The End of College? Not So Fast - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-College-Not-So/228937/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en <comment><USER2> Course completion percentages are a ridiculous measure of success. _Of course_ free online courses are going to have a lower course completion rate. I don't know how anyone could be surprised by this, or why anyone would care.

This isn't a problem. If I start a MOOC and don't finish, I have gained a little knowledge and lost nothing. College completion rates _are_ a problem, because if I start college and don't finish, I'm saddled with thousands of dollars in debt and no degree. Completion isn't a problem with MOOCs, it's an _advantage_ of MOOCs.

Missing out on the other aspects of college life is a mixed bag. Networking and lab work are definitely downsides to MOOCs, but these are potentially solvable problems. But there are serious downsides to college life too. I won't be sad to see the binge drinking and sexual assault culture of "greek" life die out, and I'm not going to shed any tears for sports stars actually having to focus on academics.

But the real crux here is that if trends continue, the cost of college is going to make this all irrelevant. It already is for many people: the author's quote that most students graduate with $30K of debt, as if that's a trivial sum, shows a stunning lack of awareness.

What none of the author's facts capture are the students who either don't start or don't finish because of cost. Tuition keeps rising and financial aid continues to be inadequate. There are only two solutions I see to this problem: funding gets better or we go with MOOCs. MOOCs aren't a perfect solution, but it may be the only solution we get.

<comment><USER3> For me the real benefit of college was being put with others into the same class, the access to research labs, the face to face interactions with professors, and the access to face to face academic focused student organizations. (Honestly I should've done far more on the networking side of things.)

Those are not going to be easy to replace, but there should be a compromise where you can get these things without the greek life and less 'sports first and foremost' culture and with a massively reduced cost. MOOCs can definitely plan into this and even replace a lot of it for self starters, but I do think I would have been worse off without the social aspects of my university years.

<comment><USER4> There are plenty of schools without greek life and sports first cultures. Most liberal arts schools for example.

<comment><USER2> That is true. But liberal arts schools are also the least likely to be priced out by MOOCs. Liberal arts schools are more affordable than most, if you can get in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> after running a few MOOC classes and contrasting them to brick and mortar classes the real problem in my opinion is assessment. the material we prepared was equal to what we would teach in a college class, but the assignment quality is not. this is I think a fundamental problem of scale. the only assessment tools that we have are multiple choice and regular expression matching short answer quiz questions. coming up with challenging yet fair multiple choice questions that let the learner express they have mastered a concept is extremely difficult. and to make the class rigorous, MOOC instructors would have to re-do that work for each class, which defeats another scaling point.

I think that MOOCs solved the wrong problem and because of that aren't the solution to the class. the MOOC is an iteration on the textbook. a domain expert puts a lot of time into the layout, design and presentation of materials and then creates a relatively static asset out of it. it's less static than the old textbook, but you can't walk into the professors office and ask questions for an hour face to face either.

we haven't figured out how to make assessment scale. we haven't moved far from the model we used for thousands of years, which is to have a student stand and talk to their instructors/mentors, and their mentors to make a judgement. how can you get a deep sense of a students capabilities this way, online?

I don't think it can't be done, I just don't think that MOOCs have really tried, and my current cynical understanding is that they don't really want to try. Platforms like edX, coursera, and OCW seem to stop at "you got video and text what more you want", and stuff like minerva is using technology but keeping the same scaling factor between instructors and students.

<comment><USER6> This is spot on. In fact (having TAed a 400-student intro course once) I'm not even sure if assessment scales properly in the larger brick and mortar classes. The professor was using an iClicker for pseudo-pop quizzes at the beginning of class but I noticed that a lot of students would simply give the same answers as their friends next to them. Likewise for the short essay questions in the final and midterm, they had created a massive Google Docs database combining lecture notes which (while on some level showing admirable initiative) also resulted in a number of identical (and, indeed, identically- wrong) answers. I've never taught a MOOC but it seems to me that this sort of hive-mind tendency would be magnified.

<comment><USER5> > I'm not even sure if assessment scales properly in the larger brick and > mortar classes

you're right, it totally doesn't. the system lives with it because the huge intro/survey classes deal with such a superficial level of information that you can measure it with MC/short answer.

upper level classes deal with it by increasing the staff/student ratio, either by lowering the number of students or increasing the number of staff.

so the MOOC classes where the answers can't be graded by programs, MC or short answer, become this hybrid of advanced material with intro level assessments. I don't think this is to the students benefit.

I also think that the MOOC process overall has been corrupted by the same force that corrupted universities, so I don't see the system as providing a more pro-student alternative anytime soon. I don't know what would.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since he makes a lot of weaker arguments, I'll focus on his strongest argument:

> To think that someone [...] with only a high-school diploma [...] could > motivate himself to complete a large number of MOOCs is naïve [...]

He comes up with some spurious statistics to support this assertion (about MOOC completion rates), but it's much more likely the reason he believes this is because of his experience as an educator.

I think this is a valid criticism. One important aspect of college is that you have something on the line (loans), and you're placed into an environment where the social context is "this is what we're doing now, we're completing courses and learning." And this social context propels people who would otherwise not have the self discipline to learn on their own.

The problem here is that the author treats this challenge as evidence that college is the best solution. If MOOCs can't answer it, college will continue to be dominant. Once I've spelled it out like that it should be obvious he's assuming a false choice.

What other options could we come up with to solve this interesting problem he's posed? MOOCs in their current iteration don't compel you to keep learning. But rather than assume college is the best option by default, let's keep thinking of other ways we could figure out how learning could be encouraged systematically.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like MOOCs, but I am using them as continuing education while working, not as a replacement for college. For that purpose, it works quite well [1]. However, one problem is when you study a subject and get a bit stuck (currently taking Pricing Options [2], and there are a few tricky parts so far). Ideally I would like to ask questions and based on the answers continue to ask questions until I understand. As it is now, it is pretty painful to try to use the forums, and maybe get an answer. In person (or live video) with a professor or TA would help a lot. But of course that doesn't scale well.

Also, the fact that the completion rate for MOOCs is very low doesn't mean much. It is free to sign up, so many (including me) sign up only to check out a course, or to just watch the lectures.

[1] [http://henrikwarne.com/2012/05/08/coursera-algorithms- course...](http://henrikwarne.com/2012/05/08/coursera-algorithms-course/)

[2] [https://www.edx.org/course/v2/pricing-options- mathematical-m...](https://www.edx.org/course/v2/pricing-options-mathematical- models-caltechx-bem1105x)

<comment><USER9> Henrik_w, those are some good points. The potential of MOOCs to deliver low cost education has been hurt somewhat by poor design choices. Classes have been simply "scaled up" by professors without much change to their structure. Without physical classroom interactions, learning online is much more difficult and needs a a collaborative support community to aid that process.

A few friends of mine from high school and I build a company called StudyCloud that plays in the space. To solve the issue of lackluster collaboration and low retention, our product builds a social community for each individual course, having other students and teachers there for support and encouragement. These individual social communities are integrated together for the student into a complete course overview. This allows a student to keep track of all their classes, seeing easily how well they're progressing at a moment's notice. This at-a-glance functionality is coupled with extensive notifications that help bring students back to the platform regularly to engage with one another more frequently than might typically occur.

We've been working on StudyCloud for over a year now, with most of our growth in the Midwest. We are working with a few universities on hybrid course design to further improve not only the product but best practices for teachers. I would be happy to share more if you interested.

www.mystudycloud.com

<comment><USER10> Very interesting. I have been on a kick recently on how to really attack the college market with a different offering, and had thought of some of these same points. (Which you are executing on! Well done!)

My concept was to try to create a study abroad program, which combined a concentrated "learning community," along with some MOOCs, and on-site tutors/navigators. I think you could run this at a RADICALLY different price point than most colleges, and therefore nip at the edges of the market. Basically take a semester or two share from traditional colleges.

Of course, the challenge is in accrediting and ensuring credits would transfer back to the college. But it just seems when colleges are charging $40k / year tuition that there is some room to attack this on the edges. And the college students then get the benefit of a fun study abroad which would be even cheaper than home....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems like a lot of cherry-picked data that ignores many other possible explanations.

MOOCs may have a low completion rate, but if there's no cost to enter, and no penalty for leaving, then it's easy to attract a lot of people who might have only had a passing interest and decided the subject wasn't for them, or who got busy with other things and stopped paying attention to the course (I'm guilty of that). It's not really an accurate comparison to a class where people have thousands of dollars invested in getting a grade.

Also, the fact that one other country has college tuition prices that are approaching the US ($14,000 is still relatively low, even for many public schools if we're talking out of state tuition) is not a good argument that US schools are reasonably priced.

<comment><USER12> Looking at free MOOCs only is indeed cherry-picking data. Instead, one interesting example is remedial math at San Jose State University: a class students paid for and needed for college, implemented by Udacity. It went so poorly that the experiment was stopped [1]. The pass rates and test scores were so low that the university couldn't, in conscience, continue.

There were some implementation problems, which have been addressed in a summer 2014 implementation [2]. It's worth noting that SJSU let 40% of students drop the summer course, which really increased the pass rate!

