Show HN: Code Pal - A fun way to learn programming on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.codepal.me/?fsarc=hn1

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

We're an education startup and we want to inspire students to learn programming by making the initial experience fun and engaging.

Two key problems that we're trying to solve are:

a) Make learning to code fun & interesting:

To write interesting code, you need technical skills & domain knowledge. While students are currently taught the basics of programming, the lowest common denominator when it comes to domain knowledge happens to be math and so you have tons of exercises on displaying integers (0 to 100), or printing out the fibonacci sequence etc. This can be boring (not to mention many students already find math to be hard / boring).

We're replacing math with social data that students are intimately aware of (ie. their own social data). So on Code Pal, students will learn a for loop by listing the names of their Facebook friends (as opposed to printing out integers from 0 to 100 or some other similar, potentially boring, exercise).

b) Enable students to work with real world data:

Data in introductory assignments are usually fake and artificially generated. This is a pain for educators (they need to create this data) and it is boring for students. We allow students to work with real data and learn programming in the process. One huge side benefit is that we don't need to tell a student when there is a logic error. For example, if you have 500 friends and your program outputs 499 as the total count, you know there is an error. Another example: we have a Coke versus Pepsi assignment where we teach students the IF statement by asking them to use the number of likes the two drinks have received on FB to determine which drink is more popular.

\</comment><comment>-- Addressing privacy: We don't ask for any extra Facebook permissions (except e-mail) and we don't store any data (again except e-mail). We request data from FB every time you run your code (that's the reason we require Facebook login). Also, we don't ask for a stream publish permission and so we can't (and never will) spam your newsfeed.

Will appreciate any feedback & feel free to ask questions.</comment>


Ask HN: Should you choose firstname.blog or firstandlastname.blog for your blog? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [random internet advice]

Buy them both if they are avialble. Link the DNS entries. Get on to the business at the core of blogging: writing...maybe about what you did or not. The important thing is writing.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Shorter is better

<comment><USER4> And 99% likely to be taken.</comment></comment>


The Alias Method is an O(1) algorithm to select elements from a distribution - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cantino/walker_method

<comment><USER2> While looking up Walker's Alias Method I ended up here [http://forums.udacity.com/questions/1012915/resampling- walke...](http://forums.udacity.com/questions/1012915/resampling-walker-alias- method) , where people say it is not Walker's method, but Vode's. I can't verify it right now but I thought it might be of interest anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> "You could also use ranges, picking a random number between 0.0 and 1.0 and returning :win when the number is below 0.8, :lose otherwise. But, these algorithms are still O(n)"

Maybe my math is a bit rusty, but is this really O(n)? Why is that?

<comment><USER4> n here is the number of different elements you can choose from. If there was a third alternative, you'd have to add another if statement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> An excellent writeup on different techniques to do this: <http://www.keithschwarz.com/darts-dice-coins/></comment>


Till Tomorrow: Why farmers were the first time travelers - <AUTHOR> https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/till-tomorrow <comment><USER2> Planning ahead is not "time traveling" as the author has described. In literature, time travel generally results in a radically different culture or technology, but this isn't true for farmers. I'm not sure I understand the author's point.</comment>


Upgrading to Async/Await with JavaScript ES7 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bbrennan/upgrading-to-async-await-with-javascript-es7-3c67602ea7f8 <comment><USER2> Async await while looking nice compared to bare callbacks and Promises are still not without drawbacks. For example one cannot use await inside nested callback so it's in async functions it's necessary to use for-of and avoid forEach when dealing with Promise values.

* [http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color-is-y...](http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color-is-your-function/)

* [https://spion.github.io/posts/es7-async-await-step-in-the-wr...](https://spion.github.io/posts/es7-async-await-step-in-the-wrong-direction.html)

Current solution is just an evolutionary change merging generators and Promises.

<comment><USER3> As the article mentions in its "Loops" section. It also suggests mapping to `Promise.all` instead of `for-of-await`, but they are slightly different:

Promise.all will start all the promises so they run in parallel, while `for- of-await` executes them in series.

<comment><USER2> > Promise.all will start all the promises so they run in parallel, while `for- > of-await` executes them in series.

Not true. Promises represents computation that is already started so both Promise.all and for-of will result in the same parallel computation. Promise.all does not start anything (except the promise that waits for other promises). The difference is only when you create a promise. If you do so inside for-of loop with inner awaits then it is sequential (because next promise is created only when the previous one is resolved).

The code example in the article shows inner await in for-of loop with getItem: it's the function call inside for-of-await that makes it sequential, not the loop itself. If they first made all calls to getItem, gathered results (promises) in an array and then made a for-of loop with awaits of that array elements then it'd be parallel.</comment></comment></comment>


TSA Reportedly Demands To Inspect Man's Luggage For Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/28/tsa-reportedly-demands-to-inspect-mans-luggage-for-bitcoin <comment><USER3> "Update: A TSA spokesman says they have been unable to find the agents in question or verify the incident. I'm told Baker's story is complicated by the fact that protocol would be to contact law enforcement if someone was taking large amounts of cash for a suspected purpose, rather than request additional screening."

So basically, he most likely had some 'TSA' agents that were trying to rob him.

<comment><USER4> More likely he just made it up and techcrunch lapped it straight up

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This smells a lot like agents getting a bonus for seizing cash over $10k which the TSA keeps.

When a chain of people start aggressively enforcing laws for their own gain without giving a damn what the original intent of the law was, very strange things start happening in society.

<comment><USER6> The TSA has over 50,000 employees serving transit related functions. If they were "getting a bonus" for seizing cash, shouldn't we have heard from >1 officer who was complicit in this?

I understand the motivations for skepticism over TSA practices, but I don't think that justifies baseless speculation about unlawful institutional practices like you describe (LEOs don't receive a bonus tied to civil forfeiture, which would be far more likely)

<comment><USER5> How do you explain the excessive seizures of everything by the TSA? They auction massive lots of things they take from people, where do you think all that money goes? Certainly not back to taxpayers.

If there is not a bonus, then it is something more subtle like a performance review perk. Unless it just boils down to TSA agents enjoying being a-holes. Remember the TSA has not prevented one single incident, in fact they constantly fail security tests, which is also swept under the rug.

The TSA is theater, pure and simple, and they've learned to put on a big show or face extinction, starting at the individual job level all the way up the organization.

I am also pretty sure they are astroturfing against negative comments about them (not accusing you of that, just saying it seems to be a pattern on the internet).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I traveled a lot in post-soviet countries. Once I was held for several hours by military police for losing my way into restricted military area. But never ever anyone took my fingerprints, except TSA agents...

<comment><USER6> At risk of appearing to be some sort of TSA shill in this thread, you are not actually fingerprinted for international travel by TSA:

"United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (commonly referred to as US-VISIT) is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) management system. The system involves the collection and analysis of biometric data (such as fingerprints), which are checked against a database to track individuals deemed by the United States to be terrorists, criminals, and illegal immigrants."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-VISIT](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-VISIT)

<comment><USER8> And the US is not the only country which fingerprints non-citizens on arrival. I know Japan does, and possibly other countries too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This story sounded a lot like the one that happend to me in 1984. It's rather hard to describe a place I was working at the time beyond saying it was a restricted access area. Anyway, I was detained by security for walking out from the gates with a floppy disk and a programming manual. I had to explain what a floppy disk is. It wasn't actually very funny, mostly because my quarterly bonus was at stake. The funny part was to read the incident report, that said I was detained with one "manual" and one "information".

</comment><comment><USER6> "When Baker asked how much he thought his alleged tokens were worth, the agent responded, "It fluctuates all the time."

Either a surprisingly well informed (and a tad snarky) TSA officer (who inexplicably dwells on the possibility of vanishingly rare physical Bitcoin), or a tounge-in-cheek satire presented as fact. I suspect the latter, unless the supposed victim can produce any non-anecdotal evidence to corroborate the story.

Edit: It seems strange to me that TSA would be making such a big deal about searching for Bitcoin, when as far as I'm aware, limitations on transfer of cash only apply to international flights, and would be handled by actual law enforcement or Customs, not TSA. And other than the author being a bit of a dick in his supposed TSA interaction, I really don't see how this situation would have been plausible.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like a new version of "you have been selected for a random search" to me.

</comment><comment><USER11> I admit the title had be curious, but upon consideration, I suppose it's _possible_ that the TSA employee (I refuse to call TSA employees "agents") saw something small and round on the Xray, and thought they might be physical Bitcoins. Some of the early ones enclose private keys to wallets containing 25 BTC or more. That would easily be more than the $10k limit.

Please don't take the above as my condoning the employees actions, the existence of the TSA, governments, or any other entity whose existence is based upon the initiation of force against others.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would guess that this is just a joke, but a fun one.

</comment><comment><USER13> That is quite a twisted interpretation of that law/regulation/etc. - <USER2> in itself is not cash.

Also as a result of that logic, no traveler who owns lots of bitcoins would be allowed to travel on a plane - how the heck does that make sense?</comment>


Facebook Launches Recommendation Engine - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_unveils_one_of_the_historys_most_powerful.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29

<comment><USER2> _"Facebook is using some seriously magical secret sauce to figure out who your friends might be, then what you might like based on your shared demographics, before asking you anything more than your email, name and age. That's pretty amazing."_

Did this part bother anyone else as much as it bothered me?

If you're not a Facebook user, then you obviously have not agreed to Facebook's terms of use, and have not given Facebook permission to use your info (e.g. email address).

