Amazon DynamoDB Transactions - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-dynamodb-transactions/ <comment><USER3> Any experience with using Aurora in place of DynamoDB?

A couple years ago there was an interesting tidbit at re:Invent about customers moving from DynamoDB to Aurora to save significant costs.[1] The Aurora team made the point that DynamoDB suffers from hotspots despite your best efforts to evenly distribute keys, so you end up overprovisioning. Whereas with Aurora you just pay for I/O. And the scalability is great. Plus you get other nice stuff with Aurora like, you know, traditional SQL multi- operation transactions.

It was kind of buried in a preso from the Aurora team and the high-level messaging from Amazon was still, NoSQL is the most scalable thing. Aurora was and is still seemingly positioned against other solutions within the SQL realm. I sort of get it in theory that NoSQL is still _theoretically_ infinitely scalable whereas Aurora is bounded by 15 read replicas and one write master.. but in practice these days those limits are huge. I think one write master can handle like 100K transactions a second or something.

So, I'm really curious where this has gone in the past couple years if anywhere. Is NoSQL still the best approach?

[1] [https://youtu.be/60QumD2QsF0?t=1021](https://youtu.be/60QumD2QsF0?t=1021)

<comment><USER4> I personally recommend using a SQL database until you're absolutely positively sure you don't need one, for many reasons.

But, as far as the "you end up overprovisioning" because of hotspots thing, DynamoDB _does_ offer autoscaling these days, which should alleviate a lot of provisioning-related headaches and save you money compared to the provisioning you would have done with DynamoDB, from what I understand.

<comment><USER5> We use a hybrid. We process a lot of incoming data and dump most of it into dynamo (it's ephemeral so the TTL feature is nice) and if we get capacity errors (Dynamo takes a while to scale up sometimes) we just dump our objects in the DB. The end result is we keep a huge amount of writes off our DB for processing incoming largish objects. The amount of data it stores would cost an arm and a leg to put into redis.

Granted, I don't think I'd want to use Dynamo for anything other than temporary data. Lock-in makes me nervous, and the way it scales up/down really makes it difficult to use it for hourly workloads...by the time it scales up we're close to done needing more capacity, then it doesn't scale down for like 40m after. We set up caps and the DB overflow machanism keeps things from grinding to a halt.

<comment><USER3> Why don't you use Kinesis for this? Isn't that what it's made for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My wishlist for DynamoDB is now down to:

* Fast one-time data import without permanently creating a lot of shards (important if you are restoring from a backup)

* Better visibility into what causes throttling (e.g. was it a hot shard? Was it a brief but large burst of traffic?)

* Lower p99.9 latency. It occasionally has huge latency spikes.

* Indexes of more than 2 columns

* A solution for streaming out updates that is better than dynamodb streams

<comment><USER7> Also, better insight into partition sizes / what's causing hot spotting. The DB abstracts _a lot_ from the user, which isn't necessarily great, because it's still subject to the normal pitfalls of a NoSQL database.

<comment><USER8> Bigtable is a different beast, but it's new "Key Visualizer" is impressive. Has helped us quickly find anomalies [https://cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/keyvis- overview](https://cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/keyvis-overview)

Wish Dynamo had something similar

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Congrats to the DynamoDB team for going beyond the traditional limits of NoSQL.

There is a new breed of databases that use consensus algorithms to enable global multi-region consistency. Google Spanner and FaunaDB where I work are part of this group. I didn't catch anything about the implementation details of DynamoDB transactions in the article. If they are using a consensus approach, expect them to add multi-region consistency soon. If they are using a traditional active/active replication approach, they'll be limited to regional replication.

<comment><USER10> They warn about other regions seeing incomplete transactions (if you opt into transactions on global tables), which fits with the current "copy each new item from the stream" async replication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "DynamoDB is the only non-relational database that supports transactions across multiple partitions and tables."

Uh... this is just not true.

<comment><USER12> Can you identify some others?

<comment><USER13> The Google Cloud Datastore (formerly the "App Engine Datastore") has had cross-entity-group transactions since 2011:

[https://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/10/app- engine-155-...](https://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/10/app- engine-155-sdk-release.html)

<comment><USER14> The cross group transactions are a little limited - [https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/java/datast...](https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/java/datastore/transactions#what_can_be_done_in_a_transaction)

I don't think it's fair to compare them.

However, the more recent Google storage offerings based on Cloud Spanner do seem to offer this. I don't see how Amazon can make this statement - <USER2> doesn't stop it being an excellent enhancement to DynamoDB though.

<comment><USER15> Cloud Firestore (the next generation of Cloud Datastore) removes those limitations. [https://cloud.google.com/firestore/docs/manage- data/transact...](https://cloud.google.com/firestore/docs/manage- data/transactions)

It also supports the Cloud Datastore API.

(I work on it!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is cool, it lifts the burden of having to bake "atomicity" into your app if you're using a key/value store like DynamoDB. I can see a nice balance of combining this with some built in error checking in the app itself.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd be interested to see comparisons/benchmarks against FoundationDB. DynamoDB transactions make dynamo a serious alternative to FDB now. I can see the two manage advantages for FDB being: 1) you can deploy it on premise (which is potentially important for some B2B companies), 2) it shuffles data around so that hot-spotting of a cluster is eliminated (which dynamo appears to still suffer from).

<comment><USER18> #2 appears to be solved now [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/how-amazon- dynamodb-ad...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/how-amazon-dynamodb- adaptive-capacity-accommodates-uneven-data-access-patterns-or-why-what-you- know-about-dynamodb-might-be-outdated/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Postgresql gets native JSON support (at least since 9.2 onwards) to store schemaless free flowing text. Dynamodb gets transaction guarantees.

There is globalization and intermingling happening on technology too.

On a similar thought, a few years back, C# and Java got `Any` generic types, while Python/JS got static types (via python3 typings, typescript)

<comment><USER20> C# doesn't have an Any generic type (Foo<?> In java parlance)

<comment><USER21> C# can use `object` or `dynamic`:

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2690623/what-is-the- dyna...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2690623/what-is-the-dynamic-type- in-c-sharp-4-0-used-for)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> >If an item is modified outside of a transaction while the transaction is in progress, the transaction is canceled and an exception is thrown

You are still responsible to implements a Queue or a Lock on the Items you want to mutate.

That said this is a huge milestone for DynamoDB, we can now safely mutate multiples items while remaining ACID.

</comment><comment><USER23> Max 10 items per transaction, that's quite a restriction! I guess you have to plan all the transactions you would perform and make sure they meet the bounds.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is the heat map available to customers now or is it still a request you have to do?

<comment><USER25> Still have to request it AFAIAA</comment></comment>


Europe struggles to attract tech talent even as US closes doors - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.eu/article/why-europe-still-lacks-silicon-valleys-sex-appeal/ <comment><USER2> I think language is currently a massive hurdle for Europe (UK excepted) in attracting workers. Tech is fundamentally centred around English, to the extent that not being able to use English could be considered a hindrance, and thus most non-native English speaking techies are likely to speak English, and therefore English speaking countries are probably a more natural destination for them.

I would love to work in Europe but having to make the massive investment of time into learning another language just to be able to function in every day life is a huge disincentive.

You also have to consider culture. The UK is in some ways still a class ridden, backward, semi-feudal society, but in terms of business it seems to be easier to get things done than most of the rest of Europe. It does seem from what I've read like initiative and entrepreneurialism has a harder time in Europe (outside the UK). I'd speculate that there are powerful vested interests that act to discourage a change to the status quo, whereas the US/UK are more capitalist and anarchic in their culture, and thus throw up more successes.</comment>


Ask HN: Any ideas on a good migration strategy from Visual Source Safe to SVN? - <AUTHOR>

The firm I consult with is looking to migrate their existing code base, including images, html, css, js, etc. from VSS to SVN. I'd appreciate any pointers from people who have been through this or have suggestions about it... Thanks. <comment><USER2> Google's got tons of hits on this exact search term. I found this: <http://www.poweradmin.com/sourcecode/vssmigrate.aspx>

Interesting and worth checking out?

</comment><comment><USER3> Are they looking for just the latest version, or do they need history, too?

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe they need the history too...</comment></comment>


Interview with Robert Virding, Creator of Lisp Flavored Erlang - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/this-is-not-a-monad-tutorial/interview-with-robert-virding-creator-lisp-flavored-erlang-an-alien-technology-masterpiece-c37003945c#.xpd8tqwpl <comment><USER2> Very exciting and awesome to see Erlang getting love on HN.

For those who might have missed it, there is also an accompanying book that is a work in progress of converting the MIT classic "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" to Lisp Flavored Erlang here: [https://lfe.gitbooks.io/sicp/content/index.html](https://lfe.gitbooks.io/sicp/content/index.html)

<comment><USER3> > Very exciting and awesome to see Erlang getting love on HN.

 _someone_ is relatively new to HN ;).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145)

<comment><USER4> Seems more genuine lately though - likely driven by Elixir & Phoenix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Regarding standard library inconsistencies... can consistency be brought to some nearish-term future release, like R20 or something, which brings much needed consistency to OTP while providing temporary backward compatibility through reordering shim functions + guard clauses?

      split(List, N) when is_integer(N), N >= 0, is_list(List) ->
          split(N, List);
      split(N, List) when is_integer(N), N >= 0, is_list(List) ->
          case split(N, List, []) of
    	  {_, _} = Result -> Result;
    	  Fault when is_atom(Fault) ->
    	      erlang:error(Fault, [N,List])
          end;
      split(N, List) ->
          erlang:error(badarg, [N,List]).

