Ask HN: How do you deal with continuous failures? - <AUTHOR> Life is hard for everyone.
But I never thougnt life will be so hard to me. I felt I failed everything that I wanted to achieve.
Last year I wanted to have a career as web developer. So I went to another city to attend a coding bootcamp there.
In the 6 months learning, there were ups and downs. But finially I finished the training.
After the training, some of my classmates found    the jobs immediately.I was not in a hurry to find a job, so I continued to study by myself.
Until last month, after studied another two months, I think I am ready. Because many of my classmates told me their interview questions, all are easy, I am very confident to find a proper job.
But the the relatity taught me a lesson. I am totaly wrong. after applying all the 200+ jobs, only 5 companies called me to interview. And When I went there 2 hours by bus, their attitude  are like 'You don't have experience as web developer before?then fk off'
Yesterday, Some classmates visited me, they shared their working experience. All taskes are easy. I also can handle them perfectly. But there is just no company willingly to give me a chance.I don't know whether it was releated to my age or not.(4+ old than almost all classmates)
I just could not stop crying.At first my confidence level is 100, now is 0.
What should I do? <comment><USER2> Keep going. Don't quit. Don't get discouraged. Keep applying. All careers require "finding your break." It may take time.

The worst thing you can do is get discouraged. You should put four hours into finding a job every day and four hours into building a commercial product (yes you can do it) that _will be your resume_ and should also be able to rock some revenue if you need to find more time.

You have to hustle. You have to push. Spend your time preparing for your first big break.

Also hit up conferences (open source conferences) and talk to people. You might also find referrals in your co-grads because that's often a solid channel.

I don't understand why people think they can just go to some academy and the world will beat a path to their door. You've got to be more realistic about what it takes to win. You need hustle! You can do it! Go kick ass and never quit! Be committed to sending 5000 resumes and writing 100 lines of code a day and the world will give you what you want.

Rock fourth and be so committed to your goals that nothing will keep you from your success.

Posting this was smart! Ask for help! Remember most people love to help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your words.

Because my other classmates all found their jobs easily. When I apply, just fail and fail. I felt burn myself out mentally.

After reading your comment, just like a lot of Adrenaline was injected into my body. I will push.Wish you the best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Given you find the technical side "easy", the other side you may need to develop is people skills. You may need practice in dealing with people. Especially self confidence.

If you doubt yourself and you're the expert on yourself, shouldn't others also doubt you?

</comment><comment><USER4> I agree with @happertiger you can not give up. Pet yourself a little today, but go about kicking ass tommorow.

Employers want to see a portfolio. Invest in building one (and indirectly, your skills), give yourself experience, showcase your work to your friends, network, build stuff for cheap. It'll pay off.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ask your classmates with jobs if they have any leads. They know your work and they have inside information about the companies where they work. Professional networks are often more productive than cold applications to strangers.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> OK, first the pep talk part: Remember this quote from Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players to ever live?

 _"I 've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed."_

EVERYBODY experiences failure, and likely lots of it, even the people in the running to be considered "The Greatest of All Time". So why should you be any different? You're going to have some failure, big deal. Suck it up and keep punching, buttercup.

Now the "reality" part. Pep talks and motivational videos and listening to "Don't Stop Believing"[1] until your ears fall off is useful, but you need more. If you're missing 1000's of shots (failing to get hired by 1000's of companies in this case) you need to ask "Why?" and figure out what to do. If a basketball player is missing lots of shots, his coach will work with him on technique cues, assistance drills, more practice, whatever it takes to help him reach his potential. Take that mindset.

You need a way to figure out what you need to work on. Unfortunately, as you probably already know, many (most) companies give little or no feedback to people they don't hire. The best advice I can give is to try finding people who will do practice interviews with you, and try to help you figure out how to improve. The people are your coding camp may be able to help. If not, go to local meetups / user-group meetings related to the technologies you use, and try to find experienced people there who will help. Failing all that, ask here, or on reddit, or LinkedIn groups, etc. Do practice interviews over Skype if you can't do them face to face.

Next, even without data specific to yourself, it _is_ possible to know more about the kinds of things that _in general_ employers are looking for, and that might be tripping you up.

In terms of technical skills / coding, look for books like _Cracking The Coding Interview_ , and the like. Or Google "how to prepare for a Google interview", read those article and do those exercises. "But wait", you say, "I'm not planning to interview at Google". Doesn't matter. They're notorious for having challenging interviews, so plan for the worst. Prep like you're interviewing at Google and you should be good for many less demanding firms.

Next, as others have said, having a portfolio is very valuable. You can have _experience_ even when you don't have a _job_. Start building an application of your own. It doesn't even really matter (that much) what it is, the point is to showcase your skills. Build a clone of something that already exists if you want: a Google clone, a Twitter clone, a Facebook clone, whatever. Or make it something entirely new - just work on it, as much as you can, make it as awesome as you can, put the code on Github /GitLab / Sourceforge / etc. (you don't have to make it open source if you don't want to) so people can easily access it.

Spruce up your LinkedIn profile as much as you can... add everything that helps show who you are and how dedicated and passionate you are. Classes you've taken, or are taking, papers / blog posts you've written, projects you're working on, etc. Also start working hard to network and connect with people in your field. You never know what connection will pay off.

Lastly, just because your coding bootcamp is done, doesn't mean your education is done. I've been doing this stuff professional for almost 20 years, and as a hobby for 10 more years before that, and I am still constantly taking Coursera and Udacity and EdX classes, doing courses on Udemy, watching videos on Youtube or Videolectures.net, reading books, reading papers, etc., to keep up. The thing about this field is, it moves so fast, you can't really ever afford to rest on your laurels.

Worst case, if you have to, take a job as a barista or something, to pay rent, and keep taking courses (like the aforementioned Coursera / Udemy stuff, etc.), building projects, networking, doing practice interviews, studying for the "Google interview", etc., until you break through.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8craCGpgs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8craCGpgs)</comment>


The full story of "the one important thing" for startups - <AUTHOR> http://blog.asmartbear.com/one-priority.html

<comment><USER2> It seems like you first need to decide an even more important thing: Is profitability the ultimate metric for your business?

From the Ludicorp (Flickr) corporate philosophy:

 _Likewise, a business develops an identity by providing a product or a service to people. To do that it needs capital, and it needs to make a profit, but no more than it needs to have competent employees or customers or any other thing that enables production to take place. None of this is the goal of the activity._

It seems like your original metric led to a focus on quality, and Noah's suggested metric encourages a focus on growth and/or profitability. If you really can focus on only "one important thing" than I'd be worried that your quality will suffer as a result of this change in focus.

Source: <http://www.ludicorp.com/about.php>

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems to me that the reason he went with Noah is because Noah suggested a double or triple of previous value of a metric. While he compared it to a 16% improvement in another.

What if he could reduce his cancellation rate from 3% to 1% and triple his Life Time Revenue? Wouldn't it be as important?

And what if he first reduced the cancellation rate from 3% to 1% and then increased the sign-up number threefold? Oh, but then he'd be almost 9 times as profitable because the same times-3 customers will stay longer.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting post. I would, however, be interested to learn more about the insight that would go into the decision of _which_ metric to focus on. Obviously this is highly contingent on your own business and your own desires, but I wonder if there's any real way to know what's best short of arbitrarily picking out what you feel is best. Another thing that I missed was the timeline for the chosen focus. Is this meant to be one week, two weeks, 3 months, 6 months? Save for the question at the bottom of the post, I'm not sure if this was addressed. Did I miss something? Really curious to see the evolution of this idea, though.

</comment><comment><USER5> In a strange unexpected way, this post made me question the validity of Jason's advice in general. After all these years of writing, did he really not know how fast he wanted his business to grow? Or does it just make for an interesting blog post?</comment>


Epigenetics: The Evolution Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/06/07/epigenetics-the-evolution-revolution/ <comment><USER2> There should be a better distinction made between EPIgenetics and epiGENETICS. The former is more about regulatory mechanisms (methylation, histone modifications, polycomb-like mechanisms, etc) on top of our DNA. The latter is more about non-DNA inheritance of information across generation, which is not completely clear yet.

I think people tend to conflate these two ideas.

<comment><USER3> I think most people don't even know that much, this isn't something that is deeply covered in most intro to bio courses in college; you have to learn a bit about how DNA is packaged and transcribed which you'd get in upper division courses. At least in the field, there is no confusion. Non-DNA inheritance is inheritance of these epigenetic regulatory states in which you've described, but the term used specifically for this is transgenerational inheritance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "It is as though nature employs epigenesis to make long-lasting adjustments to an individual's genetic program to suit his or her personal circumstances, much as in Lamarck's notion of 'striving for perfection.'"