[1] [http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23688069/mooc-mashup-san- jose-...](http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23688069/mooc-mashup-san-jose-state- university-udacity-experiment) [2] [http://www.informationweek.com/software/mooc-math- students-b...](http://www.informationweek.com/software/mooc-math-students- beat-on-campus-pass-rate/d/d-id/1111335)?

<comment><USER13> They tried a MOOC for _remedial_ classes? That's really baffling to me.

<comment><USER12> Yes :( Unfortunately, a lot of politicians and administrators figure MOOCs are best targeted at the classes that have vast herds of students coming through, like remedial math and writing, rather than those little upper-level classes for advanced students (that profs love to teach!). But you can see the problem: the major predictor for success in a MOOC is study skills + maturity. The major predictor for being in a remedial math class? The lack of effective study skills. If these kids had great math self-teaching ability, they would have taught themselves out of remedial math a while ago (like half the kids in calculus).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The end of this article describes a "future situation" that is actually the current situation exactly:

"Students with means of their own will have the option of attending a four- year institution and obtaining all the benefits that come with it. Poorer students will obtain their postsecondary education from MOOCs and their credentials through badges."

How is this any different than what exists right now? The availability of student loans allows low-income students to attend college but brings with it a lot of the ills of MOOCs. Low completion rates being the most common example.

<comment><USER2> Why should anyone care about low completion rates for MOOCs?

<comment><USER14> Completion rates don't matter as much when the content is free. I've signed up for 10+ of MOOC courses but only completed 2. I meant to just point out that if you consider a low completion rate a negative factor than the current system of easy debt for low income students has a similar problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think this future is implausible, but I think the MOOCs will not be able to be free. There are costs associated with creating a good online course, and those costs have to be deferred somehow.

Perhaps these MOOC developers will be able to attract patrons who will cover the large up-front cost, and ads could cover the ongoing support, but one way or another they won't be completely free.

As for whether recent highschool graduates will be able to complete a traditional college degree worth of MOOC courses, it will depend on how much they actually help those graduates get jobs. We went to college on the insistance of our parents that it would improve our quality of life above theirs, and the promises from colleges that a degree would make our careers.

For some of us, that was true. For others (particularly in recent years), not so much. MOOC badges will have to offer more than just promises to justify the time and money we put into them.

<comment><USER3> There are costs assorted with creating good software as well but the community have found ways to still make FOSS a viable reality. Is there any reason the same methods can't be modified for MOOCs?

<comment><USER16> There effectively is a model today where you can take the course for free but you pay for a "verified certificate." The problem (as is often the case with freemium) is that it's not clear what the value of a verified certificate is for the vast majority of people. There may be scenarios such as employers wanting to see proof of continuing education but they're the minority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I feel author somehow saying just badges for crediblity is wrong, it has to be compared what we have today in university as credibility. It is just a pdf certificate and a grade point with university name. It doesn't distinguishes student very well.

With people moving towards online education there will be much better education data gathering and much better way to present them. Kevin carey pointed out this [https://accredible.com/10000005](https://accredible.com/10000005) for replacement of current education certificate for data gathering about student learning and then using the data collected in better way for analyzing student performance and for employablity. P.S (I work at accredible as SE)

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't disagree with any of the other criticisms here, but seeing the headline and source together was enough. It calls to mind a harness-maker sneering "Horseless carriages? Nobody will ever want to drive those!" Who are they trying to convince?

</comment><comment><USER19> "To think that someone almost three decades younger, with only a high-school diploma (or perhaps even less education) could motivate himself to complete a large number of MOOCs is naïve, and is not borne out by the evidence."

Why is this naive? I think this attitude is prime evidence of the REAL problem of the education system today - that we don't motivate younger people enough to be curious. no amount of MOOCs will solve that, only good and devoted teachers combined with a renewed curriculum will. MOOCs are great for subjects involving computers and mathematics, but for subjects like sociology and biology I would deign to argue that even traditional college is better equipped.</comment>


'No health benefit' from prayer - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3193902.stm <comment><USER2> This is one of those studies that starts with a conclusion and then looks for evidence to validate itself. Usually, you see this type of tripe in support of religions. It's sad that the logic gap is pretty wide on the other side as well.

The placebo effect would suggest that even if prayer did nothing, some people should actually have some recognizable benefits directly from it and it alone. Even discounting the deities being prayed to; to suggest that there is "no benefit" from prayer is suggesting that the placebo effect is false.

Clearly, you aren't proving that with 150 people and a TV show. This is junk science of the highest order.</comment>


Microsoft's Visual Studio Online is now Visual Studio Codespaces; 50% price drop - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/30/microsofts-visual-studio-online-code-editor-is-now-visual-studio-codespaces-and-gets-a-price-drop/ <comment><USER2> And in three months, it will be called Azure DevOps Editor, only to be rebranded to Azure Code Online 6 months after that..

There is precedence with Team Foundation Services & Visual Studio Online -> Visual Studio Team System -> Azure DevOps (which can still be hosted on-prem completely separate from Azure) and yes I'm still salty about that.

Also worth noting that Microsoft explicitly keeps all of the code needed for this feature out of the OSS version of VS Code.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for this -- you have expressed my sentiments exactly.

MS seems more than willing to do rebranding like this almost like it is ritual.

MS does not seem to recognize that from the outside (as a customer) it is a bit like dealing with someone who gives their children new names each year on their birthday -- nobody can remember which name to call the child at a given moment and even the children start to develop identity problems...

<comment><USER4> MS Flow seems to have become Power Automate. If they are trying to have a theme of "Power", that's fine, except it's such a generic word that has been used as part of so many other products from other companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Microsoft blog post, from Nik Molnar, wasn't linked by TC. It's here: [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/introducing- visu...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/introducing-visual- studio-codespaces/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original title was too long. It was:

Microsoft's Visual Studio Online code editor is now Visual Studio Codespaces and gets a price drop</comment>


The Nature of Computer Programming - <AUTHOR> http://farmerandfarmer.org/mastery/programming.html

<comment><USER2> Programming, as it stands today, exists in two forms. There are those that program just do it for the cash and there are those that do it for the love of the art. Code is the spell, the text editor is the wand, and the programmer is the magician.</comment>


GoDaddy Also Withdraws Support For Syria, Red Light Cameras, and Justin Bieber - <AUTHOR> http://tatiyants.com/godaddy-also-withdraws-support-for-syria-red-light-cameras-and-justin-bieber/ GoDaddy, a leading domain registrar and internet piranha announced that it is withdrawing support for Syria, red light cameras, and Justin Bieber. In a statement released to the press just moments ago, the company explained:<p>"After the outcry over SOPA, we decided to take a second look at other things we supported in the past. You know, just to make sure. Well, as it turns out, there were a few other positions we should probably rethink, and this is the first (though probably not the last) step in correcting those oversights." <comment><USER2> Is this real, I honestly though I was reading the onion for a second.

 _tldr_ : we have no values or beliefs, but are just trying to really hard to find stuff you like, so you will like us more.

\---

"After the outcry over SOPA, we decided to take a second look at other things we supported in the past. You know, just to make sure. Well, as it turns out, there were a few other positions we should probably rethink, and this is the first (though probably not the last) step in correcting those oversights."

As far as red light cameras go, we liked that they're good for both the public (in that they promote safety) and for the government (in that they make it easier to rip off the public). Again, nothing is perfect in this world, but surely you can understand our position. Besides, hindsight is twenty twenty, right?

Finally, the whole Justin Bieber thing was a mistake. We were just looking to support a fresh new face in music and for whatever reason decided to go with Bieber. Unfortunately, we were only recently made aware of the deep, nearly universal hatred that exists for this young man outside of a few million teenage girls. We should've gone with Taylor Swift instead.

In conclusion, we'd like to remind you that we still have Danica Patrick as our spokesmodel and she, as far as we can tell, continues to be well liked."

\---

<comment><AUTHOR> glad you enjoyed it.</comment></comment>


Mars Helicopter to Fly on NASA's Next Red Planet Rover Mission - <AUTHOR> https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/mars-helicopter-to-fly-on-nasa-s-next-red-planet-rover-mission <comment><USER2> Creating that helicopter must have been a very interesting and difficult challenge. Lift L for rotor blades is calculated by the equation L = ½ ρ(v^2)ACL, where ρ is atmospheric density. v is the speed of the blades moving through the air (roughly speaking). A is the total blade area. And CL is the coefficient of lift, which is determined by the angle of the helicopter, if I understand it right.

Mars' atmospheric density at surface averages .087 psi, roughly .06% of Earth's average (14.69 psi). (source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars) )

That means right off the bat you're going to need to increase the speed of the blades squared times the total area of the blades (i.e., (v^2)A) by a factor of ~1666.66 just to get the same lift on Mars that you would on earth.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> JPL published a video about the idea three years ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpBsFzjyRO8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpBsFzjyRO8)</comment>


The Boston restaurant where robots have replaced the chefs - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2018/05/17/will-robots-replace-chefs-at-this-new-boston-restaurant-they-already-have/ <comment><USER2> Hey OP, I forgot to tell you:

> he made a joke with the word thesis

In other words, his content doe snot belong here. He should go to reddit or some other useless "fun" site. And so should anyone defending such BS.

.

