Nuclear Reactor Development History - <AUTHOR> https://whatisnuclear.com/reactor_history.html <comment><USER2> On two related notes:

1\. for the first time since the 1970's, support for nuclear power is non- partisan in the US - both parties have endorsed it.

2\. a good addition to the list would be mentioning a YC company, Oklo ([https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005643/en/Okl...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005643/en/Oklo- Announces-Historic-Acceptance-Combined-License-Application))

<comment><USER3> The second sentence on that page: "This page is a grand tour of reactor development programs from 1945 to about 1970, also known as the nuclear heyday." So yeah, no wonder Oklo is not included.

As for bipartisan nuclear support in the US, IIRC Clinton shut down the IFR (one of the most promising advanced reactor + reprocessing concepts) in the early 90'ies, largely due to anti-nuclear sentiments.

<comment><USER4> The 90s were a long time ago. Possibly in the intervening years support has grown for evidence-based policy.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure it has, but a look at the current white house suggests it still has significant ways to go before reaching influential levels

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Author here. Just got an alert from server. I enjoyed writing this in January and am happy to see it here. Happy to discuss more or make corrections.

<comment><USER7> For anyone reading this I also suggest acidburn's article on waste[0] and economics[1]. (I always recommend searching for his comments in HN nuclear discussions)

Also, always good to see you and congrats on a post of yours getting to the front page.

[0] [https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html](https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html)

[1] [https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html](https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html)

<comment><USER8> Also worth checking out: [https://anchor.fm/chris15401/episodes/Existing- Nuclear-and-I...](https://anchor.fm/chris15401/episodes/Existing-Nuclear-and- Imaginary-Nuclear-feat--Mark-Nelson-eibgl9)

<comment><USER6> I loved this episode. It resonated with all I learned in writing the history page. There's almost no type of reactor that hasn't been tried, and so hoping that some new kind of reactor is the answer to all problems in nuclear is a bit misguided.

<comment><USER9> > There's almost no type of reactor that hasn't been tried, and so hoping that > some new kind of reactor is the answer to all problems in nuclear is a bit > misguided.

Reading the history and economics pages, and searching for hopeful paths forward, I thought of the NASA-SpaceX partnership. Where it wasn't that the component technologies had never been tried, or weren't known, but that company and systems optimized for atypical objectives might find an order of magnitude to pick up, and maybe soon two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So what is the best reactor design today ? Globally. Which takes care of Fukushima and Chernobyl style incidents and is much much safer?

Wikipedia says "However, as at August 2020, no Gen IV projects have advanced significantly beyond the design stage, and several have been abandoned."

<comment><USER11> Practically, it's the PWR- Pressurised Water Reactor. I say practically as there are always new developments, like Thorium-Salt reactors that made the headlines a while back, but these are the reactors that are producing the majority of nuclear electricity and haven't had a single major accident. They contain less fissile material in the reactor core, they are purely Boron moderated (so Chernobyl 2 couldn't happen) and there is no risk of contamination as the pressurised water in the reactor core cannot mix with the water turned into steam for the turbine.

They do have a few downsides, like frequent fuel rod swaps and boric acid buildup, but in the real world this is the safest working reactor we have today.

<comment><USER3> > Practically, it's the PWR- Pressurised Water Reactor. I say practically as > there are always new developments, like Thorium-Salt reactors that made the > headlines a while back, but these are the reactors that are producing the > majority of nuclear electricity and haven't had a single major accident.

Three Mile Island was a PWR. Of course, it wasn't a major accident in the sense that no significant radioactivity escaped the plant, but it was a major economic hit for the operator, and gave an unfortunate boost to various anti- nuclear groups.

I think in practice, BWR's are considered about equally safe as PWR's. Yes, Fukushima was BWR's, but it's uncertain if same vintage PWR's with equivalent safety equipment would have fared any better.

> They contain less fissile material in the reactor core

Compared to what? A fast reactor of equivalent size, sure, but this isn't really the thing holding fast reactors back..

> they are purely Boron moderated

No, they are water moderated. Boron, which is an efficient neutron adsorber, is used to control the reactivity during the burnup. That is, with fresh fuel rods the boron concentration in the water is higher to compensate for the higher reactivity of the fuel.

There is ongoing research to design LWR's without boron, in order to avoid the corrosion issues and the equipment needed for controlling boron concentration. One way is to have rods filled with DU, which are slowly pulled out (and the volume replaced by water) as burnup proceeds. This approach has its own downsides, but, we'll see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article should be called "US Nuclear Reactor Development History". Good read nevertheless.

</comment><comment> java-man ORNL flew in and built a small reactor at the Geneva conference in 1955.

wow.

</comment><comment><USER13> Please add information from the European and Asian experiences.

<comment><USER14> FTA: "Note: This is written largely from the US perspective. Developments in other countries are not well covered here. Also, the chains of events are difficult to classify so the time linearity of the following is not perfect."

Perhaps you could write a similar page about European and Chinese development of nuclear power. Who knows, you might end up on the front page of HN as well!

<comment><USER13> I don't play a nuclear scientist on TV. I wish I could write this, because i think it would be interesting. But I wish I could read it more.

<comment><USER6> I would love to add more about this story in other countries as well. I just ran out of time and steam when writing the US perspective. Give me more time to recharge.

One thing that's nice about the US side for me is that we have vast libraries of technical reports available for me to peruse. It would be impossible for me personally to do such a deep dive in Russia or France or China or any other non-English-publishing place simply because I don't speak the language.

<comment><USER13> The development of electricity generation from nuclear has deep roots in europe: USSR in 1954, Uk in 1957.

AGR design got deployed at Torness. (I protested FWIW, a position I might vary on now with hindsight)

The chinese work on pebble-bed interests me hugely. small modular reactor stuff is fascinating.

The UK and France (aside from Russia) operate their own submarine reactors. I think its odd they didn't move this up the foodchain to surface ships the way the Americans did.

Both the UK and USSR had significant accidents, which informed choices around future reactor design.

The role of Klaus Fuchs in the emergence of the east german nuclear power industry would be worth a write up all of its own.

The extent of French dependency on nuclear power is amazing. And the German retreat from nuclear power, likewise the scandi experience. China and India, I think will be making a huge move off coal but its less clear this will be to nuclear. Japan is obviously in a complicated situation, perhaps not unlike France's dependencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> According to this chart [0] the installed capacity of fossil fuel plants is 4TW. Lets cut it down to 2TW because we don't know how much of that infrastructure is actually utilized. Let's say I'm sold on nuclear and want 2TW of installed nuclear plant capacity. Each power plant should be able to generate 700MW. This means we have to build 2857 new power plants. Half of them need to be done by 2050. The other half should be in construction by 2050 but are allowed to take 10-15 years to be built. Surely economies of scale should be able to reduce nuclear plant costs to around 2 billion USD per plant [1] but that would still cost 5714 billion USD.

Open questions:

Which nuclear technology is available today that can be deployed 1400 times today as soon as today without any massive safety flaws? Theoretical reactor designs may sound cool but nobody is going to wait for them.

Who is going to pay for the prototypes and first dozen plants? How are you going to convince the rest of the planet to install your nuclear plants?

Is this ambitious timeline even possible? Can you train enough people and build an extensively optimized nuclear supply chain that can scale thousands of reactors?

What happens once the "building" rush is over? Will the supply chain die again and be hard to start back up?

Can every country be trusted to operate their own nuclear plants? Will they openly report flaws and safety problems in the power plant and take those reports seriously by turning off defective or unsafe plants until they restored the safety of the plant? Fukushima was easily preventable but there was no accountability and no incentive to prevent an accident. Nobody in charge felt responsible to actually add adequate safety measures.

Can we mine enough fuel to power these plants? Will mining activity have to increase to meet the new demand? Can that mining be powered by nuclear energy? Is mining for nuclear fuel worse than coal?

Is waste disposal feasible today in every country? Can this cost be reduced through economies of scale or is it fixed per unit of waste?

None of these things are impossible but they require time, money and trust.

People who don't care about climate change are not going to give you money for nuclear or renewables.

Time isn't exactly on our side. We are at a point where we have figured out lots of alternatives to fossil fuels, it is just a matter of sticking with one choice and actually doing it. Hesitation will cost a lot of time so it's now or never.

We are also short on trust. The UK doesn't like the EU. Other continents are not unified at all and it is common for countries to be at war in the middle east and Africa. Why would they want a power plant that is a juicy target for terrorism?

Because of these concerns I'm not going to hope for a nuclear future but I'll let myself be surprised if things turn out better than I predict.

[0] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/267358/world- installed-p...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/267358/world-installed- power-capacity/) [1] [https://schlissel- technical.com/docs/reports_35.pdf](https://schlissel- technical.com/docs/reports_35.pdf) (summary: coal plant went over budget and cost 2 billion usd)

<comment> 08-15 > Is this ambitious timeline even possible?

Of course it is. Pick a design that can be built right now, which means the Chinese or Russians have to do it, because everyone else (Siemens, Areva, Westinghouse, ...) seem to have forgotten how to build theirs. One reactor produces 600-1400MW, so we're talking roughly 1500-3000 reactors. You set a timeline of about 40 years, or 15000 days. This means, construction of a reactor has to start every 5-10 days. Construction of a nuclear plant takes about 4 years or 1500 days, unless treehuggers are allowed to interfere with frivolous lawsuits. This means, 150-300 reactors will be under construction concurrently. Worldwide, that doesn't sound too bad.

Let's build one reactor per week.

> What happens once the "building" rush is over?

More building to replace aging plants. At the end of your 40 year timeline, the plants built at its beginning are (nominally) at the end of their life. (Not really, but then again, 40 years into the future, 2TW won't be enough.)