It makes the ordering inconsequential in this case... which I can see as a sort of transient bad thing.

You could also straight up migrate the API and provide a set of compatibility_mode parse transformations to be included which would take old- signature invocations and replace them at compile-time with the new ones, forcing really only a build-phase change to existing code bases until they make the change on their own.

I dunno. It's been an annoying problem for a long time and a common complaint amongst newbie Erlang developers, but I guess at the end of the day you just get used to it, so as you get more experienced you probably just care less about it. That said I'd love to see better adoption of Erlang, and "simple" things like this might assist with that.

Lower barrier of entry to the stages of scaffold-project -> write -> build -> test cycles is one of the things that's really appealing about Elixir by comparison.

Is this kind of thing of any interest at all to Ericsson to accept upstream if the community were to go through the drudgery of combing the stdlib for the places these changes should be made and providing options for transition/deprecation paths?

<comment><USER4> Erlang tends to be pretty conservative. Its evolution is a bit different from many open source languages: before it got very popular at all, it got used in some very critical places.

<comment><USER5> Yes. I know. However those places also aren't aggressive about upgrading their Erlang versions unless there's a critical patch, and even then sometimes those are back-ported by the places creating, maintaining, and deploying their Erlang systems/software (such as one of my previous employers).

Additionally, these changes are largely superficial, not functional. They're in the "make it pretty" part of the "first make it work, then make it pretty, then make it fast" ethos.

It's purely developer experience focused of course. The machine doesn't care what order the arguments are in. Well that may not be entirely true. I'd have to look more closely at the function-head matching implementation to see if there's some benefit or hinderance in putting non-scalar types first in the argument list... but that would be in the "make it fast" part that comes later ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In case anyone else is wondering, here is some actual code:

[https://github.com/oubiwann/los/blob/master/examples/no- macr...](https://github.com/oubiwann/los/blob/master/examples/no- macros/object-via-closure.lfe)

</comment><comment><USER7> Had he named it LIFE, it would feel sooo satisfying :)

</comment><comment><USER8> For those looking to learn the basics of Lisp and macro programming from the 'bare essentials', you might be interested in my "The Order of Symbols", a WIP course I'm developing:

[http://busfactor1.ca/bin/eturia/lib/sigil/the-order-of- symbo...](http://busfactor1.ca/bin/eturia/lib/sigil/the-order-of- symbols.txt.html)

Feedback appreciated.</comment>


Google C++ Style Guide - <AUTHOR> http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml#Enumerator_Names

<comment><USER2> And for a whitespaces, line-lengths this great tool can be used: [http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormat.html](http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormat.html)

clang-format-diff.py -i -style=Google -regexp= _.cc|_.h</comment>


Popcorn Time app shuts down amid threats of video piracy - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/popcorn-time-app-shuts-down-amid-threats-of-video-piracy-194137379.html <comment><USER2> I bought a chromecast for nothing...</comment>


'Just Use a VPN' Isn't a Real Solution to [revoked] Broadband Privacy Protection - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170327/09244537008/just-use-vpn-isnt-real-solution-to-gops-decision-to-kill-broadband-privacy-protections.shtml <comment><USER2> This may be a minor nitpick, or it may be unwarranted entirely, but is the discourse of broadband protections being "revoked/rolled back/taken away" even accurate? It's been my understanding that the rules governing consumer broadband privacy weren't even on the books at _all_ , and weren't planned to be for quite some time.

Have I been misunderstanding this aspect of this story, and if so-does anyone have substantive reading material that I can go educate myself on?

Granted, the issue has done a good job exposing more evidence of the 'Our politicians have been bought and paid for' and other problems of broadband regulation.</comment>


The Return of the Stylus - <AUTHOR> http://statspotting.com/2012/12/the-return-of-the-stylus/ <comment><USER2> Not including a stylus with the iPhone and the iPad was brilliant from a marketing perspective. And not in a bad way by any means. It educated developers. It taught everyone that if a UI requires a stylus then there's something wrong with it.

The problem is that this idea shouldn't be taken to its logical extreme. Steve Jobs' phrase "If they include a stylus, they did it wrong"—or was that Bob Marley?—is analogous to "If your website requires a keyboard, it's broken". That is, it's a good design principle but you obviously don't want to apply it when the user wants to enter text (in your website) or scribble a note (in your tablet app).

So insofar this article points out that it's easier to write notes using a stylus than using a finger, it's kicking in a wide-open door.

But I'm not convinced that it's easier to use a stylus than a finger to tap buttons.

Unfortunately this article doesn't go into this issue. In fact, it unnecessarily obscures it: "Try taking a screenshot, scribble some notes on that, and email it. Do it on a touch-only device, and then try it on the Note II. You will see the difference."

Mind you, I would love it if the iPad had support for styluses. I can definitely think of an application or two that would benefit! What I don't want, though, is to end up wondering where I put my stylus all the time.

<comment><USER3> > But I'm not convinced that it's easier to use a stylus than a finger to tap > buttons.

I have an stylus based ereader. It is great to get some document and make notes all over it. For example, it is great to put a circuit diagram in it, and then redraw lines, add parts, draw arrows, etc. It feels like paper, except that it's slower and easier to erase.

You don't get that with a keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Steve Jobs only really meant that if you need a stylus for most tasks on your device, you're doing it wrong. But I think pens with active digitizers can be very useful for certain tasks, and if Apple were smart about this, they'd enable it in a future iPad and sell such pens as accessories to the iPad.

They know very well that they have a ton of artists using iPads in their userbase, and a lot of drawing apps, too. I don't think they have a good reason for not making active digitizer pens for their iPad other than the fact that they don't want to seem like hypocrites after Steve Jobs' comment. But hey - it's already too late for that. They've already made a 7" tablet, too - so they _are_ hypocrites - and might as well do this, too.

I think we'll see Samsung expand on the pen idea in the coming year (rumors point to Galaxy S4 having a stylus, too), and I intend to buy a next-gen Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet next year, as well as recommend one for a fashion designer friend. I wish they were Google-blessed Nexus devices, so I don't have to deal with the Samsung-only custom apps for the S-pen, but it doesn't look like Google cares too much about active digitizer pens right now, and Samsung's Note devices and their S-pen are currently the best on the market for this.

<comment><USER5> As what I would describe as a "semipro" artist, I would not use an ipad to draw, because the latency isn't good enough yet. People might play with it, but no professional can use it until the latency is about 10 times better than it currently is.

<comment><USER6> Some would beg to differ: <http://ipadsinart.weebly.com/professional-ipad- artists.html>

<comment><USER7> It's not exactly precision art is it? It's only even mildly interesting because it's art under a heavy constraint. You could paint a picture using a 3' log instead of a paintbrush if you want to, but that doesn't make 3' logs a particularly good artistic instrument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It might be that - hang on for this - some tasks are better suited to stylus and some to finger pointing. Having used stylus on my Palm VII, I was basically 'meh' about it - it worked, but wasn't ideal for many tasks. We may be entering a period where computing power and resolution make stylus-input superior for certain tasks.

</comment><comment><USER9> I really miss the stylus input on the old NEC Versa Litepad tablet. Combined with its great handwriting recognition, I could actually do some serious editing of PDFs in Acrobat and writing in OneNote. Contrast that with an iPad (mini and maxi) and GoodReader, where it's slow and laborious to even mark up a PDF, and I've tried several different stylus products.

</comment><comment><USER10> Followed by the return of the mouse and back to ground zero where to be honest we were all quite happy to start with before everyone decided to rip off star trek the next generation.

</comment><comment><USER11> This article is right and wrong at the same time. There are numerous accessories for iOS and Andriod devices that make daily use easier, like the Bluetooth keyboard and metallic tip gloves. While the stylus is useful (at least according to the article), I think it should really be classified as another accessory and not a revolutionary blast from the past. Also, to the author's challenge of taking a screenshot and writing a note on it I respond, 1) this isn't a practical use case and 2) there are numerous apps that add a note or caption to your photo with greater legibility than my own penmanship.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have the note and i would have to agree with the article. I don't think "scribble some notes on a screenshot" is supposed to be a typical use case, it is just one that will demonstrate the benefit of a stylus quickly.Having used the stylus for a while I definitely prefer it and tend to miss it on other devices.

The stylus does have some lag to it and you have to get used to not seeing your writing show up immediately. When you see your writing hasn't showed up yet you tend to stop or slow down which isn't necessary, just keep writing and trust it will show up. I know that sounds terrible but it's really not.

<comment><USER13> I found it pretty terrible, but I didn't really commit to using the device, just played with it for awhile in the store.

Which is of course why the iPhone was so brilliant. Current stylus technology still can't create a paper-like, pleasant writing experience, while capacitive touchscreen technology can create a pretty good direct manipulation experience. People aren't going to commit to getting over the learning curve after the unpleasant in store experience just because of the theoretical advantages of the stylus.

<comment><USER14> Its not just the stylus technology: the screen themselves are glass. How often have you written on a glass? Maybe with a marker...

I'm used to the textured feel of paper and the pleasant friction b/w the pen and paper when writing on it. On glass, it just slips... However, I guess that's just something of a habit. Maybe for future generations, brought up with touchscreen enabled laptops, it will feel more natural.

<comment><USER13> It's not just habit, writing is just easier on paper. The texture of the paper does two things while you're writing: provide continuous feedback and provide resistance. Delicate movements are a little bit easier when you have some resistance to work against. That's why steering wheels these days still have a lot of push back, even though they're electronic and could be designed to turn much more easily. Moreover, the feel of the pen moving across the textured paper gives the body an additional source of information about which direction the pen is moving in and how fast. This allows for more precise control versus just depending on sight and proprioception.

