Rackspace announces AWS managed service offerings - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rackspace.com/newsarticles/rackspace-announces-aws-managed-service-offerings-at-reinvent/ <comment><USER2> Scoble's press release on this manages to combine a Thomas Friedman'ism, self- congratulations, and even a registered trademark symbol: ®...And it's only available on Facebook, of course[1].

Meanwhile, this all buries the lede: Rackspace has lost to Amazon, and it's trying to pivot into becoming a consulting business before it completely implodes.

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/notes/robert-scoble/rackspace- annou...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/robert-scoble/rackspace-announces- aws-managed-service-offerings-my-why/10156632931065355)

<comment><USER3> I disagree with this being an admission of Rackspace losing, and think it's more that Rackspace is finally embracing the ideals internally communicated for over a decade now -- Rackspace isn't a technology company, but rather a service company that heavily leverages technology.

The cash cow at Rackspace isn't running servers or even VMs in a data center. It's providing management of those resources.

It's also woth noting AWS is only the latest 3rd party RAX supports, following Azure, Office365, and Google Apps. It's quite likely other environments are supported in one-off arrangements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is Rackspace still a thing?

Their customer support is shit, takes days to get back to you -- then without any real explanation, "Our engineers were able to fix the issue that our cloud server engineers caused."

Worse, let's say you have them look into your actual code (as I've seen some clients do), and 1/2 the time Rackspace just outsources the work to whatever crappy dev shop has availability. So then the followup ticket is, "Why are all the permissions on the server jacked up?" And the response, "Oh, we didn't know how to run the provisioning scripts, or read the documentation, so we just set everything everywhere on your production box to 777... cool?" RUN away from Rackspace. Run.

<comment><USER5> Hmmm I've a distinctly different experience. In my experience their support is good and their engineers quite knowledgeable. Tickets are dealt with within reasonable time frames. If I really do need something to happen quickly, I can call in and have someone knowledgeable on the phone within 10 minutes, who often will do whatever is necessary right away. During a recent issue they had two engineers in two time zones working on it, to shorten the time to fix as much as possible (still took a long time, but it was a difficult issue so ...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clicking that link, I see: 403 Forbidden --- nginx. If that's the service they provide...

[http://blog.rackspace.com/newsarticles/rackspace- announces-a...](http://blog.rackspace.com/newsarticles/rackspace-announces- aws-managed-service-offerings-at-reinvent/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Still waiting for Rackspace to offer Mac Servers hosting service. The current offerings out there really suck.

<comment><USER8> Is there a hardware alternative to throwing a bunch of Mac Pro cylinders or Mac Minis into custom-made racks? It seems like the density would be _terrible_.

<comment><USER9> Have you seen [http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac- pros](http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros) ?

<comment><USER10> I loved that writeup.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I install Ubuntu with UEFI without disabling SecureBoot? - <AUTHOR> The title says it all. Additionally I can't disable SecureBoot without disabling UEFI, the option is greyed out in the setup menu. I have no OS loaded on the eMMC flash on the laptop. The laptop(s) are Lenovo 100s and ACER ES13 <comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has the same issue, you have to enable UEFI, go into the Security tab, set a Supervisor password, install Ubuntu but don't disable SecureBoot through it, go into the UEFI Setup menu, manually add Ubuntu .efi signatures to the database and reboot.</comment>


Firespotter, a Google Ventures funded incubator - <AUTHOR> http://www.firespotter.com/ <comment><USER2> "Firespotter isn't an incubator. We aren't looking for ideas or teams to back. We will instead be building products that we want to use ourselves and quickly get them out into the world."[1]

[1] <http://www.firespotter.com/blog>

<comment><USER3> This sounds a lot like what Bill Gross' Idealab does <http://www.idealab.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The video on their 'Contact' page is particularly well done:

<http://www.firespotter.com/contact-us>

The narration is a series of excerpts from the 'Wave Speech' passage in Hunter S. Thompson's _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ , written about the hippie movement in San Francisco. Apropos.

Kudos to Alex Cornell, who apparently made it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Instead of 20% free time, it's 100% free time, and they get to own a chunk of what they make. Smart way to outsource R&D by pre-owning a stake in what could be the next big thing, without the complexities and competition of acquisition.

I think they should just build what's getting funded at the time, and not get too crazy. A fast (and better) follower mentality.

</comment><comment><USER6> The TechCrunch article gives a lot more detail about what they're doing than their own site does:

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/google-voice-ceo-craig- walk...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/google-voice-ceo-craig-walker- launches-firespotter-a-google-ventures-funded-incubator/)

</comment><comment><USER7> How do you guys think this actually works in a sense of equity? Google Ventures gets a stake in Firespotter. What happens if they spin-off one of their ideas into a new company? I take it Google Ventures is still involved then, right? Why invest otherwise?

</comment><comment><USER8> There really is an unwritten law somewhere that Google must and will expand into every possible web-related business category. They look more like Yahoo and AOL to me. Jobs says it best: People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done.

<comment><USER9> I guess that means that IBM - doing pretty much everything in IT - will fail any day now.

<comment><USER8> But IBM has a focus--business to business. You could argue Google's focus is advertising, regardless Google is much more aggressive than IBM or any other company in expanding into ever semi-related web category.</comment></comment></comment>


Probe into how Google mix-up caused $1 billion run on United - <AUTHOR> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4742147.ece <comment><USER2> > The comedy of errors began with just one reader who went to the South > Florida Sun Sentinel's website and viewed a 2002 article on United Airlines' > bankruptcy.

> That single visit in the early hours of Sunday morning, a period of low > traffic, apparently bumped it into a "Popular Stories" in the business > section.

New business strategy for botmasters: find old stories on news sites that do this "Popular Stories" thing, buy/sell stock, get the stories onto the front page with the botnet, profit!

</comment><comment><USER3> solution: don't believe everything you read on the internet

</comment><comment><USER4> Hello, Duplicated Content, Hello.</comment>


Rise of the entrepreneurial consumer - <AUTHOR> http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/sellsumers/

<comment><USER2> Discussion in progress here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=543912></comment>


Your car may soon serve you ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/01/05/your-car-may-soon-serve-you-ads-how-about-a-pizza <comment><USER2> Those cars would need a display with a non-legacy OS and Internet connectivity.

I hope the implementations can securely isolate the ads from the rest of the car software.</comment>


Deep Learning for Coders – Launching Deep Learning Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.fast.ai/2017/07/28/deep-learning-part-two-launch/ <comment><USER2> Part 1 was great.

However, the first lesson took a bit of stamina to go through. Much of it was introducing basic Unix/AWS/shell/Python things I know intimately and have strong opinions and deeply set ways about. Shell aliases, how to use AWS, what Python distribution to run, running Python from some crazy web tool called notebooks (and not Emacs), etc. felt like I was forced to learn a random selection of randomly flavored tools for no good reason.

Yes, it's a random selection of tools. The good reason to bear them is that you'll learn how to implement state of the art deep learning solutions for a lot of common problems.

So, I ended up viewing the lessons not as "this is how you should do it", but rather as "here's one way to do it". And it does get much easier after internalizing the tools in Lesson 1.

Just something to keep in mind when branding this as "deep learning for coders". Coders have deep opinions about the tools they use :)

<comment><USER3> I come from the opposite side of the spectrum. I know nothing about UNIX/AWS/Shell and have no intimate or strong opinions on any of the tools. I am confused by basics such as how to make a special request for P2 access, since the set up video is out of date. The git cloning recommendations on the wiki is also confusing to me. I'd rather see a video on how to do the git cloning or step-by-step instructions (with pictures) on how to do this and what to expect if it has been properly done.

I felt like some of the material is outdated and I find it not clear how to get around it. I ended up getting frustrated with the set up videos and git cloning instructions, so I skipped it in their entirety. I hope the future iterations of this class spell things out for beginners like me. Otherwise, I can't even begin the class since I don't know how to request access to P2, clone git, etc.

I am not uneducated. I come from a pure mathematics background and don't know anything about this set up business. I can code, know theoretical CS, but when it comes to setting up the tools (along with the outdated material) I am utterly lost.

At this point I'm just watching the videos. I can't actually do any of the coding stuff since I don't have the tools set up, but I like their top-down approach and am learning a lot despite these obstacles.

<comment><AUTHOR> We (including the rest of the learning community) would love to help you - could you post on the forums the problems you are having and we'll try to help sort them out? If you've already posted, please at-mention me there so I don't miss it.

It's a fine line between helping too much vs too little in lesson 1! For the next time we run part 1, we're thinking we'll have an optional weekend workshop to teach the necessary (non deep learning specific) software pieces - python, numpy, AWS, shell, etc. That would end up being a separate mini-MOOC I suspect.

Based on the discussions on the forums it seems most students are between these two extremes, and largely follow the video advice, branching off sometimes where they need to do some additional research, or are already familiar with some alternative approach.

 _Edit: actually thinking more about it - probably your best bet is to simply use[http://crestle.com](http://crestle.com) . All the data, notebooks, and software is pre-installed, so you can start coding right away._

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the reply. I had not (yet) posted on the forum as I was methodically searching through the previous replies to ensure my question had not already been answered. Thanks for crestle recommendation. I will now look into it. This should simplify my tool setup. If I still have questions around tool setup after posting, then I will at-mention you. I think the mini-MOOC (for people like me) is a great idea. I get lost in basic tooling (that many experienced devs can skip). So, if you guys include a mini-MOOC on tool set up, then this would benefit people like me tremendously and help us get up to speed with everyone else.

Will the revamped course in October be offered online (like the current version is) for public viewing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it'll be online a couple of months after completion, or you can apply to join remotely as an international fellow.