It would be something of a category error to see a rehabilitation of Lamarckism in these discoveries. They show that our previous understanding of information flow across generations was incomplete, but it does not challenge the understanding that evolution occurs through variation and selection.

One fundamental problem for Lamarckism is 'how does the body know what is good for it?' Lamarck used as an example the idea that blacksmiths' sons had stronger arms on account of their fathers' work (I do not know whether he considered their daughters...) Putting aside the question of whether that is actually true, suppose that blacksmiths were also prone to musculoskeletal occupational injury. How is the body to 'know' that the stronger arms are desirable but the injury is not, especially if the former is promoted by the micro-injury of constant hammering?

The rest of the article contains within itself a long list of deleterious consequences of epigenetic inheritance. While the epigenetic mechanisms probably constrain (or perhaps expand the possibilities for) variation, it does not present a fundamental challenge to Darwinian evolution.

</comment><comment><USER5> The impact of epigenetics can be powerful.

A neat example is sex, one of the most obvious and striking axes of biological variation. Unlike humans where the presence or absence of an entire chromosome (X or Y) determines sex, there are turtles and reptiles that determine their sex based on ambient temperature alone.

The logical consequence is that a pair of female and male turtle twins can share exactly the same genome yet be different sexes — their sex is determined solely by how their genome is read (epigenetics).

<comment><USER6> Epigenetics is not "how the genome is read" \-- you're describing the normal action of transcription factors.

Epigenetics is heritable information that is not encoded in DNA base sequence. Common mechanisms include DNA methylation patterns, histone binding patterns, and histone modifications, all of which can be stably inherited from one cell division to the next, but not necessarily transgenerationally, from parent to offspring, through the germ line.

You are also confused about turtle sex determination. The master regulator of sex determination (which must respond directly to temperature) is unknown. The epigenetic regulator KDM6B is required to mediate the temperature signal for male development, but there is no evidence that it is the master regulator. Maybe you read a press release instead of the actual paper in Science.

Environmental sex determination is not that unusual, and need not depend on epigenetics or even transcription factors.

<comment><USER5> "Epigenetics is heritable information that is not encoded in DNA base sequence." I agree with this. Combined with the observation that temperature- dependent sex determination occurs within a specific window of time, after which sex cannot be changed for the remainder of the organism's lifetime, I believe it follows logically that somatic cells (certainly those within the sexual organs) must be receiving heritable information not encoded in DNA base sequence from their adult stem cells. Thus environmental sex determination must occur through epigenetics as you have defined.

To the best of my knowledge, DNA methylation patterns, histone binding patterns, and histone modifications all have causal biological impacts solely by their causal influence on "how the genome is read". Epigenetics _is_ "how the genome is read", as well as more beyond that. But how the genome is read is substantial portion of epigenetics and, for better or worse, the aspect of epigenetics that receives the most attention when discussed with general audiences. I think it's inaccurate to deny the role of "various readings" of the genome in a definition of epigenetics.

I'm unsure how your citing of KDM6B is related to or addresses any confusion in my statement on temperature-dependent sex determination. From what I can understand, you point out that KDM6B histone demethylase acts epigenetically and that it regulates temperature-dependent sex-determination, both of which are consistent with what I said earlier...

<comment><USER7> > Epigenetics is "how the genome is read"

I'm not a molecular biologist, so take this all with a grain of salt. There are two things which get confused when discussing epigenetics. First, you have gene expression which is mediated by the environment. That is what you are talking about with your turtle example. This is pretty common. After all, being able to respond to environmental stimuli is useful.

But there is another phenomena that gets labelled as epigenetics: stuff in the environment which modifies the DNA of the germ line cells (eggs and sperm) of an organism. The part about it being germ line cells is important, because that means that the changes to DNA will be passed on to the offspring, whereas epigenetic changes in any of the other cells of the body will not. People are in love with this aspect of epigenetics because, frankly, there's a certain type of person who is enamored with the idea that this might "disprove" Darwinian evolution (OMG Lamarck was right!).

It's extremely frustrating because this second phenomena is, as far as we know, extremely uncommon. I mean, it almost has to be. Large organisms are like a house of cards; if you make too many changes, everything comes crashing down. So, if there were epigenetic changes to germ line DNA happening all the time, there would be unfeasible levels of mutation happening from one generation to the next. But the fact that it is extremely uncommon does not stop people from hearing about how this second meaning of epigenetics is a weird end-run around Darwinian evolution, then hearing about how common the first meaning of epigenetics is, and coming to the conclusion that Darwinian evolution is invalid.

Incidentally, these two meanings are the root cause of you and the person who responded to you misunderstanding each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks like the theory of evolution needs modifications due to epigenetics.

<comment><USER9> Not sure why this is being downvoted, but it's definitely the case that as we learn more about epigenetics, we will need to modify our understanding of evolution substantially, particularly the relationship between epigenetic expression and mutation, in which the latter can "lock in" the changes from the former and lead to more rapid speciation. Exciting stuff.

<comment><USER3> I think the existing understanding of evolution is still fine. Darwin wrote,

1.More individuals are produced each generation that can survive.

2\. Phenotypic variation exists among individuals and the variation is heritable.

3\. Those individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive.

4\. When reproductive isolation occurs new species will form.

When Darwin proposed this, he didn't have any idea of molecular genetics, let alone epigenetics. Mendel too wrote about alleles but he didn't know about base pairs of DNA. Evolution really only concerns phenotypic variation, not the underlying basis for it, so it doesn't matter if the variation is due to a genetic or epigenetic change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In this article there is annoyingly little information about actually permanently passing epigenetic changes to offspring. If that indeed doesn't happen then epigenetics has little to add to evolution.

</comment><comment><USER11> "What findings have made it possible?"

Recent evidence is cited, but it's interesting to note that evidence of epigenetic effects (that were ignored as known anomalies) is ancient (of course the mechanism wasn't known.) Such as, the Hinny.

"Horses and donkeys are both equids, but their evolution diverged millions of years ago. Still, they are closely enough related that they can interbreed. But the hybrids they produce look different from each other depending on whether the mother is a horse or a donkey. If she is a horse, her baby is a mule and has very long ears. If she is a donkey, her baby is a hinny. Hinnies are rare, but they are generally smaller than mules, with shorter ears.

People have known for thousands of years that horse—donkey hybrids differ depending on which species is the mother and which the father. The process thought to be responsible for these differences—genomic imprinting—has been known for only a few decades. Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic mechanism, one of the forms of biological inheritance that operate outside the traditional Mendelian mode. Imprinting is a particularly useful model for investigating epigenetic gene regulation and is a major source of epigenetic regulation in the brain.

With genomic imprinting, DNA methylation silences some genes or gene clusters—in egg, sperm, or zygote—depending on which parent they came from. For an imprinted gene, the allele from one parent or the other is shut down and makes no product. The other allele is expressed and produces characteristic outcomes in the offspring. Thus, mom's and dad's chromosomes are not functionally the same.

Imprinting is required for normal development, although if the functioning imprinted gene is defective, as sometimes happens, the outcome can also be fatal, or at least debilitating. Some 30 serious disorders are attributed to disrupted imprinting. Some are rare, but more common afflictions, such as cancers and autism, have also been linked to genomic imprinting."

[https://www.academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/61/8/588/336...](https://www.academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/61/8/588/336969)

Had we cared to investigate this sort of anomaly more closely, I can't help but think that we would have discovered epigenetics decades earlier. I well remember when any such discussion was entirely inadmissable amongst biologists, and proof of one's idiocy if you raised the idea of the genetic mechanism allowing any moderation of DNA as a result of environment or experience (a possibility I did in fact raise in a letter to Jacques Monod in the seventies - only silence came back, such craziness was not worthy of a response.)

There's an interesting list of early experiments, some of which may actually have been valid, but were dismissed, here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism#Weismann's_experime...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism#Weismann's_experiment)

</comment><comment><USER12> Slippery slope here. Most people don't understand or accept evolution, even engineers. For example, anyone who accepts equitable distribution of attributes across genetic variances(a commonly accepted social narrative).

Evolution is messy. Epigenetics makes it even messier. We have to be careful not to conflate the value of someone by anything genetic. Especially not epigenetics, which seems from this article to be related to childhood trauma.

I'm interested in how we can use AI to modify genetic code to improve and fix our past epigenetic and genetic shortcomings.

