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post are calling for immediate and drastic action against 8chan.

It's only a matter of time until it will be shutdown.

<comment><USER31> As someone who browses 8chan I'd rather the entire site doesn't take the hit, since not the entire site partakes in this. It's only /pol/ that needs to be removed.

<comment><USER13> 8ch is jim's ego project now, it'll continue to exist as long as it amuses him or is regulated out of existence. removing /pol/ wont remove /pol/ users. however, removing places like /pol/ or /baph/ would fundamentally kill 8ch as it would no longer be a free speech site. nor would such a move appease the disingenuous opportunists who use tragedies like this for their own personal gain.

<comment><USER31> Modern 8ch has been overrun by /pol/, they've been a consistent problem that's only gotten worse. 8ch already isn't a free speech site, /pol/ will ban you for even questioning their rhetoric. Sure you can create a new board, but almost no one ever browses those except to stash CP when they eventually get abandoned.

Removing /pol/ would certainly remove /pol/ users, they would need to find another place and it takes time for these sorts of communities to regroup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> delete pol

<comment><USER5> Won't people just use another forum. It might disrupt things briefly but doesn't seem like a solution to anything much except for those running the chans escaping the heat, and politicians who will say "look that hate forum is gone, problem solved; vote me!".

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why do Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube continue to turn a blind eye to the hate that populate their platforms? Why do they continue to enable them? The only argument I've heard is that regulating speech is a slippery slope, but I don't find that very persuasive.

[https://twitter.com/fraser_anning](https://twitter.com/fraser_anning)

It makes me incredibly sad how blatant calls for violence and racist and backwards ideologies are freely pushed on Twitter. Please stop giving these people a platform.

<comment><USER34> You're also going to ban the hate in rap music, right?

<comment><USER3> What is a moderate approach? Blocking distribution of a gunmans rampage seems ok to me. Allowing angry rap music seems fine. Where is the line?

<comment><USER5> What about angry rap music that demands policemen are shot?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Packaging of a cellphone done right. - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XtZKVnTVSNc

<comment><USER2> Something like this would have helped my mother in setting up her ipad. I had an hourlong conversation on the phone with her, what she has to do. Never having set up an ipad, that was not fun.

OK; I have an old iPhone, so it was possible to do this, but ease of use from the first moment looks different.</comment>


Download Wrappers and Unwanted Software are pure evil - <AUTHOR> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/DownloadWrappersAndUnwantedSoftwareArePureEvil.aspx

<comment><USER2> I hope this goes viral. This is very well written and illustrated with screenshots. I recall my "non-technical relative" had a netbook with 10-inch screen and when they opened up their browser, the upper half would be toolbars stacked below each other.

IE has now tabs and address bar lined up together in one row, almost every browser has stopped showing the menu bar and what not to save the browser's real estate. I understand that privacy is the real concern here. But my screen's real estate is a concern for me. Why can't the concept of browser toolbars end?

</comment><comment><USER3> This explains where my brother got "Conduit Search" from. I had to remove that and a bunch of other crap from his laptop.

Download.com has been going down hill for a long while. I've since stopped downloading from them.

I like how this article goes further to show how "legit" companies add this crap into their software. This crap needs to stop.

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome article, I really enjoyed how it went full circle at the end!. I actually have heard of the Conduit Search garbage, because some peice of software I was installing on a new machine that I trusted (and never did this) went to the dark-side and included it. Removing it was akin to removing a virus, maybe worse.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hard to believe this post is not in the front page of HN. As the technical member of my family I'm constantly dealing with these type of issues.

</comment><comment><USER6> What's more puzzling than the flagrant absurdity of this is why the people involved are content to waste their lives creating these things.