By the way, how many accounts do you have on HN?</comment>


Coccinelle's Semantic Patches - <AUTHOR> http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/sp.php <comment><USER2> Google's Refaster is a similar idea: [http://research.google.com/pubs/pub41876.html](http://research.google.com/pubs/pub41876.html)

<comment><USER3> As is the much older Jackpot ([https://bitbucket.org/jlahoda/jackpot30/wiki/RulesLanguage](https://bitbucket.org/jlahoda/jackpot30/wiki/RulesLanguage)). I believe James Gosling worked on the project, which is now integrated with NetBeans.

What's cool is that you can distribute the rules file alongside your new version of a library with its API changes, and NetBeans will automatically detect the rules if the user updates the dependency, and ask the user if they want to apply them. The downside is that not many people use NetBeans (or Jackpot for that matter).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's the dream; do a refactoring and submit patches for code review. The reviewers first ask "does this (unintentionally) change the behavior of the code?" They look at the semantic patch/run a semantic diff and see that it gives no output. So then they know that it is truly a refactoring and can review it as such without having to bother with any regression testing or anything like that.

Also, I want to have an option/convention to say that "this commit is best viewed with line-based diff/word-based diff, AST diff, semantic diff, ...".</comment>


Quickly Improve Boot Time with Systemd - <AUTHOR> https://jahansyed.co.uk/?p=351 <comment><USER2> It's disappointing to see Postfix grossly mis-characterized as a mere means to "send emails with spoofed addresses".

It is amusing to see that the author "went through the list" to identify "the services that [xe] didn't use on [a] daily basis" and spectacularly managed to miss ModemManager. It is a good bet that the author's machine does not have a modem. It is, after all, a pretty fair bet nowadays that the author's machine does not even have a serial port connector.

Of course, that would have led to the author's next discovery, that disabling ModemManager.service does not stop ModemManager from being started. (-:

* [http://jdebp.eu./Softwares/nosh/avoid-dbus-bus-activation.ht...](http://jdebp.eu./Softwares/nosh/avoid-dbus-bus-activation.html#NetworkManager)</comment>


MySQL Text vs. Varchar Performance - <AUTHOR> http://nicj.net/2011/01/20/mysql-text-vs-varchar-performance <comment><USER2> First, he mentions that VARCHARs are stored in-row, and then he wonders why his server's performance goes down when he joins on a VARCHAR(30000)? And uses EXPLAIN as the very last step? I don't quite get it, honestly.

<comment><USER3> He doesn't seem to be aware that there's a difference between storage engines when he says that "mysql" stores varchars in-row, when that's really MyISAM. MyISAM is now considered obsolete and you shouldn't be using it anyway. Innodb treats large varchars exactly like text/blob columns.

<comment><USER4> Could somebody please point me to a longer yet still intelligent comparison of MyISAM and InnoDB? Thx.

<comment><USER3> Short version:

MyISAM doesn't support transactions and only supports table-level locking, so a heavy concurrent read/write workload will bring it to its knees. Generally you shouldn't use MyISAM anymore unless you know what you're doing and have a specific reason for doing so.

InnoDB is much more crash-safe, supports transactions, and can support concurrent read-writes using row-level locking. It's generally a much more advanced storage engine than MyISAM and it's what Oracle is investing its development efforts in going forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is why I like VARCHAR(MAX) in SQL Server if the row is < 8192 chars it's a VARCHAR if it's > 8192 it's TEXT. You only pay the penalty on rows that exceed that threshold. Best of all you can store 2GB of text in a VARCHAR(MAX)

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms176089.aspx>

<comment><USER6> Using VARCHAR(MAX) still seems to have a significant performance impact, however - [http://richardlees.blogspot.com/2010/07/varcharmax- performan...](http://richardlees.blogspot.com/2010/07/varcharmax-performance- in-sql-server.html) \- perhaps the fact it has to check whether the varchar exceeds 8192?

<comment><USER7> It doesn't just have to check the length of that one field - it needs to check that the whole row wouldn't pass the per-row length limit even if the field itself doesn't.

[N]VARCHAR(MAX) columns can lead to greater page tearing and other performance issues over time if their value is changed between a size that would fit in- row and a size that won't too - so as well as the hit on INSERT/UPDATE performance there may be a (less significant) hit on read performance over time too, on top of the slight hit from simply needing to check where the data is and go find another page if it isn't in-row.

For the most part [N]VARCHAR(MAX) should be used as a more efficient (and _far_ more convenient) replacement for [N]TEXT.

It should only be used as a replacement for [N]VARCHAR(<something>) when the data in the column may need to break the ~4000 characters mark (for NVARCHAR, the limit is ~8000 characters in the case of VARCHAR) or when the total bytes for a row will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can anyone offer a TL;DR?

<comment><USER9> if things are slow, check EXPLAIN first.

<comment><USER10> Which strangely seemed to be one of the last things this guy did, mysql explain and profile are usually enough to see what is going on.

<comment><USER11> Good advice. "Explain" in this case wouldn't be enough to work out what's going on, however. In both the TEXT and VARCHAR cases he expected the queries to be using temporary tables so the output from mysql explain (both showing the use of temporary tables but not the storage medium such as disk or memory) would not have helped.

<comment><USER12> Plus I kind of enjoyed the round about way he explained it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm confused; in the example, couldn't he avoid the filesort entirely by just adding an key on t2.t1id? Is it really optimal to be sorting the whole table -- no matter how optimally -- on any common serving path?

</comment><comment><USER14> To be clear, it's not just "when a TEXT/BLOB is included in a sort" that causes on-disk temp tables. One would expect to take a hit when sorting on a TEXT field.

But actually it's much worse than that: you can get on-disk temp tables if you're selecting a TEXT field while doing an ORDER BY or GROUP BY that uses any columns from the second table in a join.

</comment><comment><USER15> Learned a lot from that, very fascinating ... would have liked to see benchmarks after he made his adjustsments and a comparison with an innodb version of the database.</comment>


Debian 9: 9.1 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170722 <comment> git-pull Trying debian? Require non-free or proprietary drivers? Want Wifi to be there on install? Grab the non-free release from [https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non- free/](https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/)

Using or considering Gnome 3? The "Pixel Saver" extension may be for you ([https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/723/pixel- saver/](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/723/pixel-saver/)). It merges the title bar of the window with the top menu. Save screen real estate on low resolution notebooks.

<comment><USER2> >Require non-free or proprietary drivers?

You bet I do, and thanks. I might start using that version instead of official debian + arcane ritual of copying stuff to lib/firmware during installation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know if Python 3.6 going to be in Stretch at some point?

Not having it is so annoying since Stretch is basically there for the next few years and 3.6 is a very important Python release.

I've even been considering switching all my company's servers back to Ubuntu just for that...

<comment><USER4> > 3.6 is a very important Python release.

Out of interest, why is it _very important_?

<comment><USER5> Because it's the fastest, low-memory, full of features Python release yet. As Raymond Hettinger would say "Python 3.6 is the best Python version."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nothing about Wacom tablet driver fix _snief_. That currently freezes the system and prevents me from updating :-(

Also I really don't like that the live-cd's change my system-clock. I nearly missed closing of shops today because I didn't expect my system time being suddenly wrong. Why do that? It didn't even check any time-server, but simply set my computer clock 2 hours back without any warning!

<comment><USER7> Assuming you're dualbooting Linux and a Windows version: Linux keeps the RTC in UTC by default while Windows expects localtime and can't handle the conversion from UTC transparently if required. Configure Linux to use localtime as well to avoid surprise as that's easier than the other way round.

<comment><USER8> How would you go about doing that? I get the feeling that it's just one change in an obscure config file

<comment><USER9> Better to set everything to use UTC

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/time#UTC_in_Windows](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/time#UTC_in_Windows)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is the anki package still broken?

<comment><USER11> Looks that way. Rather, it's missing from the stretch distribution altogether because of the bugs filed against it [1].

[1] [https://qa.debian.org/excuses.php?package=anki](https://qa.debian.org/excuses.php?package=anki)</comment></comment>


Firefox Private Relay: Generate unique, random, anonymous email addresses - <AUTHOR> https://relay.firefox.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> It looks like this is currently in a private alpha, but the code is all open source. [1]

When Apple introduced something similar, I really wished that someone else would provide something similar. I'm glad to see Mozilla is gearing up to offer this. My main worry, though, is longevity. What happens when you sign up using a generated email address, and then Mozilla decides to shutter the service? You'd likely lose access to that email, and wouldn't be able to log into your accounts anymore. Thankfully Mozilla respects users enough that they'd probably offer ample notice so that you could change your email address.

[1] [https://github.com/mozilla/fx-private- relay](https://github.com/mozilla/fx-private-relay)

</comment><comment><USER2> SimpleLogin [1] already does that and their aliases are more powerful. It's also open-source [2], can be self-hosted, and covers almost all platforms.

The Firefox relay seems to need SocketLabs [3], a paying and closed-source service. Haven't got my invite code yet but I would not bet on this Firefox service.

[1] [https://simplelogin.io](https://simplelogin.io)

[2] [https://github.com/simple-login/app](https://github.com/simple-login/app)

[3] [https://www.socketlabs.com/](https://www.socketlabs.com/)

<comment><USER3> Nice to see services like these. I've been using AnonAddy [1] myself for a few months now.