<comment><USER13> > people don't understand or accept evolution [...] For example, anyone who > accepts equitable distribution of attributes across genetic variances

Even if the straw-man "everybody is totally equal" can't stand up, I think there's a good argument for:

"We have to assume everybody is equal by default,(A) because we are absolutely too ignorant and limited to determine the long-term value or trade-offs within a gene or gene-combination, (B) because some diversity is itself a collective benefit to the species, and (C) because history shows most people who claimed they had the answers were often wrong and racist."

<comment><USER14> The only thing I don't like about people who deny the strong influence of genes on the individual are they tend to shout racist at anyone trying to study this question. This shouting has made whole areas of human research impossible to study in practice.

Does anyone know of anyone who became a racist because they looked at the scientific literature? My experience is people become racist for a variety of reasons and then (occasionally) draw upon a paraody of science to try and justify their beliefs.

<comment><USER15> >This shouting has made whole areas of human research impossible to study in practice.

Maybe here in the West, but something tells me China isn't going to get caught up in either the ethical or political implications of such research. They'll just do it and quickly operationalize (or weaponize) whatever they discover as fast as possible.

<comment><USER16> This is just jingoistic scaremongering. These things are not done in the open. Not just China anyone could be doing anything.

Everyone familiar with history knows the consequences of surveillance, most people don't like surveillance but is that stopping anyone?

China is not the one bombing random countries and killing hundreds of thousands of people and setting entire societies back decades. These are crimes against humanity with no accountability and consequences for those involved so where is the ethics and morality? China is not the one who used just discovered nuclear weapons recklessly on a civilian population, not once but twice.

Blanket statement of ethics and morality are meaningless when not consistent with actions on the ground. They merely serve to fabricate a non existent moral high ground whose existence requires a denial and diminishment of one own actions while pointing fingers and demonizing others. Posturing may be fun but ignoring the ethical deterioration in your own society has consequences.

<comment><USER15> I'm amazed you think US foreign policy history is relevant here, and your characterization of it is frankly childish, but the Chinese record on human rights is _demonstrably_ bad. It isn't a stretch, at all, to think that the Chinese are not going to too much care about where this research might lead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Now that we know all this, do people (capable of having children) have a right to smoke? Do you have a right to significantly harm the health of not just your children, but even your great-grandchildren?

Also, cuddle your kids: [http://www.sciencealert.com/cuddling-babies-alters- their-gen...](http://www.sciencealert.com/cuddling-babies-alters-their- genetics-dna-for-years)</comment>


Ask HN: Quality of Life - <AUTHOR> Ask HN: What is the one thing which will improve the quality of your life significantly? <comment><USER2> I got a big boost in quality of life when I dropped down to 4 day weeks.

Working a full time job, I had gone from my usual "doctor visit every 10 years" to "doctor visit at least once a year", with an added flu or something each year on top of that. So when kid #2 came along, I used the excuse to drop down to 4 day weeks, and once the family was ticking away on all cylinders again I started using that extra day for climbing, cycling, and other "selfish" things. The idea being that this was "my day" and not just an extra day to do errands.

Boy what a difference it made. I haven't had more than a case of the sniffles since. I'm healthier, happier, and get to spend more time with the family.

I've since packed in the job entirely (to live off my business stuff full time) but if I do ever take another full time job, I'll be sure to negotiate 4 (or even 3) day weeks in to the contract. It's just night and day.

<comment><USER3> What do you do that you can work a 4 day week? Was it difficult to convince your company to accommodate that? I know there are some companies out there which do 4 day work weeks (e.g. Treehouse), but it definitely not the norm.

<comment><USER2> It was a developer gig. And I had negotiated my employment as a 1099 contract (which you should always do, by the way, for lots of reasons besides just this) so the conversation went something along the lines of "Hey, I'm going to drop down to 4 day weeks."

In reality, all companies allow this sort of working arrangement. If it's not explicitly offered to everybody, it can be a matter of proving your value, making yourself indispensable, then negotiating from a place of strength.

Good developers are really hard to find (and keep) in this market. Smart employers won't want to lose you over something as silly as this, so they'll find a way to accommodate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Being able to self-sustain myself so I don't need my full-time job. Either through contracting work, my own startup, or my job's options being worth something.

</comment><comment><USER5> Finding a social group closer to my own age in the area where I live. All my friends are 20 years older than me, and they're great friends, but there's no opportunity for dating at all nearby.

<comment><USER6> What city are you in? My wife organizes Speed Friending events to help people (especially those who hate small talk) meet new people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Autonomous vehicles. Then when my girlfriend forces us to move back into the suburbs, I won't lose my mind commuting into work.

</comment><comment><USER8> Getting rid of tinnitus [0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus)

<comment><USER9> Although not permanent, try this for a couple of minutes of bliss:

Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a day for as long as necessary to reduce tinnitus.

This always works for me.

Source: reddit post, gilded x29 [1]

[1] [https://np.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3l3uri/these_guys_light...](https://np.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3l3uri/these_guys_lighting_a_mortar_shell_in_their_garage/cv3474n)

<comment><USER8> Many thanks for this, it looks promising (lots of positive comments on reddit) but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work for me :-/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Getting rid of the 100+ apps on my phone and 1000+ online accounts, and replace it all with a single app/service/interface.

<comment><USER11> I always imagined an app with a command line/chat bot/text interface that would be used as a middleman for everything.

For email you'd simply type: @email $@bob@gmail $@this is the subject $@this is my message/email content

You can of course use different parsing symbols than $@, but the concept remains the same and can be extended to many things. Typing simply @email will bring up format and usage info. If it's your first time using that function then you will be promoted to enter your sign in credentials as well.

Example for alarm: @alarm 15:30 2x2m

This will set an alarm for 3:30pm, 3:32pm, and 3:34pm

</comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron Finding a role in another company with a nicer working environment. Stress is so bad for your health.

</comment><comment><USER12> The knowledge to answer this question.

</comment><comment><USER13> Get quality consistent sleep.

<comment><USER6> Have you gotten checked for sleep apnea?

Have you tried using a white noise machine or a sleeping mask?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Getting a quality 7 hours of sleep every night, 7 days a week...oh and giving up alcohol(or at least drink only on weekends) which is easier said than done.

</comment><comment><USER15> Get rid of mortgage

</comment><comment><USER16> Living near a warm ocean. It's one of the very few public activities that you can enjoy collectively with a group of strangers. It is relaxing whether you swim or just sit in awe of it. Miami Beach on a Saturday Morning is enjoyable if you live here... On vacation it doesn't feel the same.

Clearwater Beach is also enjoyable.

</comment><comment><USER17> 10 million $.

<comment><USER18> Why 10? Why not 5/1/100 ?

<comment><USER17> 10 feels like enough but not tooo much.

<comment> King-Aaron I've often thought that 10mil (*in a suitable economy) would be enough to set you and your family up well, if you did it right. You could get some investment properties to generate a small revenue stream, enough for a decent holiday, then a nest-egg to generate some interest. You'd probably want to start a business or something to plan for the long-run, but I do agree that ten mil would be a great launch pad while not being too greedy.

Though to be honest, right now just ten grand that's disposable enough for a trip overseas would be nice, haha!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Getting solid sleep each night, removing processed carbs from my diet, weight lifting, stoicism and having fu* money enough for the next 10 years (which is second/higher level effect of the previous ones).

<comment><USER20> All these points really hit me.

Sleeping enough (but not too much) provides me with a sense of well being. It's a really drastic change when I can't get enough sleep.

Removing processed carbs contributes to a healthier self and as such improves my quality of life.

Weight lifting gives me that boost of self-confidence.

stoicism helps me cope with the urges of materialism/hedonism and makes me feel happy about what I have

having fu money or a good nest helps me worry less about money, losing my job, having an accident, etc.. peace of mind = happiness

good points!

<comment><USER19> Yes, exactly.

These are the core elements of my system, so to speak – core foundation; in the sense of [1] Munger's latticework of models.

It's my system for achieving [2] eudaimonia, or most specifically – [3] sophrosyne.

For myself, the root was the solid sleep – from there on, the other pieces started fitting together in an organic way.

Shortly – quality sleep over consistent period of time gives you the ability to make good decisions.

Cheers!

\--

[1] [https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/mental- models/](https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/mental-models/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophrosyne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophrosyne)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Losing two stone in weight would do it for me.

<comment><USER11> How much is a stone in either pounds or kilograms?

<comment><USER21> 28 pounds (lbs) or just under 13 kg

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Having awesome grandparents for my children.