<comment><USER15> _> That's why steering wheels these days still have a lot of push back, even though they're electronic_

I thought power steering was still hydraulic. Are you saying we have "fly by wire" cars?

<comment><USER13> Many popular cars have electric power steering (most new Toyotas, many Chevys, even some BMWs). A sensor monitors the position of the wheel and drives an electric motor to turn the wheels. They're not completely fly by wire, because the motor augments a traditional mechanical linkage, but that goes back to wanting to maintain the feel of mechanical steering (and also to provide redundancy).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I loved and miss the stylus on my palm devices. Accurate, natural, and you can use your fingernail if you lose the stylus.

Touch always felt like a blunt instrument to me, and blind because my finger hides what my finger is touching.

</comment><comment><USER17> I agree that the stylus needs to come back. There are just too many tasks that could be better implemented on a tablet with a stylus to ignore it. It should also be noted that Apple flip flops all the time. If they want the iPad to truly be the defacto tablet for the next decade, incorporating stylus input is going to be important. I have the More/Real stylus (<http://more-real.com>) and it works really well, but it's still technically a hack for your finger.

</comment><comment><USER18> _The Return of the Stylus_

Can think of a certain company crossing its fingers, hoping to hear this statement repeated oft in 2013... what with the impending release of the Surface Pro

</comment><comment><USER19> The interface for iPhone and a lot of iPad apps would not benefit from a stylus. Buttons are huge. That Samsung device has teeny tiny buttons which requires a stylus. There are only two things I think that can benefit from a stylus and that is handwriting (do we really need to do this? It's slower, harder to read, and very constrained on a small device) and drawing (probably only necessary on iPad). Styluses also require you to hold the device in a new way. No more one handed use. You have to hold the device flat on a surface or in the palm of your secondary hand while you use this stylus in your dominant hand to point. Also, unlike a pencil or pen on paper, the small screen will not allow you to rest the side of your hand on a surface. I can't imagine how tiring it will be to keep your hand in this position for more than a few moments. I think you're mistaking something being different and temporarily fun to explore from something actually being better.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have a stylus for use on my iPad ($1 on Ebay).

Using a stylus is better for drawing and browsing, but typing is still much faster with fingers. Since using an iPad involves a lot of typing and it's pushed as a communication device, I guess that is why Apple don't push the stylus.

<comment><USER21> That's why Palm devices had Graffiti, which is wayyyyy better than typing on this stupid on-screen-always-too-small keyboards (Gad I hate those. I really hate typing on a screen).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What kind of use case is "scribble some notes on a screenshot?" If I want to talk about the contents of a screenshot, I'll just type in a note along with the email. Even with the S-Pen, handwriting isn't really legible unless you write awkwardly slow.

<comment><USER22> OK then. Draw a couple of arrows on a screenshot or annotate/highlight some parts.

That's a pretty common usecase. Common enough for a whole class of apps such as Skitch etc.

<comment><USER13> You can do that just fine with your fingers.

<comment><USER23> You can eat just fine with your fingers, yet most people prefer utensils.

<comment><USER2> Not in India and Africa. And even in the West there are many dishes that people prefer to eat with their hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Weird article. "Try taking a screenshot, scribbling some notes on it, and emailing it." Well, sure, styluses are good at things suited to styluses, such as handwriting. Try taking a screenshot, writing 500 words of commentary on the UI, and emailing it -- that's going to be far easier with a keyboard. Does that mean keyboards will be the next hot accessory?

Also, when Jobs did his big reveal, many stylus-based devices had awful resistive screens ("awful" and "resistive" both being descriptive of the screen -- resistive can be good). That's what the accuracy comment was aimed at.

<comment><USER25> "Does that mean keyboards will be the next hot accessory?"

Errr.... yes? I assume you meant that as some sort of bizarre out-there statement that was obviously wrong, but I don't think it is. I'm seeing more of the keyboard covers in my local iPad users set and I doubt they are going to be an aberration for long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If the stylus input devices are indeed so useful, why weren't mice replaced in the desktop market?

<comment><USER27> If mice are so useful, why weren't steering wheels replaced in the car market?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> My main gripe with scribbling down using a stylus is the huge lag that seems to exist between the stroke and the curve appearing on the screen. It seems to me that that's the thing that keeps me going back to pen and paper.

<comment><USER29> There was a great video on this by Microsoft Research- basically, you have to get the lag down to 1ms for it to feel like you're really writing or moving a physical object. The iPhone 5 is 23ms according to a quick Google.

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/9/2856795/microsoft-high- perf...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/9/2856795/microsoft-high-performance- touch-research)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > "Try taking a screenshot, scribble some notes on that, and email it."

This only matters if such a multi-step flow is a large human need. I'm not sure it is.

<comment><USER15> If this was quick and easy, I could see it becoming a major form of communication. Since everyone has a computer/camera/Internet communicator in their pocket, the reason people don't is probably because the interface leaves something to be desired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Speaking as a smart phone user, I hope the mechanic of using your fingers as the control scheme for small flat surfaces will be retrospectively seen as a failed experiment, and eventually forgotten. I find the lack of tactile feedback to be awkward and a source of numerous mispresses. I don't think it's anything I'll ever "get used to", and hopefully I won't have to.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can one find an inexpensive consultant to assist new startup - <AUTHOR>

I am an co-creator of a prosumer tech blog, I have recieved a few products to review like phones, cameras, Bluetooth earpieces,etc.  I am seeking the assistance of a consultant that won't break my pockets to assist in taking the blog to the next level.
Check out the site and let me know where one could improve.
www.techguysmartbuy.blogspot.com <comment><USER2> Check out odesk / elance / freelancer?</comment>


Hack Reactor: Call for Open-Source Projects - <AUTHOR> http://gist.io/5940512

<comment><USER2> Any particular language that they are working in?

<comment><USER3> Javascript/Coffeescript</comment></comment>


Apple's new Android app: Move to iOS - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.movetoios&hl=en <comment><AUTHOR> Whereas in the Apple App Store:

"Apps or metadata that mentions the name of any other mobile platform will be rejected."

[https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/](https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/)</comment>


A DSLR Catechism - <AUTHOR> http://textism.com/2008/08/31/a.dslr.catechism

<comment><USER2> Left out the hell that is dust on your sensor.

<comment><USER3> oh yeah, i'm dealing with that on the top right of my D80's sensor. light puffs of air don't move it. will probably ship off to Nikon for super cleaning.

<comment><USER4> Same with my D80 as well. I just tell myself its not that obvious and ignore it... I'm afraid I'll break it by cleaning it myself!

<comment><USER5> Any word on the dust-removing-sensor-vibrate-feature on recent(ish) DSLR's?

<comment><USER4> Its better than nothing. But its no panacea.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


An ominous American future imagined - <AUTHOR> http://theweek.com/articles/655708/after-trump-loses-ominous-american-future-imagined <comment><USER2> The implication behind this article is that any sort of unrest would be completely Donald Trump's fault. But what people seem to forget is that Donald Trump has a reason for waiting to cede the presidency. Gore lost the election even though he got the popular vote. There were massive irregularities in the Democratic primaries, and the media has been biased and partisan, mostly in favor of Hillary Clinton, since the beginning.

I understand why some people are afraid of his hesitance. I hope they at least understand the reason he's doing so.

<comment><USER3> _> There were massive irregularities in the Democratic primaries_

[ Citation needed ]

I'm a politically aware Democrat, I supported Bernie Sanders (see [https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2016/02/this-blog-is-voting- for-b...](https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2016/02/this-blog-is-voting-for-bernie- sanders/)), and I saw no compelling evidence to believe that the primaries were "stolen" from him in any meaningful sense.

He had an uphill climb in that the establishment party organs were aligned with Hillary, but that's been true for every insurgent candidate in every election ever. In the end he did better than anyone who supported him (including the man himself, I suspect) would have expected when he launched his campaign.

<comment><USER2> You're right to ask for citation. Put simply, there is no definitive proof that the primary was rigged per se, but there were consistent differences between the exit polling & the voting results. Almost all of the differences were in Secretary Clinton's favor, and these discrepancies were not found in the Republican primaries, nor were they found in the '08 primaries.

[http://www.snopes.com/stanford-study-proves-election- fraud-t...](http://www.snopes.com/stanford-study-proves-election-fraud- through-exit-poll-discrepancies/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This kind of hyperbole is ridiculous and very dangerous. Demonizing Trump's followers plays into his rhetoric and further inflames political division. People were saying the same stuff during Cheney et al. and none of it came to pass.

</comment><comment><USER5> > police unions had become more and more explicit in aligning themselves with > Trump and the militias.

Perhaps others have different perspectives on this, but my vision of a martial law future bills the police as supportive of the existing regime, from whence they draw their tax-funded salary, not a challenger whose installation would likely interrupt the same.

<comment><USER6> Usually so, but America is crazy exceptional in this regard.

If cops in America believe that by supporting the government they are supporting an evil government (which makes them be like SS) then they will not support the government this way.

The present situation (or the projected situation by the author) is even more exceptional in this regard because of clashing base of Hillary. Hillary is pro-BLM, which puts her at odds with the Police unions.

Trump has gained the endorsement of largest Police Union in America. However he lags in support from Armed forces in comparison of other Republican Presidential candidates (however he beats Hillary hands down despite of that [1]).