I would have figured this would preclude them from keeping your email address when friends hand it over and using it as a key for datamining stuff about you even if you've never signed up for their service.

</comment><comment><USER3> "None the less, I'm not sure there's ever been a platform in history that knew so much about people, monitored publisher effectiveness so closely and made subscription so easy for such an incredible number of people."

So he doesn't mean powerful in the sense that it's the best recommendation algorithm, just that it has a lot of data. If having data in your domain is of course a necessary condition in developing a good recommendation engine. But if it were sufficient Netflix wouldn't have to shell out $1M to outsource the task.

<comment><USER4> You don't merely need a lot of data, you need the right kind of data: if e.g. You have lots of users but only a few transactions per user to base your predictions on you won't get very far. There are a lot more likes in facebook's system than transactions in netflix's

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the phrase "One of [the] History's" -- it is as if recommendation engines have existed for thousands of years! Don't they go back no more than a decade or two?

</comment><comment><USER6> I would expect that most Facebook users won't friend random people just because of shared interests. The public nature of Twitter is more strongly suited at finding people with similar interests. Suppose I want to find somebody with an interest in the Android operating system. On twitter, I can search for Android and see who's tweets look most intriguing.

</comment><comment><USER7> This reads like a press release.

<comment><USER8> Like the part at the end where I said "it sucks this is happening under a proprietary platform with absurd privacy policies"?

<comment><USER9> Uh... and you think that ridiculously misleading title is anything other than a press release? The "it sucks" comment was thrown in as an afterthought.

<comment><USER8> How is the title misleading? I don't think it is, and neither do a bunch of other readers who've commented, tweeted, etc.

<comment><USER9> Right.

"Facebook unveils one of history's most powerful recommendation engines"

This article is an attempt to garner eyeballs by making a loud statement full of dramatic words ("unveil", "history", "powerful") at a time when Facebook vs. Google is considered a hot topic. Nothing more.

This article is a supposedly impartial discussion from one of the web's (supposedly) informed sources that _consists of nothing but value judgments_. This article, though it rambles mightily, manages to say almost nothing about Facebook privacy issues, nor does the author seem to be aware that the few "recommendation engines" that exist share one thing in common: they all suck, they don't inspire users, and nobody has figured how to change this. Including Facebook.

So when I say it's "misleading", what I mean is that what the title promises, the content doesn't deliver. The headline reads (no offense to the author) like a high school newspaper editor's first attempt at a headline that "grabs".

That's all I really meant.

[Lengthy rant edited into oblivion.]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Actually, the future is recommendation via brain composition. Or better yet, direct brain stimulus that makes you think anything is a good recommendation.

Facebook is the future? I hope we are a bit more imaginative and ambitious.</comment>


86 years old lens hacked onto 5DMKII - <AUTHOR> http://todaystomorrow.tumblr.com/post/19109939479/the-5dmkii-view-camera

<comment><USER2> Not to sound cliché, but that old lens takes the warmest picures i've seen.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, but not surprising... calling a nice modern lens "warm" would be nearly an insult. Modern lenses generally prioritize accuracy to warmth, and appropriately so. It is however a little sad that there is such a small market for more stylistic lenses.

<comment><USER4> It is perhaps sad from a nostalgic standpoint, but otherwise it is quite possible to closely approximate all characteristics of an old lens just by post-processing an image taken with an accurate modern lens (e.g. the Hipstamatic app), so it is little wonder that the market for old, stylistic lenses is so small.

<comment><USER5> I used to have a mobile phone which could take "warm" photos. It could also do "alien vision", and a couple of other neat tricks. People said it was cheesy. You can also attach some APS-C lenses to a Full Frame, and get "romantic" vignetting. If you do that in Photoshop, it's fake. The "creamiest" bokeh you can get is a gaussian blur, unless they know it's photoshopped and then it's no longer "creamy".

There's some kind of emotional response people have to optical distortions which they don't have if they know it's from post-processing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I first saw pictures made by Timur Civan with a similar technique and an even older lens:

[http://colt-rane.com/timur-civan-1908-wollensak-35mm-f50-cin...](http://colt- rane.com/timur-civan-1908-wollensak-35mm-f50-cine-velostigmat-lens-102-year- old-lens-on-a-5dmkii/)

</comment><comment><USER7> The sharpness surprised me. What a beautiful combination of new and old.

<comment><USER5> People often underestimate the sharpness of narrow apature lenses. Unless you need a fast exposure, a narrower apature can be be sharper.

On an APC-C, at 135mm, difference between the maximum center resolution of a cheapish superzoom lens (Tamron 18-250mm), and a luxury prime lens (a Canon 135mm f/2) is ~10%. And neither perform best wide open (especially at the borders). The difference at the border is ~20%. The prime lens has other advantages (much better max apature, less distortion, less CA), but the sharpness of "bad" lenses is often underestimated.

<comment><USER8> I hope you're getting a ton of up votes for this. As geeks, we have a bad tendency to focus on the gear. As if good, sharp photos can't be taken without a $2,000 lens.

My interest in photography tends to be periodic, with phases of intense interest, followed by droughts of inactivity. The last time I got back in to photography, I had already sold my old Canon A1 35mm camera, so I only had a Canon SD870IS point-and-shoot camera. I started out by digging around on the internet searching for the "best value" in camera gear.

I don't remember what triggered it, but I remember stopping to think, "If I want to take photos, what's stopping me from just taking this SD870 out and shooting?" After reflection, I decided that it didn't matter what other people thought of my gear. When/if I decided to post anything online, I'd just omit my gear information anyway.

So I went out, and I shot. As it turns out, I was really pleased with the results. I kept the 870 with me nearly all the time, so if I found myself driving back from out of town and saw some cool ship yard, I'd just stop and shoot it. I ended up getting some shots that I was really happy with.

<comment><USER5> I find a lot of geeks are actually _not_ crazy gear-heads. You don't see many geeks falling for $1000 gold plated audio cables or CPUs with massive GHz ratings either. I'm a mediocre photographer, but I know how to get the best technical results out of my gear, and can tell what kind of gear and configuration is needed for a good shot.

It's often geeks (and genuinely good photographers) who shout the loudest that any camera with a decent sized sensor is fine. Yes, we love spec porn, but at least we know when it's a con.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> An absurd ammount of flare... but the camera looks awesome with the Frankenstein in front of it. As a side note: I use a lens from the early 50's in my Pentax DSLR - without hacks - and it produces beautiful portraits. Amazing how optics were already damn good back then.</comment>


Richard Dawkins Event Canceled Over Past Comments About Islam - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/us/richard-dawkins-speech-canceled-berkeley.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=3&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F07%2F24%2Fus%2Frichard-dawkins-speech-canceled-berkeley.html&eventName=Watching-article-click <comment><USER2> Unbelievable. He is a harsh critic, to be sure, of beliefs that deserve criticism... of all religions, not just Islam. I guess KPFA has been cowed.</comment>


Microsoft Office 2013 on Monday - <AUTHOR> http://techtodayshow.com/microsoft-office-2013-on-monday/

<comment><USER2> What could possibly be left? Ribbons on the bottom?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you have a routine that helps you learn new things better? - <AUTHOR> I'm somewhat struggling to learn new things outside of work. Partly because I switch between learning so many different topics that I don't see one topic through completion. The other reason being I don't have a set routine that I stick to. I'm wondering if you have experienced this before and if you have any tips to overcome it. <comment><USER2> (Of course I don't know if I am getting better results, but obviously I believe I do.)

I read and highlight stuff in the evening, when my brain is too toasted for high-end productivity. (Please don't read this as adherence to an "early-riser cult"!)

The next morning/day I re-read and take serious "notes." This can mean all sorts of stuff, I mean the first productive step with the material at hand. Most of the time this means taking notes, copying stuff and annotate it for further use.

</comment><comment><USER3> Step 1: Stop switching topics. You're not learning if you're constantly switching focus.

Step 2: Depends entirely on the nature of what you're trying to learn. Spaced repetition is the canonical approach, which lends itself to some forms of knowledge far better than others. E.g., "learning philosophy" isn't suitable for SR.

</comment><comment><USER4> Refer to this online course for advice on how to learn better: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to- learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)</comment>


The 2015 Startup Investing Survey - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/by-quire/the-2015-startup-investing-survey-9563107e5d50 <comment><AUTHOR> This post provides some background on the survey Quire and Mattermark are conducting. It also goes over the legal landscape surrounding the JOBS Act and Title III—which is supposed to get finalized this October. If finalized, Title III would allow _anyone_ , not just accredited investors, to invest in startups.

To complete the survey, visit: www.quire.com/survey</comment>


Google Wants to Speed Up the Web by Killing the JPEG - <AUTHOR> http://www.petapixel.com/2010/09/30/google-wants-to-speed-up-the-web-by-killing-the-jpeg/ <comment><USER2> I'm sure this was discussed before when this story made the rounds last month, but this continues to make little sense to me:

<http://code.google.com/speed/webp/gallery.html>

WebP might be great, but how can it be a meaningful comparison --

1) take _already_ compressed jpegs from wikipedia and re-compress them using WebP, and then tout the 39% file compression achieved? I can re-compress Jpeg with more Jpeg and also get 39% "more" compression.

2) as with all lossy compression, unless there is some measure of the loss, perceptual or otherwise, what are we really comparing?

<comment><USER3> If you cut it down, and it's perceptually the same, then it's an obvious win no?