</comment><comment><USER23> finishing school

</comment><comment><USER24> Control myself

</comment><comment><USER25> Taking progressive risks every day

</comment><comment><USER26> A job with freedom to learn and explore, rather than get the next jira issue closed.</comment>


Piping with Swift - <AUTHOR> http://www.mseri.me/piping-with-swift/

<comment><USER2> I'm a bit torn about normal functions. Traits/typeclasses often make more sense, but on the other hand, this kind of static monkey-patching makes it difficult to figure out which trait provides which method when looking at the code. But without something like the operator proposed here, chaining normal functions is quite awkward.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get it, why do I need the pipe operator for this?

       #(9 1 2 3 7 5 5 8 4)  unique sorted
       -> ( 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9)

In Objective-Smalltalk ([http://objective.st](http://objective.st)).

Definitions:

       -unique
       {
           (NSOrderedSet orderedSetWithArray:self) array.
       }

       -sort
       {
           self sortedArrayUsingSelector:'compare:'.
       }

Why is it suddenly cool to make things so much more complicated than they need to be?</comment>


Google Santa Tracker - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com.au/santatracker

<comment><AUTHOR> Make sure you click around and explore. Lots of strange animations of elves and presents and stuff.

 _Edit_

Found this really weird present drop game: [http://www.google.com.au/santatracker/#/village/presentdrop](http://www.google.com.au/santatracker/#/village/presentdrop)</comment>


Pair 1.4 - Fast, Beautiful, More Features  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trypair.com/post/31734577692/fast-beautiful-more-features-pair-1-4

<comment><USER2> Beautiful indeed. I'm trying my hands at iOS development and am wondering how do you build the UI for the chat screen? I'm struggling with doing it in a View-Based tableView.

<comment><USER3> We do it with a lot of custom code that responds to keyboard events, input text changes, etc. The underlying timeline is mostly UIViewController based but also does a lot of listening and responding to events all around it. We did try to use some of what is provided (inputAccessoryView for example) but ended up just going with a floating UIView for text input that keeps getting realigned as things happen.

<comment><USER4> Do you guys use the interface builder or is this all programmatic (the initial view setup, not the updates).

<comment><USER3> All the cool stuff is fully programmatic. I think right now it's just the onboarding screens that are still using interface builder - they're simple and mostly remain static.

One lesson though: do not use interface builder for table view cells, just don't. Cell reuse is tricky to get right as is and you should take the time upfront to make it all work programmatically.

<comment><USER3> Exactly, there is just generally no need for it. It can be ok for prototyping because of the easy autolayout flags but at the end it just made sense to do the cells programmatically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm liking the update so far, keep up the hard work!</comment>


Leaked Files Show How NSA Tracks Other Countries' Hackers - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/03/06/leaked-files-show-how-nsa-tracks-other-countries-hackers/ <comment><USER2> > "It's a big myth that there are thousands of [signatures] for any particular > groups," he notes. "These [TerritorialDispute] guys really focus on finding > the two or three telltale signs that could lock you in [on an APT]."

I have a hard time accepting that. Sure,if it was a financially motivated actor or common malware a few "high quality" indicators are all you need. But APT actors know they are being tracked by their adversary using these same indicators. It isn't difficult or costly for them to avoid reuse of infrastructure and tooling. The few attribtions I looked at in detail require a more speculative and somewhat imprecise correlation by humans as opposed to clear and static indicators.

Please correct my ignorance if I am wrong.

EDIT: Security companies do use "thousands" of signatures and indicators to find events that might possibly be associates with an APT group. Why is the NSA special? That's what I can't accept. As good as the NSA is,multi billion dollar security companies are not far behind (I would say some are even ahead when it comes to defensive security)

<comment><USER3> APT groups have a set of tools, techniques, and processes (ttps) that they use. They evolve over time, but generally consistent per APT group. It's maybe dozens of methods and signature moves that teams use to attribute the actor. Malware packages and so on leak data, c2 servers might get reused (or the way the c2 was obtained might inform something). From the attacker point of view, you don't change your methods if they are working.

However due to this, you are right: it's incredibly messy and attribution is mostly bullshit. If you notice, it mostly warns the operator to seek help, so others can try to confirm.

<comment><USER4> You could actually say that from the attacker points of view, you should change your methods permanently to avoid tracking / fingerprinting.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Exactly; even individuals know that good opsec means changing your footprint; why would full state actors not do so?

<comment><USER5> Because it would almost certainly diminish their offensive capabilities.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h I suppose considering the cost (time, money, effort) it would have to be used somewhat carefully, but I would expect it to improve offensive capabilities to be able to make attacks that don't look like you. But agreed that it would have to be rationed out, in order to not lose ground in redoing things.

<comment><USER6> Additionally, human beings are lazy. Getting people to stick to what look like pointlessly complex processes is not a trivial matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I read this (interesting) article, I was wondering whether there is any free or commercial tool for detecting those _indicators of compromise_ on GNU/Linux machines. I know rootkithunter, but that seems to be fairly weak heuristically. Other tools like tripwire, on the other hand, are based on snapshots and hashes and only monitor changes.

I'd be interested in a tool that can indicate suspicious kernel modifications, USB drivers and other software that behaves in unusual ways without triggering tons of false positives and independently of any certificates or whether the software comes from a supposedly trusted repository. But AFAIK, there is not even a key logger detection tool for Linux.

<comment><USER4> I don't think that it makes sense in a technical point of view to try to observe something if an attacker has already compromised your kernel. As soon as this happens, there is nothing you can do, which is foolproof as long we don't have kernels which are separating privileges within the system. If you want to observer something you have to depend on a trust anchor. In most today systems you don't have a trust anchor when the kernel is compromised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > It turns out those scripts and tools are just as interesting as the > exploits. They show that in 2013 — the year the NSA tools were believed to > have been stolen by the Shadow Brokers — the agency was tracking at least 45 > different nation-state operations, known in the security community as > Advanced Persistent Threats, or APTs. Some of these appear to be operations > known by the broader security community — but some may be threat actors and > operations currently unknown to researchers.

Plot twist: Around 20 of them turn out to be separate clandestine programs operated by the US Government.

<comment><USER9> One of the APTs links to Stuxnet, so probably yes.

<comment><USER10> Stuxnet is considered to be a joint project between Israel and the US, so it's quite possible the APT group was Israeli.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "They started to become concerned about sitting on a box with our tools and there being other actors there that could steal or figure out what we were doing."

Seeing as they had all their tools stolen, that must have worked out really well.

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting to see Zetter writing for the Intercept again after a sizeable absence...

<comment><USER9> Can't find anything about it but as she published little elsewhere I would guess another book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This seems like something completely sensible and even predictable for the NSA to do.

<comment><USER5> You say this like it's not obvious. Just because what they're doing is OK doesn't make it uninteresting. There are lots of posts on HN about completely sensible things.

Why does the NSA need defending this badly anyway?

<comment><USER14> I think people are conditioned to associate "leaks" with "scandals" (especially when it comes to the three letter agencies), when in actuality this "leak" is just a revelation of completely reasonable and expected activities.

<comment><USER5> Isn't it inherently scandalous for intelligence agencies to misplace this sort of information?

<comment><USER15> Yes it is. As somebody above said, the news here is that they can't keep _anything_ secret.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is exactly what the NSA was designed to do. Why is the NSA doing its job news?

<comment><USER17> The news isn't that they're doing it, but that the documents detail _how_ they do it. Disclaimer: I haven't read the article yet, I'm basing this on the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> As they should...</comment>


Google Glass controlled by winking – code, hardware and official google info - <AUTHOR> http://glass-apps.org/google-glass-controlled-by-winking

<comment><USER2> This would be rather annoying for me as I cannot wink with my right eye (only my left, apparently not uncommon[0]). I suppose blinking would do the trick though.

[0]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wink#Physiological_ability>

<comment><USER3> If the sensor is only on the right side I guess it won't be able to detect actions from the left eye. My first thought is with timing or counting winks. "Three fast winks" = "Take Picture".

<comment><AUTHOR> or just unusally longer twinks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do people manage to actively _avoid_ the spell check in their browser or do people just ignore all the red squigglies?</comment>


Processing the Viking Lander camera data [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://saltworks.stanford.edu/assets/zz000vd6201.pdf <comment><USER2> You can reproduce some of the image processing described here with software today.

For example, in Figure 3, the histogram at the top right is a "periodogram" of the original image data. It shows that the original image is skewed towards the high end of the frequency spectrum. They apply a high-pass filter (discard the lowest frequencies) so the processed image shows higher details than the original.

If you had the original photograph as an image file, let's say an image of the surface of Mars, [0] you could filter out the lowest ten frequency components with a Python script: [1]

        pip install avena
        avena filter high 10 pia19676-fig1_ml_mcam04403coloradjusted24bwscale.jpg

The result: [http://imgur.com/a/ASusx](http://imgur.com/a/ASusx)

Notice the details are more visible.