1\. [http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/election/2016/05...](http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/election/2016/05/09/military- times-survey-donald-trump-beats-hillary-clinton/84132402/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "...sporadic left-wing violence..." I think that was a typo. It should have read "never ending left-wing violence"

</comment><comment><USER8> If this is our depressing future I prefer the one in Idiocracy.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is from July

<comment><AUTHOR> July 2019</comment></comment>


The lesson from the ruins of Notre Dame: don't rely on billionaires - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/18/ruins-notre-dame-billionaires-french-philanthropy <comment><USER2> It might have been something like 100 years since Notre Dame's last major reconstruction; it isn't completely beyond the realm of possibility that nobody remembers _how_ to build a French Gothic cathedral.

It is all very well to impugn the rich, but if literally none of them have offered up a single cent there probably is a reason. Given the sums involved, it would be irresponsible to just heap money on someone who didn't have a plan or specific request for what the money was going to be for. 'Rebuilding' is a very general term that doesn't cover any of the who/what/why/how-s of project management.

And the idea that the donors want some sort of creative influence isn't as bad as it sounds. I'm put vaguely in mind of the Eiffel tower when it was opposed as the "useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower" by artists of the time. Great works create their own dignity after the fact.

<comment><USER3> >"Given the sums involved, it would be irresponsible to just heap money on someone who didn't have a plan or specific request for what the money was going to be for."

Then they should explicitly say so and press whoever is responsible for the rebuild to draw up and publish such plans. Perhaps drawing up those plans is one of the costs that has to be met in the first place; perhaps what those plans are depends upon the sums at the dispense of the cathedral; perhaps they already exist.

>"And the idea that the donors want some sort of creative influence isn't as bad as it sounds. I'm put vaguely in mind of the Eiffel tower when it was opposed as the "useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower" by artists of the time. Great works create their own dignity after the fact."

I don't think the primary claim is an aesthetic one, that art funded by the rich fails on artistic grounds. It is a political one. The rebuilding of France's greatest national monument should not be under the control of a few billionaires, or treated like a grand pendant for their self-glorification.

<comment><USER2> It is a church, where the founding text of that religion has all sorts of injunctions to go and donate to the needy. Having a christian cross made of gold already embeds a bit of tension in the whole project.

The building of Notre Dame is going to be an exercise in someone showing off. The questions of who and why are only important as far as they impact the artistic integrity of a very grand building. I'll admit to not seeing a difference between politicians showing off, billionaires showing off or the Catholics showing off. The result will be a monument to the pride and ability of the French people.

<comment><USER3> I think there is a real difference between France as a nation creating a marvelous aesthetic object, and a handful of billionaires doing so. In the first case the focus isn't on the individual but the collective, and ideally on its better qualities. In the second, it is necessarily on the individuals, whose wealth and status exists at the expense of that of most everyone else. One is the correlate of democracy; the other is more reminiscent of despotism. That's my view, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How about 'don't rely on bureaucrats who create faulty fire detection, alert and communication procedures'?[0]

[0][https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/16/world/europe/...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/16/world/europe/notre- dame.html)

<comment><USER5> Noone relied on billionaires until they went out of the blue and announced huge donations. If they had just shut their mouth, we would be doing just as well with a different financing in mind.

The article is about the less than honorable practice of such publicity stunts, and not about blaming anyone about the fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There could be bad reasons why the pledges haven't been paid out yet (they never intended to give the money.) There could be good reasons why the pledges haven't been paid out (they want to know how much is needed and what it will be used for, or no one knows how much is needed yet.) I don't know which it is and the article isn't interested in telling me. He just uses the situation as an opportunity to complain about people he doesn't like.

<comment><USER7> Well if they reason they don't give the money is because they don't know how much is needed ... Well surely they didn't know at the time of pledge either?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of the Council on Jobs and Economic Competitiveness established by the Federal Government in 2009. This group, which included some of the biggest CEOs then and now, such as Jeff Immelt from GE (led to the group), met 4 times across 5 years.

No statement beyond a press release announcing the creation of the group was ever drafted. Nothing was ever done beyond 2 televised 60 minute meetings. The group officially shutdown in 2013.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Council_on_Jobs_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Council_on_Jobs_and_Competitiveness)

</comment><comment><USER9> The Church itself is where one can find the money that they should be relying on. They're clearly less reliable than the billionaires who probably readily note that the Church has more than enough money to fix it back up themselves.

</comment><comment><USER10> We written piece reminding people that pledging money and donating it are two differents things.

Unsurprisingly all is about control and taking. The billionaire don't want to donate they want to invest, they want to own the cathedral.

As usual, the rich don't really care.

<comment><USER11> The few really rich people I have known think about making and keeping money all the time, to a far greater extent than ordinary people. (This may not be a representative sample of all super-rich people of course). I worked with one who promised a generous share of the company, and then when I fell from favour spent all his efforts on taking it back. And succeeded - the painful lesson I learned from that at age 24 was always read every line of the contract you're signing.</comment></comment>


HTTP Access to Email Stores - <AUTHOR> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-dusseault-httpmail-00

<comment><AUTHOR> We're not talking about webmail here, but direct access by HTTP request, either from a website or a desktop/mobile client. Some other relevant links for this:

<http://blog.gaborcselle.com/2010/02/how-to-replace-imap.html>

<http://blog.webhooks.org/2009/02/13/restful-email-over-http/>

HTTP has had about 20 years of use, development, testing - culminating in SPDY now, which could get even 40% faster in some cases. I'm not sure I can think of a good reason _not_ to make the switch.

<comment><USER2> There's probably more overhead in the request via HTTP than there is via IMAP, to be honest. I can't see any reason to make this switch other than being able to support port 80.

<comment><USER3> The reason is to write standardized webmail applications and other javascript apps that want to interact with the email universe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How about we get rid of all the MIME/XML stuff and just represent emails as JSON objects?

The end.

<comment><USER5> JSON is a MIME type.

<comment><USER6> application/json

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If we're going to keep moving more and more apps from native to Web-based, I think we're going to see a lot more of this (standardizing an existing service to be accessible over HTTP), since WebSockets can't connect to any raw TCP sockets (and they shouldn't, that would be terrible security-wise) and WebRTC has the same approach: a protocol of its own with its own handshake & rules.

Better that than have everyone builds its own incompatible HTTP / REST API for common services.

I do wonder if there's any big companies like Google which have pledged to support this spec?

</comment><comment><USER8> Didn't Outlook Express use some sort of DAV HTTP protocol to retrieve email from Hotmail?

<comment><USER9> Exchange also supports WebDAV - Outlook web access uses(d?) it. In fact, this became one of the easiest ways of integrating with Exchange server. Now that Exchange 2007+ has a full web services API, I hear the DAV stuff has been deprecated.

<comment><USER10> And I don't think it is in Exchange 2010

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not familiar with the IETF process, but it says "Expires: April 27, 2009"

With that said, I've been exploring the concept a while back myself. I tend to think of email as the largest "social" network in the world, and I think it's good to give it a sexy web face, and then extend it.

<https://github.com/pepijndevos/Wemail>

</comment><comment><USER12> FYI, Context.io does something similar to this. I know a few YC companies use them.

</comment><comment><USER13> What is the mark up language used for this plain text file? I really like the format of these minimalist 1 page documents.

<comment><USER14> I don't think there's a language, I believe it's just plain-text that gets marked up by rfcmarkup[1].

[1]: <https://tools.ietf.org/tools/rfcmarkup/></comment></comment>


Calico – Like Cat, but for Colors - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ix/calico <comment><USER2> Developer here - thanks for the interest in my project!

I intend to revisit it soon and make it easier to add parsers for different palette formats, as well as a bit of housekeeping (mostly explicit imports ^^)</comment>


Ask HN: How feasible is it for an "Average Joe" to create a start, really? - <AUTHOR> I've had a side project for awhile.  A fairly big name in the project's field wrote me a check out of the blue (with no contract / other things that might limit me in the future) to help fund it.  It wasn't a very large check in the grand scheme of things, but it was appreciated.  It showed me that my project (which is in an area not many people work with / are aware of) was appreciated.
I fantasize now and then about turning this project into a business.  I think it could be a profitable, but it would take a couple of years of development.  But there are some things that make creating a startup seem infeasible.
Problem 1: Funding doesn't seem reasonably attainable.
YC offers an interesting program (as you all know), but the funding level (just over 100k, if I remember right) isn't enough to hire programmers and support staff, rent space in the cloud,  etc.
There's business loans, but taking on the risk myself (presumably going into a huge amount of debt if I fail) makes it seem not worth the risk.
Getting investment from "angels" seems daunting.  It seems that professional businessmen, not tech guys like myself, are capable of navigating this.
Problem 2: Insurance. I work for a great company now, with good health benefits for my family.  To maintain this level of care, I'd have to spend a lot every hear (I'm in the US).
In short, I wonder if there are really, truly, reasonable ways for the "average programmer" without rich friends or relatives to start a business with his / her idea. <comment><USER2> Your only options are

1) Do it yourself

2) Find funding, hire people.

YCombinator funding is ridiculously low, so maybe try and talk to other VCs.</comment>


Memoto: Secrets of a half-million-dollar Kickstarter campaign - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/02/memoto-secrets-of-a-half-million-dollar-kickstarter-campaign/

<comment><USER2> There was excellent thought experiment/one-off drama on how a product like this could affect employment and relationships in the future. "The Entire History of You" aired on British TV last year [1]. It was written by one of Peep Show's [2] writers, a sitcom that uses solely point of view shots.