<comment><USER2> 1) How do we know it's perceptually the same?

2) How do we know we couldn't get the same perceptual gains from more JPEG compression?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A very good article about vp8 vs x264 vs jpeg: <http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/541>

The comments are also worth reading.

</comment><comment><USER5> These news are like a month old. What is this, Slashdot?

<comment><USER6> Yea, guess enough people did not see it.

This might be interesting <http://github.com/antimatter15/weppy> using JS and canvas to display the file format.</comment></comment>


Rheotomic Surfaces - <AUTHOR> http://spacesymmetrystructure.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/rheotomic-surfaces

<comment><USER2> A very interesting essay about using some types of mathematical surfaces in architecture. The architect chooses surfaces with useful properties, like being able to walk between any two points without turning upside down, and uses them as floors, walls, and ceilings of buildings.

One question he didn't address was why he couldn't just create arbitrary surfaces out of NURBs or some other type of spline. It seems like that would give an architect greater freedom to mold things to his liking, instead of choosing predefined functions and playing with the free parameters. Perhaps he just likes the aesthetics of the rheotomic surfaces?

</comment><comment><USER3> You've got some of the best links around. How are you coming across them?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have thousands of links in my del.icio.us account. Once in a while I pick some of the best ones and submit them to HN if they're "hackerish" enough. Searching for stuff on Wordpress.com sometimes yields some true gems too.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking the same about your link quality myself. What's your background (technical)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Electrical Engineering: Signal Processing & Control Systems. I am also interested in Information Theory and Estimation Theory.

<comment><USER4> Knew it! I could tell by some of the submissions and comments.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


YC Summer 2007 Applicants - What did you apply with? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> What's your company name and what are you doing?

</comment><comment><USER2> hmm will tell after the best ones are selected. Not wise and fair to release details :)</comment>


Corporate Unpersoning - <AUTHOR> http://www.unz.com/article/whos-afraid-of-corporate-cointelpro/ <comment><USER2> For those who cringed at the title:

 _I am using the Orwellian verb "unperson" playfully, but I'm also trying to be precise. What's happening isn't censorship, technically, at least not in the majority of cases. While there are examples of classic censorship (e.g., in the UK, France, and Germany), apart from so-called "terrorist content," most governments aren't formally banning expressions of anti-corporatist dissent. This isn't Czechoslovakia, after all. This is global capitalism, where the repression of dissent is a little more subtle. The point of Google unpersoning CounterPunch (and probably many other publications) and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists like Hedges is not to prevent them from publishing their work or otherwise render them invisible to readers. The goal is to delegitmize them, and thus decrease traffic to their websites and articles, and ultimately drive them out of business, if possible._

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm starting to wonder if America needs to add basic but explicit free speech protections in a private context the way that it has anti-discrimination ones.

In the digital age, "in public" is often part of a digital forum run by a private entity (twitter, facebook, HN, fark, etc.).

<comment><USER4> _> wonder if America needs to add basic but explicit free speech protections [...] run by a private entity (twitter, facebook, HN,_

This really isn't possible to implement in any practical or consistent way without contradictions in usability. If you made such a law, trolls such as Nazi-proponents would use it as a weapon to _infect_ sites such as HackerNews with their walls of hate speech.

Moderators couldn't flag nor delete the hate speech as "off topic" because the Nazi group would complain of "censorship". Imagine that scenario: it would be _against the law_ to delete hate speech here even though most us on HN would rather talk about programming languages or tech startups.

The way marginal groups have free speech now is at the _level of DNS servers_ by buying a domain name. Instead of trying to get Facebook and HackerNews to host your hate speech by expanding "free speech to private entities", you create a Nazi domain (e.g NaziPartyUSA.com) and put your hate speech at that URL. Same for any ISIS group that wants to infect commercial websites like Facebook/HN with recruitment propoganda to attract followers who are willing to behead infidels.

The reason free speech advocates don't like that option is that they don't _get an audience_ \-- such as the millions of eyeballs at Facebook. Well, free speech doesn't guarantee an audience. The quantity of the audience is orthogonal to the free speech and the corporate censorship.

<comment><USER3> > The reason free speech advocates don't like that option is that they don't > get an audience

I don't like it because "public areas" are owned and governed by private entities. It's nonsense to say you're in public if there's no public listening. That's not free speech, it's free speech _zones_. As in, "Say whatever you want, just say it to yourself in that shed over there."

> Nazi-proponents would use it as a weapon to infect...

I think Nazis are dispicable but quantitatively not a big enough problem to be worth the cost of genuine public discussion and debate. A group idiots the size of Raton, New Mexico running around in tiki torches in Charlottesville is sensational, but not really our biggest issue, even if we limit the discussion to racism and hatred.

If trolls show up on message boards, the solution is curation, moderation, law enforcement (digital assault should be enforced more), and good counterarguments.

Right now, people are worried about totalitarian government and corporate police punishing them for thought crime. If you asked me a decade ago, I would have called that paranoid, but these days the supporting examples and surveys seem to be piling up.

<comment><USER4> _> If trolls show up on message boards, the solution is curation, moderation_

And those editorial mechanisms mean you no longer have "freedom of speech" \-- which breaks the very law you're proposing. That's what I meant by "contradictions" in my previous message. A new law that extends "freedom of speech to private entities" is not possible for society to implement in a consistent manner.

 _> Right now, people are worried about totalitarian government and corporate police punishing them for thought crime._

Well, maybe we're having 2 different conversations. I'm not talking about situations like China and their Great Firewall suppressing Tiananmen Square, Taiwan independence, and other topics of dissent. That's the _government_ doing the censorship and not _private_ website like HN censoring by deleting posts. That's a different topic from "extending freedom of speech to private entities" that you were talking about.

Instead, I'm talking about websites with unpopular topics like Unz.com which spawned this thread and neo-Nazi website like Dailystormer.ws. If DailyStormer can reject articles about "programming in Lisp", HackerNews should likewise be able to reject posts about "eliminating the Jewish population".

Trying to craft the wording on a new law such that both sides like HN and DailyStormer can post off-topic content on each others' website without censorship is a futile goal for lawmakers.

Right now, in the USA, American citizens can go point their browser url to Dailystormer.ws and read all the articles. There is no Great American Firewall nor ISP blocking access.

<comment><USER5> Moderation where A dictates what B does/n't read is against freedom of speech. Self moderation whereby every B mods down unwanted material is compatible with freedom of speech, as is a mechanism whereby B indicates "I agree with C and want not to see what C doesn't want to see."

B and C are simply exercising their __freedom from __speech, which is as important as freedom of.

Of course, this has its own problems: like online fora devolving into cliques of people who think the same way.

People should be exposed to trolls and critically evaluate and re-evaluate their beliefs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This website is garbage. Look at their other articles. They're not supporting free speech, they're pissed they and their ilk can't peddle lies as easily anymore.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. Read UNZ.com to catch up on the latest thought in antisemitic, eugenicist, racist, and elitist circles. Otherwise, don't get upset when dehumanizers get unpersoned.

<comment><USER8> The thing I like about Unz.com is that it doesn't seem particularly to favor one side over the other; marginalized voices of all stripes are welcome, would-be neo-Hitlers and would-be neo-Stalins alike.

To be sure, I don't have a lot of use for opinions of either stripe, but I'm glad that there's a place left on the Internet where both are suffered to exist in public, for a little while longer at least. Sticking your head under a pillow and your fingers in your ears doesn't make them go away, and all else equal, you're safer being able to keep an eye on them.

(Incidentally, the comment to which I'm responding is posted under a name that's 53 days old, with 1 karma, no submissions, 1 comment. It's almost as though someone made this account a while back so the green name would age off and then stuck it in a back pocket for eventual sockpuppeting use, but I'm sure that is merely an unworthy cavil...)

<comment><USER7> >but I'm sure that is merely an unworthy cavil...

53 days ago I wrote a post but decided not to publish it. Thus am I compelled by you defend my right to publish here.

>it doesn't seem particularly to favor one side over the other

The non-racist voices, like Michael Hudson, get plenty of exposure elsewhere. They are used at unz.com to lend a civilized context to the sophistic racist writers.

>both are suffered to exist in public

Sophisticated argumentation leading to racist conclusions offends but does not enlighten and so is best ignored. There aren't two civil sides here, pretenses notwithstanding.

<comment><USER9> I don't agree with racism. But offense is irrelevant. What matters is ensuring that all people have equal access to all information so that truth may not be suppressed.

It is foolish, for anyone who cares about truth, to advocate suppression of information or opinions, by legal or other means. Because history demonstrates that, whenever such suppression is legitimized, it will be used by evil people to suppress truth.

Yesterday the cardinal sin was heresy against the church. Today the cardinal sin is racism. Tomorrow the cardinal sin will be something else. Someday the cardinal sin will be your own opinion. Only evil people and shortsighted fools advocate censorship of opposing views.

<comment><USER7> Not about suppression. unz.com is still operating. It just isn't a contributor to Google's news aggregator.

Anyway unz.com itself is an aggregator and doesn't publish everyone either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Jesus. So many people have gone insane over this Russia thing.

</comment><comment><USER11> What a steaming pile.</comment>


Open Sesame: Science centre unveiled in Jordan - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39927836 <comment><USER2> We're living in crazy times when Jordanians, Iranians, Palestinians, and Israelis can all come together to open a new Synchrotron, but I'm excited to see it happening. This really will be great for building up science in the Middle East.