<comment><USER3> Excellent. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Highly recommended! The first course was the first thing I came across that helped me contextualize the DL field into something that might be relevant for my work. It's a great way to get your hands dirty.

One point of comparison is Cam Davidson Pilon's Bayesian Methods for Hackers, they have a similar vibe: practical applied advice from a field that tilts towards the academic...

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a very flattering comparison! :) Such a great book - here's a link for those interested in bayesian methods: [http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/CamDavidsonPilon/Probabil...](http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/CamDavidsonPilon/Probabilistic- Programming-and-Bayesian-Methods-for- Hackers/blob/master/Prologue/Prologue.ipynb)

In fact that book inspired me to create a spreadsheet that implements MCMC in order to make it easy to understand and visualize - we're planning to start an "Introduction to Machine Learning" course in a couple of months where I hope to show off the result of this...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you so much for this, for me Deep learning Part 1 was a top notch course that really helped me learn by actually doing things in variety of topics (e.g competing in Kaggle, creating spreadsheets to understand collaborative filtering & embeddings, sentiment analysis using CNN and RNN etc). I found the top down approach to very effective in keeping me motivated as I worked my way through the course. It took me 6 months of watching(and rewatching) the videos and working on problems to get comfortable.

I have done a few MOOCs: Andrew Ng's machine learning, Coursera ML specialisation, edx Analytics Edge and all of them were good learning experience but fast ai's deep learning part 1 really stood out.

For me, the combination of Deep Learning Book + Fast ai MOOC + CS231n (youtube videos & assignments) cover almost everything I want to learn about the subject.

@jph00, I'm half way through neural style transfer and I am loving it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I somehow forgot to mention in the post - we're teaching a totally updated part 1 course (keras 2, python 3.6, Tensorflow 1.3, recent deep learning research results) starting end of October in San Francisco. Detail here: [https://www.usfca.edu/data-institute/certificates/deep- learn...](https://www.usfca.edu/data-institute/certificates/deep-learning- part-one)

I'll go edit the post with this info now - but figured I'd add a comment here for those that have already read it.

</comment><comment><USER6> My feelings on Part 1:

I felt like the setup of the first part was at time a little frustrating, since I started it during a time when Keras had switched to a newer version which wasn't compatible some of the utility code that was written. Add this to the newbie factor to notebooks, and it was a pretty rough first week or so to setup and get actual learning done. It took me a bit of time to realize notebooks were more like repeatable trains of thoughts than well-written production code.

The other thing is that some of the supplementary material was really long and at times made me feel like, why take this course instead of just going through a course mentioned in supplementary material (e.g. CS231n wrt CNN's)? I think I ended up spending hundreds of hours reading/watching/practicing CNN's by reading papers, watching Karpathy's 231n videos, and doing a couple tutorials from data scientists who elaborated on a specific problem they were solving. I guess at times when watching Part 1's videos and doing the notebooks, I didn't feel like I was 'getting it' as much or as fast as when I was getting the information from other means.

While the forum discussions can be helpful, it was also wadding through a ton of unstructured content. And the service they used for the forums hotmapped the find shortcut to their own built-in search, which was a little annoying. I don't know a great solution to having more structured data, but perhaps adding some of questions that were answered to the lesson's Wikipedia. Or maybe splitting the technical issues from the high level concepts.

Lastly, I think it was either HN or /r/MachineLearning but someone had suggested a book regarding Machine Learning and hands-on Tensorflow usage which I picked up, and I felt like my pace of learning really sped up afterwards. I think part of it was Tensorflow has a lot more written about it so when you encounter an odd problem, chances are someone else has something to say about it.

All criticisms aside, I think I'll try going through Part 1 a second time around prior to going through Part 2.

<comment><USER7> I had the opposite experience. I'm basically as non-math as you can get and still be in the sciences, and I found the classes quite intelligible (on a fast watch without the notebook, and then a slow watch with the notebook for each class).

FWIW, I think the supplementary material wasn't strictly necessary from a 'using the libraries' point of view. I'll never contribute to this field, but I feeling like Jeremy's explanation were conceptually helpful if not rigorous.

For me, the order was: lesson, notebook+lesson, wiki + supplementary material if something wasn't making sense, and the discussion board if all else failed. That discussion board is basically useless unless you're taking the class in real time I think, which has been my experience for all MOOCs.

Different strokes for different folks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The n00best path to data science and machine learning state of the art is now complete, no excuses! 2015: Andrew Ng's Coursera MOOC; 2016: Kaggle competitions with xgboost and ensembles; 2017: deep learning code-oriented courses with fast.ai and GPU hardware for the masses. Thanks, very lucky to witness and try this.

</comment><comment><USER9> jph00, I found the first course hard to follow because of some broken links and poorly organized content. One link that was necessary kept taking me to a password protected page. This is about a month ago.

It would be good if someone could revisit part.1 and make those minor editorial fixes if they haven't already done so.

I might be being too precious about my time, but I also found the first video about your teaching philosophy somewhat gratuitous; I wish I hadn't watched it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The move from platform.ai to files.fast.ai could have been communicated better - sorry this impacted you. (We tried to highlight everywhere we could, but we can't change the video itself on YouTube unfortunately.)

We're redoing the whole of part 1 starting in October so this problem will be fully resolved then. Until then, follow the links on course.fast.ai or the forums, rather than what you see in the part 1 videos, or just remember to always replace platform.ai with course.fast.ai.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh and about the teaching philosophy video - until we posted that we had quite a few students express confusion about the top-down approach. After posting it, we've received a lot of positive feedback about it. I understand it's not helpful or interesting to everyone, but overall it seems to have been a successful addition for most.

<comment><USER10> I am one of those guys who likes to understand everything before beginning to do anything meaningful. Needless to say I mostly fail.

Your lecture on top down course philosophy actually helped me change my perspective. It's a welcome positive change so thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Afraid I may have missed the window on the chance to provide feedback to jph00 via this channel, but here goes.

Am watching Part 1 now and only two sessions in, but there are some tweaks I would love to see. First the positive: I really appreciate the approach of hands-on and teaching theory only as it's needed and in conjunction with applied work.

Would love to see a tiny bit of time spent on setting up tools for people who already have good Nvidia GPU systems. My Ubuntu system has python (2.7) and python 3.5 both installed, but no Anaconda... I don't know if I'm going to totally screw up my system if I install Anaconda over those working existing python installations, for example.

It would be great to hear the questions. I can barely hear a faint voice in the background as Rachel reads the questions (presumably from online) but it seems like it would be a very easy tweak to have her closer to a microphone. Maybe this happens in later sessions and I just haven't gotten to them yet.

It would be great if so many things weren't abbreviated in the code variable and function names. Examples: nb for notebook, t for ?, a for array(?), U, s, and Vh for ?, ims (?), interp (interpretation or interpreter or interpolation?), sp, v, r, f, k, trn (train or turn or something else?), pred (predicate or prediction?), vec_numba (?)... the list goes on. Yes if I knew the field these might be obvious but for some of them I'm still learning. "np" I understand since that's standard practice and you explained it. It would be really really easy to just spell out words in the code, as well as being a good practice in general imho, and, since you are trying to teach stuff, it would seem appropriate.

Those nitpicks aside I'm really stoked about the course and really appreciate everything you have been putting into it!

<comment><USER12> > Would love to see a tiny bit of time spent on setting up tools for people > who already have good Nvidia GPU systems. My Ubuntu system has python (2.7) > and python 3.5 both installed, but no Anaconda... I don't know if I'm going > to totally screw up my system if I install Anaconda over those working > existing python installations, for example.

Anaconda lives in its own folder (usually in $HOME). You can't screw anything up by installing it, and in fact you can hardly tell it's there. You need to set your path to actually use Anaconda's programs, and you shouldn't do that in .bashrc, but just in the shells where you are actively using it, with something like:

      export PATH=/home/<you>/Development/Tools/Anaconda3/bin:$PATH

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Honestly can't recommend this course highly enough.

It's definitely not perfect - the notebooks are not commented and the material does tend to jump around a bit - but what it does do, it does extremely well.

This course will teach you how to actually build deep learning systems and build the kinds of things you read about PhDs doing...

</comment><comment><USER14> Latently (SUS17) also provides a more self-directed path to learning deep learning focused exclusively on implementing research papers and conducting original research: [https://github.com/Latently/DeepLearningCertificate](https://github.com/Latently/DeepLearningCertificate)

<comment><USER15> That seems interesting, but there are so many papers and little indication of which ones are more important (or which ones to implement first). I realize this is for advanced learners, but some guidelines, or at least a section pointing to survey papers would be really helpful as a starting point.

<comment><USER14> We have a bibliography - it is not yet organized very well but we are working on that: [https://paperpile.com/shared/UhfbVO](https://paperpile.com/shared/UhfbVO)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is exciting! I went through Part 1 a few weeks ago (probably have to cover embeddings and RNNs again...) and felt it was totally worth it.

Part 2 seems equally strong in content (if not stronger). It's a beautiful time to be n00b in deep learning & AI, and learn via material like these. No excuses. Knowledge is power.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been looking to do part 1, so this is really cool - looking forward to this too! On [http://course.fast.ai/part2.html](http://course.fast.ai/part2.html) the thumbnail for lesson 8 has specs for building a PC, with advice to use pcpartpicker. For part 1 I liked the idea of using AWS and only paying for a few hours, does part 2 have a hard requirement of a >$100s investment in hardware?

<comment><USER18> There is no requirement, but if you are spending a meaningful amount of money per month on AWS (over $100) and plan on working on DL projects for the next year or two it might make sense to make the initial up front investment.

<comment><USER13> You can definitely get by just using AWS and the flexibility is great but it can get expensive.