If you have access to 4OD (by being in the UK or otherwise) you can watch the episode online [3].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_(TV_series)#3._.22...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_\(TV_series\)#3._.22The_Entire_History_of_You.22)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peep_Show_(TV_series)>

[3] [http://www.channel4.com/programmes/black-mirror/episode- guid...](http://www.channel4.com/programmes/black-mirror/episode- guide/series-1/episode-3)

</comment><comment><USER3> They claim 2000 cameras 'sold' thru their campaign. I thought Kickstarter explicitely says they are not a store? I don't get it.

<comment><USER4> It's a very murky and gray area, but I think everyone but Kickstarter would agree that they're currently on the wrong side of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Total amount pledged: $550,189 ... Number of cameras sold: 2,346

In relation to the cameras "sold" (i.e., promised) to backers this figure seems much more down to earth. It comes out at about $235 per camera. Depending on how much the production will actually cost (I didn't see any estimates), this may even be quite tight.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not trying to belittle this project, but I don't get its appeal. The magic of pictures, for me, are perfectly timed ones, not blurry and random photographs or storing and going through 3k pics/day to check "today's good one"

Has anybody done some research on the product? Could you please give me a briefing of why it's better than a camera on your phone?

I only see drawbacks: from the fact that you have some geeky-cyberpunk look because there is a camera hanging from your neck; legal implications ("is that a camera? can you turn it off please?"), etc. I, for one, don't like the prospect of people knowing I'm recording everything.

Thanks

<comment><USER7> I'm actually rather keen to get one. I guess the appeal for me is A) a neat toy for particular occasions, and B) personal ideas of using less-subjective feedback for understanding and controlling myself toward goals. But I want to see some example pictures from the actual device before committing money to it.</comment></comment>


Novel Coronavirus Fighting Products List [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.americanchemistry.com/Novel-Coronavirus-Fighting-Products-List.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, link to the list/PDF is broken somehow. Here is the file that matters:

[https://docdro.id/Ncqj2y0](https://docdro.id/Ncqj2y0)

CONTEXT: Shortly after I posted that link the PDF with the actual list of cleaners was replaced with just a press release. A link provided within the press release did not produce the list at all. That's why I uploaded the PDF to an alternative site.

I just checked, it looks like they fixed it.

While I appreciate the sole down-vote, c'mon folks, chill a bit. You got someone trying to be helpful and all you can think about is down-voting? Wow.</comment>


CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-15/oil-tycoon-harold-hamm-wanted-scientists-dismissed-dean-s-e-mail-says <comment><USER2> One of the biggest problems with politics is that politicians need to raise a lot of money to get (re)elected. That money comes with strings attached, which makes it difficult for our politicians to make good decisions.

I had never considered that the same problem exists in academia, but apparently it does. Hamm has donated tens of millions to the University of Oklahoma, and it's pretty obvious he's trying to use his money to influence the direction of the University. I'm surprised it isn't working.

<comment><USER3> _> I'm surprised it isn't working._

Remember this next time someone suggests getting rid of tenure or cutting federal research funding. Especially for areas of research that are politically or economically hot (climate/environment, privacy, etc.)

<comment><USER4> This is actually the main reason for tenure. It is to protect intellectual freedom. Granted, nowadays due to excessive abuses by lazy faculty, the whole system is likely to die a slow death.

<comment><USER5> > due to excessive abuses by lazy faculty, the whole system is likely to die a > slow death.

That's true of a lot of systems; Tenure, unionization, welfare. It becomes easy to stir people in to a frenzy to eliminate the freeloader problem while the question of whether the institution is too important to care about freeloaders remains ignored. In all the cases, perhaps freeloaders are just part of the price for a valuable system, and we should accept it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> ""Mr. Hamm absolutely did not ask to be on the search committee or to have anyone from Continental put onto the committee, nor did he ask that anyone from the Oklahoma Geological Survey be dismissed," [Vice President of Public Affairs of University of Oklahoma Catherine Bishop] wrote.

Email, just paragraphs earlier in the article, from Hamm, _verbatim_ : "I would be very interested and willing to sit on your search committee."

But I guess it's not asking if there's no question mark?

<comment><USER7> If you get caught doing something like this, you might as well just blatantly lie. You won't make it worse, and at least some people will believe your lie. Why not try it? (Aside from morals, but it seems we can hardly rely on that.)

<comment><USER8> Actually, that's not a bad approach. Most people ingest small pieces of news through headlines or whatever the talking heads spout out every ten minutes.

So, lying about it gets you at least a portion of people on your side, because they'll never dig in even a cursory manner, and just believe what they're told.

I assume older folks are susceptible through those yelling news talk shows. I wonder what the impact of click-bait headlines and what-not are for the younger set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If something related to fracking ever appears on my ballot, I'll vote against the frackers not because I necessarily think there is anything wrong with fracking, but rather because they have worked hard to make it harder for us to find out if there _is_ anything wrong with fracking.

In addition to trying to hamper research into the possible connection between fracking and earthquakes, they have worked hard to prevent scientists from finding out what exactly they are putting in the ground (each company has its own proprietary formula for the fluids they use). This means when investigating the possibility of fracking fluids getting into drinking water, the scientists cannot look at what is in the water and match it to what the frackers put in the ground. Sadly, we've put so much stuff into the ground for such a long time, that it is actually possible that it is _not_ fracking that is a source of the contamination where drinking water has been found to be contaminated near fracking sites.

I have a similar policy on ballot issues related to guns. Congress, as a result of NRA lobbying, has made it so there is almost no government funding available for research into gun violence, which is one of the biggest reasons that we have no idea if gun control is helpful, harmful, or neutral.

</comment><comment><USER10> Corruption like this is where the mob mentality of social media should come down on people with the temerity to try such shenanigans. People are great at dumping a ton of bricks on their neighbor who muttered a faux pas du jour, get them fired over uncorroborated claims, but important things, substantiated things like this, and all that righteousness of masses evaporates and only but a few care to express disapproval.

This kind of corrupt behavior needs to become unpalatable and intolerable, not just a cause du jour.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why must nature be so anti-corporate? Guy just wants to drill a few wells.

<comment><USER12> Nature is a socialist.

<comment><USER13> Nature is really the ultimate capitalist. Survival of the fittest. No safety nets, no sympathy for the losers... they just go extinct.

<comment><USER14> It's not that black and white. Ant colonies are ultimate socialist societies - communist even. _From each ant according to its ability, to each according to its need_

<comment><USER15> Too much anthropomorphism. Ant colonies aren't a socialist society, they are an organism. One ant is no more capable than one human cell.

<comment><USER16> Too much "ant-thropomorphism"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sitting here in Dallas, Texas...we just had a 3.3 mag shake our tower just today. All of the Earthquakes are coming from mostly one main area of the DFW metroplex...which is an area that has a lot of fracking activity. This is getting stupid..property is being destroyed. Foundations are being cracked and these companies just get off with it while homeowners have to spend thousands to have repairs done.

A city directly north of the DFW metro, Denton, has actually banned fracking all together. Except the Texas state government already has a bill that will not allow cities to ban fracking. Talk about corruption and politics...the same money that's in Oklahoma is behind the politics here in Texas as well.

</comment><comment><USER18> What's the point of capitalism if you can't buy the research staff at a flagship state university? Because free markets!

</comment><comment><USER19> Coal mines cause earthquakes as well [1]. Not sure if anyone has ever used that as a reason to stop doing it.

[1] [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070103-mine-...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070103-mine- quake.html)

<comment><USER20> A casual google search tells me that there are about 1k coal mines in the US. The number of oil/gas wells that use fracking seems to range somewhere between 50k and 1.1m.

<comment><USER21> Alas, I'm not aware of better numbers.

> There are approximately 550 Class I wells in the United States. (Municipal > Waste)

> The approximately 144,000 Class II wells in operation in the United States > inject over 2 billion gallons of brine every day. Most oil and gas injection > wells are in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Enhanced recovery > wells are the most numerous type of Class II wells, representing as much as > 80 percent of the approximately 151,000 Class II wells. (Oil & Gas related)

> There are about 165 mining sites with approximately 18,500 Class III wells > in operation across the nation. (Mining via leaching)

[http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/](http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What is the point of research / science if we dismiss it at the cost of generating money?

I find myself asking this question all the time. I feel that capitalism shouldn't be the end goal, with a profit motive. It got us to where we are today, but I do not think it is going to take us where we need to go now or in the future.

<comment><USER23> _[Capitalism] got us to where we are today._

What got us here today was a kludge of many different things. Often proclaiming to be one thing while being something different. Markets arise everywhere where there is demand and supply. So there was always some capitalism even if it was outlawed or frowned upon. At the same time, families are everywhere and the ones I know follow planned socialistic economies.

</comment></comment><comment> green-in-gold Biggest surprise to me is that it's Bloomberg reporting this. A signal that the mainstream corporate media is starting to care about climate change?</comment>


Ask HN: Light weight project management tools - <AUTHOR>

I've been using Unfuddle.com and I have been mostly content with it's features. Simple ticketing, git repo, milestones. The only thing it's lacking is a simple non-repo way to manage project documents - non git repo so that non-coders can manage them without learning git.
So I'm taking a look around to see what other developers are using for light weight project management for small teams (less than 10 people total) with multiple projects.
GitHub.com is a natural suggestion but it's too light on the PM feature set (milestones and tickets) for this kind of team work.
Jira is in my opinion too heavy. Same with RedMine and Trac.
Suggestions? <comment><USER2> Trelloapp is pretty intuitive and not bloated at all, might be worth giving it a try. Also there is the app interstate, YC backed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice apps. Both different takes on PM. I'm checking them out.</comment></comment>


Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alevchuk/vim-clutch <comment><USER2> I love seeing this. I worked in the university computing department in college and this sort of thing wasn't an uncommon sight under the desks. People also had all manner of exotic keyboards.