[0] [http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/pia19676/geological-contact- zone...](http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/pia19676/geological-contact-zone-near- marias-pass-on-mars)

[1] (shameless plug) [https://github.com/eliteraspberries/avena](https://github.com/eliteraspberries/avena)

<comment><USER3> This mission was also interesting from onboard computing side. NASA history page has some cool info about that: [http://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch5-6.html](http://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch5-6.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> About two years ago the Avaneya project released software that can decode the Viking Lander tapes. A few tapes contain images that were (as far as I know) never released.

Beautiful results: [https://gist.github.com/jakeogh/fa995a3277d500ab59b1](https://gist.github.com/jakeogh/fa995a3277d500ab59b1)

There's even a very nice DVD which takes the included raw tape data and processes it: [https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Avaneya:_Viking_Lander_Remast...](https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Avaneya:_Viking_Lander_Remastered_DVD)</comment>


People forged judges' signatures to trick Google into changing results - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/people-forged-judges-signatures-to-trick-google-into-changing-results/ <comment><USER2> Source link: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/online-reputation-management- cb...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/online-reputation-management-cbs-news- investigation-finds-fraudulent-court-orders-used-to-change-google-search/)</comment>


Show HN: Redesign = Helping US Manufacturing and Cleaning Up the Web - <AUTHOR> http://mayorpear.com/kerotest.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I did this in two hours. If there are problems, I'm sorry. Please point them out by replying here.</comment>


101 ways to Embed Content: The State of Embedly - <AUTHOR> http://blog.embed.ly/101-ways-to-embed-content-the-state-of-embedl

<comment><USER2> hi, any idea what problem embed.ly solves. it seems like having a mapping of 30 odd services/urls -> to their oembed codes.

<comment><USER3> it abstracts out the hunt for the embed code for a particular resource, just give them the url and get back an embed code.

<comment><USER4> Is this a company hoping to make profit? Cause the only thing I can see them making a profit from is switching to a paid model when they've got you hooked in to their API some date into the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now wouldn't that be awful. We gain your trust, lure you in and then pull the old bait and switch.

That's is not going to happen. As the post states:

> As we continue to grow we will start having product offerings as well as > additional APIs.

<comment><USER4> Wait, so you're just gonna keep this free service going? Or is this product going to turn out to be "hey our API is still free but only for N requests a month"?

<comment><USER5> Maybe they will get money from developers of the APIs opting into their service. As in, give us $X a month, and we will handle all your embedding needs and get your content out there to a ton of different services.

Like, think if Embedly was used for some music recommendation application that pulled together results from Last.fm, Pandora, Grooveshark, and Mog. If I was a developer of an up and coming music playing/recommendation site, I would definitely pay some dough to get included in that group for the web application. It's a win-win, the developer of the mashup gets access to a greater variety of content, I, as the developer of the new music service site, get my website's name out there, and Embedly gets money in the process.

<comment><USER6> But if I, as a developer of a mashup, wanted to use this new music recommendation site and Embedly didn't offer it because that site didn't want to pay up, I could just circumvent Embedly and go against the site's API directly at little cost.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


When the 'Wisdom of Crowds' turns on itself: IMDB Edition  - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10000650-26.html <comment><USER3> If you allow people to vote after they have seen the rankings, you have the wisdom of mobs. The only way to get the wisdom of crowds is to ask people _before_ they have seen other people's opinions.

<comment><USER4> I upmodded your post because it already had +9!

<comment><USER5> I wonder what would happen on this site if the comments and stories were still sorted by points but the actual number was hidden (or perhaps only hidden until after you vote but I don't see why they need to be there period).

<comment><USER6> >> (or perhaps only hidden until after you vote but I don't see why they need to be there period)

That's an interesting point--why does every site need to quantify for the user the particular score of a comment? Why not indicate popularity by simply ordering the comments?

Is it a trust issue?

<comment><USER7> You could also give other clues besides ordering - without revealing the numbers 'in your face'.

<comment><USER8> What sort of other clues?

<comment><USER7> For example color-shading. While it may still be possible to re-extract numbers from the colors --- psychological colors may have another effect than numbers.

<comment><USER7> Or perhaps something like Nethack does: <http://www.steelypips.org/nethack/pray.html#p0>

<comment><USER8> That's sort of like what Slashdot does for karma. "Karma: Excellent"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think that the problem is similar to the eternal September problem. I'm sure that the people who had been voting and contributing to the ratings on IMDB had been involved on the site for a while. Now, there's a big influx of people on IMDB that are voting for their favorite movie. I bet that many of the people who are voting Dark Knight up have never seen the Godfather or Shawshank.

Same thing happened to my wife in film school. She went to film school because she loved the classics of the 30's - 50's. She was stunned to find out that the kids she was going to school with thought that Austin Powers was the best film ever.

</comment><comment><USER10> _This mob mentality, brought on by a significant event (in this case, the release of The Dark Knight), causes a total breakdown in a system that is otherwise fairly accurate, useful, and trustworthy._

I wouldn't call this a "total breakdown in the system". I would call it a minor blip. I mean, ultimately the system recommends what movies to watch. If someone isn't going to watch the Godfather now that it's ranked #3 instead of #1, then the person is flawed, not the system.

Otherwise, this was an interesting post. I have been astonished that TDK is #1. Didn't realize people were also downvoting other movies to keep it there.

<comment><USER8> The flaw in the system isn't that The Godfather was bumped down. The flaw is that people are rating the Godfather down to the point at which it changed its ranking with respect to other movies.

And you're right, it's not a major flaw for a movie ranking system. But let's suppose something similar to the IMDB system(which would be an approval/range voting system) is used in an election, and the first place gets President, the second choice getting Veep. With an election, you don't have real-time rankings like IMDB, but you have something similar--polls. And that's even worse, since there's a few points of inaccuracy. Strategically worded polls could change the results of an election.

<comment><USER11> But that change is a blip in and of itself. Godfather has been bumped down before. Happened with Lord of the Rings. It climbs back up after the initial wave.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wisdom of Crowds was a good book. The sequel, Attention Span of Crowds, was significantly shorter.

</comment><comment><USER13> Have they ruled out the possibility that the people marketing the movie are gaming the system? Even if voting was restricted to established IMDB users, surely a reasonably well connected Hollywood marketing person could round up a few hundred of those among friends and friends of friends.

<comment><USER14> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/ratings> is the vote breakdown.

<comment><USER13> Hmm, those numbers are definitely too big to be influenced by anyone's network. Judging from the other top-ranked films, it looks as if IMDB's userbase is in the middle of changing.

<comment><USER15> I don't think they need to game the system. The lukewarm or negative reviews on RottenTomatoes are being bombarded with genuine fanboy vitriol. (Many of the commenters, at least on the first page of comments, have joining dates that suggest they have been on RT for a while) [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight/?critic=crea...](http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight/?critic=creamcrop#mo) It is quite amusing in a sad way actually, seeing them trash the likes of David Denby and Joe Morgenstern.

<comment><USER11> To be fair, those reviews were both fairly terrible. Fanboyism is never justified, in my opinion, but I agree with the respondants' sentiments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maybe the majority of people would indeed get more entertainment out of "The Dark Knight" than out of "The Godfather"?

<comment><USER8> You're right.

However, if "The Dark Knight" bumping off "The Godfather" was all that was happening, that wouldn't be a problem.

What's happening, though, is that the release of "The Dark Knight" made "The Shawshank Redemption" have a higher rank than "The Godfather". This means that the ranking system has lead to the rating system being used strategically.

The implications of this for approval voting would be an interesting corollary. The polls could influence themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've seen The Godfather. I've seen The Dark Knight. Now, maybe I'm just missing the point of that Godfather thing, but I'd say The Godfather had more dramatic tension and The Dark Knight had more philosophical depth.

No, stop laughing, I'm serious. Tell me what point The Godfather makes.

<comment><USER18> Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

<comment><USER19> Michael: Fredo, you're my older brother, and I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the Family again. Ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Blockbusters popular with the avid Internet users have always started at incredibly high ratings only to slowly fally to the right place. The LOTR movies were in top-10 once too.

I suppose IMDB might try to account for the initial voting wave being raving fans and dampen the initial votes, but why would they? Personally I've reloaded the "Dark Knight" IMDB page half a dozen times to see if it was still at #1.

The most popular topic on the IMDB message boards is "This does not deserve to be in top 250" or "Why is this not in Top 250 why some-other-movie is not?". People like to keep an eye on rankings and to comment on them.

The main practical use for the ratings IMHO is to get a list of movies within each genre sorted by the rating, to see if you missed something people thought was great.