Let's build one reactor per week, forever.

> that would still cost 5714 billion USD

So what? Those 2TW of generating capacity are still going to be built, if only to replace broken down old plants. Capital cost for power plants varies a bit by technology, but 2000G$ are going to be spent on power plants no matter what; if the future is solar, it's going to be a lot more than 6000G$.

> Can we mine enough fuel to power these plants? Will mining activity have to > increase to meet the new demand? Can that mining be powered by nuclear > energy? Is mining for nuclear fuel worse than coal?

Yes, yes, mostly, no. If we actually embark on a massive nuclear program like this, we will run out of fuel fairly quickly (about 100 years). One generation of once-through burner reactors can be fueled easily, maybe two. After that, the Uranium may need to come from low grade sources, which is annoying, or breeders have to be used.

> Is waste disposal feasible today in every country? Can this cost be reduced?

Yes, and why bother? Waste disposal is more a political problem than a technical one. It isn't actually expensive. Arguably, the "waste" isn't waste and should be recycled instead of being disposed of.

> Why would they want a power plant that is a juicy target for terrorism?

Bullshit.

This is called "drive by slander". Why do you do this when you (otherwise) appear to like nuclear power as a solution to climate change?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> why KRUSTY wasn't launch to the space if test were successful?</comment>


OmniFocus – Task Management Software Built for Pros - <AUTHOR> https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/ <comment><USER3> That's true. OF is the king of all GTD task management systems and have been since always. It's the only thing I miss after abandoning Apple ecosystem years ago. People who don't do GTD religiously (and believe me - for them the GTD management system IS far more important than anything else in their toolbox) and other similar methodologies tend to have no idea what kind of difference a good system like OF makes. The guys behind the product nailed it and even now, as far as I know, no one was able to replicate their success.

I'd be in heaven if the company behind it - the OmniGroup - would be willing to: 1) Develop native or semi-native apps for multiple OSes + a web app; 2) Cut down their pricing a little bit. A similar strategy got Evernote a lot of users (although they still don't have a native Linux app) - I mean cross- platform and the fact that they offer reasonable discounts to their loyal customers.

It's also a fact that there's a lot people grounded in Apple's ecosystem purely because their dependence on OF (some even write about that here in this thread). I'm sorry for you guys. Really. Leaving OF was probably the hardest technological decision I've ever made, and even now - years later - I feel a thrilling fear remembering how I was struggling with myself about that, but I really can't afford being into a vendor lock-in with Apple or anyone else for that matter, whether it's in enterprise or my private life. That's dangerous and must have consequences in the future regardless of your current views regarding what Apple does (take a look on how many Fortune 500 companies went off that index during a typical lifespan - Apple isn't eternal too).

But somehow MacOS is a very important thing in OmniGroup. Their choice... But I miss you guys and I hope you'll mature to a similar decision I made - <USER2> Apple isn't "the one" and life has a lot more to offer ;) We could be friends again. I'm sure there are many others like me...

PS: People recommending some simple task management systems they use have no idea what they are talking about trying to compare it with something like OF... It's like comparing Windows' Notepad to Vim. Yes, they both are text editors, but the latter one is kind of "on-steroids" to the point where it makes no sense to even compare them.

<comment><USER4> There is a web version now but it's still missing basic functionalities, let alone the more advanced ones.

I have been using the web version on Linux box for almost half a year (because I don't own a Mac right now) and found it to be acceptable _only_ as a companion to iPad or iPhone version. It's not usable standalone at all (for example, you cannot create recurring tasks, or even move a project into a folder, or even _create_ a project in a folder). I hope they improve the web version, but the development doesn't seems very active[1]

That said, I've tried everything else, including Todoist and even org-mode, but found myself come back to OmniFocus in the end since I found Perspective to be essential to my workflow (even though web version doesn't support Perspective at all, at least I can use it on my iPad). Org probably come closest to fully replacing OmniFocus, but syncing between a Linux box and iOS devices has been... not fun.

[1]: [https://www.omnigroup.com/releasenotes/omnifocus- web](https://www.omnigroup.com/releasenotes/omnifocus-web)

<comment><USER3> I feel you, man. Thanks for the info about the web version, BTW. For my taste even the mobile versions of OF aren't a real thing and are acceptable only on- the-go, even the iPad one isn't rich enough. But the desktop app for OSX... That's a beast (the one I can't have, since I don't use Macs anymore).

Plus I see that the web version has no persistent offline storage / mode. That isn't going to work for me. So, not only lack of features might be a problem.

<comment><USER4> OmniFocus for iPad has improved a lot to the point I don't feel I'm missing too many features from the Mac version (though there are still some awkward parts in the UI, e.g. moving/creating folders and projects) and even has support for Omni Automation Plugins now, in addition to Shortcuts support.

Web version sadly has no persistent offline storage as you said. It's also veeerrrrryyy slow since every click requires a roundtrip to a server that made slightly acceptable thanks to WebSockets (I don't live in the U.S. where their servers seems to be located). I'm connected most of the time so offline storage is not that much of a concern for me. I wish Omni Group put more effort into it though, given they charge $50 a year on top of a standalone app, which is way more expensive than Todoist. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Todoist is excellent. Things for Mac is great as well.

<comment><USER6> +1 for Todoist

Todoist is also the only one I know that offers an API

My Todoist bot adds features that no one will ever build into todo apps, but improve my life tremendously.

I'll never use a todo app without API again.

<comment><USER7> This. Exactly what I am looking for.

I am currently using any.do but the problem is they don't have an api.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been using omnifocus for several years, but recently moved all of my projects to Everdo[1].

1\. [https://everdo.net/](https://everdo.net/)

<comment><USER9> Why?

Help us to learn from your experience.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps my use case is pretty simple, I only need the following:

\- projects \- recurring tasks \- deferral dates \- deadlines \- ability to set the next occurrence either with a fixed period (every X days) or with a floating period (X days after the last completion)

Everdo provides all of those features in a, subjectively, simpler user interface. I think the killer feature of OmniFocus is custom perspectives. I don't use them so it wasn't hard to migrate. YMMV.

Also, even after years of use, I find OmniFocus' desktop UI a bit confusing and convoluted. It got a lot better, but still not great. They focused on iOS at some point, but I don't use GTD managers on the go.

By the way, Everdo is basically a clone of NirvanaHQ[1], a pretty popular GTD tool.

1\. [https://www.nirvanahq.com/](https://www.nirvanahq.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Did they release a new version?

</comment><comment><USER11> RIP Omni group. They will be missed.

<comment><USER12> What is this referring to?

<comment><USER13> Parent is overreacting a bit. Omnigroup had some layoffs recently, but they're not ready for the cart just yet:

[https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/31/layoffs-at- the-...](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/31/layoffs-at-the-omni- group)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've heard some good things about Omnifocus but it's Apple exclusive so guess I'll never get to try it out.

<comment><USER15> There's a relatively new web-based version.

<comment><USER6> I was excited hearing that. But seeing the pricing.. yikes. The web subscription for 50$/year requires a iOS or mac standalone license for 50$ one-time.

If I would be able to use the iOS/Mac native app, I wouldn't even need the web version....

I understand that focusing on Apple(OS features) is what makes these apps so great. But it's sad to not beeing able to use these apps, even when they finally offer a web version.</comment></comment></comment>


China Appears to Attack GitHub by Diverting Web Traffic - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/technology/china-appears-to-attack-github-by-diverting-web-traffic.html

<comment><USER2> paywalled.</comment>


Robots processing food for energy? - <AUTHOR>

Is is possible to replicate the food processing system of a Human on a Bot? <comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoBot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoBot)</comment>


Dropbox proud to be Mac, looking forward to iOS 4 - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/dropbox-proud-to-be-mac-looking-forward-to-ios-4.ars

<comment><USER2> I don't understand _pride_ for consumer products.

Seems like being proud of a platform you had no involvement in is misplaced emotional banter.

<comment><USER3> A. It's a headline.

B. It might not mean what you think it means.

<comment><USER2> > It might not mean what you think it means.

Wouldn't that destroy the point of having it as a headline, then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "proud to be Mac" because their fully cross-platform offerings include Mac OS and iOS? Really? And _of course_ they're looking forward to a major update to one of those platforms which will let them do more with it. The article even makes it clear - "and it's similar to what some Android users can already do."

This is trying so hard to tailor a story to a particular audience it's actually somewhat painful to read.

<comment><USER5> _This is trying so hard to tailor a story to a particular audience it's actually somewhat painful to read_

That's surprising because based on your comment, I would have suspected you didn't even read the article. Ars has published similar articles in recent days about all the winners of their new Design Award, which they started this year at WWDC to take the place of Apple's Design Award that is now only for iPhone/iPad apps unlike past years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"Say I want to have a simple photo uploading service: file into a folder and have those files automatically processed by you guys to post to Ars," said Gross. "There are weird states: if there's some kind of processing state, how do I know that's completed? How do we create the appropriate set of APIs without making it too onerous on the user experience?"_

I already set up a simple photo uploading service via Dropbox without the API, by watching subfolders of the email@example.com Dropbox folder for new files. I never felt the need to do processing of those files in place. Where I'm looking for more API support is handling shared folder requests. There's manual setup involved for new users that I'd like to eliminate.</comment>


No Sleep 'Til Fusion - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5570817/no-sleep-til-fusion

<comment><USER2> This guy's story is really charming. He will, of course, almost certainly fail. It seems most fusion research comes in the form of multibillion-dollar research nowadays. It's inspiring seeing a basement tinkerer--who's not a complete crank--making a go of it.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the most beautiful and readable tutorials you have seen? - <AUTHOR>

Looking at writing some new tutorials and have remembered seeing some really beautiful looking ones. But I have forgot to bookmark them and alas seeing if anyone knows any off the top of their head.<p>e.g. Scotch.io does a good job -> https://scotch.io/tutorials/building-a-slack-clone-in-meteor-js-real-time-data <comment><USER2> MacPaint user manual: [http://classiccomputers.info/down/Apple/MacPaint_Manual_-_19...](http://classiccomputers.info/down/Apple/MacPaint_Manual_-_1983.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly what I was looking for!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've always been partial to Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby: [http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant- guide/](http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Error Handling in Rust by Andrew Gallant is easily the best tutorial I've read in the past year. Very clear explanations with examples walking through the reasoning step by step.