The most elite setup, as I recall, was the Kinesis Advantage combined with pedals. The keys on the Kinesis are recessed in these sort of cups that your fingers rest above. The idea is that this reduces the distance that your fingers travel moving between rows. I could never get the hang of typing on one of them, but people swore by them. Adding the pedals for shift/ctrl/esc was supposed to further reduce the need to stretch your fingers and get them into awkward positions. People also swore it made them faster and of course it looked and _sounded_ super cool.

<comment><USER3> Once you mastered the Kinesis Advantage you don't want to go back. Your hands move way less on the Kinesis than on a normal keyboard. Maybe this is also the reason why I always found the use of ESC in vim an odd choice, i.e. you have to move your hand to reach the ESC key. Moreover, the Kinesis has the arrow keys below the "c" "v" "m" "," keys so you can navigate without moving your hands, this is similar to vim but without the annoying mode switches.

<comment><USER4> > without the annoying mode switches.

Hmm, I've used Vi and other editors long enough that I find it annoying that most editors enter text when in normal mode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use a setup that's similar in spirit. My custom keyboard has palm keys (kind of like the [https://shop.keyboard.io/](https://shop.keyboard.io/)), which I have mapped to control and shift (on a mac). I have a Sublime Text keymap file that has a bunch of vim-like bindings under control, so basically it is like vim but the state of my palms is the editing state, holding one down is movement, both is selection. It's really nice.

You can see the keymap here: [https://github.com/trishume/SublimeTect/blob/master/Default%...](https://github.com/trishume/SublimeTect/blob/master/Default%20\(OSX\).sublime- keymap)

<comment><USER6> The keyboardio is the only keyboard I know of that has the palm keys, but I've been interested in buying or making a keyboard that has them. Any writup on your build?

<comment><USER7> I use the left control key on a full sized desktop keyboard as my "palm" key (I press it with the heel of my left hand). Being an Emacs user, it made my left pinky so much happier.

This doesn't work on laptops because of the low profile keys, so I stack some 3M "dual lock" squares on the control key to raise the profile. They can be removed (except for the one glued to key) when I need to close the laptop.

<comment><USER8> The Emacs keyboard chords were worked out on keyboards that had the Control keys nearest the Space bar - the intention was that you would use your thumbs to press the Control and Meta keys. Turns out this is really useful not just for Emacs but for any program that uses Control modifier shortcuts. I have not had any hand pain after doing this key remapping on my systems:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985932](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985932)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I converted a set of pedals for a dictation machine to work with my Kinesis keyboard.

It wasn't as useful as I expected. Having to keep my foot in the same place all the time became quite uncomfortable, and I found that synchronising my foot with my fingers (these pedals were configured as modifiers rather than escape - I mostly use Emacs) was quite difficult.

<comment><USER10> an intriguing experiment. I am playing the piano and don't expect to have difficulties synchronising the foot and the fingers. But I may be wrong!

<comment><USER9> I guess with practise it may well have improved. I just didn't find it comfortable enough to persevere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You should consider 2 "presses" for the pedal:

1) quick press-release: changes mode

2) long press-hold-release: changes mode on press and then changes mode back on release

This allows the user to not have to hold the pedal down if they dont want.

User can specify a time threshold used to determine the difference between a quick press and a long press

<comment><USER12> Perhaps if it's released before another key is pressed, the mode stays changed. If another key is pressed first, it changes back on release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The pedal idea is funny, but there are too many useful ways to enter insert mode (i, I, a, A, o, O, c, C, cc, cw, c2w, cit, ci), vi}c, vf.c, v0c, etc.). It seems like having a pedal for `i` would encourage a way of using vim that avoids the most efficient keybindings. I rarely press the `i` key to enter insert mode.

<comment><USER14> I had the exact same thought about the "clutch" aspect of this, but am wondering if simply having a foot pedal that issued ESC when tapped could still be of value. On most keyboards the ESC key is the longest reach with my shortest finger so it winds up requiring a wrist motion.

<comment><USER15> > On most keyboards the ESC key is the longest reach with my shortest finger > so it winds up requiring a wrist motion.

Try to learn using "Ctrl + [" instead of ESC. It helps.

[http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key](http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key)

<comment><USER16> Ctrl+C is even easier.

<comment><USER17> Only if you don't like/use modern shortcuts for System-wide clipboards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Even though I would probably never go though the effort of it, I am impressed and love the idea of it. One philosophy that I hear a lot of VIM users prescribing to is don't make too many custom changes to the bash file that you can't use someone else's computer. I wonder if you got used to this setup if you would find yourself pounding the floor on someone else's computer. I drove stick for years and still occasionally find myself with phantom clutch syndrome.

<comment><USER19> No serious user of Vim would ever suggest that you not customize it. It's worth knowing the basics of a stock Vim configuration for simple use cases on a new system or in an environment where you can't or don't want user config, but if you're writing software all day in a stock Vim configuration, you're a masochist or a fool.

<comment><USER20> As a beginning VIM user I started out with the stock keybindings idea. After using it for nearly a decade, my finding is that it's like learning multiple spoken languages. It's not hard to switch context and use vanilla VIM despite normally using lots of customization. But, I do try to keep things idiomatic and predictable and not override frequently used key bindings.

<comment><USER21> This has been my experience as well. My vimrc is full of little niceties that I could live without, but if I end up in a vim without my shortcut keys I'd be like 'Oh this again I guess I have to :bn :bn instead of <C-q><C-q>'

I haven't really forgotten any of the long form commands that I create shortcuts for, but it's really annoying using the long forms when typing them out over and over was the reason why I created shortcuts for them in the first place...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "During the day it calls itself a Vim Clutch, but at night its name is pornhubbrowserautohidepanic-button"

Nonetheless, it is a nice device, though I don't see myself relearning a muscle memory to use a pedal, which I will basically only have at home and/or work, but not when working somewhere remote on a notebook.

But if I had one, or had to use one, I'd probably bind ESC to it or alt+tab to cycle through 2 or 3 apps, editor/terminal/browser

</comment><comment><USER23> I once worked on a piece of lab equipment where I needed to fit a plate into a robotic dispenser and then click the button to "start program." I didn't want to keep switching my hands from the dispenser to the mouse so I wired up a piano pedal to the left mouse button and it improved the ergonomics significantly.

<comment><USER24> I've programmed AutoHotKey on my work PC to map pressing both shift keys at the same to double click the left mouse button at the pointer's current location.

<comment><USER24> Replying to myself to add:

So what I really need then is mouse cursor movement by eye tracking + both- shift-keys for left double click.

Why isn't eye tracking for mouse movement a thing yet?

<comment><USER25> It is, but the first party software is awful for it. The videos you linked below are a pretty primitive version of what's currently available.

My own project: [https://talonvoice.com](https://talonvoice.com) (only requires a single eye tracker, has realtime precise movement similar to the eye+head projects below, and integrates with a very fast and powerful voice control system).

[https://21clicks.net/share/-L5eU8SeIbUDcgsQa3_l](https://21clicks.net/share/-L5eU8SeIbUDcgsQa3_l) \- click Replay. This is completely hands-free using Talon's eye tracking and a noise recognizer (hiss to click). I consider what I have right now to be an unpolished tech demo, which will get significantly better as I cross many accuracy/speed TODOs off my list.

These projects require both a eye and head tracker (are still fast and precise):

\- [https://github.com/trishume/PolyMouse](https://github.com/trishume/PolyMouse)

\- [https://github.com/trishume/FusionMouse](https://github.com/trishume/FusionMouse)

\- [http://precisiongazemouse.com/](http://precisiongazemouse.com/)

Miscellaneous, not quite as well integrated:

\- [http://kinesicmouse.xcessity.at/](http://kinesicmouse.xcessity.at/)

\- [http://iris.xcessity.at/](http://iris.xcessity.at/)

<comment><USER24> This looks interesting, I'll have look later.

Thanks for reminding me of Dragon by Nuance. I first saw Dragon being used by a quadriplegic guy I used to work for. This was ~10 years ago, he had a bit of a speech impediment too and it worked reasonably well.

I occasionally think about Dragon and think it might be useful in my 2D CAD and laser cutter workflow. It actually seems reasonably priced, so maybe I'll give it a whirl.

<comment><USER25> When I say "fast and powerful", I mean what I've built which can use Dragon as a backend, not Dragon itself. Their user-facing command system is very limited (single trigger phrase, bad support for passing arguments to commands, must pause after talking). I have continuous recursive command recognition (you can say hundreds of commands in a minute, my record for perfect accuracy is ~280) and a command system that is leagues beyond Dragon's (and it's free on top of Dragon).

I plan to build/support professional workflows like CAD. I'd love to hear about your needs. I strongly believe eye + voice can greatly surpass keyboard/mouse in many environments.

<comment><USER24> I've sent an email to the one listed in your profile. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's not just speed. This also improves the usability of vim by turning insert mode into a pseudo-mode, which is a mode that requires constant interaction (depressing the pedal) to be maintained.

Pseudo-modes are generally much less error prone than normal modes, the canonical example being the shift vs. caps lock keys.

<comment><USER27> Do you have any literature on this being called a pseudo-mode and the tradeoffs between it and "real" modes? I am currently pretty interested in these kinds of topics.