<comment><USER7> Given the amount of people who have replied "Oh yeah I know this" in the blog- post, I'm going to assume that somebody is making shitloads of money off this scammy thing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why did Java get so popular in enterprises? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Much of this can be credited to a few things:

\- Sun already had a massive presence as a big-iron enterprise IT company, and machines running Solaris were everywhere; when such a primary vendor starts pushing a brand new platform, many of their customers follow

\- The language itself is reasonably well designed, if a little verbose, but very consistent and well documented

\- The Internet was booming and the prospect of writing write-once-run- anywhere applets for the browser JVM with superior interactivity compared to anything else at the time was very compelling

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a language that's easy to spec out an architecture and hire an army of ants to bang it out. (I had a client who literally hired like 1,500 people for 18 months to deliver 1.0 of the core system for their business)

It was a win for everyone. Big enterprises got to ditch cobol, it generates oodles of services revenue, you need lots of boxes and it drives sales of RDBMS and other high margin stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think Java EE is a driver for Java in enterprises today. Easy management, easy deploy and widespread knowledge. Almost any IT knows what to do if you give them an EAR/WAR.

Huge, enormous ecosystem - and plenty of developers ranging from super-junior to rockstar. It's somewhat enterprise-driven ie: it never breaks backwards compatibility

</comment><comment><USER5> Strong backwards compatibility story.Huge ecosystem. Masses of developers.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sun Microsystems pushed the hell out of it and Sun was the dominant server and workstation maker in the late '90s / early '00s. There weren't any alternatives with equally strong backing at the time, so it won out.</comment>


How much time do you spend thinking of good identifier names? - <AUTHOR> Sometimes I find myself getting stuck on a project just because I can't think of a good name for a new class which implements some new feature. How do you deal with this problem? One way I can think of is assigning template names('NewFeature1'). It isn't that big of a problem with modern ide's which provide one click renames. <comment><USER2> When I am having difficulty naming things its usually because I am trying to be too concise. In my experience its always better to be more verbose and accurate than to spend time trying to be clever and end up with something I don't remember what it does but its called newSlide.

</comment><comment><USER3> Honestly, I don't have a good way. It doesn't happen often but sometimes I just end up with a 20+ character identifier. Seems to fit in fine in Java land though. And like you, if I want to do a rename, my IDE will help me do it better than I ever could alone.

I will note that I usually find a better name after it sits there for a while and starts to not make sense. Also after hearing complaints from other programmers about "why is this called x when it should be y :)".

</comment><comment><USER4> You can often improve your identifiers, but they should come pretty easy if you understand your task and the approach you're taking to it.

Nondescriptive "template names" (your "NewFeature1") are a _huge_ red flag signaling unpreparedness.

While there is pressure to "just code it" that comes from methodologies like Agile or from just having an intense workload, the spontaneity should be happening in the context of professional expertise and good insight.

Do you have a sense of what algorithms are relevant? What traditional patterns? What data is being represented? What transforms are being applied? What libraries and services are being utilized? You don't need an 40 page architecture to start coding, but you'll usually have answers to all those questions somewhere in mind. And your identifiers should usually be pretty obvious when you do.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can't think of a good name? So think of a bad name for it. You will automatically think about what's wrong with the bad name and a better one will occur to you, etc.

Also, worrying about the perfect name at the start is extremely premature optimization - often/usually the purpose of things changes, or you realize it wasn't what you thought it was, or you come to understand it better, or it gets split or combined etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> Take time to think about the way/pattern you will use to name identifiers across the whole project. Camel-cased? Lowercased with underscores? 2-4 words in each?

After that things will be easier and faster.</comment>


How Dead is WebOS? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kiwiluv.com/techblog/?p=1297 New HP devices are coming out and folks are migrating to HTML/CSS/Javascript frameworks, which was always the case for WebOS.  Does it have a chance for third place in the smartphone market after it's precipitous downfall? <comment><USER3> I was given a free Pre2 by Palm's Developer Relations Team as a development device. After a week with the thing, I fully expected to be clawing at my iPhone, performing 40 Hail Steves, and vowing never to stray again.

Instead, I haven't touched the iPhone for eight weeks. WebOS is a delight, and I wish I'd had the guts to try it sooner; not only is the OS better thought out in many ways (multi tasking, global app menus, discreet notifications, OTA system updates, polished app switching, 'just type' launcher, the gesture area, and more) but the Enyo development kit has been easy to pick up, and hardware touches -- like the Touchstone charging dock -- make the device a joy to live with.

I'm currently porting an iOS app to WebOS, and will be launching future apps on both platforms, even though the WebOS userbase falls short of iOS and Android's reach. In short, I feel really positive about WebOS, and hope HP's acquisition of Palm will be the kick it needs to find the success it deserves.