The Tiramisu model from lesson 14 takes like 25 hours to train and at $0.90 per hour, it adds up pretty fast...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For folks who've gone through part 1 and 2. Do you think the course provides enough material to tackle tasks like deep learning ocr [1] or custom object detection in images?

[1]: [https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2017/04/creating-a-modern- ocr...](https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2017/04/creating-a-modern-ocr-pipeline- using-computer-vision-and-deep-learning/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you should absolutely be able to tackle those tasks after doing the course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What is the goal of these trainings? To get a taste so you understand the conversation? There is a lot more to data science than neural networks, and I'm skeptical that teaching one family of models will create a set of implementers that don't compare and contrast solutions.

<comment><USER21> Practical applications rather than theoretical knowledge. In other words, if you're a programmer to put more tools in your toolbox.

<comment><USER20> Sound fair. I'll have to watch the videos to get a better opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wonderful! You picked a really nice selection! Can't wait to do them all! Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER23> Based on the feedback I'm reading here about Part 1, I'm going to start recommending these courses to non-academic friends who have expressed interest in learning more about Deep Learning.

THANK YOU for doing this.

</comment><comment><USER24> They don't even have a link to part 1 at the start of the article??

<comment><AUTHOR> The very 1st link of the article is a link to part 1.

I'll also link the text 'part 1' in that paragraph to make it more clear.

<comment><USER24> Ah ok, confusingly this is the link to part 1: [http://course.fast.ai/](http://course.fast.ai/)

This seems a bit odd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looking forward to part 2 Jeremy! Part 1 was nothing short of excellent

</comment><comment><USER26> jph00, I would just like to thank you for the first course and now the second course. I've thoroughly enjoyed both and they have taught me a lot.</comment>


Building a Cloud Chamber (Cosmic Ray Detector) - <AUTHOR> http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/einsteinguide/activities/cloud.html

<comment><USER2> I first read about making one's own cloud chamber as a kid. I used to read old issues of Scientific American for the Mathematical Games columns written by Martin Gardner, which I highly recommend, and the Amature Scientist column written by a series of authors over the years, starting in 1928.

The projects were amazing. My favorites to read about were the seismographs and telescopes. Several cloud chambers were described, the first in September of 1952. These were of varying complexity, some made from peanut butter jars, etc.

I believe that these columns are still in print in various forms (collections published in books and on the internet as reprints from Sci. American). Not all of the project could be undertaken lightly. Particle accelerators, x-ray machines are two risky ones that come to mind.

The diagrams that accompanied the columns were notable for their clarity and ability to illustrate.

</comment><comment><USER3> These are really easy and fun to put together. I'd highly recommend it for a weekend project.

Here's one that I built running with a sample of Americium 241 from a cheap smoke detector: [http://bit.ly/UDWpc0](http://bit.ly/UDWpc0)

Here's a different one running with a bit of Thorium containing lantern mantle [http://bit.ly/1Annrp5](http://bit.ly/1Annrp5)

You can also try with thorated tungsten welding rods and other household sources of radiation.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I came across this article while researching whether Coleman lantern mantles are still radioactive. Putting a mantle close to this detector would be one way to find out. Traditionally, lantern mantles were made with Thorium to produce a brighter and whiter light.

It turns out that most current mantles (including those made by Coleman) have switched in the 1990's to using non-radioactive Ytterbium, although some claim that that the older Thorium mantles are both safe and more effective: [http://www.colemancollectorsforum.com/post/peerless- mantles-...](http://www.colemancollectorsforum.com/post/peerless- mantles-5661914)

If you are excited by this but don't have a good source of dry ice (and are electronically inclined) there is an interesting alternative design that uses Peltier coolers and a PC power supply instead: [http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Cloud-Chamber- using-P...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Cloud-Chamber-using- Peltier-Coolers/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Thanks, an amazingly beautiful demonstration which seems not very wide known. Here is the video from "Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations" which is quite beautiful (just the thing at work, without distractions) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fi6uyyrEs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fi6uyyrEs)

<comment><USER5> That's very cool. Brian Cox did a variation on his programme with an added hot water bottle on top : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWxfliNAI3U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWxfliNAI3U)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did this as a kid - serious fun. Used the americium from a smoke detector as a source, after several abortive attempts to build a synchrotron... The third time you wind several km of copper just to end up melting it is the last time, it turns out - particularly after you explain to your parents what exactly it is you're trying to do.

Either way, a small radioactive source is just great for some neat photos and the occasional decay trace.

Leftovers from my melty mess went into a tesla coil, so not all was lost.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very pretty. I built a (less pretty) digital version a few years ago[0], based on some really neat projects by this guy[1]

[0]: [http://kapamaki.net/muon-detector/](http://kapamaki.net/muon-detector/) [1]: [http://www.hardhack.org.au/](http://www.hardhack.org.au/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I saw this for the first time in a Brian Cox show:

[http://youtu.be/fWxfliNAI3U](http://youtu.be/fWxfliNAI3U)

His suggestion that cosmic rays might have driven evolution is mind blowing!

</comment><comment><USER9> Youtube has a bunch of nice videos of cloud chambers. Here's a good one: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnKvtazt5So](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnKvtazt5So)

</comment><comment><USER10> Saw my first one while visit Bridge at Caltech.. inspired me to build my own

</comment><comment><USER11> I saw a cloud chamber in operation at a German university, very impressive.</comment>


Twitter does not delete data, even though you deleted it - <AUTHOR> --- Deleted tweet:
https://twitter.com/mikulabeutl/status/981142746487455744
Proof of Original tweet: https://i.imgur.com/hjlSh9z.png
Proof of deletion simply by clicking on the above link.
--- Data still exists, see below for...
Shorturl generated in the post: https://t.co/lPsqZ8Mmn0
Image within post: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZ24F_tW0AAVcO3.jpg <comment><USER2> Deleting things at scale is hard. There are good technical reasons why associated data (the short URL and the image) wouldn't be deleted at the same time as the tweet. If the link and the image are still visible in a few days time _then_ I'd be concerned.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, here's the thing. I create a service that actually deletes the content, yet someone else who had access to your tweet/post saved a copy of it - through a screenshot, a backup, copy/paste. Should they allowed to have that? Are they allowed to take a pencil/pen and write down what you wrote, so they can remember it for themselves - and reference it later?</comment>


Passive observations of a large DNS service - <AUTHOR> https://blog.apnic.net/2018/08/14/passive-observations-of-a-large-dns-service/ <comment><USER2> "Due to the centralization that is caused by public DNS services, large content delivery networks (CDNs), such as Akamai, are no longer able to rely on the source IP of DNS queries to pinpoint their customers. Therefore, they are also no longer able to provide geobased redirection appropriate for that IP."

I always thought that the go-to way to solve geobased redirection was to make all your PoPs listen to the same IP(s) (I think some BGP is involved here), and let Dijkstra's algorithm let all clients find the shortest path to the nearest PoP? Isn't this exactly what Google and CloudFlare are doing with their own DNS IPs?

<comment><USER3> That technique is called "Anycast", it's mentioned at the very end of the linked article.

The problem with Anycast is it works pretty good for UDP (such as DNS) but doing Anycast with your actual TCP connection (particularly long lived ones) can be problematic because of shifting routes, multipath, etc.. meaning that sometimes your traffic will change data-center mid-flow or possibly even with alternating packets in the case of multipath somewhere etc. So suddenly your HTTP connection data is arriving at the wrong data center and the connection breaks.

What most providers currently do (as far as I understand anyway, I'm sure there is a lot of hyper optimization) is based around using Anycast to receive the DNS lookup, and use information from that DNS lookup to send back a relevant POP locations IP.

That's not always based purely on which DC received the DNS request though, that's the most naive implementation, but most of the big CDNs optimise the returned server based on the source IP of the lookup among many other factors.

Hence why it matters for public DNS, since they are the source of the DNS request.

This article however also discussed that Anycast doesn't always route traffic where you would "expect", for various reasons that extend from commercial agreements and cost all the way to bad configuration and "no idea" you may not get routed to the nearest DC.

There is also a DNS extension, called "EDNS0" (also discussed in the article) that sends the /24 of the IPv4 IP along with the query, to allow the DNS resolver to customize their response particularly for these centralized DNS services (e.g. Google DNS supports this but only if you apply to receive them as an authoritative DNS server) - however APNIC/CloudFlare explicitly chose not to use this I believe supposedly for privacy reasons with 22.214.171.124.

<comment><USER4> The problem of running TCP over Anycast addressing tends to be overblown. Cloudflare, for example, does _all_ of their client-facing HTTP traffic over Anycast and so you can consider that as existence proof for it being a viable strategy. Routes simply don't seem to shift all that frequently in practice.

<comment><USER5> I used to operate an anycast DNS service and we monitored it from probes all over the world. Sometimes a random ISP in USA/Europe would start sending queries to Japan and that could last for seconds to hours. I'm not sure how often it happens, but it will certainly be enough that it will cause broken connections for a few users.

I'm not sure how Cloudflare deals with it - potentially they could share the TCP connection data between datacenters when needed.

Or maybe it has something to do with their how edgy their setup is - if it's mostly intra-ISP cache servers being anycasted, the routing should be more stable.

<comment><USER6> AFAIK a lot of Google's HTTPS traffic is also routed using anycast. They also offer this to GCP customers under GCLB ([https://cloud.google.com/load- balancing/](https://cloud.google.com/load-balancing/)).

I don't know how they deal with changes in routes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are out-of-country DNS queries necessarily bad? If I were in upstate New York, for example, I would much prefer to use a resolver in Toronto than one in San Francisco. Measuring actual distance or network latency would be a much better way to detect suboptimal geolocation than simply checking whether the server is in the same country as the user.