<comment><USER21> exactly -- imdb has an internet and populist skew. As long as you take this into account, their ratings are fine and predictable. Gaming rankings is practically an official internet pastime, so it's not unexpected that this event is taking place, although I'm surprised it built up enough steam without (presumedly) official co-ordination to drop the Godfather a few places -- that _is_ notable. I'm sure politicians are taking notes as we speak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> IIRC, the same thing happened at the releases of Spiderman and the Royal Tenenbaums. Hype does funny things to men.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you think of this system as a game and in this instance a number of users have figured out a way to act within the rules of the game to achieve an outcome inconsistent with IMDB's intended one, then IMDB can simply change the rules to get what they think is best!

It wouldn't be too difficult to observe the behavior of the offending members (vote for TDK, within x hours vote down Godfather...) and simply setup criteria to disallow these actions. You could also set up an algorithm to detect screwy behavior to alert a developer or block that action for a duration.

And hey, we throw error messages for repeated button clicks and such so that click-happy users or spam bots don't take down the system...can't that kind of precaution be extended if necessary? "We know you're in love with TDK, but do you really hate The Godfather...come back in a month if you still do!"

<comment><USER8> Soon you get websites with people saying "Rate The Godfather 1 before rating TDK 10."

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> That's funny, because the book which coined the term is about exactly this - how to make Wisdom of the Crowds work.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that people discuss these concepts without reading the book and thus miss out on the subtleties. The long tail is another common victim.

Disclaimer: I didn't read the book.

<comment><USER25> I'm (slowly) working on the summary here:

[http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/23/the-wisdom-of- crow...](http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/23/the-wisdom-of-crowds)

Contributions welcome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to build into the system some of the same logic that obviously makes it clear to everyone that there is a problem with these votes.

A computer might not be able to appreciate the goodness of The Godfather, but it can be taught that a movie that has consistently been voted great for decades, does not suddenly fall out of favor in a month.

</comment><comment><USER27> The problem is not the Dark Knight fans, so much as the algorithms being used to rank the movies. How can you take advantage of crowd wisdom if you don't control for spoofing, spam and mob voting? It's surprising that there wasn't already in place a process for dealing with such a common phenomenon.

</comment><comment><USER28> Perhaps this is an advantage to Y!Hack not having a downvote button.

<comment><USER4> I'm much less worried about that happening here because of the transient nature of the site. I don't think potential manipulators would find it worthwhile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The point of top-k rankings is to put items in the proper order. As far as the crowds are concerned, this is no failure. Sorry your favorite movie lost its spot.

<comment><USER28> It is fine for "FanBoys" to push Dark Knight into number one. But downvoting Godfather to put your movie into the #1 spot is plainly wrong.

<comment><USER11> But the Godfather people did it first. Look at the spread of points on The Dark Knight. Look at the 1s. Those came first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> over time it should return to a 'fair' position, once temporary disequilibrium in the 'crowd' (induced by marketing, hype, whatever) is resolved. It's a shame people vote 'strategically', not to reflect their true sentiments - <USER2> whatever. Over time, with a diverse enough crowd, 'wisdom of the crowd' systems are effective and reasonably unbiased.

doubtless IMDB will enjoy the free publicity.

</comment><comment><USER31> AFter the first weekend, Dark Knight had 9.7 average with almost a hundred thousand votes. That's just crazy.

<comment><USER11> Nah. 9.7 was with only 3,000. 100,000 only hit a few days ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm astonished. The internet hordes usually have impeccable taste in film and music. "Beverly Hills Chowahwah" is not even in the top 20?!!

</comment><comment><USER28> Should be easy to cull these votes from the system. Anyone voting Dark Knight at 10 and Godfather at 1 should get nixxed from the system.

In fact, anyone voting Godfather less than 8 should be nixxed.

<comment><USER32> This reminds me of the recent articles about the netflix optimization challenge. Voting systems like imdb might be improved with some simple heuristics that take into account the absurdity of some people's votes.

If a user makes votes that are < 2.0 for a movie that the entire community for years has rated above 9.0, then probably that user's votes should all be ignored, because they are totally uninformed.

<comment><USER8> Because having unpopular taste is bad?

<comment><USER7> Evil.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


20 Things Obama Can Do To Fix the Economy and Create Jobs - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/114821712131163652030/posts/Xdq8Jq6jDt3

<comment><USER2> In other words: come back to reality and give up liberalism/socialism ideas.</comment>


Ask HN: Any exemplary PHP codebases out there? - <AUTHOR>

I've got my CS degree, I'm a competent programmer, and I know the principles behind the web, but I'm a bit short on experience with big projects and major industry-standard languages. In particular, web development seems like the sort of thing I could do well -- but almost everyone wants PHP, which I've only ever dabbled in.
So I'm thinking a good place to start would be looking at (and maybe contributing to) some existing big PHP projects; ones that are considered shining examples of how to "do PHP right". Particularly considering PHP's reputation for being awfully easy to "do wrong".
Can anyone recommend any such projects? <comment><USER2> I've really got a tech-hard-on for Laravel <http://laravel.com>. It's an up and coming MVC framework, and just a joy to work with all around.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like that their documentation quality is the first of their four big selling points on their landing page, that bodes well. Cheers, I'll check them out.</comment></comment>


Thesixtyone (YC W09) reinvents its brand, changes name. - <AUTHOR> http://thesixtyone.tumblr.com/post/91817637/reinventing-the-brand

<comment><USER2> thesixtynine.com is a great example of how experimentation and exploring new positions can really get you 'head of the market.

I used to 61 a lot, but now I'm 69'ing all the time and experiencing a new brand of satisfaction that I never thought was possible. These fellas sho' are cunning linguists - they're coming into areas that few have before. It's a consummate example of remaining firm at a time when others might experience performance anxiety.

I applaud your virility, gentlemen.

</comment><comment><USER3> A lot of effort for an April Fools stunt.. thesixtyone.com actually redirects to thesixtynine.com now.

<comment><USER4> That's not all that much effort - just change the DNS records.

FictionAlley.org draws whole new cover art for April Fools, and there're usually like a half dozen different full-size graphics, one chosen at random.

<comment><USER3> True, after looking at it a second time, they've only changed their DNS and logo. The rest of the site is still the same and thesixtyone branding was left intact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Jokes aside, that's a much more memorable name and I think you should stick with it. I can never remember the real name and only come back to your site when it's mentioned on this forum.

<comment><USER6> Same here, thesixtyone is a very bad name. I couldn't even remember it one hour after visiting the site. Also it doesn't have anything one could Google for (memory hints I mean - you remember parts of the name and google for that, no dice with thesixtyone).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the new direction... seems more promising.

</comment><comment><USER8> noo my sixtyone shirt! it's already obsolete!

and this comes at a great time after i tweet tonight that i'm tagging all of my thesixtyone songs after neurotransmitters, based on the effect the song has. it's very fitting.

p.s. in case you're curious to actually see my tags: <http://www.thesixtynine.com/#/jmtame/> (yes i've actually started on the whole neurotransmitter thing)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is the first time I've heard of this site and I have it bookmarked now so I guess their April fools marketing is working.

</comment><comment><USER10> Everyone I know hates Thesixtynine. The old version was -clearly- better. I'm not sure why anyone would like this new version. It's far too hard to navigate. Where did they put the music part?

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm a huge fan of thesixtynine!</comment>


Is US government reading email without a warrant? - <AUTHOR> http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/06/12583821-is-us-government-reading-email-without-a-warrant-it-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-it?lite

<comment><USER2> We're screwed, and nobody even cares enough to do something about it.</comment>


Darwin/macOS emulation layer for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/darlinghq/darling <comment><USER3> Could anyone say how mature this project is and how much of macOS is covered?

I must have missed that in the readme and didn't see it in the wiki.

Either way it's a great idea keyup the good work.

<comment><USER4> I recall that anything visual is not yet supported, and that it's limited to CLI tools only.

<comment><USER5> Isn't there an open source implementation of Cocoa?

<comment><USER6> I think GNUstep is the closest approximation, but I have no clue how compatible it is to Cocoa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can we imagine a future where xcode works and ios app being developed on Ubuntu ?

<comment><USER8> As someone who's never had a Mac, I get the impression Xcode is the equivalent of Windows Update circa IE6 (ActiveX control and all) - so horribly and messily integrated into the system, that adequately sandboxing it such that it doesn't fall over every 6 seconds would be the equivalent of making a perpetual motion machine that can turn yak shavings into kitchen sinks.

The person who commits to designing, building and maintaining this - <USER2> achieves their goal - will not be sane. Carefully consider before inviting them to developer conferences.