<comment><USER4> How did you get a free Pre 2?

I've been chomping at the bit to develop for anything besides my iPhone. I just can't afford any new phone right now.

<comment><USER5> I got one from this offer too. They announced it on their blog [1] a few months back, I'm not sure if it's still open, but there's definitely no harm in trying.

[1]: [http://pdnblog.palm.com/2011/02/mojo-and-enyo-two-great- oppo...](http://pdnblog.palm.com/2011/02/mojo-and-enyo-two-great- opportunities/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've developed a fairly well known (to the webos community) application. I had a top 10 app in Palm's million dollar contest. I've been on their print and web promotional tools and featured several times in their app catalog... yet I feel and felt that HP and Palm both have dropped the ball when it has come to developing for WebOS. They have terrible, poorly documented API's.

I think its all fine and dandy that they have semi-rewarded me with some free advertising, but as a developer, I really only care about writing a killer app and if there is no way to do certain things, or making me write a C++ browser extension just to properly cURL data, well its just not worth my time.

Being able to phonegap applications will help their count, but most developers know, those apps never feel purely native and the apps typically are extremely low powered, unintelligent apps.

I think that accounting for all that might be more of a recipe for disaster. Poor usability and a lack of strong apps, except for the occasional game (written in C++ as a browser plugin so they can opengl).

<comment><USER7> So if writing a browser extension in C++ is hard, then what about writing whole application in Objective C instead of writing in JS? I'm genuinely interested what do you consider easier platform to develop, since I've just tried out Enyo and I really like it.

<comment><USER6> It's not really about the language, it was more about the API's available. I write iPhone apps also and the frameworks that Apple has developed are far superior and far more reaching than anything Palm/HP has done.

Their API's available to the browser extensions are basically just opengl related.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had a Pre for two years, just got the Nexus S and my wife has an iPhone 4. Without question, the biggest UX differences between the platforms are:

1\. General responsiveness (iPhone leads)

2\. Notifications (iPhone trails dramatically)

3\. Web Page as a 1st class OS object. (WebOS is the only one that does this)

This third point is NEVER discussed. With Android and iOS, you have to go to the browser and then jump to a particular tab. When multi-tasking, this forces you to do more clicks through two different mental models. In WebOS, everything is a card. When you're trying to pull ESPN back up, you seek ESPN, not 'browser'.

Given google's position on the web, I am just surprised they haven't done a better job of this. It makes sense that Apple is making webpages 2nd class citizens, they want a 30% cut.

<comment><USER9>
      In WebOS, everything is a card. When you're trying to pull ESPN back up, you seek ESPN, not 'browser'.

That I like. It harkens back to the days of non-tabbed browsers on the desktop. But while the desktop is conducive to working with many tabs successfully (UX- and hardware-wise) on mobile, it makes a lot more sense to have a single level of windowing rather than the nesting a tabbed browser gives you.

<comment><USER10> ... but not when you have deliciously usable and tactile "cards". :-)

<comment><USER9> Right. And by promoting each "tab" to its own "card" at the same level as each other "app" you benefit from that.

<comment><USER10> Plus in webOS 2.x, stacks reduce the cognitive load of having too many (seemingly) unrelated cards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some things about WebOS are absolutely fantastic. My first smartphone was a Pre Plus when it came out on Verizon for like $40.

The software was pretty great. The multitasking was perfect, Synergy was awesome. It wasn't quite as polished in some areas as iOS, but some things were also drastically superior. Also the inductive charging was awesome as well.

I got an iPhone on Verizon when it came out, and I really miss the multitasking. But what I don't miss is the hardware.

My Pre was literally starting to fall apart. It was all cheap, flimsy plastic, not durable at all. The difference in build quality of the iPhone was astonishing. And dramatic noticeable speed improvement.

WebOS was crippled by its horrible hardware. The software was competitive, even the best at times, but the Pre was just terrible hardware. It didn't have very fast specs, and the phone itself wasn't durable or high quality.