[http://blog.burntsushi.net/rust-error- handling/](http://blog.burntsushi.net/rust-error-handling/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Ken Iverson wrote a great one for J:

Math for the Layman: [http://www.cs.trinity.edu/About/The_Courses/cs301/math- for-t...](http://www.cs.trinity.edu/About/The_Courses/cs301/math-for-the- layman/)

It's particular good because J is a language for experimenting.

</comment><comment><USER6> Physically Based Rendering book

Lisp in Small Pieces book

Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography book

(that is, literate programs)

<comment><USER7> I'd add JonesForth (mirrored at [https://github.com/nornagon/jonesforth](https://github.com/nornagon/jonesforth) ) to that list of literate programming examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Little Schemer</comment>


Programming for money until I'm too old to - <AUTHOR> https://shime.sh/programming-for-money-until-I%27m-too-old-to <comment><USER2> > accumulate money, say 1.000.000€, until you're 35 and then live out of > interest rate? I want to enjoy life while I'm still youngish.

Enjoying life doesn't necessarily have anything to do with money.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Enjoying life is the opposite of working hard for me, though.</comment></comment>


YouTube Version of "Let It Snow" - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYfC7zWJCLU

<comment><AUTHOR> They Are: The time selector button has a snowflake, and there's a snowflake button that makes videos snow.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a way to get absolute numbers from Alexa stats? - <AUTHOR>

I've been trying to find some way of determining actual uniques and pageviews for a given domain using Alexa's API. However, the data returned is relative to the number of Alexa toolbar users.
Since Alexa does not disclose the number of active toolbar users, is there a way to determine the absolute number of uniques and pageviews given Alexa's data on a domain?
WolframAlpha seems to be able to determine this: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=daily+page+views+news.ycombinator.com . I've tried to determine how many Alexa toolbar users there are by using WolframAlpha's data on 10 domains at random but there seems to be a considerable variance (up to 500M), so it seems that they are using some non-linear formula to extrapolate daily page views from Alexa Stats.
Any suggestions or anyone done this before? <comment><USER2> If you knew the actual traffic stats (by, say, owning the site) for a site that Alexa has traffic data for, you could use that to calculate a scaling factor to the Alexa data. That is, assuming that Alexa's toolbar users visit sites in the same distribution as the rest of the internet, which probably isn't true.</comment>


ROCA vs. ROBOT: An Eternal Golden Braid - <AUTHOR> https://latacora.singles/2018/08/08/roca-vs-robot.html <comment><USER2> My personal top, all of these were all good research but my favorite one is ROCA.

1\. ROCA: A very clever attack on a too-clever RSA key generation reversed from a hardware module. The whole thing is super interesting and the consequences are devastating.

2\. Efail: A complete ownage of PGP. Nothing surprising for many people, but nice ways to achieve exploitation.

3\. KRACK: how to break a protocol 101 with an interesting exploitation on some implementations.

4\. ROBOT: A twist on the old Bleichenbacher attack with a lot of consequences on the wild.

5\. IOTA: nothing surprising but an hilarious response from the main developers, deserve its own category.

PS: About the practicality of ROCA. It sounds like there are ways to implement extremely practical attacks.

<comment><USER3> I agree, I personally thing Efail is very underrated, but it falls sort of in the middle between "degree of difficulty" and "impact". My original gut feeling was that Efail should win in a walk, but the Slack talked me down from it.

I think KRACK deserves a lot more love too.

A really good year for applied crypto research.

<comment><USER2> Or a pretty bad year for applied crypto:

1\. RSA keygen is broken

2\. PGP is broken

3\. WIFI is broken

4\. SSL/TLS is broken

5\. Cryptocurrencies are broken

<comment><USER4> RSA: The more shortcuts you take in your RSA keygen, the more likely it is that an adversary can just guess your keys without (impossibly) trying all the possibilities. This necessarily follows from how such shortcuts work, and should be guarded against in an implementation.

In that sense ROCA is the same as the Debian Weak Keys. And so the Web PKI did the same thing about both, the CA examines the public key, it makes the same determination an attacker would make, but rather than attacking you it rejects your certificate request. You can actually read the code in Boulder (the Let's Encrypt software) to see this in action‡.

If you actually pick random numbers that are roughly the right size, reject composites, and use your random primes to make an RSA key, this method works. But it's slow. And it's obvious that you needn't pick the whole number at random, the bottom bit must be '1' because it's prime. And once you start optimizing you soon have a very complicated key generation which opens lots of opportunities for things to go wrong...

‡ [https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder/pull/3189](https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder/pull/3189)

Edited to add:

The work that eventually led to ROCA is really fascinating. The researchers spent lots of time characterising RSA key generators. Their first paper is basically "If you show me fifty keys you made, I can guess how you made them" and that's already pretty interesting in some applications. In that work they found that a particular type of key generator was doing something _very strange_ but deadlines are deadlines and so their paper stops at remarking how strange it is. ROCA is basically what they found when they kept investigating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> ROBOT won.

</comment><comment><USER5> Efail did not break PGP. It did show problems of interaction between email agents and gnupg. Efail was the most overblown report with absolutely crazy "fixes".</comment>


Farewell letter of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (hoax, but poignant) - <AUTHOR> http://www.prrb.ca/articles/issue08-marquez.html

<comment><USER2> This is a very old hoax, and is not the work of Marquez. Your first clue is that it was published in issue 8 of the review you linked to, in 2008. Here are some others:

[http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_news.html#Anchor-4957...](http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_news.html#Anchor-49575) [http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27332&s...](http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27332&s=9905330a49000fcc519da495beb56707&p=487592&viewfull=1#post487592) [http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/marquez.html](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/marquez.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Does that decrease its value? Does it make the words less true? Less useful?

Should we discard it all as a lie, and not try to find the truth within it?

<comment><USER2> It does none of those things. It does, however, mean that this bit of text has not earned the lavish attention it will surely receive today for being wrongly attributed to someone whose body of work is poorly represented by it. Isn't proper attribution the least bit of respect we can pay to an eminent author on the occasion of his passing? Can we not do him the courtesy of remembering him by his own words instead of those of an impostor?

<comment><AUTHOR> I edited the title once, and have just gone to do so again, but have found that even though it's inside the 2 hour limit, the "edit" link has gone.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


San Francisco's homeless problem: A civic disgrace - <AUTHOR> http://projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/civic-disgrace/ <comment><USER2> I was in sf for wwdc a few weeks ago - as a separate notion to humanitarian ideas, the mental ill and homeless in the streets really struck me as having a very adverse effect on the vibe of the city -- worse than my impressions as a visitor during previous experiences in the area.

\- if you are in the city and need to find a bathroom, good luck -- hearts and minds of the people are closed to you and there is nowhere a restroom accessible as service jobs are constantly under assault from the mentally ill. It's extremely dehumanizing -- I would invite anyone who wants to feel the homeless experience to put on some decent but non fashionable clothes, wait until they urgently need to pee while in an unfamiliar area of the city, and then see how the city feels to you. \- the battery in my phone died and I asked a random passerby if he had the time -- he said "no".

Just an isolated sketch -- but the people in that city generally struck me as terrible and generally very close to depressed -- and I attribute at least some of that to the fact that they are constantly barraged by the souls of the crushed masses dwelling all around them.

Cities have psyches, and sf strikes me as very sick right now.

<comment><USER3> I was in a restaurant in SF near embarcadero. A 70+ year old woman eating in another table got her check, about $18, but realized that left her purse at home. She wanted to leave to get her purse in order to return, and pay. But the lady that runs the restaurant started yelling "where is the money?". There were also some cops eating at the restaurant, and asked if there was anything wrong, and then proceeded to arrest her.

The restaurant was full of people. Many of them seemed to have a good living standard. But nobody got involved in helping an honest senior person in distress.

I got involved. I paid the bill and the cops set the woman free. Even if it was intentional (unlikely), if you are stealing food then you probably need help anyways, especially if you are old.

I was horrified to see how a society so prosper can be so dehumanized. Shame on you people.

<comment><USER4> "I was horrified to see how a society so prosper can be so dehumanized."

In fairness, where should their morals come from? I'm not religious myself, but it seems that for all their faults religions provide a shared morality. Why should a society without a fixed set of morals be humane? There's no source of truth as to what humane even means. Why is helping an old woman humane? Why should I believe you, or feel shame when something like this happens?

<comment><USER5> Because most humans feel bad when they see situations like this, even the ones that weren't taught "this is bad" by a religion. Religion just has better marketing.

I believe it is part of our human nature to care for other humans. Why else do people give money away without getting anything in return (even if you count it as an altruistic act)?

<comment><USER4> "I believe it is part of our human nature to care for other humans."

That only works for some people. Where do sociopaths fit into your worldview?

<comment><USER6> _That only works for some people. Where do sociopaths fit into your worldview?_

s/some/the vast majority of/

Sociopathy is incredibly rare. The existence of it doesn't affect the substance of the parent's (or my) comment, which is about society as a whole, not a tiny fraction of outliers.