(NB, as this is currently at -1: The bit above about insanity is meant as a lighthearted joke :P)

NB2, now this is fluctuating even further: This was written with a humorous note but sincerely. If I'm wrong about Xcode I'd be happy to learn as much - and glad to be wrong, as well. I've just heard that Xcode is a disaster to maintain, and that eg merely downgrading Xcode version can break all of macOS, requiring a full reinstall. This being said, having Xcode work on Linux (and Windows...) would be awesome, in theory.</comment></comment>


Google Knol is Evil - <AUTHOR> http://www.seldo.com/weblog/2008/07/28/google_knol_is_evil

<comment><USER2> Knol is unnecessary. The single differentiating thing about Wikipedia is that everybody edits the same page about a certain topic. With Knol, everybody creates their own, which is just like... the Internet. As in, I can put up a homepage on my server about anything I like. So basically Google wants to have "the Internet" on their servers, with all the pages displaying their ads.

Also, in terms of quantity and quality, Knol (unlike Wikipedia) is competing with _all_ the rest of the Internet. With Wikipedia, the small fraction of ppl willing to work on it _together_ create pages (that are worthwhile). With Knol, everyone will create their own page, hence there's no difference between them and the rest of the independent Internet.

I think Knol will die off within a year.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps it will mutate into something else and be saved?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is so stupid. Pagerank is based on links, Knol has a lot of links, therefore it has good pagerank. Why is that evil?

Update: At the moment this comment is moderated -2, and the factually incorrect reply is +4. Nice.

<comment><USER5> How many sites/pages have you seen that have received a rank of 5 in a day and appear on the first page of SERPs, often at the top spot? As for number of incoming links, I doubt Knol pages have many from non-Google properties... they've been out there for less than a week.

<comment><USER6> But think about it. It would be such an incredibly stupid move for google to slay their golden goose just to prop up one of many new projects.

And I am actually unable to consistently reproduce evidence for preferencial ranking. If you search google for "Knee Surgery" knol is #109 and wikipedia is #11. The same search on yahoo gives you knol on #78 and wikipedia on #3

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Give me a break. This post, and an number of the other Knol-is-bad commentary pieces floating around, boil down to not much more than "Google owes me/my friends a living".

This quote is priceless: "The company whose mission is to 'organize the world's information' is straying into 'monetizing the world's information'"

And how, precisely, is Google supposed to organize the world's information without monetizing it?

Some people need to calm down. If it's true that Google are inflating the PageRank of Knol pages, then they're damaging their most valuable product -- high quality search results. And it is well within their rights to do that if they choose.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is it possible that Knol ranks high because its lives in the Google domain? And that no one touched the algorithm?

I can't imagine Google not understanding that this could happen. Hopefully, they'll speak up soon.

<comment><USER9> Do they really need to explain themselves? I'm on board with the knol has been linked from every major site with a high PR and most likely helped increase the page rank. But even if google gave it an extra push or piggy backed on the google.com domain, isn't that within their right? Its THEIR site, they can do whatever they want. I don't want to defend them and empower them to manipulate results at a cost of control. But what it comes down to is, if it pisses enough people off they will take their search somewhere else (cuil did just launch, HAH!). Also want to throw out that a search for "site:knol.google.com" brings back 1,500 results. I don't know if thats a major concern yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> FWIW, when I searched for "search engine" on Google, the first[ _] results were Dogpile, AltaVista (?!), and Ask.com. When I did the same search on Yahoo, the first result was Yahoo, and Google was second. When I did it on Ask.com, the first result was for Ask.com and Google wasn't even on the first page (except for a "Narrow Your Search" link in the sidebar referring to "Google UK Search Engine"). Go figure.

[_]excluding the "related searches", news articles, sponsored links, and other effluvia that gets put at the top of the page

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand the argument. It's google's search engine, if they want to rank certain things higher, why not?

If people don't like the result content, they'll go to the competition!

<comment><USER5> _I don't understand the argument. It's Microsoft's operating system, if they want to pre-install certain apps, why not?_

Google's heading in the same direction as MS. They'll probably end up in the same court room in Washington DC few years from now.

<comment><USER12> _It's Microsoft's operating system, if they want to pre-install certain apps, why not?_

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Microsoft pre-installing apps, just like there is nothing wrong with Apple pre-installing apps on OSX, or Sun on Solaris.

<comment><USER13> if it wasn't, they wouldn't have lost all those anti-trust suits

<comment><USER14> The courts do not always assess right and wrong -- they are concerned with legal and illegal, which isn't the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Do you have many links from google ? ... besides the Wikipedia Frontpage it's possibly the only other PR infinite Domain

</comment><comment><USER16> Seriously, hasn't the "...is evil" meme run its course, 10x over?

<comment><USER17> Is Evil Considered Harmful (spoiler: yes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If they don't get the issue of Knol pagerank sorted out soon, they are going to be hit with a massive anti trust lawsuit. And they are going to lose.

I'm curious as to why everyone is so surprised that this is happening though. It already worked like this with blogs hosted through Blogspot and websites hosted through Google Pages.

<comment><USER19> _If they don't get the issue of Knol pagerank sorted out soon, they are going to be hit with a massive anti trust lawsuit. And they are going to lose._

I certainly hope not. Google, as a private company, should be free to display whatever they want in the search results. Once we start litigating and mandating search placement it becomes a no-win situation. If site A is placed above site B, site B sues. If site B is above site A, site A sues.

<comment><USER18> There is certainly solid legal ground for arguing that Google giving preferential search results to itself is an anticompetitive practice. It would be different if Google didn't control the vast majority of the search market, but it does.

Let's say there is a phone book company that pretty much controls the entire market. Google's actions are akin to the phonebook company only listing businesses that it owns in the main pages, while listing everything else in an appendix. Anticompetitive practice, to be sure. The phonebook company might argue, "Well since we are so tightly integrated with out own businesses, it is much easier to index them. Our competitors ending up in the back is simply an unintended side effect". Possibly true, but it's not going to fly in court.

To be honest, I don't care if Google is giving preferential treatment to Knol. But please, establish some plausible deniability. The speed in which Knol is being indexed is far too obvious. I think it would be a damn shame if Google were to lose its hold on the search market because of a lawsuit.

<comment><USER19> Google Maps is also integrated into the Google search. Any time it detects that you've entered a mappable location it provides a Google Maps link. If this feature were removed by, say, a lawsuit by Mapquest I think that Google would become less effective, and everyone would suffer as a result.

That's just my personal opinion, however. I had (and still have) no objection to Microsoft bundling a web browser and media player in Windows, and yet they've been hit by antitrust charges.

<comment><USER20> Maybe Microsoft would have been let off if their web browser and media player weren't such terrible products.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Decentralized Anonymous Court for TheDAO - <AUTHOR> http://orcarium.com/ <comment><USER2> Can adding code to a contract really allow reversal of fraudulent use? And why would we trust you?

P.s. noticed typo Decetnralization.

<comment><AUTHOR> You will have to trust us in the beginning only</comment></comment>


Tokyo cabinet database - things made wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.ioremap.net/node/233

<comment><USER2> Tokyo Cabinet database - things made right.

Almost all of the points that made TC unacceptable for him make it perfect for me. And what he doesn't mention is that it's stable as hell and fast as fuck. Don't call it 'wrong', call it 'wrong for you'.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fourth and fifth are not actually true for some of the database types...</comment>


The Unforgiving Math That Stops Epidemics - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-unforgiving-math-that-stops-epidemics-20171026/ <comment><USER2> The math makes it clear why giving everyone absolute freedom to choose whether to immunize or not doesn't work very well.

If everyone else is immunized to the point where there is significant herd immunity, but immunization has a low but non-zero cost (e.g. feeling crappy for a few days), then the rational selfish action is to be a free rider and not immunize.

However, if everyone did that, then herd immunity can collapse down to a level where there is no herd immunity; people rationally choose to immunize only to protect themselves. However, given that immunizations aren't perfect shields, in that scenario, even immunized individuals will be at risk to infections spreading through the population.

<comment><USER3> That's why a lot of things, like liberterianism (optional taxes) and communism don't work in practice..

Edit: I mean everyone thinking "well someone else will do it, I dont have to", specifically regarding to paying taxes or contributing to society.

<comment><USER4> In this case would communism not actually be a positive? If the communist government decided everyone has to get vaccinated it seems the problem would be solved.

Not an advocate of communism as a whole but it is an interesting mention that it would if applied by an aggressive state actor go a long way towards eliminating certain diseases assuming it has the financial resources.