<comment><USER12> Agreed, webOS suffers from some small-ish fit and finish problems, and much larger marketing and (lack of) application problems.

webOS 1.0 did do a lot of wacky/strange things that were annoying, though not bad enough for the phone to be useless. As well as the hardware problems, you'd get stuff like like the alarm going off a minute before it was supposed to (going by the phone's own time display). It would also repeatedly tell you every few minutes that it was unable to send an email message when no network was available.

They're reduced the number of annoyances in webOS 2.0, though, so I am hopeful for the Pre 3. (It also now has close to acceptable performance, instead of completely unacceptable performance.)

The marketing and app problems are much more difficult to solve; I'm not sure what they can do there. Throwing money at it, maybe...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone who takes an objective look at iOS vs. Android vs. webOS will see that webOS is the technologically superior platform. The UI is fantastic and smooth and many of other current mobile platforms are starting to "borrow" from it. The playbook, android and even iOS to a certain extent. If HP markets the hardware and software correctly and they do a good job of attracting quality developers it will be a force.

<comment><USER14> > current mobile platforms are starting to "borrow" from it

The question is, will the other mobile platforms borrow from it fast enough to make it totally irrelevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "That fragmentation is driving developers to embrace frameworks such as PhoneGap, which WebOS has wholeheartedly adopted. "

Honest question: _really?_ Is anyone actually using this stuff in a serious way? I ask because I use only iOS basically so I may genuinely be missing this revolution that is taking place, but at least on iOS I have never downloaded an app that was phonegap, nor do I think any significant charting apps use it. Is it widely used for custom built apps or something? Or used a lot in android? Or is it actually not being used a lot?

<comment><USER16> I've seen quite a few apps written in phone gap work really well on iOS devices. I think many people are surprised how well an apps experience can be with this tech... granted, lots of people don't know that large numbers of apps are really just a web view wired to a minimal obj-c shell so I think the approach is pretty successful if not the framework itself.

<comment><USER17> A counter-example is Safari To Go - Safari Book Online's iPad app, which they withdrew due to bad review: [http://blog.safaribooksonline.com/2010/11/24/ipad-app- safari...](http://blog.safaribooksonline.com/2010/11/24/ipad-app-safari-to-go- update-november-24-2010/)

Most people agreed that PhoneGap was the wrong framework. It's not that PhoneGap is intrinsically bad - it is not - but that it is not for every task, and more likely, it is not good for most tasks that are more than a short load-lookup-leave cycle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you would asked me a year ago, I would have thought webOS had no chance given its slow pace of development. Yet the rev one tablet offerings from Google and RIM are basically betas so HP has a good chance of catching up.

Likewise in the phone segment, the third place slot is far from wrapped up. MeeGo was DOA and Windows Phone 7 isn't exactly lighting the sales charts on fire.

Solid execution from HP over the next 6 months could really ignite the webOS platform.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone else agree WebOS is the number 3 mobile OS after iOS & Android? Seriously?

Objectively RIM is by far the 3rd biggest player (by some measures it is in the top 2), and I can't see how WebOS is magically going to leapfrog them. Playbook might not be perfect, but it's a lot better than the unshipped HP TouchPad.

In my head WinPhone7 is number 4 - and they at least have a strategy to move up in the market (aka Nokia).

WebOS might be lovely (I wouldn't know.. you can't buy it in my market - <USER2> says a lot), but I can list pages in Wikipedia for lovely platforms like WebOS: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_machine>, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga>, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure> etc etc)

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm working with a team doing amazing things to ready the the HP TouchPad launch and webOS 3.0 for launch. We wouldn't be working so hard if we thought this platform was dead on arrival. HP has big plans and I'm glad we're a part of it.

<comment><USER6> Ben, we love you guys, but we feel that you spend too much time with EA, GameLoft and probably Rovio, and not enough with us little guys. Maybe thats whats caused some me to get so distant, worsening the effect.