<comment><USER8> > Measuring actual distance or network latency would be a much better way to > detect suboptimal geolocation

And how would you measure that in case of DNS servers? What you mean by _distance_ ? Amount of hops? Physical distance? One hop can have the same latency as route with 3 hops. Physically closer POP can have higher latency than one that is further away. And we didn't even touch the throughput.

It's not so easy as it sounds.

<comment><USER9> > _What you mean by distance ?_

I believe the person you're responding to meant miles. Physical distance.

> _It 's not so easy as it sounds._

Their point was not that it isn't easy (and I think they realize that) but that the article seems to imply that out-of-country _is_ suboptimal, and they're questioning that assumption. (Hence the SF vs. Toronto from upstate NY example.) DNS resolvers are already computing some form of location to determine whether a query is in or out of country, and presumably the resolver knows its own location, so it effectively is already solving (to a degree) the problem of computing distance; the poster's point was just that "in country" is not necessarily "closest", "fastest" or "best" (or even that those three are the same).

<comment><USER8> > DNS resolvers are already computing some form of location to determine > whether a query is in or out of country

Most of it is based on publicly available IANA databases (RIPE, ARIN etc) which are not always accurate, as IPs are traded and moved between AS's all the time + dynamic IPs that are given to users from example both coasts of USA.

> the poster's point was just that "in country" is not necessarily "closest", > "fastest" or "best" (or even that those three are the same).

And I wrote it's not easy to solve because you do not get accurate GPS positions to most of IP clasess, which means it's a lot easier to point to the same country and that's why almost every provider does that. Some use geo coordinates of IPs but only for certain classes that have accurate positioning and are inside the same country.

PS. I am building globally distributed anycast GEO-DNS service/system at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would naively assume that with the huge number of POPs that Google has and the desire to provide a low latency service, Google would only need to have the queries that originate from their resolvers have the right local addresses.

What might be a problem is that for those addresses there is no geolocation information. Which Google could solve by supplying that to maxmind, etc.

Hence the need for the privacy violating subnet option.

<comment><USER11> It already does. There's a list of exactly that, supplied by Google, hyperlinked-to in the very article headlined here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't feel comfortable with DNS services being "observed".

<comment><USER13> Do something about it then.</comment></comment>


Building a Live WebCam Face Detector using Node.js and OpenCV - <AUTHOR> https://codeforgeek.com/2017/07/building-live-webcam-face-detector-node-js-opencv/ <comment><USER2> You are really swimming against the current by using Node (or Java, or other languages) and not Python or C++ to do things with OpenCV. There are so many resources that you have to painfully translate to Javascript. Plus, almost every other thing you would want to hook up to a pipeline containing face detection (like face recognition, tensor flow object detection, etc) is easily accessed from Python.

</comment><comment><USER3> FWIW, here is a similar project done in C#: [https://github.com/A9T9/OpenCV- Face-andmore-Tracker](https://github.com/A9T9/OpenCV-Face-andmore-Tracker)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you are going to do it in JavaScript, just run it in the browser with webasm. Otherwise, running CPU intensive code on the server isn't an ideal use of node.js.

<comment><USER5> Surely you could recomend it but to say that this is categorically true, is a bit of a stretch.</comment></comment>


Thousands of workers jobs cut as former boss walks away with $62M - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/01/boeing-workers-spirit-layoffs-future-unsure <comment><USER2> The previous chief executive was "contractually entitled to receive $62.2m in stock and pension awards" that was accrued over 35 years at the company, but "he did not receive any severance pay or a 2019 annual bonus".

How this is relevant in connection to the loss of jobs due to production interruptions is not at all clear. My impressions is that it's only made as clickbait in the hope that the reader would believe that he got it as severance or bonus payment.

<comment><USER3> The question is whether these contracts make sense. Why are the people who fabricate the aircraft treated as expendable while the executives get a golden parachute? Why was this contract considered sound in the first place while some workers can get fired with immediate closure of their health care?

It makes one wonder if the workers should unionize. I do understand multiple companies (Boeing and several suppliers) are mentioned here, so maybe some of them have some kind of union. But the story is a microcosm of our times. A CEO who seems complicit in an episode that killed many and lost the company $13B gets paid enough to relax in luxury forever while the regular people who had nothing to do with the problem or actively fought against it suffer.

To me, the fact that the CEOs contract was agreed upon in advance does not suddenly make this situation fine. Perhaps we need to reformulate massive companies like this as worker owned cooperatives. Certainly in my mind we need to end the huge unequal privilege that executives have, however that should work out.

<comment><USER4> bc we live in a free labor market , and that is what it takes to attract talent at the c level (+ supply/demand).

not sure why this same scrutiny does not apply to pro athletes or actors/recording artists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Spirit Aerosystems has been a consistent problem for Boeing. Quality problems there are so great that people are flying planes from Kansas to Washington to get their safety and quality check out. Boeing, the union, and the workers all have turned a blind eye to quality and safety, and that's why people - the CEO and the workers - are entitled to what they have in a contact. That does not cover future employment. the ultimate outcome here was easily predictable by anyone watching Boeing on the last 10 years, and by no means is the problem only at the top.

Boeing is heading towards a government bail out very rapidly.

<comment><USER6> > Boeing is heading towards a government bail out very rapidly.

If this situation comes into reality and the government or another institution does not bail Boeing out, what kind of impact would we expect to see on the aerospace industry and community?

<comment><USER5> It's happened in the past - most notably when Rolls Royce screwed up the engine for the Lockheed L-1011, taking both companies down. Both were bailed out by their respective governments( RR was government owned, Lockheed received loans with government backing) but Lockheed left the commercial sector despite easily having the best plane in the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >"I'm going through the struggle of finding a job, which is hard enough here in Wichita without 2,800 others also looking."

This is why people put up with the high cost of living cities.

</comment><comment><USER8> CEO was rewarded for increasing artificially the stock price, through stock buy backs. He did a good job at that and a bad job at managing an industrial company. That s how big companies start to fail, they lose sight of what matters.

</comment><comment><USER9> _" I'm going through the struggle of finding a job, which is hard enough here in Wichita without 2,800 others also looking."_

This is like being a software engineer and living somewhere outside the BA.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is what capitalism looks like. This is happening all over, and shouldn't come as any particular surprise to anyone.

We've been on this neoliberal track for the past 40-50 years and it's consistently been to the benefit of the bosses at the top and none of the workers below.

I'd love to see more coops, more unions, heck, even nationalizing some companies (like Boeing in particular) and putting different objectives in place than purely capital gain.

Unions aren't a silver bullet. Some unions are bad. Coops aren't a silver bullet, and some coops are bad. But we're clearly much too far in the neoliberal capitalist sphere now.

</comment><comment><USER11> That's nothing. Look at the numbers for WeWork and Adam Neumann.</comment>


FBI issues formal warning on massive malware network linked to Russia - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/389366-fbi-issues-formal-warning-of-massive-malware-network-linked-to-russia <comment><USER2> Anyone still running open source firmware? I gave up and cried when I noticed the version of Tomato I was using had been unmaintained for several years, and couldn't find any reasonable way to replace my router or my firmware that satisfied the matrix of router-to-firmware compatibility. My router kept crashing, and I noticed the unmaintained-ness of the firmware while trying to diagnose it. Eventually it seemed like the hardware was bad. Since then I have been using one I found in the trash at the hacker space; seems pretty legit.

I'm starting to think there's no momentum/incentive for anyone with adequate resources to maintain decent open firmware that works on many devices. This is sad, because the vendors don't seem to show any sign of starting to give a shit about maintainance. So now what?

<comment><USER3> I run a CentOS box with Shorewall as the iptables wrapper as my router/firewall.

We must be kindred spirits because I was running some ancient version of Tomato that i loved on an old buffalo AP only to find Tomato had basically died.

<comment><USER4> Similar setup here. I will never again trust someone else to maintain some firmware that is restricted to special devices.</comment></comment></comment>


Why We Do Pushups - <AUTHOR> http://www.markpeterdavis.com/getventure/2011/07/why-we-do-pushups.html <comment><USER3>
        we're a tech co - meatheads are nowhere to be found

so programmers can't be athletic? I'm sure that's not what he meant, but that's how it comes across. also, the idea of group pushups as a "team building" activity - seriously? that just sounds awkward and weird. not to mention that pushups are not remotely sufficient as exercise if that's all you're doing.

you want to help your employees stay in shape? commit to making sure they have time to get some exercise, however way they enjoy doing so.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, this approach seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Push-ups are, at-best, a difficult exercise to get right (see <http://thetoptwoinches.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/100/>). Do them in bad form and you can injure yourself. Is the team leader going to be both an expert at management AND an expert at physical education? _Does the company want the lawsuits if an employee is injured exercising at the direction of their team leaders?_ Are investors aware that their money is being used for this stuff?

Oh, and considering this stuff is not related to the job at hand, you could also argue for a discrimination lawsuit considering it's creating a "hostile work environment" for anyone without a lot of shoulder strength (women, old people, the disabled).

<comment><USER5> Are you kidding or is it true? You can get a lawsuit for this? (I don't live in the US)

<comment><USER6> In the US you can get a lawsuit for anything, but the chances of losing or winning are not always, although frequently, related to how good a lawyer you managed to get on your team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "team building" is like an arranged marriage - either you have a team or you don't, trying to force it doesn't yield any results and usually it's just an euphemism for being forced to do stupid things, most often to get drunk with everyone or "you are not being a team player". I would feel rather silly doing push-ups at work, especially at the command of my "team leader". Maybe people with more submissive personalities can swallow something like this more easily.