<comment><USER4> But it's a critically important minority - it's well researched that CEOs, bankers, and other highly successful types in business have sociopathic traits. (I attach no moral judgment to that - just stating it.) Full, diagnosable sociopathy and psychopathy are rare, as you point out. People with a decreased ability to feel empathy are a minority, but they have a disproportionate ability to shape society.

For that reason, I'm always somewhat annoyed when other atheists (I'm an atheist myself) rely on some shared sense of human empathy and argue from it - it's only convincing in a society where empathetic people wield power. We don't live in such a world. To convince people to act humanely even if they don't feel empathy, we need to appeal to a higher objective source of truth as the religious do, or find an argument for humane acts that doesn't rely on appealing to people's consciences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The programs that SF puts in place as part of the "non-profit industrial complex" that's risen up worsens the problem in two ways:

1) Too many of the programs enable, rather than help the root cause, of homeless folks.

2) These enabling programs are very efficiently communicated among the homeless population, drawing them from all over the state and the country.

I'm not some asshole who hates homeless people. I was raised by a single father because my mother was a mentally-ill and drug addicted person who was homeless or in and out of shelters for the majority of the last 25 years before she died in 2014.

I watched as numerous programs did nothing but enable her addiction and undermine me and my siblings efforts to eliminate her addiction and get her to work.

<comment><USER8> Interested to hear what from your perspective is the root cause and how these programs enable it.

<comment><USER7> Not having a job or some collective sense of mission is bad for people, period. We are, at our evolutionary root, not designed to be idle or not tied up in some sense of collective effort to survive.

ANY PROGRAM that doesn't provide this very much needed element of the human condition is going to fail.

My ideal drug rehabilitation program for homeless addicts is this: give them drugs, and make them work at some kind of job to continue to receive them, as well as a basic income. This is based on a more recent theory of addiction (that I wholeheartedly embrace) following the "rat park" model of psychological isolation and emotional injury being a bigger contributor to compulsive drug use than the chemical dependencies.

Edit: Forgot to say that the above would likely result in the majority of folks in the program to quit drugs in a few years on their own as they became happier and more socially connected individuals.

All the programs my mom ever had available basically treated her like a helpless victim: stay away from drugs, take your lithium, and "of course we don't expect you to work. Just sit around and do nothing all day and here's your disability check".

And let me add this: most addicts are actually pretty functional and capable of work if provided some amount of drugs. The cases where an addict won't be able to work are going to involve folks who are in withdrawal and need their fix. They aren't going to be doing clerical work or anything, but day labor and other basic work like that is 100% doable. This is the kind of work that cities like SF have available in large quantities for their public infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The reality is that most mid to long term homeless are 100% unemployable. There is no solution for most of these people in our current system. This is not a San Francisco problem but a national problem as it is a direct side effect of our chosen system of resource allocation. We as a country need to either change our current methods of allocating resources or accept it as a price we are willing to pay.

<comment><USER10> There actually is a solution: employing them or incentivizing the employment of them.

<comment><USER11> It's not just about money. Someone who is severely mentally ill isn't going to able to perform tasks, let alone function without a caregiver.

Living on the streets is very dangerous and stressful. Somewhere around 25% of homeless people have traumatic brain injuries. Not the sort of people you can put in a cubical to do data entry.

<comment><USER10> Mental illness is a huge component to this, I agree. I think it's pessimistic to say that a sizable portion of this group couldn't become employed in some way. First, not all of them are mentally ill to begin with. Second, a lot of mental illnesses are quite manageable with the right care. Care requires money, and money is acquired by working.

Further, no mental illness has ever been alleviated through boredom, malnutrition, lack of sleep, social exile, and maltreatment.

Also, not every job involves sitting at a computer ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think "people who are homeless because they can't afford homes" and "people who are homeless because they voluntarily enjoy living on the street" are two different problems and should be addressed differently.

In particular, I have no problem criminalizing the latter if we can address the former. Criminal laws are _supposed_ to prevent mass unpleasant behavior in public. Pooping in the street is not a lifestyle choice we should encourage or support. (though "having public toilets" might be a better solution)

</comment><comment><USER13> I never realized the San Francisco Chronicle has two versions of its site. I always used to go to [http://www.sfgate.com](http://www.sfgate.com) (which has become like a gossip site). I now realize the more traditional newspaper is at [http://www.sfchronicle.com/](http://www.sfchronicle.com/) (although they have an overlap of articles).

Why would they do this?

<comment><USER14> sfchronicle.com is their premium, subscription-based offering. I suppose it'll only allow you to read 10 or so articles before putting up a paywall. sfgate.com is their free ad-based offering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In one of the most left-leaning states in the union, in one of it's richest cities, all the most well-meaning welfare programs have failed to make a dent in the problem.

If that isn't a fantastic argument for Basic Income I don't know what could be more persuasive.

Edit: Commenter below summarized my (admittedly poorly phrased) point better than I can:

> The current programs are focussed around spending the minimum amount of > money possible on as few people as possible, which is an expensive and > inefficient proposal. The parent's suggestion is to give people the power in > their own lives, which studies have shown can result in huge turnarounds for > people in unpleasant situations.

> So OP is suggesting that overly complicated, byzantine, and underfunded > welfare programs aren't working, so maybe we should give up and do what > experts have been suggesting, and studies have shown results from, instead.

And no, this does not address the problem of mental illness but if we're going to continue to ignore this problem until we can find a solution that works for all homeless, just shoot them now and limit their suffering because it will never happen.

<comment><USER16> Is anyone able to explain what this view is being down voted? I'm picking that the second paragraph is the problem - there must be hard data on that thought somewhere?

<comment><USER8> He says well-meaning welfare programs aren't working, and then suggests another well-meaning welfare program.

<comment><USER17> I think we need Basic Housing in addition to Basic Income.

<comment><USER18> The two are largely the same thing. If you have basic income, you can spend it on cheap housing and effectively have Basic Housing with no additional administrative overhead. If you're saying that we need to specifically provide free housing to the homeless and/or poor then that's a program that some cities have already tried with mixed results. Homelessness is often tied to drug addiction and mental health issues, neither of which are really directly helped by free housing or free money.

<comment><USER19> _If you 're saying that we need to specifically provide free housing to the homeless and/or poor then that's a program that some cities have already tried with mixed results_

Where can I read about these mixed results?

<comment><USER20> Assuming that's a serious request, this is a decent summary and starting point: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_the_United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER19> _" Concentrated poverty"_

This seems like a bad idea. Any culture that contains something of value needs to absorb new members a little at a time. A culture or scene that tries to absorb many new members all at once is going to be damaged or at least significantly changed in the process.

So it would seem that scattered site housing is the new norm. Now, the problem is that it's harder for such residents to become part of the local community networks. (Often suburbia is distinctly isolating.)

Some social organization similar to a church would seem to be the idea method of providing the residents a social network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can we seriously not have an article that enlarges specific text as you're scrolling? It completely distracts me from reading the article.

Please stick with the tired-but-true way of making headlines or pulling text to the side to break-up text.

Don't dynamically resize text while you're scrolling. This has to be the dumbest web design I've seen in a while.

<comment><USER22> I found it somewhat useful or similar to asides and enlarged quotations. I for one am fine with publishers trying to experiment with the creative display of their work al la New York Times so long as they don't paywall it off. free content is free content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Very anecdotally, this was something that I noticed not just in SF, but also LA. The marked difference for me as a Londoner between the huge homelessness problem we have in London and what I saw in SF/LA was the levels of mental illness coupled with dehumanising levels of despair that I saw in the homeless populations of SF/LA.

Does anyone have a good idea of why SF/LA (the US in general?) exhibited this characteristic of homelessness more markedly than in London (where I almost never see the sort of extremely obvious health issues that I saw in SF/LA every time I've been there)? Is it because of the US healthcare system, perhaps?

Incidentally, there is a good episode of the BBC's "The Inquiry" which asks about one route of dealing with this:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rh5my](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rh5my)

</comment><comment><USER24> The fact is it can't just be SF's problem, because SF is a magnet for homeless people from all over CA and the US. That makes it a US problem, and yes, it is a disgrace.

<comment><USER18> But isn't SF a magnet because of its policies and programs making it a desirable destination for the homeless? Homeless _ness_ is definitely a nation-wide program with all kinds of root causes that need to be addressed, but the city of SF is somewhat unique among other "top tier" US cities in the scope of its homeless "problem".

<comment><USER25> The unique part of SF is our extreme inefficiency. We spend huge sums of money without much to show for it.

Homelessness is a crisis that is growing all over the US.

Homeless crisis in Hawaii sparks state of emergency [http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/homeless-crisis-in-hawaii- spar...](http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/homeless-crisis-in-hawaii-sparks-state- of-emergency/)

L.A. County supervisors call for a state emergency declaration on homelessness [http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless- emergen...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless- emergency-20160614-snap-story.html)

Mayor, county exec declare 'state of emergency' over homelessness [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/mayor- coun...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/mayor-county-exec- declare-state-of-emergency-over-homelessness/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> are these "legacy inhabitants" or whatever the gentrifiers refer to them as?

<comment><USER25> Not all of them. As the article states, SF "gets an influx of about 450 chronically homeless people a year".

Part of the problem is that SF has become known as a sanctuary city for the homeless. People come from all over the US. That is good, from the perspective that we have some positive karma for treating people better than other cities. It is bad, from the perspective that we bear more of the burden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > _The city needs to evaluate and track people in homeless programs_

> _San Francisco, which gets an influx of about 450 chronically homeless > people a year, needs to shed any perception that it is a sanctuary for > people who are unwilling to participate in programs designed to get them > off,_

> _It is neither inhumane nor "criminalizing poverty" to enforce laws against > aggressive panhandling, tent encampments or defecation and urination in > public places....are no longer afforded the option to flout the law with > impunity._

So plan is to build a few houses and put everyone who is left into jail.