In all reality, thats business. A company that was driving only a few thousand dollars of revenue a month isn't all the important compared to the ones probably doing 10-100x that. :|

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The real question is not whether WebOS is good or bad but whether any single hardware and OS vendor (other than Apple, obviously) has a snowflake's chance in hell of getting the ecosystem and mindshare required to be competitive. Especially in the US where the carriers have a such strong hold on the only viable channels to consumers you basically can't get anywhere unless you can align your interests strongly with the established parties. Apple forced their way in through sheer mass consumer appeal, Google managed to do it through a brilliant strategy of giving carriers just enough control to make them see it as a savior from being dictated to by Apple. But what strategic value will carriers get from offering WebOS based phones? If HP screws them with bad hardware they are stuck. If HP screws them with bad software they are stuck. Pile on top of that the fact that the demands of modern smart phones these days go way beyond a nice OS - you just can't compete unless you come to the table with a huge range of services integrated - mapping, search, voice-to- text, etc. WebOS relies on competitors to get these services which can't possibly work long term.

I also disagree with the assessment of WP7 - I don't think the so-called "missteps" have even been noticed by the vast majority of consumers using WP7 phones. With Nokia maxing out their distribution channel to push WP7 phones I really can't see how WebOS is going to beat them. People are going to buy them just through sheer numbers of them on the shelves. It doesn't mean WP7 is going to succeed but certainly indicates WebOS is going to have a really hard time beating them.

</comment><comment><USER22> HP will be shipping WebOS on all its laptops and desktops. They are the #1 computer maker. You do the math.

<comment><USER23> Here's my math. It seems to me there are two possibilities:

WebOS fails on the laptop and desktop (e.g. is perceived as crap/bloat-ware or simply ignored). In this case the math doesn't look good.

WebOS succeeds on the laptop and desktop. This means that a whole bunch of users are willing to give up on Windows for their computing needs. Long overdue, since most people's computing needs are met by a web browser and a few other programs you can get for free. If this looks like happening, it's open season on the PC industry business model. Apple has already taken away the high margin market... this will be like a horde of hyenas ripping into a wounded wildebeest. I'm not sure this is actually a better outcome for HP.

<comment><USER24> The PC business model is a zombie right now. I work at a joint that rolled out about 12,000 PCs a year, every year. Since 2008? 2,000/year... mostly laptops to folks whose jobs have become more mobile.

ALL of the good customer facing people with companies that peddle PCs in my neck of the woods have either moved on to greener pastures or are holding out for retirement.

My guess is that in 2014, those 6+ year old PCs will start failing and be replaced with tablets for about 60% of the workers. I betcha that the rest will be PCs from no-frills vendors like Asus.

Big enterprises are very conscious of costs, and the "whale" of client- computing costs is that fat Microsoft EA that just gobbles up capital. That's a big cash flow to build a business case for an alternate product.

<comment><USER23> Exactly. If WebOS "succeeds" on the desktop it will only be because the PC business is done. And in that case, being the world's number one PC vendor isn't very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > WebOS even beat Windows Phone 7 in the single most important determination > of the success of any mobile platform. The availability of Angry Birds.

Angry Birds is coming to Windows Phone 7: [http://www.bgr.com/2011/04/14/angry-birds-for-windows- phone-...](http://www.bgr.com/2011/04/14/angry-birds-for-windows- phone-7-taking-off-on-may-25th/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it definitely is coming to Windows Phone 7.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One announcement that I really look forward to, is a system with multi-user support. Since webos is kind of new (or at least will get a proper re-release at this point with the first tablet device), I hope this option will be included. The first tablet device which allows separate accounts for each user at home gets my money as soon as it's released.

</comment><comment><USER27> > "Like I said, my bet is on WebOS over Windows Phone 7. "

Mine too, few months ago I ran into some tutorials on getting started on developing for webOS on Mobiletuts+ and installed the webOS image for VirtualBox, and my impressions of webOS were positive. Since then a new version of webOS was released, I can only imagine that it's even better.

</comment><comment><USER28> They've taken a great OS and put it in a somewhat poor smartphone. I found they keyboard on the initial Pre to be very bad. I've heard it has improved since then, but as they saying goes, first impressions count a lot.

I really thought with HP they would make significant enhancements to the hardware, but so far I haven't seen anything too compelling. Still, it's a great OS and I wish them luck. I may take another look at it in the tablet form.