Aside from the above, where opinions may and probably will vary, doing just a single exercise very often is actually detrimental to health in many ways. Additionally, push-ups are exactly the wrong the exercise for most computer people, who tend to have rounded shoulders and contracted chest muscles - <USER2> are primarily a chest exercise, further exaggerating the rounded shoulders, where actually chest streching is needed and rowing exercises for the back. You might make fun of meatheads, but you actually should think a bit about what you are doing to your body, or it won't really do any good.

<comment><USER8> Arranged marriages are remarkably successful. People are really good at falling in love given the right context clues.

Similarly, team-building exercises can be stunningly effective. The military takes a couple months to make you willing to sacrifice your life for a group of what were recently strangers.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure by what is your criteria for arranged marriages being successful. Is it because there are less divorces? The reason for that is probably because divorces are extremely taboo or illegal in the places that have have arranged marriages. As for the sacrificing in the military. Some of that has to do with the kind of people that want to join the military (a very small portion of the US population). Also from chats with family and friends that have done service, they did not feel like their "buddies" would be willing to sacrifice themselves for them.

<comment><USER10> It seems that an easy team building process is to just identify an out-group. Make an "us" vs "them" scenario. That kind of stuff appeals to the primitive part of the brain and is quite effective.

Improperly defining that can be dangerous. It can create too much adversity in the workplace where teams spend more energy thinking how to beat the other team vs how to improve the product (sometimes the two goals are not equivalent).

I guess it is a bit safer to identify the competitors as "them" but in a niche market people always jump ship and all the negative attitudes and comments end up finally being exposed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Everyone in the comments seems to be poo-pooing either the pushups themselves or the team building abilities as noted by the author.

I'm not here to defend the team building side (nyeh, it's alright for team building) but pushups are a great exercise to do.

By themselves? No, of course not, but they're good by themselves anyway (full body weight exercise.)

However, in the middle of a long day at your desk, it doesn't hurt to take a 2 minute break to go down and do a bunch of pushups with a couple co-workers. It gets the blood flowing and it gives you an excuse to socialize.

Doesn't seem like a bad idea at all to me.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. I posted something similar in a comment yesterday:

"BTW, a lot of these people are pretty committed athletes. If you're not, and you're looking for something that's easy and obvious, try doing some pushups throughout the day. When I'm feeling antsy, sometimes I get up, do 20 pushups, and then go back to what I'm doing. Start small: two pushups count if you're not used to them.

I like to run, and if you're starting out, it's relatively easy to buy a pair of running shoes (try going to a running shop with a pair of shoes you already own; the staff should be able to look at your wear pattern and adjust the shoe they recommend accordingly) or a pair of Vibram Five-Fingers. Start easily: go out running for five minutes. Or ten minutes. Build up little by little.

Otherwise, I think the meta-advice of this article is that we make time for things that're important to us, which most of us probably already know, or know on some level."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2783031>

<comment><USER13> If you don't run much I highly suggest spending two months running _before_ running in Vibram Five-Fingers. And when you do get them, run on grass or dirt. They're the only shoes I wear running and I can do a fast paced 45 minute trail run in them and feel amazing, but even 15-20 minutes on concrete can cause pain.

<comment><USER14> I'm going to agree here. It's a good idea to go to a running shoe store and run on a treadmill with a variety of shoes. I only discovered this after injuring myself with shoes that weren't supportive enough (a neutral cushioning shoe). Now I have to stop running for two months and go to physical therapy twice a week. If I had gotten the right shoes in the first place, I could be running now.

Don't get "barefoot" shoes unless you are an experienced runner.

<comment><USER15> I ran a marathon in my VFFs and I've bene running for a year. I was hurting afterwards but definitely survived. In fact, the VFFs allowed me to start running again. Before them, I would run 1-2 miles and have massive knee pain and shin splints.

VFFs are awesome, but take your time, get used to them and stretch a lot. They're worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To me, a work-life balance means maintaining a separation between work and activities. I do various kinds of training on my own. I don't want to do them at work. That's where I think about work-things. And I do my various kinds of training as a way to clear my mind of work-things.

</comment><comment><USER17> Back when I was in the USAF as a computer programmer, we would do "push-ups for darts" at work. We had a dart board and each person on the team would throw three darts. Each person had to do the combined total of the others in the room (throughout the day). The totals normally ended up between 200-400 (triple 20s was a pain). Granted, I was in the military, so push-ups were part of our PT test anyway, but it was a lot of fun.

</comment><comment><USER18> >We do something called buddy pushups (something I picked up when I was a wrestler). Here's how buddy pushups work. Everyone gets in a plank position and stays in it even when they're not doing pushups. The leader (could be anyone on the team) does 1 pushup by themselves, then holds a plank while everyone else does 1 pushup. ... We support each other and high five at the end. While it's exercise for the individual, it's a team effort.

You high five at the end, eh? Let me guess... you're North Americans. Pretty ridiculous. If you want to do push ups, do push ups... it doesn't have to be some ridiculous cult-like group thing.

</comment><comment><USER15> How many people usually end up participating? Is there a big disparity between the number of pushups the strongest person can do vs. the weakest person? Do you guys try to beat old records or just do it to get moving again.

<comment><USER19> I'm not the OP, but my office has a similar ritual. Out of about eight people in the office, usually three to six of us go out to the patio to do pushups and sometimes martial arts at about 2pm each day.

Our strongest person does about 120 pushups in a row (he is _really_ strong); the least strong does about 10; the least strong male does about 40. We try to beat our old personal records but there's not really any competition between people.

We haven't experienced the problems predicted by others in this thread. It's not explicitly a team-building activity - it's just something some of us do. It's not led by a manager, and managers participate somewhat less than non- managers. It's not mandatory and if people are engrossed in a task, they choose not to join in that day.

<comment><USER15> Interesting.

In that light (a self directed, non-mandatory common group activity), I don't understand how it could come across as a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if the team also showers together afterwards or just smells bad for the rest of the day.

<comment><USER14> Most people don't smell bad after 5 minutes of mild exercise in an air conditioned building. Just saying.

<comment><USER21> I'm a person who starts sweating easily, so there's a high chance I'd feel at least _some_ discomfort after. On the other hand, if the exercise is mild enough not to make me sweat, it's probably next to useless for me.

<comment><USER22> I don't think you're supposed to get fit, the benefit is more that it stops you sitting in your chair for 8 hours straight.

<comment><USER23> Nah. I think the real benefit is that they have a "victory" every few hours to keep them going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> buff-a From [http://www.livestrong.com/article/167826-how-to-do-a- wrist-p...](http://www.livestrong.com/article/167826-how-to-do-a-wrist-push- up/)

 _Only perform this exercise if you are at an advanced fitness level._

 _The hand position required for wrist push-ups places increased stress on the wrists, increasing risk of injury_

Yoga or tai chi might achieve the same goals with less injury. Programmers risking wrist injury seems unusually ill thought out.

Huh, oh look: he _isnt_ a programmer. Now it all makes sense.

"I am currently the CEO & Co-Founder of Kohort.

"Prior, I was a VC at DFJ Gotham Ventures, where I invested in information companies. "

Fancy that.

</comment><comment><USER24> I like the idea of exercising during the workday - ideally at midday, at a gym within walking distance - but this sort of quasi-mandatory communal exercise seems a bit cultlike in a way I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with.

</comment><comment><USER25> I worked at a place with team building yoga. Interupted my work every time the yoga instructor dropped in to make us do downward dog. I tried telling them I was busy a few times but a whole office harassing you to do yoga was worse than missing deadlines. I had to bring it up with a director, then I got blamed for getting the yoga woman fired. So much for team building.

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone have some links to studies that show sitting in a chair at your desk is bad for your health?

Someone the other day said that he "heard" that sitting in a chair all day long for years is just as bad for your health as smoking. Not sure I get the correlation, but surely we have enough data points to have several credible studies.

<comment><USER27> Check out <http://juststand.org/>. That (and talking with colleagues who stand at their desk every day) motivated me to try standing.

Thanks to Fog Creek providing adjustable-height desks for every employee, this was really easy to do. I started with 2 hours each day one week, then 3 hours the next week, etc., until I'm now standing the whole day. I love it.

<comment><USER12> Question that I haven't seen addressed online: about how much do those Series 7 desks cost if one buys them individually?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> While it's a cool idea, I can only see it working first thing in the morning when everyone gets to the office but before you start work. Otherwise, chances are you'll be interrupting _somebody's_ work, which if you're a programmer can be a huge hit to productivity.

<comment><USER29> Maybe increased blood flow on the whole averages against the interruptions, causing a net increase in productivity?

<comment><USER14> After my muscles have used up all my glucose / glycogen, there's none left for my brain :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> That has got to be one of the dumbest ideas ever. Provide locked bike storage with a roof and showers.

What happened to come to work to, well, work?

</comment><comment><USER15> Seriously people?

OP isn't saying everyone has to do 50 or else they're fired. It's a voluntary exercise (any exercise is better than no exercise) and they like to do it as a team. They're not embarrassing anyone or making fun of other people.

Pushups are a great workout. If you can't do 100. Do 1. Then do 1 more the next day. Then one more. No weights. No gym. No excuses. Just you and your body. Commit to it and then do it. When pushups get easy, there's a ton of variations you can try. One of the greatest and simplest exercises ever.

</comment><comment><USER31> It seems to me that this is neither a dumb idea, nor hostile, nor mandatory. I know for a fact that working long hours to meet tight deadlines is a challenge for anyone.

A quick round of push-ups, or other exercise, can open the mind to new possibilities, opportunities, and solutions. The diversion could very well help to break the road-blocking thought patterns that often crop up when one is faced with tough problems.