<comment><USER28> Yup. SF has a dearth of public restrooms (and almost no public showers). Criminalizing public urination is criminalizing homelessness.

<comment><USER11> This is becoming an issue in Sacramento as they continue to shut down public restrooms. There's is talk of setting up port-a-potties with full time attendants, so we will see how that goes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can we s/Fransisco/Francisco/ in the headline?</comment>


Decided to write an eBook. Looking for advice. - <AUTHOR> http://nathanclark.me/presentlikeapro

<comment><AUTHOR> I've gotten incredibly valuable advice here before, so once again looking to you all for some suggestions. I've had the idea of writing a guide/resource on developing and delivering presentations for a while, so I've bitten the bullet and decided to give it a try.

Couple of questions though:

I'm considering narrowing this to just to one or the other (building vs actually presenting) for a first attempt at writing an ebook. Thoughts?

Is this a topic you'd be interested in? If not, is there something close that intersects with a similar opportunity/skillset? I'd like to write something I can be passionate about, but also fits a market.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> Nathan, I am just curious how you selected this particular to write about - <USER2> this something of interest to you personally or you did some sort of a market research that revealed a need in such a book?

Thanks!</comment>


Reflecting on ways to bootstrap a startup - <AUTHOR> http://joel.is/post/6687368692/startup-bootstrapping <comment><USER2> Good to hear these sorts of things when trying to develop your own plan for your startup. My approach (which MANY will say is a failure) is to build in the evenings and keep a day job to cover personal expenses. The ultimate goal being, once we gain traction, go into the company full time. With the situation I'm in (fairly serious gf and finishing uni soon), this seems to be the best route. Thoughts?

<comment><USER3> It can work, it just takes longer and is harder to maintain the momentum when you are only working on it in small chunks.

If you could drop to part time work to cover the expenses then that might be a more viable approach but unless your startup is launched and generating revenue (even 1 sale a week) within 3 months you will notice that it gets harder to keep going, pivot and really get decent traction.</comment></comment>


Google search chief Singhal to quit, to be replaced by AI head - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VC2KK <comment><USER2> Disappointing headline--no robot revolutions to be seen here.</comment>


My disappointments with Amazon DynamoDB - <AUTHOR> http://whynosql.com/my-disappointments-with-amazon-dynamodb/ I was really excited with Amazon's DynamoDB annoucement. After developing for few days with it and using it in production, I was a bit disappointed. <comment><USER2> DynamoDB's one of the signature offering is it's guaranteed throughput. The size limitations might be the tradeoff for it. Its pretty much optimized hash table and binary tree on large scale, things such as contains would not be possible without sacrificing the performance.</comment>


Genome editing reveals a role for OCT4 in human embryogenesis - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature24033.html <comment><USER2> The current Achilles heel of CRISPR/Cas are the off-target effects. Interestingly, none were observed in this case.</comment>


Show HN: Detto – Sync two objects data structure by Proxy feature - <AUTHOR> https://iendeavor.nctu.me/detto/ <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that I forgot to add `Show HN:` in the title, and post another one again.

Detto (AKA Pokemon ditto) is a library which has following features:

\- Not just a deep clone, you could wrap anything in any paticular nested object. \- You could watch change.

See usage: [https://github.com/iendeavor/detto#usage](https://github.com/iendeavor/detto#usage)

Real world example: [https://github.com/iendeavor/form- validation.js](https://github.com/iendeavor/form-validation.js)</comment>


No Cutting Corners on the iPhone X - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/tall-west/no-cutting-corners-on-the-iphone-x-97a9413b94e <comment><USER2> Adding 2 little corners at the top was a horrible idea.

I upgraded at Christmas. I'm sure that they put a lot of effort into it. But now my phone no longer displays battery percentage, and I keep finding myself noticing the missing chunk. Even after a month I notice it.

Squeezing the last square inch is emphatically not worth it. Not even a little bit.

<comment><USER3> Since we're sharing anecdotes, I'll share mine.

I was very skeptical about the notches. But after a month of use, I find that I don't notice the missing space at all.

Most often, it really does feel like the entire screen is being used. It's almost an optical illusion.

My two minor issues with the X are: 1) the glass back makes it very slippery! (It slides off the arm rests on my couch no matter how well I place it.) 2) The protruding camera on the back is very noticable. I wish Apple would make a flat-backed phone again. When I set my phone on a flat surface, it shouldn't wobble.

Overall I was very skeptical of the X for a lot of reasons... but it's by far the best phone I've ever used. (And it better be at this price!)

<comment><USER4> This is one thing I absolutely don't understand. Phone makers should be sued to oblivion (and I'm saying this someone who is not fond of the litigation culture of US in general) for making a portable device that is essentially designed for failure .. a fall. A phone that is meant to be held for hours, to be placed in all sorts of surface, giving it a slippery back is willful negligence for me.

But it's no nice looking they would say while buying a cover to promptly cover it the moment they unbox it. The idiocy of modern day smartphone culture boggles my mind. Ironic that it reminds me of apple's 1984 commercial in a bad way.

<comment><USER5> What's so infuriating about this is that it seems like they go out of their way to make the back of the phone slippery. The metal back of the iPhone 6 and 6s is like teflon and the glass on the X is almost as slippery. Why? I have an old iPhone 4 sitting on the shelf that I occasionally pickup just to marvel at how it _sticks_ in your hand. They proved it could be done years ago.

<comment><USER6> I don't find the glass back on the X to be very slippery at all in hand. My fingers stick to it quite well. It does slide on furniture, but in hand it feels pretty secure, especially relative to older iPhones. The 4 was easier to hold because it was just so small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A beautiful solution to a completely arbitrary problem that they created. Much like needing a dongle to solve their created problem of removing the headphone port. Or needing updates to their operating systems to solve the problem they created with batteries. Are they still able to solve real problems now, instead of those created by themselves?

<comment><USER8> If you're talking about the notch vs. touchid, then no, I vastly prefer the notch/faceid and can't wait for all my apple products to have it.

Why? Simple user experience. I don't want to rest my thumb (or any finger) to unlock my phone before I select where I want to go. Screen turns on, notifications are present, phone is unlocked and my finger's first gesture is to select which notification to goto. That whole same user experience with 1 less motion is gold to me.

<comment><USER9> If they had a fingerprint reader on the back of the device it would be even better.

<comment><USER10> My question to you is: have you used Face ID? What makes you prefer a fingerprint reader on the back to it?

<comment><USER9> I can unlock the phone as I take it out of my pocket. It's unlocked before I even look at it. I have not used Face ID.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No one is saying that they don't expertly engineer things, it's just that their design "solutions" look less like actual solutions with every successive product launch.

<comment><USER12> I appreciate their industrial design, but refuse to use their operating systems. I run linux on all my macs and I'll never go back.

<comment><USER13> I anxiously anticipate the day that Adobe products are Linux native.

<comment><USER14> Or even work on case-sensitive macOS partitions. As far as I know, they are the only major mac software to explicitly hold that back.

<comment><USER15> Steam doesn't work on case sensitive hfs or apfs.

Ask me how I know. >.<

<comment><USER16> How do you know? :P

<comment><USER15> Heh, no more games! Though I suppose thats a good thing for getting stuff done.

<comment><USER12> you can install mame/gnome arcade on linux and definitely create a dangerous distraction. I've wasted some time on centipede, burger time and even snacks'n jaxson

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The author mentions the "Squircle" but doesn't mention the actual reason this has made an appearance in iOS. Apples Industrial Designers use this shape for corners on their laptops because the reflection is creates is a smooth gradient across the entire curve of the laptop, if you use a basic bevel it creates an ugly hard shine.

So the reason this has moved to iOS is because the ID team and Ive have much more influence there than they did in the early iOS days.

As for the notch and the screen edges my personal belief is this is all down to industrial designer bravado. The brief for the iPhone X is "Equal margins on all edges at any cost" this is why Touch ID had to go and they justify the notch because to the left and right of it there is a margin to the device edge that is equal to the bottom and the sides of the device so in the Industrial Designers eyes they have achieved the perfect symmetrical device (Look at Apples recent laptops to see how much emphasis the current put on symmetry above all else).

My theory is the ID team at Apple would look at the "edgeless" Galaxy S8 screen and scoff that it's not truly edgeless because the margins are uneven.

<comment><USER18> More reading on surfacing at Apple: [https://hackernoon.com/apples-icons-have- that-shape-for-a-ve...](https://hackernoon.com/apples-icons-have-that-shape- for-a-very-good-reason-720d4e7c8a14)

Apparently they use Autodesk Alias. Same techniques are used for surfacing in the auto industry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> >Apple has been doing this to the corners of laptops and iMacs for years, but this type of rounding didn't penetrate iOS until version 7. This shape has classically been difficult to achieve, _because it wasn't available in 2D design editors_ , though that's starting to change.

(My emphasis)

However, bizarrely, it _has_ been available in full 3D in parametric mechanical CAD for at least 20 years thanks to the advanced 3D blending functionality in the underlying modeling kernels: Parasolid, ACIS, ShapeManager etc.

Meanwhile, the 2D sketching environment in those programs has lagged w.r.t. curvature continuous fillets.

Witness this Solidworks 2012 tutorial on GrabCAD by Leandro Fernandes[0].