<comment><USER29> Agreed. The Pre's battery life was atrocious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have to agree with most of the comments:

\- The OS is great, but the hardware really falls behind... too small screen, poor battery: I'm wondering: I don't think you can have lots of success without both a great phone and a greato OS

\- As for the free developer device offer, it seems they were a bit selective... I applied for it and didn't get any answer.

I started developing even before the device was released here in France, and have had to use the emulator since then. And that's a pain :(

Let's hope the Pre 3 will change these things (the Veer won't certainly have a bigger screen... And if I remember correctly you'll need an adaptator to connect earphones: that's definitely not a phone for me :))

</comment><comment><USER31> I bought a Palm Pre (1) for Sprint about a month after it came out. I still think the operating system, WebOS, is great but Palm really let me down with the device. It was just pure crap.

Despite its sleek design, the craftsmanship was poor and the phone cracked in multiple places. The plastic screen also scratched very easily.

The worst part of it all is that the phone is underpowered. The processor is slower and has less RAM than its competition. This is why the phone performed so poorly despite having a great operating system.

I hope HP can make the next generation WebOS powered devices perform better because it really is a great OS.

</comment><comment><USER32> The Veer is overpriced. My Inspire 4G cost the same two months ago, and it's much better hardware, plus something like 10 times the apps. HP should have priced it to where AT&T would sell it for $0 on contract. At $99, there's no way they'll come from behind.

</comment><comment><USER33> HP needs to push the web angle even harder. If WebOS were the chromeOS of phone it would have something to really differentiate itself. To do that they have to go all-in on making the browser really kick ass. The biggest problem with the mobile web today is the browsers are not nearly as good as the desktop counterparts. If HP/Palm would make it a priority to have a javascript engine that comes close to desktop counterparts, to support all of the cutting edge html5 features, and continually iterate on that, I'd definitely strongly consider making a switch. They should drop native apps all together and instead suggest developers use WebGL and html5 (keep the App Catalog but make it just be for app review and discovery).

</comment><comment><USER23> Of the three items in the "improved" product line, one is vaporware.

</comment><comment><USER34> I liked webOS, it's a shame to see it like this. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> The fat lady hasn't sung yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The biggest threat, by far, to WebOS is some Microsoft exec letting an HP exec know, casually, while they are, say, playing golf, that HP's Windows license could end up costing a bit more than Dell's because they are not really helping Windows Phone 7 become the success it deserves and helping WP7 would entitle a couple large discounts on other licenses.

Microsoft has enormous power on OEMs.

<comment><AUTHOR> All of the antitrust stuff of the last decade has really tamed Microsoft. I'm not sure they'd do that. I really wanted to like Windows Phone 7, but have lost faith and think WebOS may have an opportunity to overtake them if HP plays their cards right.

Microsoft's biggest hope for penetration is the Nokia partnership. Two frightened dinosaurs huddling in a cave as the comet approaches...

<comment><USER35> > All of the antitrust stuff of the last decade has really tamed Microsoft.

That's why discussions like this would no longer happen over e-mail. On a open field, during a social encounter with no witnesses and no lasting evidence it ever happened, I am not so sure.

Microsoft has always used discounts to modulate OEM licensing costs.</comment></comment></comment>


Appalachian Miners Are Learning to Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/from-coal-to-coding-appalachian-miners-getting-a-fresh-start <comment><USER2> Previous reporting: [https://medium.com/backchannel/canary-in-the-code- mine-90388...](https://medium.com/backchannel/canary-in-the-code- mine-903884eca853#.3injtsi0j)

Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10592754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10592754)</comment>


The Terraform Plugin for the Dominos Pizza Provider - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ndmckinley/terraform-provider-dominos <comment><USER2> Epic. Now it's got me thinking this is a first step towards declaratively stating what should be in my fridge at all times and having food automatically provisioned for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looked around but couldn't find a grocery store API to help deliver the dream.

<comment><USER2> My local supermarket has an online ordering platform. I could reverse engineer the API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems like poor cloud architecture. What I really want is _at least one_ pizza delivered from several kitchens and assurance that drivers will use different routes.

A good upgrade from the fax API xpizza had to rely on, though.

<comment><USER4> We can engineer a solution to the dynamic tradeoffs you see in food delivery..