<comment><USER3> "Science" has been doing pretty well in Israel for quite some time. Hopefully science in the greater Middle East will do better now.

Oh, I heard Iran got pallets of cash not too long ago. Maybe they can break a brick or two off and pay their share of this endevour.

<comment><USER4> Irans managed to hold its own very successfully despite being embargoed and boycotted by the wider international community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This IEEE Spectrum article [1] from 2010 made me aware of the SESAME project at the time and tells the story of what the researchers went through to get it started.

[1] "SESAME Synchrotron's Battle for Light" [http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/sesame- synch...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/sesame-synchrotrons- battle-for-light)

</comment><comment><USER6> Finally, some positive news in the media. How can one help? If you have the need for software send me a message!

<comment><USER7> A few years ago, as I was working as a programmer in another synchrotron, I remember seeing an open position for a software engineer at SESAME. I considered applying to travel a bit.

They have a jobs page but no position for a software engineer as of now: [http://sesame.org.jo/sesame/jobs.html](http://sesame.org.jo/sesame/jobs.html)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recommended domain registrars in 2015? - <AUTHOR>

Hello. I'm looking to transfer all my domains to a single registrar. I'm fed up with my current one (123-reg) and some others I've used for certain domains (Names.co.uk, EuroDNS) because they are poor at communicating prices and renewals and their websites are not fun to use. The last thread I could find on this subject was from 4 years ago [1] so I feel it's fair to start a new one.
As far as important features are concerned, for me it's the following, in order of importance.
1. Some way to easily find out how much my domain is going to cost next time I renew. On the list of "My Domains" I don't just want a couple of "manage" links and an expiry date, I want to know how much my next renewal fee will be. Even better, tell me how much I spent on it last time. This is especially important if the price is going to go up.
2. Modern domain management tools which put an emphasis on user experience instead of upselling or hiding features which allow me to cancel stuff.
3. Free or very cheap transfer from other registrars.
4. No recent history of anti-neutrality policies - if they are actively pro-neutrality, even better.
I know it sounds like I'm asking a lot, but... any recommendations? Thank you :)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1766439 <comment><USER2> I use name.com and I have no complaints. Their backend is simple and painless.</comment>


PhoneGap Build - Build native, cross-platform mobile apps in the cloud - <AUTHOR> http://build.phonegap.com/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but if you have to write html/js/css, why not just use html5 and get cross-platform apps without the extra step.

<comment><AUTHOR> The first reason is that in the app stores, you can get paid :)

Second would be that PhoneGap exposes some functionality you can't get at with a standard web app (some hardware sensors, contact data, etc.).

Third would be exposure. Most folks are now familiar with shopping for apps in the app store. While you can accomplish the same thing by visiting a website and "adding to home screen" or whatever, the "workflow" isn't as well known.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the legality of web scraping? Part 2 - backend-dev-33 Part1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20256681 (closed to new comments)
What (legal?) trick allows search engines to crawl(well, we know that "crawl" is synonim of "scrape") and index content protected by terms of use? Is it "fair use" or something else?
One example: Craigs List!
In their terms of service:
> USE. Unless licensed by us in a written agreement, you agree not to use or provide software (except general purpose web browsers and email clients) or services that interact or interoperate with CL, e.g. for downloading, uploading, creating/accessing/using an account, posting, flagging, emailing, searching, or mobile use. You agree not to copy/collect CL content via robots, spiders, scripts, scrapers, crawlers, or any automated or manual equivalent (e.g., by hand).
On the other hand: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Asfbay.craigslist.org+couch&oq=site%3Asfbay.craigslist.org+couch
Google is able to index CL and you can query the google index specifying "use only this CL city" and you can see the ads, and we know Google making money with it (advertising for example).
I can not imagine google obtaining "written agreement" from CL )) <comment><AUTHOR> Crawling is not entirely synonymous with scraping. Crawling web pages is usually done with the specific purpose of search and categorisation, whereas _scraping_ is much more generalized... Data mining, mirroring, avoiding the official API limits etc...

Google may have written agreements with Craigslist, they're both enormous companies...

Finally, as others have said it's a legal grey area. It's not completely clear and it basically depends on what websites you're scraping, how you use the data and why...

Maybe it's best to just ask the website?

</comment><comment> backend-dev-33 And here Part1 as link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20256681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20256681)</comment>


NYC Helmet, I'm Giddy With Excitement - onreact-com http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/08/26/nyc-helmet-im-giddy-with-excitement/

<comment><AUTHOR> According to <http://www.bhsi.org/guide.htm> :

"Most bike helmets are made of EPS foam with a thin plastic shell. The shell helps the helmet skid easily on rough pavement to avoid jerking your neck....

Beware of gimmicks. You want a smoothly rounded outer shell, with no sharp ribs or snag points."

I don't think a hat over a helmet is going to skid as easily as slick plastic. Also, "Dark helmets are hard for motorists to see," and this helmet looks like it only comes in black.

</comment><comment><USER2> Am I alone being very comfortable wearing screaming red colors when i bike through traffic to get to work?

Camouflage green and grey do not seem like strikingly good color choices. They wont even go well with the crimson red blood splat you'll leave under the truck that turned right and didnt notice you.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a lame skate helmet with a hat on top. [http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2009/08/slow-and-steady- tort...](http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2009/08/slow-and-steady-tortoise-and- helmet.html)</comment>


What's a $4000 Suit Worth? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/magazine/whats-a-4000-suit-worth.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> _Frew, who apprenticed with a Savile Row tailor, can — all by himself, and almost all by hand — create a pattern, cut fabric and expertly construct a suit that, for about $4,000, perfectly molds to its owner's body. In a city filled with very rich people, he quickly had all the orders he could handle._

You don't have to be Wall Street to figure out the bleedingly obvious solution to being a starving artist who has so much work they have to turn work away. Raise the prices. Then raise the prices. Then when you're done with that, raise the prices.

At some point you'll be too expensive for the typical businessman, which will make you absolutely crack for a certain type of person common in New York, thus defeating all efforts at being less busy. So it goes. I guess you will have to raise prices.

<comment><USER3> No offense, but this could be really bad advice. Maybe the customers who'd pay 10k for a suit won't go to some guy's living room for fittings. Or maybe the price of top bespoke tailors in town is comparable, because they make better use of lower-paid assistants. Or maybe, to convince a bank to make the loan he needs to move into a nicer place, he needs to show the bank he has a large backlog of orders. Or maybe he's in the middle of following your advice, just raised his price, and will shortly raise it again because he's still getting enough orders.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying we don't get nearly enough information to decide! And that's ok, because that's not the point of the article.

<comment><USER2> Totally not offended by that comment, but I strongly disagree.

It is entirely possible that he's found the correct price for a suit: two hours' labor for his core customers. It is entirely possible that the devs who tell me their clients won't pay more than $20 an hour for Rails programming are accurate, and that they're correct in thinking that they're not skilled enough to work for better clients. It is entirely possible that the Rampaging Monster of Doubt actually understands how banks do loan underwriting better than e.g. the banker who you could confirm or reject that hypothesis in a five minute phone call.

But _that is not the way I will bet_. We're pathologically bad at this. Hiya, freelancer on HN: to a first approximation, you don't charge enough. Seriously. No information required to make that call. (This is said from a place of love. I don't charge nearly enough, either.) This guy, who produces things which rich people love and try to shove money at him for, so much so that _he cannot afford to even talk to the rich people to take their money_ because he is so busy? This guy has our problem, too.

Starving artists who are starving because they produce something nobody wants to pay for are one problem. Starving artists who are starving because they think that they are a precious snowflake immune to Microeconomics 101 are an entirely different problem. They just need business sense.

The point of the article is to cry a bit about how the market economy is making true craftsmanship economically non-viable. (It practically tries to club you over the head with that conclusion.) The article _is wrong_. It has identified a problem to which there exists a _trivial solution that will work_.

<comment><USER4> From the last part of the article I quote the following: "Even the richest customer simply has to wait — sometimes months — before the new suit is finished. No wonder so many pass up a $4,000 bespoke suit for a ready-to-wear Kiton version at twice the price."

So customers are clearly willing to pay more, but they are not too keen on waiting two months for the suit.

I guess there are clients that buy a given amount of suits every year and have time to wait, but there are other clients that buy a suit when they need one and do not think 2+++ months up front.

The question is if the former group is large enough to sustain his business, and if they are willing to pay more than $4,000. The latter group have clearly the dough, but don't want to wait, so they are really not a segment he can focus on.

So while hiking the price might work, it might be that the real problem here is time to market.

Edit: Spelling

<comment><USER5> Direct benefit of drastically increasing pricing to best fit offering to profit curve: ability to hire skilled labor to accelerate delivery of offering to customers.

<comment><USER4> Without going to full automation I guess there are basically two process options here: 1) Add more tailors that work with the suit from start to finish, thus duplicating the work of the lone tailer Mr. Peter Frew in the article.

2) Split the process of Mr. Frew's work among different tailors.

One other company mentioned in the article, Greenfield, is implementing option 2): ". . . there are huge efficiency gains when one complex process is broken down into constituent parts and each worker specializes in one thing. At Greenfield, one worker sews pockets all day long, and another focuses entirely on joining front and back jacket pieces."

According to the article their suits sells for $2000.

Without testing it out it is hard to say if process option 1) will necessarily be seen as more valuable than process option 2) from the customers perspective. It is also hard to say if Greenfield's suits are of lower quality compared to those of Mr. Frew.