[1] [https://anonaddy.com](https://anonaddy.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It would still be a privacy issue for me. Mozilla would still have my real address tied to my account, and there's no mention of encryption of email content or the anonymous generated email addresses.

Still...It's a great step in the right direction!

</comment><comment><USER5> Do we know why the Firefox addon? I understand how this can work as a relay service (kind of how Craigslist generates a unique email for each thread), but I don't see the point of the addon.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think the addon is necessary. From the source it looks like it just makes it really easy to generate and autofill a new relay address.</comment></comment>


All trains in Norway to stop for 2 minutes to protest Gaza invasion - <AUTHOR> http://no2wars.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/norway-political-train-strike-for-gaza-today/ <comment><USER2> Question: did the trains in Norway also stop when Hamas was sending thousands of Quassam rockets at Israeli civilian areas over the past few years, or does this sort of protest only get triggered when Jews are using weapons?

<comment><USER3> Sarcastic answer: Ask Daniel Barenboim.

Long answer: If you are asking others for objectivity, please be objective yourself. The issue here is that nowadays a lot of people in Europe tend to be on the side of the underdog, which in this case would be the Palestinian _population_. This is not a pro-Hamas demonstration. Nobody likes fanatics here.

If Israel were in the weaker position, I can assure you that the same people would stop the trains for Israelis.</comment></comment>


Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6r9n1f/germanys_biggest_bitcoin_exchange_bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> Ironically, bitcoinblog.de, (which is the blog of bitcoin.de) published an article in November 2016, citing the lack of anonymity in bitcoin transactions, that would drive around 1/5 of bitcoin users to not using bitcoin anymore. the article I am referring to: [https://bitcoinblog.de/2016/11/09/ein-fuenftel-der- bitcoin-n...](https://bitcoinblog.de/2016/11/09/ein-fuenftel-der-bitcoin- nutzer-erwaegt-bitcoin-wegen-mangelnder-anonymitaet-nicht-mehr-zu-benutzen/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I get user data protection and all that, but when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway, why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone?

Would you risk having your servers seized for someone you know committed a crime? If you do, you make it very easy for competitors to shut you down.

edit: I'm assuming they don't blindly trust the police, but can verify the transactions to the drug site themselves. If that's not the case, making the police get a warrant would be the right thing to do.

<comment><USER4> Because if you make it too easy for the police they'll just ask for too much all the time, even for things where they wouldn't get a warrant. This is happening in Germany all the time when a provider wants to be nice to the police.

If they say "we'll get a warrant anyway", just response "okay, so get the warrant and come back and I'll give you the data". Then at least it's up to a judge to decide where giving out data is warranted, and not up to an oridinary policeman and sysadmin.

<comment><USER3> See my edit. I'm assuming they can verify the allegations, due to the nature of BTC transactions.

A warrant possibly means that they go out of business, because the servers are physically seized. If you tell me you'd risk that for a stranger who you can tell probably committed a crime, I don't believe you.

<comment> Joe-Z >A warrant possibly means that they go out of business, because the servers are physically seized

Why would the police be interested in destroying a legitimate business just because they want data for 8 users?

They can just as well get the warrant and then get the data the same way they did now.

<comment><USER5> >Why would the police be interested in destroying a legitimate business

Lavabit comes to mind. I'm sure there are other examples too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They released on Facebook a statement to this article: [https://www.facebook.com/bitcoin.de/posts/1621138617927372](https://www.facebook.com/bitcoin.de/posts/1621138617927372)

> The protection of our unscrupulous customers and their bitcoins is more > important to us than the protection of the data of offenders.

Another interesseting thing:

> We only issue data from customers to investigating authorities if they can > inquire in writing in specific cases and can demonstrate a legitimate > interest in specific criminal offenses. This has always been the case from > our point of view.

Big question here: So they've done it several times?

<comment><USER7> Not necessarily, might just have been their policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd think most of them would cooperate with the police.

We've already seen local cops in Sweden and Denmark track drug dealers through bitcoin. They must have had the cooperation of exchanges and banks to make that happen.

So I expect exchanges to cooperate on the same level that banks cooperate with police.

</comment><comment><USER9> I want to understand this a bit better from an operational perspective..

Say my DigitalOcean VPS hosted in Germany provides a service X which can be subverted for illegal purposes. Will the police have to me to ask for data or can they go to DO and demand access to the data without my knowledge?

<comment><USER10> Im not a lawyer, but I assume the laws behind this look pretty much the same in every western country.

I assume that if you want to search/seize somebodies property then you have get a warrant made out the the legal owner of the property. (Obviously you don't have to get a warrant if the owner voluntarily hands out the data...) In your example DO is the legal owner of the server your VPS runs on. I can't see why DO would be required to tell you about it.

I don't know how the owners of data centers play into this. I guess if you have somebody else's property in your possession and the cops have a warrant then you have to hand it to them.

Keep in mind that the actual data on the VPS may be protected by all sorts of privacy laws if, e.g., you run a mail server on it.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the location of the server and the jurisdiction the legal owner is under also play a large role. Also don't forget which jurisdiction you're under. Nobody cares that you've rented a server from a russian company located on the dark side of the moon. In this case they'll probably make the warrant out to you rather than the legal owner. And you'll have to comply.

<comment><USER9> By this logic, a renter has no right against unlawful searches on their own place of residence. The police just needs to ask the landlord for permission to search a rented property.

I'm just asking, not challenging what you're saying.

<comment><USER10> Yeah I know. I guess the other extreme would be a rental car or something. I can't imagine the guy currently renting the car being involved in the legal process.

I don't know what happens when a landlord hides weapons or something under the floorboards and then rents the place to somebody. Say the people renting the place are on vacation and the police has a warrant (made out to the landlord in this example). Maybe they can go in with the landlord (and, at least in Germany, they also need an independent witness) but are only allowed to search the actual property and not the stuff in it (because the landlord doesn't own the stuff). I don't know. But this kind of renting is well covered by laws (including lots of laws protecting the renters).

"Renting" a VPS (webspace would be a better example) probably isn't defined by any laws. It feels more like user data connected to a (paid) software service. Renting a dedicated server is a different story.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Please take my idea and make it real - <AUTHOR>

I have this idea and I don't intend to make anything out of it, but maybe somebody here is interested in making it happen:
You may have all seen razers latest gaming laptop or the switchblade (http://www.razerzone.com/switchblade/gallery). It has a keyboard with transparent keys and an lcd behind it, so that the keys can be changed to fit any game you play.
My Idea: Make an accessory for the ipad. A keyboard with transparent keys that fits exactly on top it.
The keyboard would be accompanied by an ipad-app that displays the symbols for the keys and registers the key-presses. It could communicate to the pc running a game by bluetooth or wifi. On the PC another app would handle the communication.
Anyone interested? It would make a nice kickstarter project. <comment><USER2> Why the extra accessory? I don't understand how what you describe could not be done on the iPad without the extra accessory.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some people like the taktile feedback of real keys. Other than that it's a gimmick.</comment></comment>


HTML5 is for the web, and the mobile web - <AUTHOR> http://www.jaynathan.org/2013/01/html5-is-for-the-web-and-the-mobile-web/ <comment><USER2> Good idea here that the logic is more important than the SDK -> [http://www.netmagazine.com/news/stackmob-backs-html5-and- nat...](http://www.netmagazine.com/news/stackmob-backs-html5-and-native- apps-132476)</comment>


Ask HN: Do you volunteer outside of work? - <AUTHOR> How do you make a difference in your community? <comment><USER2> Local community? No.

I have spent many hours helping people on /r/learnprogramming and in person throughout the past few years. I know it's not really giving back to those who need it most, but I think it has a net positive effect on the world if that's your thing. Me I just do it because teaching is pretty fun. I got started doing that kind of stuff while being a TA the majority of my undergrad. I would probably do this kind of stuff full time if not for money...

</comment><comment><USER3> Not as much as I feel I should; I spend the morning helping out at a cat shelter every other weekend.

</comment><comment><USER4> Volunteering for Habitat for Humanity can be fun. They do home repair projects for lower income homeowners in local communities. It's generally a great group of people.

</comment><comment><USER5> FIRST Robotics [https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc](https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc)

<comment><USER6> I would recommend mentoring/volunteering in FIRST.

It is a global program so there is a good chance that there is a local group in your area that could use help.</comment></comment>


Sorry Cheapskates, But HBO Doesn't Want Your Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.splatf.com/2012/06/takemymoney-hbo/ <comment><USER2> This is the perfect illustration of how consumers are at the very tail end of the market. So many decisions have been made before consumers "vote with their dollars/feet" that they usually have little "choice." I put choice in quotes because big companies hate consumer choice and it is why they will always prefer to do business with a sigle entity that makes decisions on behalf of the consumer. For instance, the monopoly beverage contracts that every restaurant has with Coke or Pepsi. As a consumer, you don't really have a choice in what to drink at a (fast food) restaurant, as that decision has already been made for you.

<comment><USER3> > For instance, the monopoly beverage contracts that every restaurant has with > Coke or Pepsi. As a consumer, you don't really have a choice in what to > drink at a (fast food) restaurant, as that decision has already been made > for you.

Most people don't care enough, but if it's that big of a deal for you, go to a different restaurant. There's your choice.

If watching HBO is more important than having an internet only option, then pay for HBO. Otherwise ditch HBO and go internet only through Netflix or something.