Beyond that, it seems to me that such a practice builds solidarity in the team and inspires the participants to push for their best result, and to improve over the course of future sessions (iterations, perhaps?). I cannot see how fostering such a spirit could be a bad thing, especially in the context of a tech startup.

No responsible person would force a co-worker or employee to damage their health through participation, nor to participate if they did not feel comfortable doing so. The implication that the author would advocate or enforce the exercise to the contrary seems nit-picky and contentious.

Isn't the benefit of the push-ups at least a bit greater than that of the often-present case of beers in the office fridge, especially when the practice becomes a regular part of the culture?

</comment><comment><USER32> I like do to pushup intervals while I am at the computer at home. Be allowed to do it in the work and not be considered a crazy freak would be awesome to me. I really feel better and "more alive" after some pushups, and it boosts my productivity.

But I dont like the idea to do it as a group. I like to take my time and do the max repetitions that I could possible handle. Do it as a team would be limiting.

</comment><comment><USER33> Doing pushups should be balanced with pullups.

<comment><USER34> Especially if you're sitting at a computer all day. Gotta strengthen that back to keep your shoulders from curling in too much. Then everything starts to go wrong =/

<comment><USER35> Would you please elaborate on this? Why are curled-in shoulders especially bad?

<comment><USER36> You might find this Google talk useful:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfg_e6YG37U>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kind of reminds me of the scene in Portal 2 where you look at a painting for 5 seconds for your art appreciation time. I hope this isn't a mandatory activity like eating lunch with all your peers at StackOverflow. I understand the logic behind it, but its probably something I wouldn't want to do. I would like it if offices encouraged employees moving around more often. At my work the office is kind of small and I usually sit in the same spot for too many hours without getting up.

</comment><comment><USER37> This technique doesn't strike me as all that effective for exercise (doing a handful of pushups a day is better than doing nothing, but not by that much) or for team building.

</comment><comment><USER38> What they really need are some hardcore dead lifts and squats thrown in there with some post-workout protein shakes.

</comment><comment><USER39> I don't know what I'd think about doing the group push-ups, but whenever I get a little bit sleepy or tired at work, doing 15-20 push-ups is a pretty good wake up.

</comment><comment><USER40> I like pushups. I do them often. But this is exactly the kind of thing I'd say no to as a test to find out if this was really a place I wanted to keep working at.

</comment><comment><USER41> Note: if you do this long enough you'll end up with a shoulder slump worse than the classic one desk jockeys have. Try to balance it out with back excercise.

<comment><USER15> Your shoulders slump because you don't end up stretching the muscles. You simply build them up and make them tighter, which results in the slump. You need to stretch your pectorals, not do back exercises, to balance it out (although back exercises wouldn't hurt)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Absolutely agreed with everything here. Additionally, push-ups help keep you awake. Nodding off? Drop and do 5. Gets the heart pumping again.

<comment><USER33> I like doing a brief mid-afternoon nap. It'll keep me productive well into the evening. Unfortunately, this is incompatible with the American work style.

<comment><USER43> Have you tried just doing it? Don't let your assumptions about expectations hold you back. Set your own expectations.

I brought a rocking chair for naps to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm horrified. This has very high potential to be harmful.

The defacto nerd position is seated and hunched. Developing the pectorals will only exacerbate this. If you want to engage in group exercise, find a routine which is more balanced, or at least balanced against what you do the rest of the day. Just do some calisthenics and stretch out those tight chests.

<comment><USER15> You're kidding, right?

<comment><USER45> Not at all.

Look up kyphosis and upper cross syndrome.

 _Any_ time you're doing strength training, you want to balance your movements. If you're doing push (presses, push-ups), do pulls (rows, pull-ups, inverted pull-ups). Work your legs _and_ your upper body. Do bilateral and unilateral movements (single arm or leg). Do strength _and_ cardio. Mind your exercise _and_ your diet. Oh: and rest and recovery are also key.

For many people in tech, sitting at desks, hunched in front of a screen, you're chronically tight on the anterior (front) of your body, and loose on the posterior (backside). If you look up exercise/fitness literature, you'll find a lot of reference to "posterior chain activation" or related terms, and exercises like deadlifts, power cleans, pull-ups, rows variations, kettlebell swings, etc. All work part or all of your backside, and can really help balance our your body (it's done amazing things for me, reducing back pain and other issues).

I don't know that doing 10 push-ups every day or two is going to cripple anyone, but if that's the only resistance work that's being done, it's certainly not going to help. Which is where a not of strength-training / fitness newbies get things horribly, horribly wrong: they come up with some half-assed, imbalanced, inappropriate training program / routine without understanding what they're doing or why.

Fitness activities, like technical problems, should be goal oriented. Identify your objectives, determine your resources, construct a program, execute on it, assess, modify, and iterate. It's really not all that difficult, but it does require a modicum of thought.

<comment><USER46> That might have been a risk if the team were doing bench presses, but pushups is not going to build any significant amount of muscle.

<comment><USER44> Pushups most certainly will build significant muscle.

The point, however, isn't the muscle size. It's the imbalance in muscular strength and tightness. Yes, stretching will help, but given that the majority of people do _nothing_ to strengthen their upper back, they _will_ develop a significant muscular imbalance from doing mere pushups.

<comment><USER46> To facilitate continuous muscle growth you need to continuously increase the resistance over time, and you need to do so within about 8-12 repetitions per set to stimulate hypertrophy. In simple terms, you need to push your max all the time; as you get stronger and develop more muscle, you need to keep increasing the resistance to reach the next level. This is very well established in scientific studies.

Simple logic dictates that this is is impossible with pushups. You cannot change the resistance without changing what muscles you activate, and an averagely built male can do more than 8-12 pushups per set from the very get go. The only way forward is to increase the amount of pushups you do in one go, and that throws hypertrophy out the window.

This is why pushups is a rather useless exercise, beside the fact that it's difficult to do correctly and causes injuries (doing them on your palms can fuck up your rotator cuff, and doing them on your knuckles can fuck up your hands and wrists).

But even without scientific proof, I think most people have this experience with pushups (whether they've thought about it consciously or not): the people who do them are rarely very big, they're the thin traditional martial-arts type, at best.

<comment><USER45> Training modalities differ from just the 8-12 reps range. Check out the Wikipedia Strength Training article for a good overview. You can get varying responses with reps ranging from 1 to 30 or more (with appropriate scaling of resistance).

The disadvantage of push-ups from a training perspective is that it's hard to progress with them (increase resistance), though this can be done by changing body angle, changing hand position, adding weight, or changing to a more challenging variant (say planche push-ups).

The point that I and others have been making is that a naive and uninformed approach toward exercise and fitness may provide few if any benefits, could exacerbate an existing imbalance, and really shouldn't be touted as a genius inspiration. Much as, say, a naive and uninformed approach toward technology often has corresponding / similar / analogous negative outcomes.

Push-ups are fine, in the right balance with other movements. They're not a complete exercise routine of themselves.

As for getting big on push-ups, there are always exceptions. Hershel Walker comes to mind as a calisthenics devotee.

<comment><USER46> Pushups is a terrible exercise, for sure, since it doesn't build muscle and is prone to injury. The only reason it doesn't screw up your rotator cuff very quickly is because the resistance is so low; had it been better at building muscle (i.e. more resistance, on level with bench presses) your rotator cuff would tear much sooner. Injury wise, pushups' saving grace is that it is such a bad exercise.

Doing 30 repetitions in a set is a surefire way to stagnate in your muscular development. This has been proven time and time again in scientific studies.

But whatever, let's just agree to disagree here. I'll continue to side with the scientific studies done in hypertrophy, and you continue believing in pushups.

<comment><USER45> The key question wasn't whether or not push-ups will develop significant muscle mass. It's whether or not they're going to compound a very likely existing syndrome (upper cross syndrome / kyphosis) in a team of programmers / tech geeks.

Push-ups _are_ sufficiently effective that they'll at best make the problem worse. Any untrained individual doing any resistance movement consistently will make gains in strength and muscle size (Google Mark Rippetoe's "The Novice Effect" or discussions of training complexity vs. training age). Sure, you'll plateau after a few months, but you're still going to be ahead of a very large share of the sedentary population. And you're doing nothing to address the intrinsic imbalance between anterior and dorsal and muscular development and overall tension.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Password Strength Indicators Help People Make Ill-Informed Choices - <AUTHOR> https://www.troyhunt.com/password-strength-indicators-help-people-make-dumb-choices/ <comment><USER2> > Now you may well be an exception (as am I) in that you use a password > manager and generate random passwords in which case 20 characters is just > fine.

This is in my opinion the most important takeaway. If Troy Hunt generates random passwords, you should too.

I like to see it this way. The only true password strength indicator goes like this.

 _Ask yourself:_

 _" Did the creation of my password involve a good source of randomness?"_

 _If the answer is "No", your password is bad._

 _If the answer is "Yes", it depends._

</comment><comment><USER3> I love articles by Troy Hunt. I upvote them, then read them. And they have always been worth the upvote.

Anyways, when are websites ever going to catch on....</comment>


Ask HN: Rails update on advisory CVEs?update gems or only rails itself?roadmap? - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2016/1/25/Rails-5-0-0-beta1-1-4-2-5-1-4-1-14-1-3-2-22-1-and-rails-html-sanitizer-1-0-3-have-been-released/ <comment><AUTHOR> anything :(</comment>


Ask HN: Why are there so few confirmed COVID-19 cases in San Francisco? - <AUTHOR> Is it lack of testing or something else?
Most days the number of confirmed cases goes up by single or low double-digit numbers. One day it spiked by 38%, but that's an outlier (so far).
We had confirmed cases early on but haven't seen the same steady growth as Santa Clara, Seattle, or New York. <comment><USER2> Some observations:

* Santa Clara County has over double the population of SF County.