Because of the relative weakness of the 2D sketcher compared to 3D with respect to filleting, Leandro does (roughly) the following strange hack:

1\. creates the profile of the wheel rim in the 2D sketcher

2\. rotates the profile to form the 3D rim

3\. fillets the profile in 3D

4\. merges all the faces into one face

5\. intersects the filleted 3D profile with a section plane to get back into 2D

[0] [https://grabcad.com/tutorials/tutorial-how-to-model-a-bbs- lm...](https://grabcad.com/tutorials/tutorial-how-to-model-a-bbs-lm-wheel-in- solidworks-and-show-design-intent--1)

<comment><USER20> Funnily enough I wrote an Illustrator script to draw superellipses decades ago.

It sat on the Adobe website for a long time until Adobe decided that they wanted to scrap years of useful add ons and content in one of their pointless reorganisations.

A lot of good code died that day...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> That was an interesting article! Now I'm curious about the machinery needed to fabricate such a screen, and how it differs from standard square screen producing machines.

<comment><USER22> [http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/atclen/news_en/15mk/011801852/](http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/atclen/news_en/15mk/011801852/) gives a few details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Apple did a good job of executing on a bad idea with the iPhone X notches. But I don't believe Steve Jobs would've let the iPhone X (or Touchbar) out the door because they're so clearly half-measures.

Apple is implementing temporary workarounds (that won't exist in future devices) in their top of the line products. This is the kind of short-term thinking that they're so famous for avoiding.

They're still doing quite good overall but this is clearly something they're struggling with.

<comment><USER24> > I don't believe Steve Jobs would've let the iPhone X (or Touchbar) out the > door

This is a ridiculous trope that needs to die. Among the many 'half-measures' people whined about during Steve Jobs' tenure are things such as the original iPhone not having 3G, the iPhone 4 antennagate, the infamously scratch prone iPod Nano, the crack prone poly MacBooks, etc etc.

Apple was never a company that produced only flawless, non-controversial products, and Steve was perhaps the most controversial and opinionated product person to have ever lived.

<comment><USER25> Apple's biggest asset has always been design. On a tehnical basis Apple products sometimes beat the competition and sometimes are outdone by the likes of Samsung, Thinkpad, etc. They have dominated the American consumer market because of fit and finish, attention to detail, and overall functional beauty in design. The flaws you're speaking of are a different sort from the, frankly weird looking, notch. While executed as well as possible, its a design compromise.

<comment><USER26> The notch is a literal non-issue that only people who don't actually _use_ this damn device seem to complain about or even notice. I for one am happy that an entire strip of nearly-useless status icons has been shifted upward into the extra area afforded by the notch. The number of times I notice it in a given month easily rounds to zero.

<comment><USER27> >The notch is a literal non-issue that only people who don't actually use this damn device seem to complain about or even notice.

Do you suppose it's possible that it's no coincidence that people who dislike the notch don't use the phone?

<comment><USER26> It's the same story every time Apple releases a new product. People who overwhelmingly don't buy Apple products in the first place lose their minds over some nit, while the overwhelming majority of their actual customers never seem to understand what the big deal is.

I'm not surprised at all: these people knee-jerk so hard and often, they probably can't afford Apple products after the paying for orthopedic surgeons.

And the "ignorant Apple fanboy" narrative that seems to be the counterargument to this falls laughably short when you realize that the number of Apple's customers has been increasing exponentially for the last fifteen years, all while they continue to enjoy the top spot in consumer satisfaction surveys across virtually their entire product line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is this supposed to be impressive? If I remember correctly, Samsung and LG already had rounded corners. And no ugly notch either.

<comment><USER29> > And no ugly notch either.

And no Face ID camera. The "notch" was because of the Face ID components.

You're comparing apples and oranges.

<comment><USER30> > And no Face ID camera. The "notch" was because of the Face ID components.

Facial unlocking was introduced in Android phones back in 2011.

<comment><USER31> You're comparing apples and oranges, too. OP was talking about _functional_ facial unlocking

<comment><USER32> Yeah, like we had back in 2011

<comment><USER33> You mean the one that could be tricked with a simple photo and a pen that you swipe over the eyes to fool the "blink detection"? The one that only worked in good lighting? I tried to use it at the time, it was awful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I thought the official math on the curves was a proprietary secret, no? I recall early iPhone/iPod official case dimension documents never calling out the radius because it didn't exist.

EDIT: Maybe it's somewhere in here: [https://developer.apple.com/accessories/Accessory-Design- Gui...](https://developer.apple.com/accessories/Accessory-Design- Guidelines.pdf)

<comment><USER35> I feel like that would be pretty trivial to reverse engineer if anyone cared to.

<comment><USER36> On iOS 11, CALayer has a `continuousCorners` private property [0].

I did a spartan reverse engineering by recreating the UIBezierPath equivalent of the two types of radii found in the Apple Design Resources [1], then adding a convenience initializer on UIBezierPath that recreates the shape with arbitrary radius of the chosen kind (either UISwitch-like, or App Icon-like).

Earlier attempts include the fascinating Unleashing Genetic Algorithms on the iOS 7 Icon [2].

[0] [https://mobile.twitter.com/argentumko/status/955773459463790...](https://mobile.twitter.com/argentumko/status/955773459463790592)

[1] [https://developer.apple.com/design/resources/](https://developer.apple.com/design/resources/)

[2] [http://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/62341902567/unleashing- gene...](http://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/62341902567/unleashing-genetic- algorithms-on-the-ios-7-icon)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I always thought the cut corners in "Battlestar Galactica" were stupid. And then Apple came along with the iPhone X.

</comment><comment><USER38> Why didn't they just make the front part of the OLEDs transparent, and then turn them off when using those sensors? Surely it couldn't be that much more difficult considering it's already possible to make optically clear OLEDs.

<comment><USER39> Transparent OLEDs are not 100% transparent (especially for IR) and it would impact camera quality and face detection used in faceID.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Best phone. I tried Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and it was disgusting even to hold in hands. Absolutely personal opinion.

Also it's so annoying when people say "iPhone buyers buy it just for elitism" \- hell no, I just love Apple's attention to details, to small things.

</comment><comment><USER41> I wish the same could be said about iOS11...

</comment><comment><USER42> > Sweating thousands of minor details is what separates Apple from other > companies. Their ability to do that is hard-won, but damn it's pretty to > watch.

Wish they would sweat the minor details on their other products that aren't flagship products a swell. Take a look at their USB-C Digital dongle as an prime example. 2-star rating for a $70 dongle, almost universally because of the same fundamental problem.

No, the iPhone X is not a minor detail.</comment>


After 20 Years of Web Development, I Am Ready for Disruption - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/after-20-years-of-web-development-i-am-ready-for-disruption-feh3tp1 <comment><USER2> Someone needs to invent a new browser that expects something other than HTML/CSS/JS over http.

Maybe the new browser has a bunch of built in widgets and runs in a sandox. It would be cool if you could browse to a URL to run something that felt like a traditional app.

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally don't think that JavaScript will die anytime soon. The amount of JS written in the last ~5 years alone is enormous. But I understand that FE development isn't as challenging as it used to be. I used to be a backend developer coding in C# mostly and I loved it. At some point everything shifted to the browser and I ended up writing only JS. Bored, I picked up Clojure and I'm fascinated. It doesn't have the popularity of Rust but it is fun to write code again.

</comment><comment><USER4> so what ..</comment>


Quantum attacks on Bitcoin, and how to protect against them (ECDSA, SHA256) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.10377 <comment><AUTHOR> "Quantum attacks on Bitcoin, and how to protect against them (ECDSA, SHA256)" [https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/papers/1710.10377/](https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1710.10377/)

> […] On the other hand, the elliptic curve signature scheme used by Bitcoin > is much more at risk, and could be completely broken by a quantum computer > as early as 2027, by the most optimistic estimates.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> From [https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Post-Quantum- Cryptography](https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Post-Quantum-Cryptography) :

> NIST has initiated a process to solicit, evaluate, and standardize one or > more quantum-resistant public-key cryptographic algorithms. Nominations for > post-quantum candidate algorithms may now be submitted, up until the final > deadline of November 30, 2017.</comment>


Problem Behaviours in Software Development Teams and How to Fix Them - <AUTHOR> https://www.gdcorner.com/2020/02/28/ProblemBehavioursInSoftwareTeams.html <comment><USER2> "Everything is urgent," and "Bypassing process to report issues" I think have roots in an inability to appreciate the "Cost of Delay" (and Cost of Delay Divided by Duration) between items of work. Consequently, an inability to prioritize appropriately in terms of importance and urgency across competing needs of various stakeholders. Cost of Delay as a framework is helpful in getting those involved speaking the same language (and scaling) in terms of value, time to result, and value of time cycle. In this respect it isn't always necessarily valuable to "Automate everything possible" \- the Cost of Delay (whether in terms of value at risk, or value of the other items that could be done with time savings) isn't there for some tasks.

(disclosure: I ran multiple teams across a game studio with over 1Bn downloads)

Cost of Delay primer: [http://blackswanfarming.com/cost-of- delay/](http://blackswanfarming.com/cost-of-delay/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, good point. I'd say that's very related. In those circumstances appropriate comparisons of cost (both cost of work, and potential losses from delay) aren't being made and prioritization is not happening.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: A tool/SaaS to manage employee access/accounts in one place - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone. Do you know a reputable & reliable service or tool to manage employee accounts at Github/Slack etc?
People join my company: I add their Github handles to a group at Github, Slack and a few more including iOS Dev team.
I am looking for a tool that would give me an overview on all these accounts, showing who has access where with what account, so that whenever someone joins or leaves the company I can manage them easily and never forget about any of them.
I know SSO would partially solve the problem, but I am hoping there is a solution that doesn't require it. <comment><USER2> Seems like an actual use case for a spreadsheet. Is there anything you need from this tool that a trivial spreadsheet won't support?

<comment><AUTHOR> Comprehensive and up to date overview on the access information.