<comment><USER26> I'm sorry, I don't know of any online resources (and after googling, it seems the more common term is "quasimode") but I can heartily recommend the book The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. It's a seminal book on designing interactions between humans and objects, and was required reading in my human- computer interaction class in college.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Map to control and you got yourself an Emacs pedal.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think emacs needs it more than vim. :)

<comment><USER29> That reminded me of this greentext: [https://i.imgur.com/WLzeQMj.png](https://i.imgur.com/WLzeQMj.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I did this a while ago as well: [https://github.com/aaronblohowiak/clutch](https://github.com/aaronblohowiak/clutch)

</comment><comment><USER31> I stole my wifes sewing machine foot-pedal for a similar project recently [https://github.com/tessi/programming_paddle](https://github.com/tessi/programming_paddle) (code there is hacky, don't jude ;))

It's an interesting and easy project to start soldering/arduino-fiddling. Parts can be purchased with approx. $25.

In comparison to the pedal used in the vim clutch, the sewing machine pedal has the advantage of not only having an on/off state, but returning the pedal- pressure (so half-ressed and all sorts of combos are possible).

Currently, I use it for sublime-text shortcuts (cmp+p on half-press and cmd+shift+p on deep-press) or for debugging (ctrl+d to continue code execution).

edit: typo

</comment><comment><USER32> The reason I learned how to use vi was it's ubiquity. If I develop muscle memory which requires carrying around a USB pedal I'm not going to have a good time on any but my own workstation. Not sure it's worth it.

</comment><comment><USER33> When I was first learning emacs and trying to figure out a sane way to type _double bucky_ [1][2] commands, I happened to read about a project like this for using pedals as modifier keys.

However, instead of using the obvious hardware approach for the time - probably using a couple momentary switch pedals and reading them from the parallel port - I had a much better^Wmore fun idea: use a MIDI organ pedal board[3]. I already had a MIDI interface (Midiman MM-401), and I had already dreamed of getting such pedals for regular keyboard use. Having 1-2 octaves available was plenty of room for all kinds of extra macros and/or hotkeys.

I was half way through writing a simple daemon that would listen for MIDI and send the appropriate synthetic X11 KeyPress/KeyRelease events when I finally looked into where I could buy a pedal board, and realized they were $600+ (in mid-90s dollars). ~sigh~

[1] e.g. "C-M-SPC" for mark-sexp

[2] [http://catb.org/jargon/html/D/double- bucky.html](http://catb.org/jargon/html/D/double-bucky.html)

[3] anything similar to this: [http://www.nordkeyboards.com/products/nord- pedal-keys-27](http://www.nordkeyboards.com/products/nord-pedal-keys-27)

<comment><USER34> My friend and I converted an old organ pedal board to digital using some magnets, reed switches, and an arduino. Mounting the reed switches on foam board was a fast easy hack. It did require a real organ seat though because of the length of the pedals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Great idea! I've messed around with things like this in the past, though I've used my pedals for music editing and DJ software. I opened sourced my last attempt, which includes a neat little python GUI to reprogram the keys ([https://www.manykey.org/](https://www.manykey.org/)).

Haven't tried foot keys with an editor, but it seems like once you integrated them into your workflow they would be quite useful.

</comment><comment><USER36> I tried something similar to this, but I didn't like it. After using it for a bit, I realized I often use commands other than i to get into insert mode. For example, I may use ci" to edit everything inside a pair of quotation marks. I wrote a bit more about my setup here: [https://jeffamcgee.com/using-a-vim- clutch.html](https://jeffamcgee.com/using-a-vim-clutch.html)

</comment><comment><USER37> Clearly what is needed is not a foot switch, but a true clutch a la piano/sewing pedal.

The farther down you press, the bigger the text size.

Great for presentations on stage too.

<comment><USER38> Why stop there? Why not grab a MIDI-powered Organ footboard and get a ton of switches?

You could probably use a bunch of them for programming macros, like moom layout shortcuts, class skeletons, lock-screen, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Around 2001 I made a pedal from Radio Shack parts and connected it to the Backspace key on an IBM Model M keyboard.

Why Backspace? It was a gift for a friend who had what we called Rusty Degenerative Typing Syndrome. His typo rate was just terrible.

The pedal did not improve his typing error rate but it night have saves hid friends a lot of contusion.

</comment><comment> a-b This project is very old. I tried it and it was funny at the beginning, but considering muscle memory this is not something I want to invest in the long run due to limited portability.

Remapped capslock to control and control + [ works much better.

Vim clutch does not work with standing desk setup ;) don't ask me how do I know that.

<comment><USER40> I'm imagining you at work trying to code standing on one foot while pressing on the other to insert characters. must be very graceful

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I tried this a few years back and really wanted it to work. Ended up ditching it though. My foot is too slow.

<comment><USER42> > I tried this a few years back and really wanted it to work. Ended up > ditching it though. My foot is too slow.

It seems like riding a bicycle or typing on a new keyboard. At some point, it becomes natural.

On a side note, I wonder since USB input is polled whether or not it would make sense to look for a toggle in the inputs rather than using two switches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Pretty awesome. I built one of these for world of warcraft to be my 'push to talk' key for teamspeak. Since I have used it for a variety of things. However I started with a standard pedal (1/4" phone plug type) and used a Cypress USB controller dev kit (free from one of their training classes) which had a small uP and a USB controller on it.

I'll have to see how 'clutch' mode works (I'm a VIM user). There was a person who showed off a hacked organ base pedal unit that had been improved to send keystrokes in a similar way.

For me I could see sending one, or two key strokes. Sending 10 or 12 seems like overkill.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is cool and all, but coming from the emacs world, all I want is a keyboard with four meta keys. Ctrl/alt/command/option maybe. All in a row to the left/right of the spacebar. That would be ideal.

<comment><USER33> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space- cadet_keyboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard)

Also, if you have a 104/105 key keyboard with "windows" and "menu" keys, you _do_ & have a keyboard with four modifier keys. From my .Xmodmap file:

        clear Mod1
        clear Mod3
        clear Mod4
        clear Mod5

        ! left alt -> Meta
        keycode 64 = Meta_L
        add Mod1 = Meta_L

        ! right alt -> Alt
        keycode 108 = Alt_R
        add Mod4 = Alt_R

        ! left windows -> Super
        keycode 133 = Super_L
        add Mod3 = Super_L

        ! right windows -> Hyper
        keycode 134 = Hyper_R
        add Mod5 = Hyper_R

Emacs uses all four automatically, as M- A- s- H- respectively. (alternatively, see: [http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_hyper_super_keys.html](http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_hyper_super_keys.html) )

<comment><USER45> Caution, that kills the ISO_Level3_Shift mapping on the regular 105 layout.

Much less intrusive solution is to leave Super_L, Alt_L, ISO_Level3_Shift as well as the control and shift keys unchanged and simply map Super_R to Meta_R and map Menu to Hyper_R.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> how about a myoelectric muscle sensor instead? something like [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13723](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13723)

</comment><comment><USER47> Actually I did think of the desirability of exactly this somewhere around 1984 or thereabouts. It didn't go further than a wish though because the only access to the Unix system that I'd installed for use by the group I managed was via dumb terminals and the DIY arena was nowhere near as rich as it is now. Especially in a building in a corn field somewhere between Rockford, IL and Belvidere, IL:-)

If wishes were fishes we'd all swim in riches. Really nice job moving beyond that!

</comment><comment><USER48> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4141410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4141410).

</comment><comment><USER49> I've thought of this for the shift keys, I find that certain key combinations that require shift are a lot more awkward for my hands to do and I wonder if year after year eventually that is going to give me arthritis or increase the chances of it. I think that with a pedal it might make +, -, {, }, (, ) etc much easier on the hands to complete since they account for the worst stretches my hands have to make.

<comment><USER50> > ... wonder if year after year eventually that is going to give me arthritis > or increase the chances of it.

This is precisely the reason I picked-up an ergodox [1] when my wrists started to hurt from `ctrl+whatever` key combos. moving modifier keys to the thumbs is so obviously superior I'm not sure why it's not more common.

admittedly it felt ridiculous to pay ~$250 for a keyboard (thanks, ebay), but now i almost never have to contort my wrists into weird angles &

[1] [https://www.ergodox.io/](https://www.ergodox.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> i is the simplest but not the only way to enter insert mode. o/O for new lines, c/R to replace text. An 'i-esc' foot pedal doesn't grok vi

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your- mos...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most- productive-shortcut-with-vim/1220118#1220118)

<comment><USER52> I too hated the need to press <Esc> all the time when I started with vi. It sounded as bad for wrists as the Ctrl key for Emacs.

The trick I've found (I don't remember where) and used ever since is to map the "kj" sequence to <Esc>, since it's otherwise unlikely in normal text. It's just a simple instruction in the vim config:

:imap kj <Esc>

That foot pedal is a cute project though.

<comment><USER53> Alt-l (lowercase L) works out of the box and doesn't move the cursor. I also map a press and release of capslock to escape for when I need that (it's control the rest of the time).

<comment><USER52> I just tried this and Alt-l seems to move to the line above (equiv. to Esc+l), Alt-J the line below, and in gvim it produces some accented characters for me. It would have been a good combination for finger movement though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This reminds me of an ArsTechnica story from some years back, $500 for some rugged steel pedals for a flight simualator:

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/want-high-end- flight...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/want-high-end-flight-sim- pedals-put-500-in-a-polish-bank-account-and-contact-slaw/)

</comment><comment><USER55> This is a surprisingly low tech solution. You could program a digispark to do this for $3.

Two USB ports and controllers just to press I and escape? Crazy.