Having choice doesn't mean you get to decide what all the options are.

<comment><USER4> I think you're just being deliberately obtuse here, but anyway here goes: the OP is pointing out the _restriction_ of choice, not what the choices are. You won't find a restaurant that serves both Coke and Pepsi. Whether you can go to another restaurant or whatever is completely beside the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This guy's argument is rather unconvincing. For instance:

 _Even if HBO wanted to offer direct-to-consumer subscriptions, there isn't currently a payments and TV distribution service to build on top of, that's popular and easy enough, with the right economics for content owners. Roku? Boxee? iOS + AirPlay? Samsung Smart TV? Xbox? Please. Compared to cable, these platforms are less popular, often harder to use, more fragmented, and have complicated or unfavorable billing systems. Maybe this will change as Apple, Microsoft, and Google go deeper into the living room. But right now, cable is still the safest bet._

Actually, iOS is popular enough, easy to use, has a very simple billing system in place, and is MUCH easier to use than cable.

Cable may be the "safest" bet, for the meek and unimaginative, but it's no longer the best.

<comment> jack-r-abbit I'm not sure I would agree that iOS is MUCH easier than cable. I have a 50" TV connected to a cable box accessible with a remote... that is pretty easy AND a pretty good viewing experience (even with some of the crappy UI in the cable box). I'm not sure what set up I would need to have in order have a comparable viewing experience using our iPad but I have a hard time believing that it would be MUCH easier (or even easier at all). To me that sounds harder and less likely to be as enjoyable. But I suppose it would probably be cheaper. So I guess different strokes for different folks.

<comment><USER6> I'll give you an example. A friend was over a few days ago and wanted to watch a particular episode of Community. One quick google search and we found the name of the episode. One quick search on iTunes, a couple clicks and it's downloading. A moment later and iTunes suggests that we can start watching immediately while it finishes downloading.

No worrying about when it shows, or if I'd remembered to set something to record it or even managing local storage. Also, once you've bought a tv show it looks like iTunes now lets you redownload it whenever you want.

There's still some work to be done to bridge that experience onto the TV smoothly, but the experience is already much better than any cable experience for me.

<comment> jack-r-abbit > _There's still some work to be done to bridge that experience onto the TV > smoothly_

Could you expand on that? The iPad is my wife's not mine so I personally have not used iTunes for at least 5 years. Can you get the experience on the TV, just not _smoothly_? or are you watching it on your iPad?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not cheap. I'd gladly pay way too much for an HBO show if I thought it was good enough. I just really, really hate broadcast media (channel numbers, time slots) and the band-aids that try to make it tolerable (DVRs).

There is no show that is so good that I will ever subscribe to cable or satellite for. I will not bring those hideous boxes into my home.

<comment><USER8> I probably misunderstood what you said but, you want HBO to spend millions producing a show and then let you decide what to pay depending on your thoughts of the show?

<comment><USER7> Oh, no. I just want to buy it on iTunes or similar. I'm saying I'd likely pay whatever they asked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> HBO should never have released a consumer-facing streaming service. They should've simply allowed viewers to access HBO programs through their service provider's streaming service.

These apps just highlight how unnecessary the service provider is for the delivery of HBO content. Sure, the numbers might not make sense for HBO but they're still going to have to spend the next ten years explaining to customers why they need to pay $100/month, subscribing to a full suite of TV channels, just to watch Game of Thrones on their iPad.

Meanwhile, AMC is making TV that's just as good with a business model that embraces cort-cutters. As streaming becomes more mainstream, HBO is going to have to keep explaining why you can watch Mad Men in iTunes the day after it airs but you have to wait almost a year to stream an episode of Game of Thrones (legally). And their reasons aren't going to satisfy anyone except execs at Time Warner and the service providers.

Streaming isn't going away. How long can a content brand stand against its viewers in the age of rampant piracy? I have a feeling we're about to find out.

<comment><USER10> I have yet to hear a statement from HBO that even suggests the line of reasoning I'm about to lay out, but I think HBO is doing a great job of maximizing their current business model, while preparing for a coup of epic proportions.

HBO is building a robust streaming media platform. Everything about the system would work as a standalone service, save one component: authentication and authorization.

Stop and look at the moving parts for a moment. HBO isn't letting cable providers deliver HBO content through cableco apps. HBO has their own dedicated service and applications. When I want to view HBO content, the experience is HBO from beginning to end; save the login page to my content provider. The cable company's role feels a lot like an OAuth provider.

HBO is in the content business, and they know it. I wish I could find it, but I recently read an interview with an HBO executive where he very eloquently expressed the current HBO business model. Essentially, cable companies serve as channel sales agents for HBO content. HBO knows that consumers want their content, but opening a direct channel risks their current (and very profitable) channel.

Now take another step back. If the cable companies are merely a sales channel for HBO, what does that say about HBO's long term positioning. Keep in mind that HBO is doing a great job keeping the cable providers in that role, even from a technology standpoint. I think that HBO is putting themselves in a position to jump from one sales channel to another as soon as those channels are capable of supporting their business, or at least capable of mitigating the significant risk posed by alienating the channel that currently delivers 89% of their operating revenue.

EDIT: Here is the article I was recalling: <http://dcurt.is/hbo-forbes- journalism>. And a relevant excerpt.

> What you don't want to do is to pursue a distribution channel over here [ed: > the internet], where you think, well, let's go around the affiliate and > we'll get a couple hundred thousand subs. But the promotional, and packaging > support we get over here [ed: the affiliate networks], which, by the way, is > the foundation of our 30 million subs and enables us to get 10 million > transactions, if that dissipates, and that shrinks, then we will lose a lot > of subs over here. Because with 10 million transactions, you have to > generate a lot of subs every single day. You can't afford to have that > machinery slow down. So we'll gain a little over here, and we'll lose a lot > over here, and we think there will not be a net gain, there would be a net > loss. So it's really about economics and a business issue.

Meanwhile, HBO puts themselves in a position to leap when the economics are right. Very savvy, IMO.

<comment><USER9> I hope you're right. I think this is the best argument for their actions to date.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think HBO is blowing smoke up the cable companies ass, and they are carefully calculating _when_ to 'cut the cord' so to speak.

HBOGO is just too slick of an application to have been an afterthought freebie for it's current customers. We're talking a _very_ well designed and implemented web app, iPad app, and server side component. Does HBO really think that will entice new subscribers, or keep unhappy subscribers from canceling?

I highly doubt it. I wouldn't be surprised if HBO is counting each and every hit and contemplating just how much money they'll make when that day comes.

</comment><comment><USER12> Internet subscriptions will happen, but I agree that HBO probably won't allow it anytime soon. In the meantime, cord-cutters are forced to pirate shows (or they can wait for certain shows in certain geographic regions). Eventually, HBO will realize they are trying to compete with free (via pirating) and will accept that $12/month, or something similar, might be an acceptable price. Currently, HBO can expect to make billions, but as the cable companies lose their stranglehold on the distribution channels, the price will inevitably drop.

</comment><comment><USER13> _Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has long been one of the biggest voices behind "TV Everywhere"...Bewkes would be going against everything he's talked up for years_

Doesn't this boil down to, "The CEO would be willing to see his business fail rather than admit a mistake"?

</comment><comment><USER14> Then maybe they should stop whining about piracy.

</comment><comment><USER15> It has nothing to do with being a cheapskate, and everything to do with wanting to access content that I paid for on my own terms.

<comment><USER10> Here's the rub. You didn't buy the content, you bought _their_ terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Viva La File Sharing!

</comment><comment><USER4> Fair enough. They won't have it, then.</comment>


Ask HN:help to find that article about testing an idea without building a site - <AUTHOR>

I read a blog article linked from here long time ago. It's talking about using landing page and SEO to test the idea before actually building the site. It's a very detail step-by-step tutorial. Very useful. But I couldn't find it any more. Does someone remember that blog? thanks <comment><USER2> Have you tried <http://searchyc.com> ?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> just tried. Didn't find it. thanks though.The link is useful for the future.</comment>


Are planets with oceans common in the galaxy? It's likely, NASA scientists find - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-06-planets-oceans-common-galaxy-nasa.html <comment><USER3> I really think prioritizing a subsurface mission to Europa's ocean should be the primary focus. If life does exist under the subsurface ice it will be the biggest discovery in history. Even if it doesn't, the exploration of an off- world ocean will be huge.

<comment><USER4> It would be quicker and easier to sample the vapor plumes coming from cracks in the ice shell of Europa. That would have organic compounds and possibly even detectable bacteria. I'm hoping Europa Clipper has this capability.

On a different note, I did once write a short fiction story attempting to view the world from the perspective of a ocean-dweller in Europa. Soft sci-fi (universal translator) and all in good fun, but maybe someone will find it interesting.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/81jgky/oc_the_icy_heig...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/81jgky/oc_the_icy_heights/)

<comment><USER5> How can we be so certain the chemistry for life will be the same on these distant worlds?

<comment><USER6> Chemistry places limits on what is possible. Water is a common and powerful catalyst, it is unlike any life can exits without it just because so many useful reactions happen only in water. (this discounts other catalysts mostly because they are not as common as water). Carbon forms long chains with single or double bonds (also triple bonds but they tend to be unstable) in ways that no other atom will. Note too that water and carbon are extremely common, so even if something else is possible you are then playing the odds that it is common enough.