Github is in charge of a tech team lead, Slack is someone else. Once an employee leaves, I want to make sure access is limited accordingly. Sending a bunch of emails and coordinating, then double-checking is the worst nightmare. If the # of services you use is 5 it's all good. If you use >5 you have to check each individually every employee sign-off.

We once had an ex-employee receiving Github updates two years after he left us.

<comment><USER2> What is it that you're looking for your tool to do about this?

<comment><AUTHOR> "Comprehensive and up to date overview on the access information" by pulling data from the services I use and (optionally) managing the permissions for me.

Rippling [1] calls it "provisioning/de-provisioning" and that's exactly what I am looking for (maybe with periodical checks to make sure we remove contractors permissions once their job is done) with the exception that I don't want to set up a new HR system just to get this feature.

[1] - [https://www.rippling.com/provisioning-de- provisioning/](https://www.rippling.com/provisioning-de-provisioning/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Rippling handles that: you can onboard / off-board employees in one click

<comment><AUTHOR> Any ideas how much is Rippling for something around 30 PCs? Only the provisioning/de-provisioning. They sell payroll + Core HR within a package with the provis./de-provis., but we are outside US plus already have an HR tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> okta?</comment>


Why are deep neural networks hard to train? - <AUTHOR> http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/chap5.html <comment><USER2> So neural networks and support vector machines are essentially equivalent [1]. Thus both these approaches effectively project input into a high level feature-space and then draw a hyperplane between two different point sets. The cleverness or not of this depends on how the algorithm effectively creates the feature-space. The article's comments could be interpreted as Deep neural networks allow feature-spaces which otherwise require many more neurons.

But thing is, first consider that being divided by a plane in a feature space is simply a convenient quality that many patterns have. It's similar to data you can draw a line along to extrapolate further values of. However, unlike that approximately linear data, you can't "why" your complex is separated by a particular plane in the feature space and the reason is that your neural network or SVM data is more or less trapper in the model - it's not going to be further processed except in using that model for that particular pattern.

[1] [http://www.scm.keele.ac.uk/staff/p_andras/PAnpl2002.pdf](http://www.scm.keele.ac.uk/staff/p_andras/PAnpl2002.pdf)

<comment><USER3> This comment is very confusing. First of all, the linked paper doesn't state what you claim it states. The authors show equivalence between two specific frameworks of neural networks: SVM-NN and Regularized-NN, and not equivalence between SVM and NN. Generally, SVM and NN are equivalent only in the sense that all discriminative models are equivalent. The kernel trick in SVM requires your embedding to have an "easily" calculable inner product. I'm not an expert, but I think this places strong constraints on the embeddings you can use.

Second of all, SVM does not create any feature space (i.e., embeddings). It just finds a good separator with a maximal margin. Deep NNs, on the other hand, do create features in their hidden layers.

Anyway, even ignoring these issues, I'm not sure I understood your main point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We've tried to consolidate some training tips here: [http://deeplearning4j.org/debug.html](http://deeplearning4j.org/debug.html) [http://deeplearning4j.org/troubleshootingneuralnets.html](http://deeplearning4j.org/troubleshootingneuralnets.html) [http://deeplearning4j.org/trainingtricks.html](http://deeplearning4j.org/trainingtricks.html)

There are many methods. The first to tackle is getting your data in the right format. Plotting software like Matplotlib can be really helpful when you're trying to debug.

</comment><comment><USER5> What happens when you, instead of training the entire network at once, train for a while with a single layer, then add a second layer and train with both layers, then add a third layer and train with all three layers, and so on?

<comment><USER6> Good intuition! What you are describing sounds like a technique called pretraining (in particular, greedy, layer-wise pretraining). Five years ago, pretraining was how everyone attacked this problem, although they usually did a different kind of pretraining (basically, we train a different kind of model, and then perform surgery, cutting it apart and using some layers for it for the earlier layers of our model).

More recently, people, especially the younger generation of deep learning researchers, tend to be skeptical of how much pretraining helps.

Advocates for pretraining now tend to argue that it helps you find better local minima, instead of focusing on it helping the vanishing gradient problem. For example, see this paper: [http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume11/erhan10a/erhan10a.pdf](http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume11/erhan10a/erhan10a.pdf) .

As I'm sure Michael will address in coming chapters, there's a bunch of tricks you can use that make training deep neural networks a lot easier. People tend to prefer, now, to just use those and a lot of computing power, rather than mess around with pretraining.

<comment><USER7> Could you post a few pointers about the bunch of tricks to make deep training a lot easier?

<comment><USER8> Just to add a couple others:

rmsprop is a great technique I don't hear talked about as much, example implementation here: [https://github.com/BRML/climin/blob/master/climin/rmsprop.py](https://github.com/BRML/climin/blob/master/climin/rmsprop.py)

Using nesterov momentum and a "sparse" weight initialization scheme rather than uniform: [https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/momentum.pdf](https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/momentum.pdf)

Reducing the learning rate exponentially and increasing the momentum rate linearly over the course of training. Learning rate from .5 to .0001, momentum from .7 to .995. I've seen variations on this, like adjusting based on sigmoid curve.

Dropout may or may not help, adjusting dropout rate (percentage of activations that are discarded) may or may not help.

Mini-batch size can make a difference. Somewhere between 2 and 200?

You can use bayesian optimization to intelligently search hyperparameters: [https://github.com/JasperSnoek/spearmint](https://github.com/JasperSnoek/spearmint)

Try rmsprop though, I've heard good things.

<comment><USER9> I haven't had any luck so far with rmsprop, adagrad and adadelta. SGD + Nesterov momentum has served me best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> my recent comment on reddit might be relevant to this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/2oeg5t/bac...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/2oeg5t/backpropagation_as_simple_as_possible_but_no/cmn7vnj)

(Disclaimer: I'm just a beginner ML/DL enthusiast).</comment>


I asked a flight expert to find me cheaper flights and saved over $1000 - <AUTHOR> http://alexeymk.com/2015/10/05/flystein-saved-me-over-1000-dollars-on-flight-costs-and-all-they-got-was-this-blog-post.html <comment><USER2> The problem here is that revenue protection departments catch on to these things, and more quickly if you post about it, or operate a service that abuses or facilitates it.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/magazine/mag-08subversion-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/magazine/mag-08subversion-t.html)

and more recently...

[http://www.aol.com/article/2014/12/31/united-airlines- suing-...](http://www.aol.com/article/2014/12/31/united-airlines- suing-22-year-old-nyc-man-who-figured-out-how-to/21123067/)

<comment><USER3> The service itself is also kind of expensive for the chance that you might be able to get a cheaper flight. I plugged in the data for an upcoming international flight path I need to make soon and the total was $85 for service, which is a bit in my opinion for the chance that the service might be able to find a cheaper flight plan.

And since it's non-refundable unless you can prove there is a cheaper option, it's sunk money if there's nothing significantly better. I'm honestly not sure how much stronger this is than just using the multi-flight tool on ITA Matrix in a lot of cases, especially since the secret is basically they'll hunt for the hidden city flights, which with a small bit of research you can do yourself.

<comment><USER4> Article says: ...but what if they don't find anything? Fair question. It's possible you've already found the cheapest rate you're going to get. Flystein has a beat-my-price option where you only get charged if Flystein actually saves you more than their fees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not seeing a Flystein quote for NYC -> SFO. It's midnight here so am I just tired or is it really not there?

<comment><USER6> Hi! Flystein is not yet another meta-search like Kayak or some travel agency.

It is human expert powered service which helps you to save on flights.

Flystein experts use hundreds sites, professional tools and special saving strategies(article just mention only few of them) and are interested only to save as much as possible and make clients happy, so happy clients would recommend Flystein to friends or blog about it ;) For BeatMyPrice trip requests the small fee is paid only when you get real savings, in opposite case the card authorization is promptly removed.

The service works best for any flights which cost more than lets say 500$ total.

For a simple trip just use your favorite metasearch like Kayak first and then submit results to Flystein as Price to Beat. If Flystein experts cant find you the real savings - your request would be completely free and you will be sure you got the best price already.

For more complex trips - go with Build A Trip and save tons of time and money.

<comment><USER5> I meant in the article posted. If you eliminate one of the legs of the journey, I'm sure quite a lot of money can be saved.

<comment><USER6> Good catch! The screenshot does not show NYC->SFO link but it is included in calculation as +200 (609+557+577+200 = 1943)

It was addressed in a separate message, nothing special - just a Virgin flight. We usually recommend Virgin and JetBlue for domestic flights if there is no big price difference with other carriers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup content that actually matters - <AUTHOR>

We started to realise that there is a lot of junk on facebook, twitter and other social media handles, and we often miss out on good content. Being around a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, they always asked me where to read more about startups and entrepreneurship, or even where to start.
Launched founderstoday.com- and it's been growing pretty fast. It's a weekly curation of startup content and news that matters. Some of our content is from FB, Medium, GH, TC , but it's all the good stuff that our team enjoyed. We also get submissions from other writers and founders to include their work.
It's been about 2-3 weeks, and the list is growing everyday. You can subscribe at founderstoday.com
We appreciate any feedback :) <comment><USER2> A new issue is coming out Monday! Subscribe to get it first</comment>


Schrödinger's Cat with 20 Qubits - <AUTHOR> https://www.fz-juelich.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/UK/EN/2019/2019-08-13-schroedingers_cat_with_20_qubits.html <comment><USER2> > it is not clear whether the cat is dead or alive. It would be both at the > same time until an experimenter takes a look. A single state would only be > obtained starting from the time of this observation.

> Qubits, which have several states simultaneously due to the superposition > principle, can store and process several values in parallel in one step.