At the end of day the story the tailor(s) can create about their workmanship are as important as the prices and processes they put into action. Price is just one element in the marketing mix and can't been seen as separate from the rest, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the first things I did when I got my first 'real' job was get a custom- made suit from a place in our neighborhood; it was $1000 and he did like 25 measurements and said it would be 2 weeks until it was ready.

Turns out he was sending the measurements to Korea where the suits are custom made then shipped back, and then they do final alterations in the US.

I've ordered 3 more since then by just sending an email & choosing a color - don't think I could ever go back to an off-the-shelf suit - custom fit is so much more comfortable.

<comment><USER7> Could you say, are you in SF? Also, your email isn't visible in your profile unless you put it in the 'about' box.

<comment><USER8> What I'd kill for isn't a suit, but a decent set of casual clothing that actually fits (see my post elsewhere on this post). I rarely-to-never wear suits. While not completely fashion-averse, I'm pretty pragmatic when it comes to clothing: it should cover my nakedness, not be uncomfortable, be easy to care for, and look reasonably well.

Jeans or khakis and button-downs work well for me, a washable wool could also work (dry cleaning really isn't an option). Contemporary clothing styles simply don't agree with me, and the made-to-measure and bespoke alternatives are still rather steep.

Though I'm increasingly tempted.

<comment><USER9> Chinos from ten years in the future: <http://shop.outlier.cc/shop/retail/chino.html>

<comment><USER8> ... at 4.5x the price of an OTR pair of slacks.

Really?

Even counting a nice (but not extravagant) pair, easily 2x the cost.

<comment><USER10> Yes, and so what?

A legit ergonomic keyboard is also easily 10-15x the cost of a no-name USB keyboard that "works just as well". A MacBook Pro is easily 2x the cost of something that has the same specs on paper. A pro-grade DSLR is 4-5x the cost of a consumer-grade DSLR but in principle work the same.

I've gone from wearing random cheap jeans to wearing $150-200 fitted jeans, and the difference is immense. It's comfortable, almost scary comfortable, the fabric are _very_ noticeably nicer, the fit feels great, and people around you think so too.

That's not worth 2x the cost?

<comment><USER8> The question is: can I find something equivalent for less cost.

My experience has been, with sufficient searching (and yes, there's a time cost to that), yes, I can.

The upsides: I can see, feel, and fit the garment before buying it. When committing to tailored items, particularly online, no such luck. Clothing's pretty personal, I've never much been a fan of the online or mail-order experience. Their only advantage is that the in-store experience is rapidly getting to be as bad or worse.

<comment><USER11>
        The question is: can I find something equivalent for
        less cost. My experience has been, with sufficient
        searching (and yes, there's a time cost to that), yes,
        I can.

As far as I'm aware, there is nothing equivalent to Outlier on the market today, much less anything at a lower price point. If you have information to the contrary, please do share.

<comment><USER12> I love Outlier, my first two pairs of their pants are almost clapped out with at least 5000 miles apeice in them, and I recently got another two pairs.

Surface Clothing is closest to being Outlier at a lower price point.

You're right that there's noone else in direct competition, but they do have siblings in converging verticals. You should definitely look at Rapha, nau, and Bonobos, each of which overlaps in a different way. You should also look for RRL shirts in boutique fashion stores, they've got some insanely great merino button-up shirts (they're never listed online).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yet another submarine: <http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

The suit is dead for any number of reason, dittos bespoke clothing.

$4000 is several times what I spend on clothes in a year. It's several times what I spend on clothes in _several_ years. There's a far less expensive option that's highly satisficing. Suits, once an inexpensive, practical, standardized alternative to more ornate and expensive clothing, are now the expensive, frequently impractical attire. The lead time to purchase is too long. And a far lower grade of tailoring is more than sufficient for virtually any occasion. That's basic facts.

There are exceptions -- people for whom the expense is neither extravagent nor unneccessary. It's a pretty small crowd, well within the top 1%, and probably more like the top 0.01%. Then divide by two, because, well, very few women wear suits (though women's fashion is its own discussion).

As TFA notes, bespoke tailoring doesn't scale. And it strongly suggests a rather fragile relationship between the garment and the wearer -- I can change in multiple of 25 separate measurements within a few months to a years time -- does this render a suit poor-fitting?

The made-to-measure alternative exists, and for many or most, it's a more- than-acceptable alternative for either formal or casual clothing. With correctly chosen measuring points, and if necessary, some additional tailoring, garments can be made to fit quite well. Cloth is pretty fungible. Sticking to conservative fashions, styles, and cuts means you'll have something that will wear well for years. And in a world in which off-the-rack sizing is increasingly problematic (aggressively styled cuts with little sizing leeway result in more frustrated customers), it's increasingly an option. There are a few vendors in the space, though I feel it's still waiting for its true visionary.

<comment><USER13> _The suit is dead for any number of reason, dittos bespoke clothing._

Why do you think the suit is dead?

I wear a suit (not always, but often enough to have an opinion).

I've never bought an _expensive_ suit, but I nor do I buy cheap suits. I guess I generally spend around $500.

I work with people who spend $2000 on suits though. These aren't bespoke, but are from nice fabrics and cut very well (eg, Hugo Boss etc). I'm no suit expert, but I can tell the difference.

I can't say I've seen any particular decrease in suit wearing over the past 15 years I've been working, although ties are less common that they used to be.

In my experience location and field of work makes a bigger difference to suit wearing than anything else.

<comment><USER14> _Why do you think the suit is dead?_

Don't know about other places, but at least in NoCal high status people don't wear suits. Since the only function of a suit is status signaling, it seems just a matter of time until everyone else catches up and suits will be replaced by bike jerseys or whatever.

<comment><USER15> I know it may not seem that way sometimes, but NoCal is not the entire world - nor does the entire world take their cultural cues from NoCal.

The suit is very much alive in NY, in London, the entire legal world, and in many other places. That's just during the day.

For formal events / outings it is SF that is the extreme outlier. In the rest of the country if you are going to a fancy restaurant, a wedding, an awards dinner or the like you wear a suit. The original rational for the suit actually still holds for these occasions - it removes the need to constantly chase the latest fashions, as many woman and all hipsters must.

<comment><USER16> "Extreme" outlier may be going a bit far. I live in the Southwest (NM). I found myself at a formal, Conservative Jewish funeral a couple weeks ago and half of us were wearing jeans. I was slightly overdressed just in slacks and a nice button-up. One out of the last four job candidates that's interviewed here came in anything fancier than that. I've been to four or five weddings out here, and never seen a shortage of bluejeans; seems like only the people in the wedding are expected to dress up out here. The only people I see consistently dressing in suits are lawyers, but they can waltz into court wearing cowboy hats and bolo ties with their suits without arousing a weird look.

We all have different experiences I guess, but the further West you go, the less formal the attire, and California isn't really as "extreme" as you may think.

<comment><USER17> Maybe it's just me, but wearing jeans to a wedding or funeral and _not_ wearing a jacket and tie to a interview immediately signal disrespect and that the guest/candidate is too lazy to put in the requisite effort.

<comment><USER16> It's not just you, but it's also not everyone else. It's a regionalism.

<comment><USER17> Maybe the weather has something to do with that as well? I live in a very temperate part of the Northeast.

<comment><USER16> It might. But out here in the Southwest, we don't dress like Saudis even though their garb is better suited to the climate. For a lot less than $4000 New Englanders could wear mountaineering suits and that would probably retain heat and repel the elements better than a suit, but I doubt that one's coming around either.

Ultimately it's just a cultural difference, and searching for rationality behind it isn't going to bear fruit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Even the richest customer simply has to wait — sometimes months — before the new suit is finished. No wonder so many pass up a $4,000 bespoke suit for a ready-to-wear Kiton version at twice the price._

Isn't it pretty clear here that he should _raise_ prices _dramatically_?

Clearly the demand is there (people spend twice the price on a inferior product).

<comment><USER18> Huh?

The whole point of paying twice as much is that you spend a fraction of the time defining product specs, and don't have to wait.

If so many pass up a 50% discount to get immediate satisfaction, they aren't likely to change their preference for waiting once the product they already didn't buy becomes dramatically more expensive.

<comment><USER13> _The whole point of paying twice as much is that you spend a fraction of the time defining product specs, and don't have to wait._

Raising the price stops you competing in the whole "I need a new suit" market. Now you are in the custom luxury good market, and there the time to buy isn't an inconvenience, it is a feature.

The whole _pay-to-pick-my-Ferrari-up-in-Maranello_ takes a lot longer than the normal Ferrari ordering process (and is hugely inconvenient) and yet still is used by a reasonable number of orders.

You don't buy a Ferrari for transport, nor do you buy a luxury suit to cover your nakedness.

If people can sell $500,000 watches[1], then a $20,000 suit seems reasonable, especially when it comes with custom consultations etc..

[1] [http://www.luxist.com/2010/04/10/richard-mille- rm027-rafael-...](http://www.luxist.com/2010/04/10/richard-mille-rm027-rafael- nadal-watch-is-ultra-light-weight/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why can't the TSA make me a suit? They already have the measurements. I'm barely half joking here. Seems like this is one of those unsolved "solved problems".

<comment><USER20> You may have something here. You wouldn't even need millimeter waves to do it. Just a 3D scanner setup, which can amount to an old projector and some webcams. We should be able to use technology from 3D motion capture to build a physical model of someone's skeleto-muscular system. The hard part would be the domain knowledge. Someone would have to work closely with a tailor to convert his/her specialized knowledge about fabrics and seams and how clothing hangs off the body into algorithms. (And even then, you'd probably need a trained operator with a sense of design.)