I'm sure a real chemists can place other limits on what is possible.

<comment><USER7> Not a real chemist but my understanding is that there is no other solvent with all of water's properties - cohesion, adhesion, high specific heat, pH neutrality, polarity, density (in solid and liquid form), and reactivity - <USER2> matter how rare. It is the only "universal solvent" (for polar molecules). In order to imagine other forms of life, you'd have to make the jump from carbon to silicon based life forms. Unfortunately, the energies involved in the chemical bonds would mean that the reactions leading to self replicating molecules would have to happen at very high temperatures or densities which seem to make any life form extremely unlikely. Theoretically catalysts could lower the reaction thresholds enough for life to take hold, but it's an open question how such complex catalysts (enzymes) would emerge while bootstrapping replication. Earth went through just the right series of steps and until the planet cooled down, "stuff" just didn't stay in one place long enough to react and form big molecules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Biochemist Nick Lane espouses the 'alkalkine thermal vent' theory of abiogenesis and believes that single celled prokaryotic type life is almost inevitable on any planet that has or has had a mildly acidic ocean and active plate tectonics with aklaline thermal vents. It's a pretty convincing theory.

_Complex_ cellular life (eukaryotic) is another story entirely. There's no reason to believe they progress inevitably from bacteria. Bacteria have been happily doing their thing without much change for the last 3.5 billion (or more) years. The development of eukaryotes seems like mostly a fluke, and they are very young in evolutionary history. And weird. Very weird.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLcWfecmZhE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLcWfecmZhE)

<comment><USER9> It's one thing to say that a particular evolutionary step is a zillion-to-one fluke and another to say that the possibility of _any_ fluke leading to more complex life is of similar probability.

Maybe there are or will be found to be more weird hybrids in nature? I vaguely recall reading something about how someone found a hint that brain cell communication may have mechanisms that resemble viruses (and/or prions).

If you don't see eukaryotes as inevitable, then what about brains? Social insects? What about human civilization? Biotechnology? I don't think it contributes a lot to declare they _are_ inevitable, but I don't see why eukaryotes would be a singular example of increasing organization that's different from all the others. Zooming out, it seems like a lot of random events merge into an exponential curve.

<comment><USER8> The argument is basically from the fact that it occurred once and never again. Eukaryotes are the result of a symobiosis between archaea and bacteria, and we have yet to find any intermediary steps nor anything else that looks like a similar occurrence in nature. And yet there's nothing stopping that fact from happening again and it hasn't. Though apparently there is one tantalyzing find that may or may not amount to something.

And also it seems to have taken 2 billion or more years for it to happen.

And bacteria and archaea are pretty much "happy" the way they are.

The development of eukaryotes broke an energy and complexity limit because of the symbiosis between mitochondria (which were once free roaming bacteria) and the host cell. It freed up the host cell to create genetic complexity orders of magnitudes higher than what a prokaryote can produce. Complex life cannot develop from prokaryotes because they simply can't produce enough energy to make it happen.

Nor do they need to, they are extremely successful.

<comment><USER10> > And yet there's nothing stopping that fact from happening again and it > hasn't.

This doesn't quite ring true, since the environment which a new Eukaryotalike would have to compete in is a lot different now, since there are lots of Eukaryotes around to eat its lunch.

<comment><USER8> Nick Lane has a rebuttal to that, but I don't recall what it is off the top of my head. His books are worth a read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If goldielocks-zone planets are common, but the ones with a large moon are not, it might not matter that they start out with oceans if they turn into Venus too quickly.

As I understand it, Earth is not like Venus in large part because the moon has kept tidal friction from nearly halting its rotation. Rotation might be necessary for tectonic activity, and tectonic activity for various other essential processes. Rotation might be necessary to maintain reasonable temperature or weather.

Earth's moon is considered a very rare fluke. If one in a million earths has a serviceable moon, that might cut the odds of eukaryotic life enough to make us unique in the galaxy.

Unless there are other fertile circumstances.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is a good book on this called Alien Ocean. [https://www.amazon.com/Alien-Oceans-Search-Depths- Space/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Alien-Oceans-Search-Depths- Space/dp/0691179514)

</comment><comment><USER13> We keep proving factors in the Drake equation are much higher than predicted. Maybe life isn't precarious at all but civilization is.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well... We really need to figure out FTL travel...

<comment><USER15> If time travel was possible, don't you think a time traveler would have traveled back in time to give us time travel?

<comment><USER16> Isn't it obvious?

Maybe the time traveler's grandfather got killed in a temporal suicide attack? Thus preventing the time traveler from being born. Thus why we don't yet have time travel.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: We want to find a Adobe Air Co-founder/Advisor - <AUTHOR>

There was a recent post on HN about a good business idea and we have a formed a small advisory chat for the idea on campfire. We are ideally looking for someone that is not only a AIR programmer, but has multiple programming disciplines to add some value to the discussion.
This is by no means a job posting or a for hire post, just a casual discussion on the possibilities and opportunities with the idea. The idea is definitely in infancy...
If you are interested or know someone who is, please send an email to bryan and then the @ sign schindyguy.com OR leave your email in here and I will invite you to the campfire discussion.
Thanks for your help. Please forward this link to anyone you might think would be interested. We would really appreciate it. <comment><AUTHOR> We are also thinking a javascript genius would work well too because of the nature of Adobe Air. Thanks again for looking</comment>


The Simple Reason Nate Silver's Final Four Prediction Failed - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/nate-silver-final-four-prediction-2014-4

<comment><USER2> Wow, cunning insight from BI.

tl;dr: Silver's Final Four prediction failed because.....wait for it......wait for it....... _picking all four teams correctly is really hard, even for a statistician!_</comment>


Show HN: Speek – Embeddable, shareable voice notes for Twitter and websites - <AUTHOR> https://speek.link/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News!!

We made Speek because we wanted a way to quickly and easily share voice recordings. Everything else we came across either required uploading audio or registration and verification; we didn't want any of that.

Here's highlights of our favorite features:

\- Embeds into Twitter with title of your choosing.

\- Can share on message boards, forums, and anywhere else where audio is unconventional.

\- Can paste Speek links in messengers without having to store audio files locally.

\- iFrame embed immediately available for websites.

\- No registration or verification. Anything goes.

<comment><USER2> Wow I LOVE this idea! I'd do a Speeklink but unfortunately I'm browsing on my phone next to my sleeping friend. Will try tomorrow. Let me know if I can do any small favors to help you grow. James at txbatch dot com / @JamesScaur on Telegram.</comment></comment>


Commercial Users of Functional Programing Presentations - <AUTHOR> http://cufp.galois.com/2008/schedule.html <comment><USER2> Don Syme's presentation has some nice code comparison, showing FP advantage. I hope that the videos will be published like last years.</comment>


Rootless Root - The Unix Koans of Master Foo (Eric S. Raymond) - <AUTHOR> http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/index.html <comment><USER2> One of the absolute best techie _koans_ I've come across is this "closures vs objects" one by Anton Van Straaten -

[http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive- html/m...](http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive- html/msg03277.html)

Reproduced below -

The venerable master Qc Na was walking with his student, Anton. Hoping to prompt the master into a discussion, Anton said "Master, I have heard that objects are a very good thing - is this true?" Qc Na looked pityingly at his student and replied, "Foolish pupil - objects are merely a poor man's closures."

Chastised, Anton took his leave from his master and returned to his cell, intent on studying closures. He carefully read the entire "Lambda: The Ultimate..." series of papers and its cousins, and implemented a small Scheme interpreter with a closure-based object system. He learned much, and looked forward to informing his master of his progress.

On his next walk with Qc Na, Anton attempted to impress his master by saying "Master, I have diligently studied the matter, and now understand that objects are truly a poor man's closures." Qc Na responded by hitting Anton with his stick, saying "When will you learn? Closures are a poor man's object." At that moment, Anton became enlightened.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, that's too logical to be a real koan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As somebody continually interested in new and successful user interface ideas, the GUI one has me tickled pink:

<http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html>

because it is true that point and click will always suffer from a loss of expressivity in the way that this story so perfectly captures.

In a way, though, the koan also illustrates the flip side: if the expressive solution to something is a new language, how do you empower somebody who doesn't know or can't learn the language? The same way a person who goes to a foreign land tries to communicate basic ideas--by sign language, or symbols, or pictures. Sure, sometimes you will be misinterpreted and get peed on. And you can only handle the basics, like asking for food or directions; discussing philosophy or politics is probably out of the question. But it's better than not being able to communicate at all, and for many problems, people are happy with buying the pictographic toolkit that lets them do their job.

<comment><USER5> It's funny, but nonsensical. A counter would be to tell a story about one student explaining every last detail of some device and the other student still not understanding, while the GUI student just shows a picture and everything is instantly clear.

IMO command line "interfaces" are only suitable to programs. A command line interface is basically a language for communicating with the program. I'd rather not spend the time learning a substantial amount of the language just to be able to use the program for common tasks.

An example of this is revision control systems. I always personally liked darcs but was limited to the command line interface. When I tried out GitX I made the switch instantly after being loyal to darcs for years. Sadly there are still things you have to use the command line for in GitX but there is no reason it has to stay that way.