<comment><USER3> This is a popular science and not very accurate version of how qubits work, no?

<comment><USER4> Can you give a bit more info on that? What is not accurate?

<comment><USER5> Let's take the first quote which is talking about superposition. From an information theoretic perspective, superposition is not different from a classical statistical model. A weather model can be in the state (20% chance of rain tomorrow, 80% dry). Its when you measure or observe the weather tomorrow you will see either rain or dryness. In other words, while it is technically correct to say "a qubit is in two states at the same time", it's a very boring and non-deep statement.

Now, the second quote. This one is heavily misleading. I don't even know where to begin. I will just leave this here [https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=198](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=198)

<comment><USER6> I always liked this comic as an explanation [https://www.smbc- comics.com/comic/the-talk-3](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3)

<comment><USER7> There must be a Reporters' Union regulation against getting it right. But the cartoonists are not bound by it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Easiest way to build html tables in React - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/legitcode/table

<comment><USER2> You might want to shim Object.assign as your demo page is broken.

<comment><AUTHOR> I need to update the example, the actual module itself doesn't use it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my minimum viable product - thewillcreator.com - <AUTHOR> http://thewillcreator.com I've been reading about all the different Hacker News users who are launching a minimum viable product and I wanted to do the same. It took a month to create thewillcreator.com. Please give me any constructive feedback.<p>It's a simple questionnaire to generate a legal last will, living will, and medical power of attorney. <comment><USER2> Totally awesome, simple but useful business model.

I didn't sign up, but I have a couple of questions:

1.) How do you get around the witnesses, soundness of mind issue? 2.) Are there legal differences from state to state you need to consider? 3.) Do you have the capacity to/Would you want to upsell consulting to individuals with a net worth beyond a certain threshold? It works for someone like me with a net worth only visible with a microscope but for higher worth individuals I'd assume they want to speak directly with someone. 4.) Perhaps before getting someone to sign up, you could let them know "what they'll need to get started" (maybe in the FAQ). This is ultimately what prevented me from signing up. Didn't want to give out my e-mail address for something I wasn't prepared to finish.

Hope this helps and I truly do think this is a good idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Chris,

Thank you for your feedback.

1\. The user still needs to find witnesses to watch them sign the will and attest to their soundness of mind.

2\. There are legal differences from state to state. For example, some states require 2 witnesses while other require 3 witnesses.

3\. I have considered referring high worth individuals to estate attorneys, but it would require me to forge some relationship with attorneys before that can occur. For now, I just want to see whether the site is useful for even 1 person to purchase it.

4\. Good point. I'll look into incorporating the requirements for completing the will into the beginning of the process or into the FAQ. Another option I'm considering is to delay the need to signup until the end of the questionnaire.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Cool, yeah I definitely think you should delay the need to sign up. Combining #2 & #4, you'll likely want to fold the state to state logic into the questionnaire.

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Chris,

Thank you for your help yesterday. The state to state logic is folded together. We have also delayed the requirement to login to the end of the will creator. If you want to try out the will creator, you can try it now without providing your email or having to log in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could you show an example document?</comment>


Show HN: Sunvoice.me, the B2B Version of Venmo - <AUTHOR> https://www.sunvoice.me <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, I created Sunvoice.me based on my experiences as part of the early team at Venmo, plus as the product manager for accounts receivable software at a B2B cannabis distributor. Looking forward to hearing your feedback!</comment>


Var, Technology and Human Judgment - <AUTHOR> https://kenanmalik.com/2019/11/18/var-technology-and-human-judgment/ <comment><USER2> There is room for improvement about VAR, it's a welcome development in the footballing world</comment>


PageSpeed Insights API down - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http://www.microsoft.com Just spent a half day trying to get API calls to return results. With very inconsistent results!<p>I realized the API backend must be broken as the URL for the results on the google site fails as well! <comment><AUTHOR> repasting my comment: Just spent a half day trying to get API calls to return results. With very inconsistent results!

I realized the API backend must be broken as the URL for the results on the google site fails as well!</comment>


Site load time - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Can you anyone suggest how I can improve load time for a website with a lot of images. Images and js files are compressed already. We haven't tried CDN yet. <comment><USER2> I agree with ig1; If you are concerned with performance, one of the first steps is to measure the performance in order to get an idea of where the issue(s) are. Is your Website Static or Dynamic? If your Website is Dynamic (aka, uses a Database on the back end) then the process of measuring is a bit more complex. Generally speaking, one of the common methods used to increase performance is to minimize the number of calls. This is usually accomplished by optimizing the code. For example, taking a large number of images and combining them into a single image sprite, and then using CSS to load the correct pixels of the sprite. In this example, the single image (aka image sprite) is called and downloaded to the user once, instead of 20 images being called and downloaded 20 times. This can also apply to Dynamic Websites that use a Database on the Back End, for example, making a single call to the Database instead of multiple unnecessary calls (just an example). A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is another possible solution, but that will only increase performance at the transport layer, and will not solve problems with inefficient code, or potential issues on the back end. By measuring your performance, you'll have a better idea of where to look.

<comment><AUTHOR> The website is Dynamic. Thanks for the suggestion but I'm not sure how we can make a single call to the Database for multiple images and videos. Is there a blog I can refer?

Thank you

<comment><USER2> No problem, glad I could help. I don't have a Blog to refer to, but I can give you a simplified example.

Imagine you are loading a Page with 20 Images out of the Database. The "slower" approach would be to query the Database for each Image individually, which means 20 queries to load 20 images. The "faster" approach would be to query the Database for all 20 images at once, which means 1 query to load 20 images.

Optimizing the Database end of a Dynamic Website (or Service/App) could be considered a specialty in itself, and it can get pretty complex; Indexing, Caching, even designing the Database Structure and Code a special way. I put the terms slower and faster in quotes because everything is relative, and your mileage may vary. If you are using a framework (like Wordpress for example), then it's possible that someone already put some thought into optimizing the calls.

The first step is to measure and determine where the bottlenecks are. You may find out that you don't even need to worry about the Database (depending on your performance measurements). To get started, check out Google Chrome's Developer Tools (Resource Analysis), or WebPageTest.org (just some examples of tools you can use). Good Luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have experience with serving images, but I'd need more details to help you get closer to the problem. Can we get a url?

Have you configured entity tags (etags)? Are you compressing w/ gzip? How many dns lookups and http requests are being called? Have you added expires to headers? Are you scaling images in html?

These are just some of the "basics" for quicker loading. If seeing explosive growth than these basics aren't that significant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fashom.com. I've only launched it a few days ago. The issue is login and page load time because of the number of images stored. I was also suggested that I could use cloud servers instead. Yes we are compressing w/gzip. We are not scaling images in HTML.

<comment><USER3> If you don't have tons of users/content then the problem isn't the server. If I had to guess its probably the sites architecture and code. If you want an inexpensive provider who uses SSD try Digital Ocean. They are dirt cheap and I've heard they are a solid provider, but I would look into the code first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I third the sprites idea, that's where you should focus on the most if you haven't done so already since it decreases the total number of requests to the server and that's one of the big bottle-necks on the browser.

</comment><comment><USER5> Measure. Until you measure end-to-end performance you have no idea what the bottlenecks are. Client side you can use something like Chrome inspector, server side you can use logging or a more sophisticated tool like New Relic.

</comment><comment><USER6> Check out Google's advice: [http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/](http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Checked that. One of the reasons is slow server response and I'm not sure if it's because of the applications or the server network speed. Server hosting company seems to think its the application

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What platform? Wordpress?

<comment><AUTHOR> cakePHP</comment></comment>


Improving readability of HN comments - <AUTHOR> http://blog.girishredekar.net/post/1581454628/improving-readability-of-hackernews-comments

<comment><USER2> There's also just not maximising your browser window.

</comment><comment><USER3> Out of curiosity, what resolution are you running at?</comment>


Change Your Reality (again) with Rejection Therapy's "Blue Pill" Edition - <AUTHOR> http://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/rejection-therapy---blue-pill-edition

<comment><USER2> The deck is for ages 18+ and that the suggestions are more "personal". It isn't R-rated is it?

<comment><USER3> Maybe it should be called the "hot coffee" edition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sorry, but what exactly is this? I can't find anything on the website describing exactly what's on the cards.

Why are they called red pill and blue pill?

<comment><USER5> Rejection Therapy is a game that consists of cards. Each card has a suggestion on what you can do to get rejected by another person.

Like it says, the game is designed to help people get over the fear of rejection (and other irrational social anxieties). By playing a card, you get out of your comfort zone in a very concise, actionable way. It's also hella fun if you're playing with someone ;-)

It's based on a behavioral technique called "flooding": <http://www.psychologistworld.com/behavior/flooding.php>

EDIT: The cards are optional, and not required to play the game.</comment></comment>


Building your own MMDB databases for IP-specific data - <AUTHOR> http://blog.maxmind.com/2015/09/29/building-your-own-mmdb-database-for-fun-and-profit/#more-154 <comment><AUTHOR> I had promised to write this post in an earlier HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10030854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10030854)

There is an accompanying Git repository: [https://github.com/maxmind/getting- started-with-mmdb](https://github.com/maxmind/getting-started-with-mmdb) The repo contains a Vagrantfile, so Vagrant users can get up and running with an MMDB development environment in a few minutes.</comment>


Lithuania: Europe's secret tech powerhouse? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/03/08/lithuania-europes-secret-tech-powerhouse/ <comment><USER2> Lithuania is not only the secret tech powerhouse, but also the whole gateway to Eastern Europe - [http://aciety.com/](http://aciety.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> For some reason some big startups are missed here. Like Xtgem for example..

</comment><comment><USER4> Some of these startups are gonna be huge, no doubt about it!</comment>