<comment><USER21> X-rays used to be very popular for shoe fitting. I strongly suspect that millimeter waves have similar long term health issues. And I don't see many getting naked in front of a 3D video camera set-up.

<comment><USER22> Millimeter waves are not ionizing, while the x-rays used by TSA backscatter machines and medical x-rays are.

<comment><USER8> The question isn't whether or not they're ionizing. The question is whether or not they have adverse biological actions.

<comment><USER23> Its highly likely that those are in fact the same question.

<comment><USER8> Not when asked by me.

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=physiological+effects+of...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=physiological+effects+of+non- ionizing+radiation&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=SqxGULLLN8OziQK7zoGQBw&ved=0CBkQgQMwAA)

My general sense: any health effects are likely to be weak at levels typically encountered, but I'm holding as plausible that thee may be _some_ effects.

<comment><USER24> Microwave oven radio waves are non-ionizing 2.4 Ghz and I suspect they cause several health issues to any living organism exposed to them, even for a short time.

<comment><USER25> They aren't, unless you're in the oven. And that's different.

<comment><USER8> For some people, there's a risk on the outside as well. Pacemakers.

Less so these days, but still.

My understanding is that there's a possibility of creating induced current in the pacemaker. Which is to say, the non-ionizing radiation has an effect at a distance, albeit in a manufactured artifact, not (in this case) organic tissue.

<comment><USER23> It is not the 2.4Ghz radiation that causes the trouble with pacemakers. Its the plain old magnetic field generated by the inductive inrush from the giant coils that convert the power to feed to the magnetron tube in the microwave. Any large inductive load poses the same risk.

<comment><USER8> I'm getting slightly different information. The best "how do Microwaves interfere with pacemakers" info I could find was from The Straight Dope, which indicated that it was actually microwave leakage, not the coils themselves, which induced the current. And I'm aware that among the reasons you don't nuke metallic objects is because of the charges induced. Another source showing effects of various EMR frequencies indicated that induced currents were among the effects of microwave and other longer-wave radiation.

That said, other risks for pacemakers include store anti-theft devices, most of which are also inductive coils so far as I understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If he really does have mow siting list of months, you would think he'd raise his prices. He would make more money, some people wouldn't go to him for suits anymore, but that would just mean that others would get their suits more quickly

<comment><USER27> I agree, unless he loses more than half his business, why not double his prices? Maybe he only makes one suit a month that way, but he would sure have a lot more free time...

<comment><USER28> Some people just really love what they do, love being busy, and want to be able to share their gift with more people.

The certainty of constant sales/deal-flow has a value all its own too.

But don't let that stop you parroting the same advice to every self- employed/contractor/business-person who claims to be popular/keeping busy that we see on every. single. thread. on. HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Please do not order a suit off the internet. That is the worst idea ever.

I own eight suits and half dozen blazers. My first suits and blazers were all off the rack, including the high end brooks brothers. And they all fit me horribly. I never wear them now.

I didn't realize how horrible they fit until I went to bespoke suits and shirts. So from someone who wasted a lot of money do yourself a favor, go to the best shirt maker in your city and have a custom shirt made. Be prepared to spend up to $300 for the shirt (though $200 is more reasonable). Then use that as your template and send it to a tailor in hong kong who will make duplicates of the shirt with the same measurement for $30 each in the fabric selection of your choice. Best investment ever. I recommend <http://www.jantzentailor.com/>

For suits, I can't help you if you are in America. But if you are going to order a suit in the USA try to get a british cut, the style that Frew uses. Just don't order something off the internet. Lots of factors that go into what makes a quality suit that can't be expressed online.

</comment><comment><USER21> In my opinion it's a lot of money, but can be very well spent.

A fantastically fitting and well designed suit is a powerful weapon in business, politics and life. Trends come and go, but suits always seem to come back into vogue, and you can really tell the difference between the highest quality bespoke suiting and shirts that the CEO/HNWI/high ranking politician wear, and the ones that lower levels are wearing.

Like it or not I've found that suits really work to project "rank" (whatever that means) - working on me and (sometimes) for me. So it's worth the money to invest in at least one very good one. Some say we should dress for the job we want next, or in ten years.

Add-ons beyond the initial investment can add up, including a range of shirts, ties, multiple work suits and suits for other purposes such as formal events and outdoor events in summer. However purchasing well means that these can last for years and years. Suits for men are a lot easier, cheaper and last longer than business clothing for women, who have another order or two of complexity to deal with.

It's the same with "casual" clothes. Some people wear casual clothes that are not so casual or cheap on closer inspection.

</comment><comment><USER30> From <http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html> ...

 _Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to._

<comment><USER31> It's not the suits are back...it's that they never really left.

<comment><USER32> this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This problem is as old as the Industrial Revolution, not exactly news.

I moved to India and here I can afford tons of household help. For example, I have a chauffeur, who comes from a community of highly skilled weavers who make traditional fabrics like this: <http://bannacreations.blogspot.in/2012/02/ilkal-story.html>.

Basically, there is simply not enough demand for those skills. So he chucks his skill - handed down from father to son for generations - learns English and driving, and moves to the city. He now hopes to soon move out from his slum to a real house. I wish him luck - he is ambitious and hard-working, and is making a niche for himself in a challenging world.

</comment><comment><USER34> My Dad is a tailor, from ye olden days as well and cut his teeth measuring, marking and cutting. Yes, you can get a made to measure suit that's pretty much damn near perfect but when a truly experienced tailor works to produce a suit it's essentially a hand-crafted, one of a kind piece of art.

And oddly given my love of tailored suits I generally buy off the peg ones as I'm _way_ too hard on clothing to justify the outlay (even with a family discount).

<comment><USER35> Beyond the skill of art, I would imagine that an advantage of a practiced tailor is also that you get to benefit from their knowledge of which styles or cuts would work well for your particular features, intent, and life story. Software can get the geometry right, but it's hard to program taste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Would we really be better off in bespoke suits? It doesn't sound like this Frew has a very good life if he's having to work in his living room and can't afford his own suits. Wanting to have a someone personally spend 75 hours on your suit seems terribly egotistical; if they do it for the love of it then fair enough, but honestly I'd feel more comfortable in a suit I knew hadn't consumed so much human life energy.

<comment><USER37> Right, because the clothing industry at large has always been good about how it 'consumes human life energy'. While I get where you're coming from, I think it's more egotistical to deprive someone of their job because you think it's too hard for them, or that they'd be better off doing something else. It's his job. Plus, he's making 50 grand a year. Which is more than most teachers in the U.S.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Indochino.com is your friend. Bought a few suits there, and two shirts, fantastic fit & quality. You take about 20 measurements yourself at home (you need a partner to help) upload your details on their site, and boom. Free shipping, free alterations. Not affiliated with them, just a happy customer.

Plus Steve Nash is an investor; an NBA MVP can't be wrong, can he?

</comment><comment><USER39> Interesting. I wonder how the foreign suit makers affect this business. I have a few friends that visit Thailand regularly and get custom suits made (cost is <$200 USD). For the price of one of these suits in NY, you could fly to Bangkok (in Business Class!) AND get a few custom made suits.

<comment><USER40> Those <$200 USD suits made in Thailand are unlikely to be top shelf. There is a huge business in southeast asia on rapid turnaround custom suits. It's not targeting the same market as real bespoke tailoring.

I have a weakness for bespoke suits. I live in Singapore, and have gone to the same tailor for seven years. He's superb, but you can tell from working with a great tailor why even "made to measure" suits can be disappointing. When I started with this guy, I would go back for two fittings after my initial measurements, and before the suit was done. The fittings would be done with the partially constructed suit. Many details were checked and little adjustments made: asymmetry in my body, the sway in the back, where I pocket my phone, how to adjust the jacket for my wallet, and making sure the right sleeve accomodates my watch (I'm left handed). I thought it was overkill. But worn, his suits are flawless and so comfortable the idea that a suit would be uncomfortable is a distant concept.

After the first few years we reduced it by one fitting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I bought a suit when I graduated and was looking for a job, wasn't custom tailed just off the shelf. It worked (I guess) I got a job as employee 4.

I haven't worn a suit in _years_. In fact if someone were to judge me by my uniform I'm fine with saying "sorry, this isn't a fit" (pun intended).

</comment><comment><USER42> My best friend from highschool has ended up in this world through his passion for all things sartorial (<http://www.thearmourystore.com/>).

He was involved in creating a wonderful documentary that follows suit makers of Naples called O'Mast (<http://vimeo.com/16443611>), which even for someone like me who knows nothing about suits was really interesting. I suggest checking it out as it'll give you an idea of the kind of skill required to make a custom made suit.

No matter what you may think about spending $4000 on a suit, it's a shame to see this kind of craftmanship dying out =(

<comment><USER43> Is Mark your best friend? I had the pleasure of seeing the documentary when it was screened in San Francisco and meeting Mark and Gianluca. It was pretty eye-opening to talk to people who really live and breathe men's tailored clothing.

<comment><USER42> Indeed. I was the best man at his wedding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> To me, my $4000 Savile-Row suit is worth twice as much. It's not bespoke, it's made-to-measure. Sort of half way to bespoke.

I don't need to wear suits, I never really have. I've always worked for relaxed companies, never been to a wedding (well, apart from the one I bought the suit for).