<comment><USER6> Ah yes, the old "one true way" argument. It is sad to such great foolishness in someone who has used git and darcs.

Perhaps you should re-read the koan without the assumption that it is saying "GUI is bad". It is really about the "only one way and that way is GUI" attitude.

<comment><USER5> I think you're engaging in a logical fallacy. Using a "GUI" isn't "one true way" as there are a near infinite amount of ways to structure a GUI.

Command line tools often use graphics to display their results and GUI tools often show their results in textual form so the main difference between a command line interface and a GUI interface is how to provide input. With a GUI I have to click in the right place to make actions happen. This puts more onus on the developer to make sure everything is where it is expected. With a command line tool I have to read a document or help output about how to use it and memorize this information if I wish to be efficient.

I'm not saying there should be no command line. It's simply my view that the command line should be treated like XML: not for human consumption. I think this would also potentially make command line tools even better at providing an interface for scripting tools if this was the only expectation placed on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ah, this one takes me back.

It's almost a pity no one else has mentioned the classic Tao of Programming by Geoffrey James:

<http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html>

A bit dated now, and it looks like ESR has improved on the concept considerably, but this little classic will always be my favorite:

"Each language has its place within the Tao.

But do not program in Cobol if you can avoid it."

</comment><comment><USER8> The problem with articles written by ESR is that the actual discussion gets drowned out by people complaining about the author. The signal to noise ratio goes way, way down.

<comment><USER9> Almost every piece of ESR's writing suffers due to his assertions of brilliance or being the unofficial representative of hackerdom. This is usually present in almost every sentence. If you're not an ESR fan it's excruciating.

It's a shame because he's a genuinely skilled writer, especially with parodic forms like this. Luckily there is no "Eric" character in these koans.

<comment><USER10> I don't know anyone who is esr persona's fan. There is a large community who are his hackerdom writings fans and there is a small community who are fans of his wingnut writings, but it seems to me he doesn't get a lot of friends IRL.

<comment><USER11> He does.

Some of them are hackers, but it seems a lot of them he meets through his other hobbies: wargaming, shooting, swordfighting, etc.

ESR is programming's William Shatner. His various doings get this big inflated ego ascribed to him, but in real life he's just this guy, you know?

<comment><USER9> No, he just writes blog posts with titles like "The First Time I Changed History".

<http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539>

That said, in the latter half of this post he backpedals and gives the "hacker culture" credit for being able to recognize his contributions, but still -- the title of the article isn't "On the openness of the RFC process in the 80s".

I don't know what to think about ESR. I disagree strongly with his interpretation of what hacker culture is, and how free software works, and personally I think it has taken us a long time to undo some of the damage he did to the discourse in both those areas. But he also legitimately influenced a lot of things for the better. Oddly, he seems to be unsatisfied with that level of achievement, and wants to be recognized as being a great statesman or visionary. If he claimed less credit he'd probably get more credit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Raymond wrote a post about the koans and some of his other stuff Saturday, _Mystical Poetry and Mental Postures_ \- <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2596> ; that I linked on HN - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1729978>.

</comment><comment><USER13> if you find the design of the site's annoying for reading, you may be willing to the readability version of it on a gingle pdf file

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/135679/output.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER14> This thread sort of shows exactly why ESR is where he is. Everybody seems to have a strongly held opinion of him, positive or otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER15> As much as I love zen koans, especially hacker koans, it's worth remembering that ESR doesn't really code and I don't know if he merits the 'authority' that some people ascribe to him.

<comment><USER16> What do you mean, he doesn't really code? He has certainly produced open source code in the past. You mean he's not primarily a programmer at the moment?

<comment><USER15> The last time he tried to contribute code was more than a little embarrassing.

He managed to be on the ground at the right time for the whole free software and hacker culture thing, but as far as actual coding goes, he's nothing special.

<comment><USER17> Why did you feel it neccesary to criticize his coding skills when we are discussing a semi-humorous piece of writing though? Does Reymond's skill or lack thereof these days effect whether the Unix Koans are worthwhile? If there's something wrong or inaccurate in them surely you could point that out rather than proceeding straight to criticizing their source.

I'm having trouble understanding your comments here as anything other than defensiveness or elitism.

<comment><USER15> What connore said, that and hackerne.ws appears to be turning into a rather uncritical bunch of cheerleading, rather than any real sensible evaluation of what's in front of them.

This community is starting to feel more like slashdot and TechCrunch collaborated on a sister site than a bastion of valuable conversation.

<comment><USER18> For reference - the canonical URL is news.ycombinator.com</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I Gave Up on OpenBSD (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.trollaxor.com/2012/05/why-i-gave-up-on-openbsd.html

<comment><USER2> Doesn't this count as slander? Besides the domain name there's not a lot to suggest that this is a 'parody' site (a parody of what?)

<comment><USER3> > Besides the domain name there's not a lot to suggest that this is a 'parody' > site

I think it's just a trolling site based on stuff like this[0]. "amd64 only ~ no 64-bit intel". :p

Joking aside, I can't even understand why this was posted here.

[0]: [http://www.trollaxor.com/2013/12/openbsd-why-do-not- use.html](http://www.trollaxor.com/2013/12/openbsd-why-do-not-use.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The domain name doesn't really add credibility to the post...</comment>


Ask HN: What are some Vue components you always use? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> I use,

No ssr V lazy image</comment>


Solar eclipse this weekend in Northern California (map) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.nps.gov/features/eclipse/wheretoview.cfm

<comment><USER2> Fun eclipse fact, the dappled light under trees will show the eclipse. Many of the light spots are actually pinhole views of the sun. Normally they are perfectly round, in an eclipse they look like little moons going through their phases as the eclipse progresses. Fantastic to see a hundred little eclipses on the sidewalk.

<comment><USER3> You can actually see a picture of it on the wikipedia article for pinhole cameras: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just realized the track of the eclipse would be so much more effective if it were an overlay of Google or Bing maps. Anyone have such a thing handy?

<comment><USER5> It looks like NASA has one: [http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle2001/SE2012May...](http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle2001/SE2012May20Agoogle.html)

<comment><USER4> Thanks a bunch!

It even let's me get the critical numbers for Sugarloaf Mountain:

Lat.: 40.9114° N

Long.: 122.4462° W

Annular Solar Eclipse

Duration of Annularity: 4m44.4s

Magnitude: 0.967

Event Date Time (UT) Alt Azi

Start of partial eclipse (C1) : 2012/05/21 00:10:57.9 034.6° 267.5°

Start of annular eclipse (C2) : 2012/05/21 01:25:45.6 020.6° 279.4°

Maximum eclipse : 2012/05/21 01:28:07.9 020.1° 279.8°

End of annular eclipse (C3) : 2012/05/21 01:30:30.1 019.7° 280.1°

End of partial eclipse (C4) : 2012/05/21 02:36:03.7 007.8° 290.1°

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you plan to photograph this, make sure you have the right filters, and also note that the filters which make it safe for your camera don't always make it safe for your eyes. You can get some info at <http://www.mreclipse.com/SEphoto/SEphoto.html> I haven't decided if I'll buy a good glass filter or just use a filter holder.

Also, probably best to debug all your equipment in advance, using a regular sun, before the eclipse. Getting the right length lens, etc. is kind of a pain.

(I'm borrowing a canon demo 500mm L prime for the Transit of Venus next month).

</comment><comment><USER7> Holy cow, thanks for sharing! I'm spending this week and next driving my motorcycle to an internship in Seattle from Iowa via the Southwest. Apparently it's perfectly viewable from the Grand Canyon the day after I'd planned to visit. Guess I'll move that stop back a day. :-D Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER8> Aww, I was hoping this would be more visible in the San Jose area. _crosses fingers for a good partial eclipse_

Any idea where to get those foil viewers? We used to have those in grade school, but I have no clue where to buy them as an adult.

</comment><comment><USER4> I will be at Lake Shasta, current plan to be at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain at the head of Doney Creek. I already have the shade 14 welders glass, but I'm still hacking together the pinhole telescope for projecting an image.

</comment><comment><USER9> Where would be the best place to go view this in the Palo Alto area? (Total astronomy noob speaking.)

<comment><USER10> When this article refers to Northern California, it is not referring to the Bay Area, but the actual northern half of the state. To answer your question, the best viewing area in Palo Alto is a couple of hundred miles to the north.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Darn, I am in Southern California...and mostly pay attention to eclipses because of an interest in astrology, not astronomy.

I know: Wrong crowd to confess that too. But it wouldn't amuse me if it were the "right" crowd to confess to.

Someday, I will get that astrology site working. And it will be astrology for the thinking simian.

Those of you lucky enough to be able to see this: Count me jealous.

<comment><USER12> It will be visible as a partial solar eclipse from SoCal.

[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/qa-wheres- the-...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/qa-wheres-the-best- place-to-view-rare-solar-eclipse-in-southern-california.html)

<comment><USER13> Pretty decent view.

<http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/los-angeles>

<comment><USER11> Actually, I am in San Diego, so even further south than L.A.

But thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well I might have to go camping in the mountains this weekend!</comment>


Google prototype Chinese search reportedly links searches to phone numbers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/9/14/17861962/google-china-dragonfly-censorship-search-engine-phone-number-link-report <comment><USER2> Probably better to link to the people who actually did the original article, instead of some web site that re-writes other people's articles and publishes them as their own. It's the laziest form of journalism, if you can even call it "journalism."

Original: [https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china- prototype-l...](https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype- links-searches-to-phone-numbers/)</comment>


How Cup Noodle embraced constraints to create bootstrapped startups' fav food - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/02/ignite-show-jason-grigsby-on-c.html

<comment><USER2> This is cool. Thanks for the link.

I've read the comic about how 7-11 started in Japan. It was cool. [http://www.dmpbooks.com/titles?n=26&t=59](http://www.dmpbooks.com/titles?n=26&t=59)

Here's the link to project-x site... [http://www.dmpbooks.com/titles?n=26&t=60](http://www.dmpbooks.com/titles?n=26&t=60)</comment>


Jisp - Lisp implementation in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.ducklet.com/jisp/ <comment><USER2> Marc Feeley of Gambit Scheme wrote Jss, which might be similar:

Jss: JavaScriptScheme: a multithreaded Scheme to JavaScript compiler

[http://dynamo.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/wiki/index.php/Dumpin...](http://dynamo.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/wiki/index.php/Dumping_Grounds)

</comment><comment><USER3> Clever shortcut to use JS literals, which means that parsing it can be read with eval(), but the syntax sure is awful. No symbols to speak of, no keywords, and commas everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER4> Agh, syntax!

<comment><USER5> Agreed, and it may be pedantic of me, but I fail to see the Lisp-ness of this; merely using a defun function and a list data structure does not qualify.

<comment><USER6> Well, he did say it was a work in progress. I think this needs a JIT compiler, i.e. s-exps to JS. That would make it snappy and I'm pretty sure you could do proper lexical scoping and closures that way too.</comment></comment></comment>


Tips for a new Django developer - <AUTHOR> http://zeroandone.posterous.com/top-10-tips-to-a-new-django-developer <comment><USER2> Another point I would add to this list is to not be afraid of reading the Django Source code. While the docs cover a lot, you can find a lot of hidden gems simply going through the source code - it is highly readable and most stuff is where you would expect it to be.

Of-course, be careful while doing so though 'cause the stuff that isn't documented can change at anytime, and may break your code.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is some really useful stuff. I learned a lot of this over time, and wished I had known it sooner.

The point about schema evolution is important.

I've taken to using a pickled python object in a text field in every model. That flexibility to store arbitrary data in a hash is amazing. I've used it to, for example, represent twitter accounts that are oauthed, with password, following the business account, or just nothing special. 4 kinds of accounts, with logic in the model to deal with it properly, all without evolving the schema. I only started with the first 2, and added the latter two without a problem.

I'm pushing this a bit further now, and transitioning away from models altogether, and experimenting with a non-relational database like couchdb. I'm debating moving to google app engine too, but found some details (like getting on your own domain) to be pretty annoying.

<comment><USER4> Really don't like the sound of that, pickling allows you to serialize any python code, and consequently deserialize it. Presumably you are placing user submitted data into this pickle and therefore without careful sanity checking wouldn't this potentially allow the user to inject code which may be run on deserialization?

Someone else may be able to shed more light on this and correct me (please do!) but thats my concern and would love to hear if it was a valid one or not.

<comment><USER5> Whoa! I was assuming this worked like doing a JSON grab-bag column in Rails or J2EE, which I am a fan of. Executable code would make me much, muuuuuuuuuch cooler on the idea.

Can you just do the same thing with JSON, Yaml, or your favorite serialization method of choice that does not have catastrophic consequences if parsing gets subverted?

<comment><USER6> > Can you just do the same thing with JSON, Yaml, or your favorite > serialization method of choice that does not have catastrophic consequences > if parsing gets subverted?

Sure. You can even extend the `json` module to serialize custom data types not defined in the JSON spec.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Man, a lot of those sound familiar. A lot of hard-coded path problems are especially annoying since the official Django documentation often tells you to do it that way.

On a semi-related topic - I have an old 0.96 Django app that was using an old database migration framework that isn't supported in the newer versions of Django. For that framework I wrote the Django migrations in manually generated SQL. Anyone know how I could update to django-evolution or South with this hand coded SQL and still preserve my existing data?

The documentation for django-evolution says:

> Django Evolution imposes one important restriction on your development > process: If you intend to make a change to your database, you __must __do it > through Django Evolution. If you modify the database outside of Django and > the Django Evolution framework, you're on your own.

Which makes me think I can't use that.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love django-evolution, I'm using it on AppRabbit.com to regenerate dynamic models and it's been a lifesaver. The only hitches I've found (granted the relationships between my models are fairly restrictive) are related to adding null=False fields and such. But really, it handles most things seamlessly.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great tips. When I was starting, some of these didn't occur to me and the others I knew I should be doing but didn't know how.

</comment><comment><USER10> Thank you for this. I am starting and hopefully this'll give me a solid foundation.

</comment><comment><USER11> thanks for this, i just started django development couple days ago, and this is very useful.

another thing worth mention is that use generic view, it will save lots typing:)

</comment><comment><USER12> These are pretty good. I really liked #6, the tip for template_tags. I hadn't thought of that before and will definitely do that. I will also look into extensions of the template system as suggested at the bottom. Those were really helpful, even for someone who has been using Django for a few months.

I disagree with #4, the suggestion to not include business logic in views. What Django calls 'views' are what other frameworks call 'controllers' (MTV=MVC), and the business logic should reside there. I'm totally for separating the code into helper functions in other files, but putting business logic into models definitely violates the idea of MVC.

For #5, I would recommend the second approach of having a separate settings.py for production vs development. Or at least code it where DEBUG=False is only overridden if socket confirms you are on a development machine - not the other way around. Debug contains too much info to risk exposing in production, but maybe my fear of socket screwing up is unfounded.

<comment><USER13> For template tags, is doing it that way better than importing them in a base template which is included by the children templates?

<comment><USER14> Templatetags don't inherit (at least not in my experience) so if you don't want to have to load the tags on every template, add them to your global templatetags: <http://www.djangosnippets.org/snippets/160/></comment></comment></comment>


Fluxcapacitor: spoof Posix time functions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/majek/fluxcapacitor#readme

<comment><USER2> Reminds me about the "Subterfugue"[1] project I read about way back when.

Neat idea anyways!

[1] <http://subterfugue.org/>

Edit: Funnily enough, there's a "TimeWarp" example at the bottom of <http://subterfugue.org/screenshot.html>

<comment><USER3> Cool project! I can't think of any practical usage thought. I guess nowadays it's much easier to just spawn a VM.

<comment><USER4> For cheating in games? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> See also libfaketime, which does all this and more besides: <https://github.com/wolfcw/libfaketime>

<comment><USER3> libfaketime is very cool, but I think it does something different. It focuses on, well, faking time. Fluxcapacitor makes blocking syscalls exit immediately, faking time is a necessary side effect.

For example the docs of libfaketime say:

       LD_PRELOAD=./libfaketime.so.1 FAKETIME="+1,5y x10,0" \
       /bin/bash -c 'while true; do echo $SECONDS ; sleep 1 ; done'

       For each second that the endless loop sleeps, the
       executed bash shell will think that 10 seconds have passed

While with fluxcapacitor the sleep will exit immediately, not after 1s:

      $ time ./fluxcapacitor --libpath=. -- \
             bash -c 'for i in 1 2 3 4 5 ; do sleep 1; done'
      real    0m0.279s

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Especially useful for testing network protocol interactions faster than you could if you had to wait for real time to pass. Cool stuff.

</comment><comment> Pirate-of-SV Could be useful, too bad the name isn't that good.

Reminds me of the Delorean python package someone showed HN a while ago <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5104889>.

<comment><USER7> A library referencing a favorite movie from my childhood automatically has points for the name. On that note, it could be called the_land_before_timeofday() for all I care.</comment></comment>


Anyone use tripmode to save mobile data? - <AUTHOR> https://www.tripmode.ch <comment><USER2> I've tried in the past. The UX/UI is very dated. I wish Little Snitch implemented something like this as it has all the building blocks.</comment>


Chocolate Shimmering Like a Rainbow - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/science/chocolate-irisdescent-rainbow.html <comment><AUTHOR> _the best tasting diffraction grating you'll ever see_</comment>


Big U.S. Internet providers to speed up P2P transfers - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/big-u-s-internet-providers-to-roll-out-p2p-friendly-network-updates

<comment><USER2> More info here [http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-P4P-Tests- Boost-P...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-P4P-Tests- Boost-P2P-By-80-98859)</comment>


A Django Primer - Creating a Simple Blog Application (The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bigheadlabs.com/2007/03/11/a-django-primer/ <comment><USER2> I'm not just saying this because Jason is a good buddy of mine, but this is an excellent walk-through of Django. If you're building a web app and had a nagging curiosity in Django, this one will get you going.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is this here though? This is more of a reddit article, isn't it? What does "How to build a simple blog application using Django" have to do with startups?

<comment><USER2> In addition to venture capital, co-founder searching, and ROI numbers, there's another aspect of startups that we really should not forget.

Building the product.

<comment><USER4> Nice one, Daniel.</comment></comment></comment>