Sometimes you want at least one pizza, reliably as possible, and you're willing to pay extra. Other times you may want a pizza as affordable as possible, even if it is delayed or the order may be cancelled on you. The open generic API should support this high-level configuration, and the provider should be auto-selected according to your needs.

I also see an opportunity for this in the ride-sharing space. Sometimes riders are looking for a cheap and possibly slow option, other times a premium is expected for a fast trip. In my dreams I could use an open app that understands these tradeoffs, and automatically requests a driver from Uber, Lyft, or any other Taxi provider who offers safe/fast/affordable drivers in a given area.

<comment><USER2> So maybe it the same pizza could come from multiple providers but they break it up into slices and attach a pizza-correlation-id to each slice so an entire pizza can be assembled at the point of delivery.

<comment><USER3> And a table of pre-sliced pizza would be less prone to philosophers starving while deadlocked on acquiring utensils.

<comment><USER5> What if two philosophers grab the same slice and won't let go?

<comment><USER6> One eats the pizza first, then the other eats it, problem solved!

<comment><USER7> That just serializes the problem, maybe the philosophers could just atomically take a slice, but what if its half pinapple and naturally no one likes pinapple and there arent enough slices?

<comment><USER6> Reminds me of mathematical methods for fairly dividing cake, eg [https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2015/12/22/how-to- split-a...](https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2015/12/22/how-to-split-a-cake- fairly-using-math-game-theory-tuesdays/) (though I don't think that's the method I'm recalling).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pretty amusing. If you aren't familiar with Terraform, it is declarative. You provide the desired state of your system, and if the current state is different, TF does its best to heal components and their dependencies into that state.

"Having pizza" would be the state TF is trying to achieve here

<comment><USER9> So you must not forget to call destroy every time you eat it or how is this supposed to work? (No Dominos in this country, so I cannot test)

<comment><USER10> While it does work, this provider is designed to showcase the power of Terraform and flexibility. I don't recommend using this in production :)

<comment><USER11> Terraform is buggy. It may be powerful, but only because its easier to learn vs cloudformation.

<comment><USER12> Also, it works outside of AWS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Terrible example, does not encourage best practices. It recommends checking in your credit card information. A good example would show how to properly protect this information with Vault or a cloud specific secrets provider.

I can just imagine all of the exploited credit cards of devops engineers due to this.

<comment><USER14> Found the infosec person

<comment><USER15> "don't blast your private keys to the whole world" isn't infosec people, it's anyone allowed to get near a business operation.

<comment><USER13> Lol this is worse, it's "don't put your credit card info on github including CVV2".

But This article is pretty silly so my OP is meant to be a bit silly, tho apparently people are taking teraforming a pizza seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My favorite part: "terraform destroy is implemented on the client side, by consuming the pizza."

</comment><comment><USER17> I was expecting this to 'terraform' some shop into a dominoes, some kind of recipe for shop fitters to fitout a Dominoes in a standard way.

I assume this is all contained in style guides, and various other tomes. Has any company tried doing it programmatically though???

</comment><comment><USER18> I've heard Dominos described as a tech company disguised as a pizza company. This continues to support that idea.

(I know this provider isn't from them, but it still applies nonetheless)

<comment><USER19> That explains why their pizza isn't that good, especially compared to, say, Costco.

<comment><USER15> Who is better at a cheaper price? Of you count Costco you have to count how much hassle it is to obtain a pizza from Costco.

<comment><USER19> I'm often too cheap to pay for delivery any way. Plus, I can usually add pick- up (including at Costco) to a list of existing errands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What a time to be alive!

</comment><comment><USER21> Very good news ehh^^</comment>


Bitcoin surges to all-time high of $900, then drops below $650 in 30 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2013/bitcoin-surges-alltime-high-800-government-discusses-legitimacy-digital-currency/

<comment><USER2> Meet The 'Assassination Market' Creator Who's Crowdfunding Murder With Bitcoins [http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/11/18/meet- th...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/11/18/meet-the- assassination-market-creator-whos-crowdfunding-murder-with-bitcoins/)

</comment><comment><USER2> its not stable unless there is huge volume of transaction done. can't predict anything as of now. bitcoin value can be controlled now by few people doing the transactions.</comment>