* Santa Clara County has always been ahead of SF County in confirmed cases.

* According to [https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/coronavirus-map/](https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/coronavirus-map/), the ratio has stayed roughly the same over the last two weeks (3:1).

* Interestingly, LA County had fewer confirmed cases than SF County until 11 days ago.</comment>


Show HN: Birdhouse – Twitter Activity of Your Salesforce Contacts - <AUTHOR> http://birdhouse.salesloft.com/

<comment><USER2> Maybe a different name would be in order, since there's already a popular Twitter app named Birdhouse? [http://birdhouseapp.com](http://birdhouseapp.com)

<comment><USER3> Agreed. That was immediately my first thought when I saw this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FBLA Guy or someone @ ATV? ;) Yik Yak guy here</comment>


The Startup Fix - Get visual help for your startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestartupfix.com The Startup Fix is a little project where I will take couple of hours per week of my own personal time to help a startup. I will do so by helping them on an aspect that I think is lacking in most of startups nowadays: the visual aspect. Logo, fonts, colours, layout, user interface, Twitter, Facebook, newsletters, call-to-actions, you name it.
If you have a startup and want to be a part of this, well here is your chance to submit your application. I am now taking applications for April 2011.
If you don;t need this service, but know some people who would, just spread the word.
Thank-you! <comment><AUTHOR> The Startup Fix is a little project where I will take couple of hours per week of my own personal time to help a startup. I will do so by helping them on an aspect that I think is lacking in most of startups nowadays: the visual aspect. Logo, fonts, colours, layout, user interface, Twitter, Facebook, newsletters, call-to-actions, you name it.

If you have a startup and want to be a part of this, well here is your chance to submit your application. I am now taking applications for April 2011.</comment>


Monopoly mistakes we've all been making - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/monopoly-mistakes-weve-all-been-making/story-e6frfmd9-1226653465781

<comment><USER2> The auction is such a great rule, I didn't know about it either until I played the iPhone version.</comment>


We killed the butler: Replacing Jenkins with Concourse - <AUTHOR> https://wgtwo.com/blog/replacing-jenkins-with-concourse/ <comment><USER2> If you were to use the configuration as code plugin, you can bootstrap and manage Jenkins via Git. Using HashiCorp Vault, you can integrate it with the credentials plugin.

I have yet to see a solution which is superior than Jenkins.

Sure enough, other tools like GitLab seem to work better at a first glance using Docker for your build slaves. But I can do all of this with Jenkins as well and much more.

Also the onboarding for developers looks nicer for GitLab on a first glance than for Jenkins. But later on you will start fighting triggers and yaml includes.

But in my opinion Jenkins is far better in composing technologies to adapt to your organization's structure. Just because Docker is right now all the rage should not mean that your CI system has to have a hard requirement for it.</comment>


Funny Commit Comments - <AUTHOR> http://www.hubba.com/funny-commit-comments

<comment><AUTHOR> Who's got some gems in their commit logs?</comment>


Ask HN: Why do UK companies think that software development is cheap? - <AUTHOR> Just got asked from a reputable university to build a mobile phone application on (Windows, Android, iOS) with a CMS. The mobile apps are to include photos / videos / online shop / payment etc.
They wanted this done by 1st September, which is giving me 5 weeks to complete for the grand total of 3k.
Does anyone else find this on the low side? <comment><USER2> Yes.

Look here: [http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/developer.do](http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/developer.do)

This isn't quite the same sort of work, but it will do as a rough guideline. Look at the average rate outside London: £350.

So, what does this work pay by comparison? £3000/25 days=£120/day. Not enough! The page above suggests £300-400/day is a usual daily rate. So you could use that as a guide. 25 * 300=£7,500; 25 * 350=£8,750; 25 * 400=£10,000.

This isn't the sort of work I normally do, so I'm not hugely familiar with what people tend to charge - but I think £10,000 might even be a bit low. There's possibly people who've done this before laughing at the very idea right now. After all you'll be shipping on 3 platforms with payment/videos/online shop, and in only 5 weeks. If you're going to need to pay somebody else to do anything (artwork, programming), that is going to eat into this sum at quite a rate. Don't forget hardware and software costs too.

Aside from the scope, there is also a good possibility that more people at the client end will want their fingers in this pie once it gets going, and that will delay things further.

(Apologies if none of the above is news to you. I just assume that if you're contemplating doing this for £3,000, then it's something you haven't done before.)

</comment><comment><USER3> The scope of this project sounds huge. I can't imagine that you'd be able to do it as a sole developer in 5 weeks.

Are they handing you wireframes and design files? E.g. has somebody already done all the work of thinking through the UX, come up with all of the pages, handed you the static assets, and all you have to do is program it? Because if not, that part alone can take months.

Are you prepared to develop on multiple phone platforms? That could take 5 weeks.

</comment><comment><USER4> The scope seems way too large to fit in 5 weeks for 1 developer. Not to mention 3k doesn't even come close to being realistic. I do wonder though, are you talking a mobile responsive website or a native mobile application? The "with CMS" makes me question that as does the online shop etc. Either way, still way too much for the timeframe at money.

Realistically, in the US at least, regardless of web app or mobile app you are looking at likely multiple 10's of thousands of dollars to do it right assuming it is all new code and design work still needs to be complete etc.

As an FYI, I have seen a few companies make these wild type suggestions to find out who NOT to use. If someone even entertains it they know the person has no clue and so they won't work with them.

<comment><USER5> As for your last point, I could see this trick easily backfire against the companies. Who'd want to work with them ?

<comment><USER4> I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but it is a quick way for larger companies to filter through the many small consultants who may or may not understand the risk and complexity of an issue. And I have two great long term relationships with enterprise clients that did this to me initially. It was just their filter.

You could easily argue it is underhanded, or slimy, but I don't think it is as uncommon as we would like to think. Just like an Enterprise level client who won't pay for a $99/month SaaS, but if you change that price to $999/month, suddenly you are a contender and taken seriously. The value proposition is about perception, not reality for many larger organizations, which I put health care and universities in too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Couple thoughts.

If "got asked from a reputable university" means the client is a university, in USA at least universities and non-profit institutions tend to pay less than for-profit.

Generally, I avoid firm fixed price contracts and quote an hourly rate and a non-binding estimate of hours. The reason is it is usually very hard to accurately predict how long a software project will take. Sometimes if it is something very cookie-cutter that you have done several times before, you can make a fairly good estimate of how long it will take.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would not blame the client, any industry's value is a direct reflection of how the industry projects the value of its produce.

We software engineers more often than not, project the 'I can build that easily' view (you can see that in this thread too). Many of us are too eager to put our engineering ego before business sense. We forget that it is one thing to demonstrate technical feasibility and quite another to build a finished product. Even the smallest piece of software needs real good effort to make it complete.

This is compounded by having substantial pieces of software available as open source and customers always read that as free as in free beer. It takes quite some effort to make them see otherwise.

When we say its easy, when many of us give our work away for free (even with good intentions), when we put engineering before business, we are steadily moving software in the path to being a cheap commodity.

All this is not even considering availability of software talent in countries where the skill set is available for much less...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks all,

I have other contracts that pay above the market rate for my services. I did email the person back and said they would be able to get my services for one week for 3k.

I was interested in what people thought about the offer, as recently I've had a few offers in this bracket. (Which I've politely turned down).

<comment><USER8> have a look on jobserve and see what comparable contract rates are. As a contractor in the uk market for 15 years, 3k per week is unrealistic outside of banking. Universities are regarded as low paying generally. Android dev would be paying 300 at the low end and 550 p/d high end. The pay depends on the sector. Experience doesn't affect pay so much for pure development roles, except that entry level is usually 2 years relevant experience. Also location has less effect on contractor/freelance pay than you might think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Given the spec and the deadline, I would quote a ballpark 100k. Drop it to 50k if they can relax the deadline. Maybe to 25k if they can accept a list of caveats about what will and will not be included and off the shelf solutions where they will have to accept some limitations.

</comment><comment><USER10> 3K is not on the low side, it's at the bottom of the barrel. The project doesn't sound simple at all (on the contrary) and the time frame is short. Is 3K for each OS platform or for all three?

Assuming the latter and assuming you work 5 days a week 8 hours a day for 5 weeks, it amounts to 200 hours. You will be working for 15 pounds an hour.

</comment><comment><USER11> Will you be able to deliver to other clients in the same period? If not then you are working for ~28kpa which is low, and given you are freelance pretty unfair (because the reality is that you will be unlikely to get close to that on those rates.

Realistically if you have some experience you can expect (outside London) to earn ~40k pretty easily (and much more if you are good/prepared not to do the easy stuff) Given you are freelance my view is that you can ask for a 10% premium to cover sickness and fallow periods. So aim for 44k so I think that £4700 would be a fair quote (low end) for this job.

Of course this assumes that the work can be done in 5 weeks on 40 hr weeks. If in fact you will need to work 60hrs a week you need to be asking 50% more ~£7k

<comment><USER12> > you can ask for a 10% premium to cover sickness and fallow periods

That is extremely low and, IMHO, not even close to what you'll need to make freelancing viable.

My rate is about 100% more than my former FT salary expressed as an hourly rate and it wouldn't make sense for me to freelance for much less than that. Remember all of the hours that you are not getting paid, looking for leads and doing admin work. Also you don't receive benefits as a freelancer.