But I'm a skinny guy. Even the slimmest of fitting shirts and suits on the rack didn't really fit. My suit? It's like a glove. I put it on and feel awesome. And this is why my suit is worth every penny.

</comment><comment><USER45> Spending a significant amount of time in Shanghai the past few years, I've frequented the Shanghai fake market many times. While some portions sell knockoff goods, the fabric section is quite spectacular. I can get a bespoke 2 piece suit for $100 or 3 piece for $150. I get custom dress shirts for $10. The material and craftsmanship is high and the primary market is expatriates (read: non-Chinese) living in Shanghai.

The way it's set up, is there are maybe 50-100 booths set up in the fabric market area. Each of the booths is rented out by a proprietor, and they are in business for themselves. Most operate by relying on an economy of scale behind the scenes. The sole proprietor would take your measurements in the shop, then send them to a behind the scenes system which processes hundreds of suits a day.

It is not uncommon to have your custom clothing done within 24 hours and shipped directly to wherever you are staying. Very interesting way to manage the economy of scale.

</comment><comment><USER23> "...there is now a large difference between what is monetizable and what is actually valuable."

There's my gem of the day right there.

</comment><comment><USER46> This article is offensive to me. Frew is a talented craftsman and a recent immigrant who single-handedly makes more than the average household in the US, and is in the top 1% of the world in terms of income. He has his own business that is all his through hard work, and has aspirations of becoming a famous designer.

There is no need to insult Frew about his work clothes or his choosing not to make a suit for himself. Frew is rich, and should be applauded.

I don't pay attention to politics, but I used to roll my eyes when right- wingers would talk about "new york times liberal elitism", but in this case I agree with the rednecks.

<comment><USER47> Revenue != Net Income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> If you're in Australia Vinspi.com.au are an online tailored/bespoke suit shop.

You provide the measurements and build a suit design online. 2 week turnaround.

They only ship to Australia at the moment and suits themselves are made in Bangkok.

</comment><comment><USER49> So what is it that makes the tailoring impenetrable to automation? For example why couldn't pieces be cut with a laser cutter? Why can Chinese workers create a suit in 30 minutes and US workers only in 10 hours?

I wonder if modern machines wouldn't be able to do completely different things, too. Why does cloth have to come in flat sheets? Maybe modern machines could produce cloth that already has shapes (like knitting machines, only more fine grained?). No more sewing required?

</comment><comment><USER50> Not mentioned in the article, but if you're willing to wait, some of those Saville Row suitmakers will produce a bespoke suit for much cheaper than $4000. The trick is to add a 4 week wait time and ship the measurements off to India. And of course, if you can make the trip to India yourself (or plenty of other countries in SE Asia), then a bespoke suit will cost you less than $100.

<comment><USER51> Bespoke and a made to measure pos for a $100 are two completely different things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> There is huge demand for special clothing and believe it or not Suit today is a special clothing. The point is really people's idea of dressing has changed. There were times when costly clothing automatically meant something. Those days are gone. I find it difficult to imagine, people wearing suits to work these days. Most of them look like 'Odd ones out'.

I don't like to wear a suit, nor does anybody around me unless they are getting married or they are about to meet somebody powerful and rich. There fore clothing industry is 'optimized for the common case'. The only clothing I find worth buying these days is rugged jeans and polo T-shirts. Anything else and I find that to be focusing on ornament more than the substance. Therefore the demand and supply moves in that direction.

The place for bespoke suits today is the distinction that tailored clothing carries. So they continue to remain clothing for 'special occasions'. Needless to say if you want to maintain that sort of distinction, you can't use machines to scale. Because that would mean you that sort of clothing no longer carries that distinction.

Its not that these artists/tailors can't make money other way. They can probably get a job else where and live in better conditions- if they want to. But sometimes people stick to what they do and how they do for unexplainable reasons.

</comment><comment><USER53> There is one economy of scale which eventually hit the bespoke suit industry: robotics/automation. Eventually you will be able to make tailoring robots to do each step of the process, much like they do in car factories. With the proper software you could step into a booth, get a 3D body scan and have the suit finished in hours or minutes.

<comment><USER54> This may work for crude made to measure suits, but bespoke is often more about trial and error than incredibly precise measurement. It also has a lot to do with the preferences of the client, particularly with regards to the shoulders and armholes.

As for automation, a large number of MTM tailors currently email the measurements to a factory in Asia where the suit is cut by a worker getting paid pennies. The cost isnt necessarily in the making of the suit, its more the measuring and interactions between the tailor and the client that can take hours. For this reason alone I dont think we will see tailoring robots anytime soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I wonder what would happen if he created a marketplace for his services. So rather than taking orders, people would bid on his time.

I guess the downside to that is he is still fighting the 'time to delivery' problem - of people wanting it now.

</comment><comment><USER56> If there was _every_ a task ideally suited (no pun intended) for automation, this is it. Plunk the 16 measurements required and you should have a high quality bespoke suit.

<comment><USER57> That's slightly different. That's called made to measure. Its where you have one stock design and then its custom made to your body. For every M2M suit of a style, the patterns will match, label style will match, pockets will match. Its just the size that is different. I hear indochino does a pretty good job of making affordable M2M suits. For their prices I'd imagine a lot of the process is highly automated.

When you get a bespoke suit made, you walk in and sit down with consultant and you figure out every little detail. He helps you pick a pattern that matches your coloring, label width that matches your body size, number of buttons that match your personality. You end up with a suit that is 100% unique to you.

<comment><USER58> > number of buttons that match your personality

I'll bite: what correlation is there between your personality and the number of buttons on your ideal suit?

<comment><USER57> So think of how conservative it is. Someone older, and more conservative could pull of a double breasted suit jacket where someone younger would look like they are wearing a costume. Where something like a single button jacket would is a bit flashier and would fit someone who is much more out going and confident. There are a lot of variations on the same thing. I can just think of styles that run the scales of traditional vs modern and flashy vs conservative, but with those 2 axises you can do a lot to find something to really accent someones personality and style.

<comment><USER59> Buttons have to deal with the level of formality.

Single buttons have their roots in the single-breasted dinner jacket or tuxedo. If you want your jacket to have an increased level of formality, you'd go with a single button.

Two-button suits are more standard, common for business and every-day suiting. Formal enough for the majority of situations when you'd wear a suit, but not quite "after six" level of formality for an evening event or dinner.

Three-button jackets should be left to casual suits or odd-jackets. Adding more buttons on the single-breasted suit adds an increased level of informality. Works best on casual, seasonal fabrics like seersucker, linen, tweed, corduroy, etc.

Double-breasted jackets have their roots in the military and are often paired with peak lapels, which are more formal than the notched lapels of most suits. So, a double-breasted suit would be definitely on the more formal end.

So, I wouldn't say that buttons are about "personality" as much as it is the situation in which you'll be wearing the suit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> The shoemaker's children always go barefoot. Les cordonniers sont toujours les plus mal chaussés.

</comment><comment><USER61> Not directly related to the article, but I was immediately reminded of the Arrested Development episode where the value of Gob's suit kept going up. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Nl7VYFEaI>

</comment><comment><USER62> A $4000 suit is worth $4000. No? Oh wait, this isn't Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER63> "Oh yea, me! The guy with the $4000 suit! C'MON!!"

</comment><comment><USER64> $4000.

</comment><comment><USER65> Come on!

(sorry)

<comment><USER66> I get the reference, but I think this better belongs on Reddit.

<comment><USER67> For a reference that good, maybe he considers it karma well spent.

<comment><USER68> Gob never refers to the entire suit as costing $4000, so the reference is not that good, actually.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Visual Studio Code January 2018 Update (version 1.20) - <AUTHOR> https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_20 <comment><USER2> Bulgarian language pack :D

This might be little off-topic, but I have yet to see a single Bulgarian developer who'll use a Bulgarian language pack in a piece of software they use. Most of us stick with English. Nice effort nonetheless.

It seems so weird to me to use Bulgarian as a system language anywhere (PC, phone etc.) I wonder if it's because when I was little there was no good Bulgarian support for a lot of the software, or me being a kid who doesn't know English that well couldn't just find the appropriate settings. I got so accustomed to English that nowadays if I see software with Bulgarian controls (besides typing in Bulgarian of course) I feel uneasy. Like a little bug inside my head that's telling me something isn't right :D

As for VSCode I just wish they get on with this - [https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/14909](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/14909)

It's the only thing for me that's making VSCode just one feature away from being the best editor.

</comment><comment><USER3> Finally Git submodules support! Works awesomely :)</comment>


Counting Infinity - <AUTHOR> http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/counting-infinity <comment><USER2> Infinity is one of those ideas which is a heavily researched and interesting idea in mathematics which has very little applicability elsewhere. Check out an intro analasys book for more details on countable and uncountable sets. The cantor set especially, is very interesting as a set with measure 0 and still uncountable many elements.

PS. the use of aleph-0 for countable sets is discuraged as we do not know is there exists a set with cardinality between the countable and uncountable sets (ie. a set which does not have a bijection with the natural numbers but does have a bijection with a "small" subset of the reals such that it did not have a bijection with the reals themselves. ). Its called the continuum hypothesis. Details here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis>

<comment><USER3> The use of aleph-0 for countable sets is not discouraged. I think what you mean is that using aleph-1 to mean "of the same cardinality as the reals" is discouraged, because it's only appropriate in models where the continuum hypothesis holds.