</comment><comment><USER56> I use foot pedals used in the transcription space such as something a stenographer would use. Philips makes good foot pedals. They're pretty robust. There's utilities for reprogramming what the button press triggers, mine's set for copy / paste. Pedable is good, and there's an advanced tool called ControllerMate worth looking into.

</comment><comment><USER57> I have been really tempted by the ergodox ez, but really wish it supported pedal input as that would make a "pedal layer" super easy access.

I do play the organ and drums and have been most of my life, so maybe that's why the idea of having additional keys available via pedals is right up my alley :)

<comment><USER58> Hey, I have an ergodox ez. I'm wondering what you mean by "pedal layer". Like pressing the pedal would move you to another layer?

The ergodox does precisly that and supports up to 32 layers.

<comment><USER57> that's what I mean, having a pedal connector on the keyboard where I could plug a pedal in and use it to switch to a different ergodox layer (which as of now I assume you do just via another key). The kinesis does have a pedal input, but I don't think the ergodox ez has it, or does it? the website does not say anything about it...

<comment><USER58> My bad. No the ergodox doesn't has this.

<comment><USER57> no worries, who knows, maybe in a future revision it might

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> > Has anyone thought of this before?

Yes I overheard a conversation between two guys once where one talked about using a hardware pedal with Vim and the other jokingly replied "are you going to install a steering wheel and a gearshift also".

But in all seriousness I think a good pair of pedals could potentially be nice.

</comment><comment><USER60> It makes me wonder: Maybe a two-pedal system (ctrl and meta) for Emacs would avoid carpal tunnel issues.

<comment><USER7> I described a quick setup that helps me tremendously (see my comment elsewhere in the thread).

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> It's pretty cool, but all i can think of is that I would need different pedals for i, I, a and A, since I use them all about the same depending on where I want to edit.

</comment><comment><USER62> I always thought Emacs was the one that needed foot pedals.

</comment><comment><USER63> Back in the late 80's, my housemate told me about his coworker who made a footpedal ESC key to make his EMACS editing faster.

</comment><comment><USER64> I've thought about something like this for a long time. Not for coding but pc use and gaming.

<comment><USER65> Same here, always thought it would make a great push-to-talk button for voice chat.

<comment><USER66> If you are currently using your keyboard for push-to-talk and your mouse allows it, I highly recommend binding the/a side mouse button to push to talk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I want videos of people doing this.

<comment><USER68> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sYtX2x83sU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sYtX2x83sU)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hww3XorG418](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hww3XorG418)

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

<comment><USER67> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Wish there was a way to do this with iPad/ssh, maybe over Bluetooth?

</comment><comment><USER70> i always thought it would be awesome to switch between dvorak and qwerty using a pedal, where you keep switching between the optimal key layout for the next set of characters

<comment><USER71> use it with two pedals and you can make a 2 row keyboard, with the bottom row exclusively for space and modifiers

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Wrong. (being the first to do this that is.) One of the creators of the Zeus web server did this writing Zeus while in college. Still a great idea, and of course, vim is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER73> I couldn't use this because I only work on a laptop on a couch. I haven't sat at a desk in years. (And yes I also exercise to stay alive).

</comment><comment><USER74> (2012)

<comment><USER75> I was going to say, what's with the Mac Pro tower?!

<comment><USER76> I still use a Mac Pro tower at home. Put a Sandy Bridge CPU, 32GB ram and SSDs in raid, still runs great today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Last commit on the repo is 6-7 years ago, so a "(2011)" or "(2012)" tag would probably be apt.

<comment><USER48> Added. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> With this contraption you'll be nearly as efficient as out of the box Emacs!</comment>


Standup desk - <AUTHOR>

I am getting back pains and would like to try a standup desk - any recommendations / warnings?
I need something around 110cm (43 inches), but most desks I have looked at are not tall enough. <comment><USER2> Are you doing any exercise? You may want to work on strengthening your back and your core.

</comment><comment><USER3> Find out what the problem is first. A stand-up desk may make it worse.</comment>


Postico: A Modern PostgreSQL Client for OS X - <AUTHOR> https://eggerapps.at/postico/

<comment><USER2> Previously discussed [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9075827](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9075827) around the time it launched.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's improved since the last time I looked at it, so good work. A couple of issues I ran into:

1) if you have an empty blank line after a query, you get a syntax error

2) an option to expand column widths to match column name would be nice.

3) Perhaps I'm not getting it, but for ad hoc sql queries, I'd prefer a free form text window a la Toad or Squirrel, where the query that the cursor is on is the current query to be executed (via key binding). I switch back and forth between queries a lot, and it's useful to be able view several of them simultaneously. The current interface is feels way too limited and clumsy, imho. Being able to go forward/back in history is nice (though I need to be able to rebind the shortcut, as ctrl-cmd-left/ctrl-cmd-right are both bound to Spectacle), but not sufficient, imho. You need to be able to view multiple queries at a time.

4) An optional 'auto-limit' is an awesome feature of squirrel that allows you to do all sorts of queries quickly without having to always type "limit 1" or whatnot. I had forgotten how much I had relied on it until I tried using this and kept accidentally getting giant result sets.

5) Another nice to have (also in Squirrel) - autocomplete.

6) If you could pull up and instasearch the query history with like cmd-P (like sublime or atom) or something that would be amazing.

7) Essential: allow user to remap/redefine keyboard shortcuts.

Keep going! If one day this is sufficient to supplant Squirrel then I'll definitely buy it.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could also try SQLPro for Postgres [http://hankinsoft.com/SQLProPostgres/](http://hankinsoft.com/SQLProPostgres/)

There is a good review available at [https://www.compose.io/articles/tooltime- sqlpro-for-postgres...](https://www.compose.io/articles/tooltime-sqlpro-for- postgres-and-keylord-for-redis/)

Disclaimer that I am the dev.

<comment><USER5> I like this one a lot. Just two minor feedbacks:

\- I feel like there should be a default behavior (Select top 100 rows) when double clicking a table.

\- The app crash when querying a table with no data.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, I like the idea of the default behaviour for double click. I had never though of that.

Working on fixing the query with no data crash. I've seen it reported a few times, but haven't been able to reproduce it yet. I THINK I know whats going on though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I nearly bought this when it launched due to how frustrated I get with pgAdmin.

As other posters noted its missing a lot of features. I knew my frustrations would not be solved.

I use IntelliJ's database stuff instead, which I "discovered" as a result for my hunt for _the_ PGSQL admin tool after Postico's announcement. (Until that point I had largely avoided IDE database stuff because they often try to make you do insane things, like use the mouse to design tables.) When I considered the price of purchase for a stand alone PGSQL admin tool and an IntelliJ personal license [including yearly renewals] it became pretty clear what the correct choice for me was.

In terms of the things I need to do as a software engineer in regards to PGSQL, IntelliJ has everything I need; plus in recent versions IdeaVIM works more reliably.

<comment><USER7> Yep, I'm really liking IntelliJ 0xDBE. aside from it's name. God that's awful.

<comment><USER6> I forgot they turned it into its own spin off product. I've always liked the IntelliJ stuff having suffered through a few years of Eclipse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My favorite postgres gui by far has been Psequel.

[http://www.psequel.com/](http://www.psequel.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's very pretty, but I can't seem to find how to look at and/or modify functions, which are a pretty big part of my current setup. Lots of promise though, but I'm not sure I'd drop this much money on it's current feature set based on my use, especially when Navicat Essentials for Postgres is the same price.

</comment><comment><USER10> Been using it for some months already and love it. I'm missing some features like being able to dump or upload an entire DB backup from a file (have to use another app for that). Hope I can get all functionality in one place soon.

UI is great and really easy to use. I really recommend it to anyone using PostgreSQL as DB.

Great job from Jakob, the developer behind it.

<comment><USER11> > dump or upload an entire DB backup from a file (have to use another app for > that)

What's the other app that you use?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really like [http://www.sequelpro.com/](http://www.sequelpro.com/) for mysql. The lack of a good admin gui for postgres is one reason I preferred mysql over postgres.

<comment><USER13> Check out Navicat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I seem to recall there being talk about Sequel Pro adding support for Postgres a while back. Anyone know if that's still on the table?

</comment><comment><USER15> Just gave it a try but it's stuck in "Opening connection to server..." and never finishes. Doesn't even seem to have any error log window or similar where I would be able to see what the issue is. Also has no timeout it seems.

Am using the SSH tunnel feature btw.

<comment><USER16> That sounds like a firewall issue. Email me and I'll help debug: firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the offer but it worked after deleting the favorite and restarting the app.

Quick feedback:

\- I can't find a way to see indexes or functions, only the basic table structure in terms of columns.

\- The results tables seem to make poor choices when it comes to column widths. Some columns with short header and content are very wide while other columns with long header or content are too narrow. You can see this easily by doing an EXPLAIN ANALYZE query - you'll get a single short column that you have to drag with your mouse in order to read anything out of it.

\- It would be very useful if one could have several queries (maybe tabs) open alongside each other instead of going through the history.

\- Somehow the history doesn't feel as nice as it could be. Someone else already mentioned a Sublime Text like fuzzy matcher. Or a favorites system. The previous point about tabs would help with this problem.

\- The execution time on the lower right seems to contain the connection round trip (in my test case about 300ms). It would be nice to see the actual query execution time instead (here 0.014ms).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks good. Still, pg doesn't have a client with a _good_ graphical editor yet (to draw tables and their relationships between them).

On the other hand, MySQL has MySQL Workbench which works quite well, even if it has some bugs

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm happy for this thread, before this I've just the standard Admin app, and it's always been one of the worst parts of using Postgres.</comment>