<comment><USER11> Yes - makes sense, I did factor in holiday time but you are right still far too low.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just say no and move on. You'll make more money going after sensible clients than negotiating with a bad prospect to get the price up to something reasonable.

<comment><USER14> Don't say no.

Counter with a realistic timeline of deliverables and justify your quote.

When you tell people your rate is 60/70/80 pound an hour they laugh because they themselves most probably earn less as a full time employee. What they don't know is that this money has to cover the likes of sickness, holidays, hardware etc. you need to let them know that.

<comment><USER13> Every hour you spend meeting a potential client, send emails, and writing justifications is an hour you could have sold to someone else.

A client that comes in with _such_ a low estimate (£3k for a £100k job) is going to take days of negotiations before agreeing to a sensible price ... if they ever will. There's no way that time will be recouped by winning the job. Ergo, say no and walk away because it will _cannot_ be profitable to persue it.

Time spent pitching for work is lost time. Choose your battles wisely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It sounds like they're just not very serious about getting this job done. In this business, it seems that a lot of potential clients are just fishing.

</comment><comment><USER15> The first offer is almost always low, especially if they're caching it in the normative terms most favourable to them - five weeks vs business value.

</comment><comment><USER16> Will it take you 5 weeks to build?

</comment><comment><USER17> Way too low. Say No.

</comment><comment><USER18> Just say no.</comment>


Why no max/min function for integer in Golang - github-cat https://www.pulltech.net/article/1559993656-Why-no-max-min-function-for-integer-in-GoLang <comment><AUTHOR> The Oracle/Java trial:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc).

</comment><comment><USER2> int min/max function is trivial, leave it to the developer. Isn't that often seen in Golang?</comment>


Datazenit: Modern MySQL and PostgreSQL GUI - <AUTHOR> https://datazenit.com/launch <comment><USER2> The features section of this products site could be improved by the addition of some screenshots.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Meanwhile some additional screenshots can be found in the official announcement blog post[0]

[https://datazenit.com/blog/2016/03/1/datazenit-official- rele...](https://datazenit.com/blog/2016/03/1/datazenit-official-release/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: MarbleComplete – 2d esolang for designing turing-complete marble towers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aaronduino/marble-complete <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I'm open to any suggestions or comments.</comment>


Best Buy hires new API evangelist (me, AMA) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/best-buy-apis/a-best-buy-fanboi-takes-over-the-api-team-4037ba67947c

<comment><USER2> I wished all these stores exposed their inventory via api. They already expose it through their websites.

</comment><comment><USER3> Lol.</comment>


Tricky Microsoft interview question that Reddit got so wrong - <AUTHOR>

Here is the question: http://mindcipher.net/puzzle/166-microsoft-interview-question-count-it-out
And here is the Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/95hl2/tricky_microsoft_interview_question/
The obvious solution I see is O(N) in both space and time: just go through the numbers and mark the ones you see in an array. The one that is left unmarked is the missing number.
Reddit commentors propose O(nlogn) complex solutions. Modified quicksort ? Map reduce ? Oh common. <comment><USER2> There is a horrifically easy way ofc.

Sum the array then subtract from 5050 (the sum of 1 - 100). There is your missing number.

EDIT: I didnt read the reddit thread before posting this... why would you say that is the wrong approach? (or, bleh. your being ironic.. sorry ;) too early in the morning).</comment>


The 737Max and Why Software Engineers Might Want to Pay Attention - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jpaulreed/the-737max-and-why-software-engineers-should-pay-attention-a041290994bd <comment><USER2> Oh boy, I hope this article is wrong. If not, I'll transcribe someone's Reddit comment that expressed my feelings very well:

737 Max software uses a single sensor to detect stalls and commands the plane nose down in those cases without notifying the pilots AND can only be deactivated by flipping a special witch, NOT by simply moving the yoke.

EXCUSEME, WHAT THE FUCK!!!?!

If you write code that commands an airplane to dive, you surely want to rely on more than one sensor, you surely want to blink some disco flashing lights in the pilot's face and you surely want to make it easy for the pilot to overtake whatever your code is trying to do, like you know, simply moving the yoke. Please someone tell me this article is wrong. Even 1980's cars allow you to disable cruise-control without having to flip a special switch.

Any other planes I should be aware of or is this new to 737 MAX?</comment>


If you were to pick one language to learn... - <AUTHOR>

Say you were an aspiring programmer considering starting his own little start-up in next 3-4 years time; and say you could pick one new programming language to learn in that time frame. What would be the most useful language, according to you, and why? <comment><USER2> Obviously it depends a little on what your startup will be doing. If you'll be doing web based software, then Ruby or Python are the best choices. If you'll be doing iPhone/iOS software, then you'll need to learn Objective-C. Other platforms have their own requirements.

I would figure out which language is best suited toward your startup, and learn that, instead of trying to figure out what language is best, then trying to make your startup fit that language.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

We're in agreement on the issue - I'm currently weighing some ideas for a web- based app so that's where I'm looking to expand my proficiency.

<comment><USER2> I see. I have a bias towards Ruby and Rails because that's what I do. I've never used Python or Django, but I've heard that they're comparable.

That being said, I would recommend you learn Ruby 1.9.2 and Rails 3.1. The community is great, the framework is amazing, and there are a lot of resources freely available, like Railscasts, to help you along your way.

I would stay away from PHP and Java.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a million - you're actually not the first person to mention staying away from Java and PHP - why is that, I wonder?

<comment><USER2> Well, Java is just a pain in the arse to setup and configure. And PHP lacks the same sorts of tools you can get with the Ruby community.

Not to mention PHP only really started making an attempt at OOP with PHP 5, and Ruby was designed from the onset to be OOP. Everything in Ruby is an object, so you can do some really neat stuff like 1.to_s to turn an Integer into a String. Add Ruby's cleanliness and readability to the mix, and it's a standout winner over PHP.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great stuff, thanks for taking the time to respond! I found what looks to be a good book on Ruby on Amazon (by it's creator and another co-writer)

<comment><USER2> I'm a book-learner myself, and I highly recommend the Ruby and RoR books from Pragmatic Programmers (<http://www.pragprog.com>)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wonderful - I've looked at the titles, there's a lot of interesting stuff by the looks of it. Is there a particular Ruby title you'd recommend to a beginner Ruby programmer?

<comment><USER2> Sorry for the late response. I would look at Agile Web Development With Rails (4th Ed), Programming Ruby (2nd Ed), and The RSpec Book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I stand by my previous categorization of languages:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2459042>

And based on it, C# if you're a Windows person, otherwise Python or Ruby. Between Python and Ruby, there's almost no difference that matters to an aspiring programmer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. I've been looking to expand my programming experience since I've found myself going back into programming after having been out of it for the last 7 or so years. I used to work in Pascal/Delphi and had some exposure to C++ but since nowadays I mostly just code SQL, I feel I need to make my knowledge more current.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clojure.org</comment>


Who is Wendy Davis? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/26/who-is-wendy-davis/?tid=rssfeed <comment><USER2> I'm not sure why this topic is relevant on HN. 7 points in 15 minutes. For some reason, it's really important to a bunch of people here. Is there more than what's in the article?

<comment><USER3> The way this has played out through social media has been amazing. The biggest thing I can think of is that someone falsified documents to make it look like the vote was taken before the 12:00 AM deadline, when it in fact took place several minutes after the deadline. Enough people on the Internet had the foresight to take screenshots and print hard copies of the original record, so that when the falsified document started circulating they could call the politicians on their fraudulence. I assume this information made its way up to the Democrats arguing against the bill.

[https://twitter.com/becca_aa/status/349772548269027328/photo...](https://twitter.com/becca_aa/status/349772548269027328/photo/1/large)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really great, Wendy's a total hero, it's inspiring to see democracy producing some good results right now. But surely filibusters generally are a really terrible system. Had it been the other way round and another politician had tried to filibuster a bill to protect womens rights, that would have been terrible.

I'm not from the US so I'm not really sure about what the situation is with filibusters but it seems to me to be a loophole that needs fixing, or a symptom of some underlying system which needs fixing. Is anyone pushing for reform right now? It's great that this time it was used to a positive end but couldn't it just as easily be abused to cut in the other direction?

<comment><USER5> the point is to prevent a tyranny of the majority. I personally wouldn't want to do away with it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: approaches to performance review for tech companies? - <AUTHOR>

Are there any tips you can offer for a startup that will eventually have to look at the question of handling performance reviews?
Most of us spend much of our lives at work, out of necessity or voluntarily, and we all want to be at a place where we enjoy working.  I get the sense that the approach of a business to performance review is critical to employee morale, to the tenor of their interactions with one another and to the long-term execution of the business.
In my own experience, I've witnessed forced/stacked ranking lead to serious, concrete difficulties for a company I worked for. Such difficulties might not have been avoidable under another scheme, and I don't want to overgeneralize from a single data point.  But the experience leaves me wondering, have you worked at a successful tech company that had an approach to performance review that the people making things happen, at whatever level, were generally happy with or even enthusiastic about?  One that keeps politics to a minimum and that encourages ownership and responsible risk-taking?  Have you seen a business that successfully manages itself with an approach to performance review that is mostly or entirely implicit?  Have you seen forced/stacked ranking carried out in a way that employees at all levels feel confident that reasonable outcomes are the norm? <comment><USER2> My cofounder and I are working on an alternative to performance reviews which focuses more on real-time feedback. Instead of a formal time period to do reviews and tedious tasks like employee self-assessments, we just have a continuous system with quick feedback loops from both management and peers. We feel this solves the root intention of performance reviews and is less invasive and demeaning to employees.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds interesting. I'll keep an eye out for a product along those lines. I agree that performance reviews are degrading. My hope is that they can be made to go away somehow.</comment></comment>