There's a not-so-commonly-used notation using the Hebrew letter beth instead of alpha, where beth_0 = aleph_0 and beth_{n+1} = 2^beth_n (note for experts: and you do the obvious thing at limit ordinals). So the cardinality of the real numbers is beth-1, whatever model you're in.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can we talk about the role of flagging on the front page? - <AUTHOR> I'm often surprised by how large a role flagging plays for how long stories live on the front page.  For example, I presume most (all?) of the precipitous drops in this chart are due to user flags:
http://hnrankings.info/6/1-10/
That's a lot of discussions that are prevented from happening because a small minority thinks they are inappropriate for the site.  Is this a good thing (because it preserves harmony) or a bad thing (because it shuts down productive discussion)? <comment><USER2> My vague hand-wavy understanding is that there is a team of unnamed mods beyond the one we know the name of and they are capable of adding tags that can get it dropped substantially. This apparently happened to one of my posts.

I have no idea what is good or bad at this point. But I can tell you that I think what goes on here is probably a lot more complicated than you think it is.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd worry that if flags were weakened too much, then the front page would start having false stories on it. The ratio of flags to views is likely to be much more informative than the ratio of upvotes to views, especially if weighted by some metric of account trust.

</comment><comment><USER4> It is a good thing not because it "preserves harmony", but because low-value submissions (in your case: trying to stir up controversy with harsh words where no "banning" exists) can be deemphasized and open up space for regular submissions.

<comment><USER5> That's a fine general comment but I need to pipe up for nkurz. I don't think he's ever tried to stir up controversy with harsh words. He's mostly concerned with letting people have their say as a matter of openness.

You've probably noticed how often people insist that's what they care about while their behavior suggests lower motives, but from everything I've seen, nkurz really does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Could you point out some examples of specific stories that you think dropped due to flagging? It's an interesting point but looking at that graph I see only one story that looks like it was probably flagged ("rent a minority").

There's a precipitous drop for both "Deco software: React native IDE" and "convert CURL commands to GO", but both are after hours and hours on the front page, and neither look like obvious flagging material :)

<comment><USER5> > after hours and hours on the front page

The software downweights stories after they've been on the front page a long time (currently 15 hours).

<comment><USER6> Thanks for confirming - that was what I assumed. I really couldn't see the HN community suddenly getting their hate on for an article on converting CURL commands to Go! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't there a way to see if an article was flagged? (I suppose that if you have to deduct flagging from changes in ranking that there indeed isn't a way)

<comment><USER7> Well it seems I was wrong, I just saw an article with a [flagged] indication.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11076832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11076832)

<comment><USER8> That means the submission is [dead], killed by user flags. Other submissions might have had users click "flag" but not enough to become [dead].

<comment><USER7> Ok, but there is also a [dead] indication. What is the difference?

<comment><USER8> My understanding is that since [flagged] is for stuff that was killed by user flags, other dead stuff is dead for some other reason. Like automatic spam detection, [dupe], moderator actions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I just launched my first video course (React/Next.js) - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone.
I'm excited to announce a brand-new video course I created called Mastering Next.js. It's the course I wish I had when starting out with React & learning about server-side rendering. Why should you care? React is taking over in front-end development and Next.js is quickly rising as the go-to framework for building Universal JavaScript applications. Companies like Netflix, GitHub, Hulu, Uber, etc. are looking for engineers familiar with Next.js & React.
Why did I make the course? I've been using React & Next.js extensively in my professional and personal career. I love React and Next and want to share my expertise with the world!
To celebrate the release, I'm launching with a 50% discount! I guarantee you will learn plenty of new tips & tricks for building Next/React applications.
The course includes 2 full example applications, 4+ hours of content, and 50+ jam-packed lessons. You'll have access to the entire source code for both applications, and lifetime access to the videos.
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a message. I do offer team pricing / group rates and student discounts for those who can verify their enrollment.
If you're interested, you can find more info here -> https://masteringnextjs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> The first introduction module is 100% free if you want to check it out.

Introduction to Next.js (Next vs. Gatsby vs. CRA) [26:06] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQeidE2LA1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQeidE2LA1s)

</comment><comment><USER2> Not for me, but good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries – thank you! It's been quite an adventure. The course turned out to be more work than I expected, but I'm proud of what I've accomplished.</comment></comment>


Sorry, Siri: How Google Is Planning to Be Your New Personal Assistant - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/sorry-siri-how-google-is-planning-to-be-your-new-personal-assistant/275391/

<comment><USER2> I think we're all going to look back at the launch buzz over Siri and wonder what we were thinking (if we don't already). Obviously there is plenty of time for Apple to improve it, but Google Now really beats Siri on every meaningful level. Now that it corrals so much predictive data, having to speak to Siri to get it to do something seems like stone-age era stuff.

Have Apple added much to Siri since it launched? Certainly, I don't remember any big banner features.

<comment> k-mcgrady I think Siri was good when it launched and people were right to be excited about it but Apple have done very little with it over the last 18 months. It's still technically a beta too. Another problem is a lot of the features are limited to the US or a few other countries. Siri had the potential to be Google Now but Apple never bothered.

<comment><USER3> This is the thing I never understood. Siri _owned_ the experience, and still the biggest data partner was Google which got to reap 18 months of 'click data' on Siri queries for "free."

The fact that Apple doesn't have a web search engine boggles my mind, they only need look at how Google and Microsoft exploit the Web corpus to create really compelling user experiences to know that its rapidly going to become the differentiating factor between integrated product offerings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The most important differentiator between Google Now and Siri is that one is visual and text based whereas the other is only voice activated.

I do not speak English in an American, British or an Australian accent and I disabled Siri on my iPhone in less than a week after I bought it.

This alone expands Google Now's market by a significant number.

<comment><USER5> Google search for Andoird/iOS or in a browser also has voice input option and I must say it's pretty good at understanding your accent. You should try it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google Now and Siri are fundamentally different types of applications, one is not a substitute for the other (at least currently). I see stories like this all the time setting them up against each other, and they always read like Apple vs. Google clickbait rather than anyone actually comparing the use cases or feature sets.

It reminds me of this really lame ongoing narrative that the tech press had 10 years ago, about Bluetooth vs. WiFi and which technology was going to, uh, "win". Aside from being based on pushing bits through RF, they were completely disjoint technologies that solved different problems, but a bunch of tech pundits kept writing articles about how there was some battle for the future of wireless communications and one of them was going to destroy the other.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if the author actually tried Google Now before writing the story, or whether this was solely based on press releases, videos, and other comments elsewhere? Maybe I missed it but I don't really see it here where the author says, "I tried it and I had this or that opinion".

</comment><comment><USER8> Running Google Now on my iPhone runs counter to my strategy of getting Google further out of my life. I have no interest in getting further enmeshed into their services.

</comment><comment><USER9> Obviously no one has tried the Google app (iOS at least). It is the most disorganized and slapped together application in the history of iOS.

I'm still wondering how the hell anyone could seriously consider releasing this abomination.

Until Google decides to join the iOS infrastructure (like reading from your Contacts - radical I know) none of it's apps will provide even the slightest interesting interactions.

<comment><USER10> find two iPhones

start voice listening on both (one Siri, one Google app) at the same time

start talking

see the difference

<comment><USER11> How about letting us know the results of said experiment or recording a video? Your comment, as it stands, is waste for those of us who do not already know the result.

EDIT: Thanks for the video. Summary, Google's voice search is the same speed or faster than Siri for all queries tried with the results being nearly identical in all cases.

EDIT 2: Here is an updated video[1] from the same person six months after yours, but still six months ago, wherein the difference is less clear if not in Siri's favor.

[1] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3T6rbGwrF8>

<comment><USER10> Here is a video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDsOtdRtG0Q></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Photos show scale of North Korea's repressive prison camps - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/world/asia/north-korea-amnesty-prison-camps-report/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

<comment><USER2> Funny thing; the American prison corporation complex was just exposed as gloating about how many "beds" they have and that each bed means more profit margin and shareholder returns.

Oh, yeah, we also have the largest ratio of imprisoned population and also the largest rate of ever having been imprisoned. ..... But yeah, booooo North Korea.

<comment><USER3> It is important not to ignore the American prison system issues (I'm not American, don't live in the US), but that doesn't mean Amnesty International and news outlets shouldn't do what they can to expose the system in North Korea.

The flaws in the system in the US are out in the open, they aren't hidden or ignored. They aren't discussed enough to make them change, but that is up to the American public to respond which probably needs the rest of the world to shame them into it.

On the other hand, North Korea keeps everything private, nobody really knows how many people they imprison, or why (from everything I've been told).

In other countries, though we may disagree with the judicial system, there is an adequate count of who is imprisoned and why, therefore, by focusing on the why, it is possible for the culture to adapt in an attempt to lower the numbers.

Much like health care, it would be great if the Americans could implement a system where by the lack of users (more healthy people/less prisoners in these examples) is the measurement of success. Like in China where reportedly, doctors are paid when their clients don't get sick.</comment></comment>


Stats on GPUs - <AUTHOR> https://owensgroup.github.io/gpustats/ <comment><USER2> But there aren't any labels. So, you can't tell which dot belongs to what.

IMO, that's not very useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's been updated (with labels and data source from Wiki) and the author would like to have it pop up the name of the GPU when you mouseover too. Filed an issue: [https://github.com/altair- viz/altair/issues/360](https://github.com/altair-viz/altair/issues/360)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some stats on GPUs over time. A cool visualization project on going.</comment>