<comment><USER5> Communism is not authoritarianism (except maybe in practice). Lots of communists are essentially anarchists.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, all modern implemenatations of communism are authoritarian. USSR, China and NK. I understand that in theory it should not be that way but it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always wondered why the flu shot wasn't 100% free even without insurance. It wouldn't surprise me if one insurance company (or a collective of companies) could lower their net payout by increasing the number of total vaccinated people. A one day clinic recently that I went to only charged $30 for uninsured people.

<comment><USER7> It would not surprise me if the math actually worked out that it would be best to pay people $5 or something to get the shot.

It's be especially good if the payout was perhaps $2 to get it but $5 if more than 50% of the pop in an area got the shot. Maybe manageable with an Etherium contract?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I guess instead of rolling the dice on herd immunity by subsidizing everyone. they could just offer monetary incentives for their customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This all makes sense except perhaps for the flu. Only about 30% of people that come down with "flu like symptoms" actually have the flu. On the other hand the effective of flu vaccines can vary widely from year to year. This is because it takes months to make all the doses that are needed so the vaccine make up, which changes every year, has to be estimated in the advance. The actual prevalent flu though can change significantly by the time flu season starts.

The upshot is that the public doesn't necessarily perceive the benefit of the shot because a) they might get what they think is the flu (but isn't) and b) they might get a variant of flu that was not adequately covered by the vaccine. Obviously a more universal flu vaccine would help out a lot.

</comment><comment><USER9> This was all over the news when it was discovered, but for those who missed it: measles vaccination protects against _other_ illnesses too, because the measles causes your immune system to "forget" previously learned immune responses to other pathogens[0].

I wonder if this applies more broadly: if you're already immune to one disease, it would be reasonable to expect that your body has more energy left to fight any unknown diseases it comes across.

[0] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27481-measles- leaves-...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27481-measles-leaves-you- vulnerable-to-a-host-of-deadly-diseases/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone interested in these topics should look into the books "The Hot Zone" (about the first filovirus outbreaks, including Ebola) and "The Demon in the Freezer" (about several biological agents, most notably Smallpox, and their potential for use in warfare).

"The Demon in the Freezer" goes into the story of the eradication of Smallpox in the natural world, and talks a lot about containment of viral breakouts as well as the role of vaccination.

</comment><comment><USER11> Article doesn't mention that flu shots are always against previous year virus, not current. Developing a vaccine is a time consuming process (even one year is already a huge achievement).

So I'm still not convinced about flu shots. Other vaccines, like measles, are clear win, of course.

<comment><USER12> Huge point. I agree. The flu virus has mutated over loads of generations before it arrives again (it circles the globe with the seasons). The vaccine is a total crap shoot.

<comment><USER13> More like a coin flip since it's about 50% effective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > They're about achieving a collective resistance to disease that goes beyond > individual well-being

We don't get the flue vaccine for herd immunity and never have. I've never heard this argument from health departments or doctors.

This article seems to be confusing issues.

If the flue vaccine does help others they need to start publicizing that if it's true. If they are trying for heard immunity they also need to publicize that.

I don't watch ads but if people can link to any that claim this I'd be interested. If it was true then the vaccine sellers would be shouting it from the roof tops I would think.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great article. They did themselves a bit of a disservice referencing the Flu shot though. It is the most ineffective vaccine used in America. This would be more convincing to those against vaccination if they had just left it out of the discussion.

</comment><comment><USER16> The 1918 flu pandemic killed what, 5% of the world population? The next predicted pandemic is to be much worse IIRC. Chief Justice Roberts called the simple efficiency gap math "gobbledygook"; is he, or is he not, willing to say the same about this math? what if push comes to shove and has to force America the free individual to be inoculated, saving the herd? This simple thought experiment highlights we are all connected, there is only the illusion of individual liberty because the herd would never intentionally let you kill it off.

</comment><comment><USER17> If humans are so afraid of strangers with needles, then why not turn our efforts to environmental tools for microbe management?

</comment><comment><USER18> I have a counterpoint for discussion against taking the flu vaccine based on the facts we know, and a two independent assumptions I make.

We know that influenza is different from other viruses because 1) There are many strains of influenza, it has a high mutation rate 2) Flu vaccines are based on a forecast of likely strains and typically cover only at most 50% of the strains in a given year [1]

Now let us make the following assumption - Actual flu infection boosts immunity after recovery from the infection compared to vaccination (perhaps an analogy would be how muscle recovery happens after microtears after a strength training workout with heavier weights).

In which case, one might conclude - Since a stronger immune response is great against a fast mutating virus and around 50% of strains are not covered by vaccines anyways, that the benefit of boosting immune response against future infections (beyond the current year) outweighs cost of getting infected and is a better choice than getting immunized against 50% of the strains with increased chances of getting flu due to the other 50% anyways

Assumption 2 - Getting exposed, but not infected by flu, increases the number of strains one's body is immune to. Something sort of like vaccination, but without taking the vaccines themselves.

For the purpose of modelling, let us also make the assumptions that all strains arise and propagate independently. That is the strains not covered by vaccination expose the same number of people unaffected by herd immunity, while the strains covered by the vaccination face herd immunity.

Now consider the strains covered by the vaccine, whose spread is reduced due to herd immunity. It is great for everyone vaccinated against the strains, but for people not vaccinated against it, it prevents exposure from and hence immunity. This might be a case where the utility of vaccination decreases for non-vaccinated individuals instead of increasing (herd immunity) as a function of the fraction of vaccinated population. In other words, the more people vaccinated for flu, the less likely an non-vaccinated person is to get exposed, the less likely is he/she to develop immunity towards those strains naturally. Thus this would prevent population level immunity from arising, where it would have arisen naturally.

Note that in this scenario, one might question that in the natural course of events, a certain percentage of population will develop immunity anyways and hence become equivalent to the scenario where some part of the population is vaccinated. However there are three major differences. First is that there is a certain delay between getting infected, spreading to others and gaining immunity. Thus for the same percentage of immune population, there might be larger population exposed in the natural course of events. Second is that many individuals might get infected, transmit and immunized to a strain without getting infected, thus such an individual gets all the benefits of vaccination, but might help others get exposed and immunized to a strain. And third that vaccination is more aligned with socio-economic factors while infection less so.

To conclude, if any of the two assumptions I state are true, then we should perhaps not blindly apply the same logic that applies to other viruses for which we have vaccinations.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15562258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15562258)

</comment><comment><USER19> So now, what am I supposed to think of all those claims that the flu vaccine is essentially a step or two behind nature.

Then, for me, I worry about the adjuncts and other stuff added to the standard vaccines as I have autoimmune problems. There are alternative vaccines that are available but I don't remember their efficacy.

So I refuse taking vaccines unless absolutely necessary until I see viable alternatives without aluminum, any kind of mercury, and so on.

<comment><USER20> These fears are based on bad science. The alleged "toxins" in vaccines are either present in microscopic quantities - micrograms or less - or were simply never there in the first place. It's like worrying about "sugar being bad for you" \- which it is, in large enough amounts - because a single grain of table sugar got into your cereal. Details: [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/toxic- myths-about-vaccines/](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/toxic-myths-about- vaccines/)

<comment><USER19> That page was interesting. Yet, I keep seeing conflicting reports stating that the removal of thimerosal from vaccines to be exaggerated, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Militarizing your backyard with Python, Arduino, and computer vision. - <AUTHOR> http://pyvideo.org/video/674/militarizing-your-backyard-with-python-computer <comment><USER2> As the person who wrote the OpenCV Python bindings, this makes me inordinately happy.

<comment><USER3> Awesome, I have been using the your work a lot recently. I do have one question though, is SIFT available in the python bindings? I have not been able to find it.

Thanks for contributing your time, it has made my life much easier.

<comment><USER4> For SIFT computation, I recommend VLFeat[1], which there are some python bindings for[2] (although I haven't tried them myself).

[1] <http://www.vlfeat.org/>

[2] [http://www.janeriksolem.net/2011/06/another-python- interface...](http://www.janeriksolem.net/2011/06/another-python-interface- for-sift.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Jan Erik is an outstanding guy. He has helped me through a couple of rough spots. The OpenCV python bindings for SIFT don't seem to work (or exist). The ones for ORB work really well. Here is an example: [https://github.com/ingenuitas/SimpleCV/blob/master/SimpleCV/...](https://github.com/ingenuitas/SimpleCV/blob/master/SimpleCV/ImageClass.py#L3994)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think a fair number of homeowners would be willing to pay a lot of money for a version of this system they didn't have to program themselves. And had more firepower, of course.

<comment><USER6> I think a fair number of nation-states would be willing to pay a lot of money for a version of this system they didn't have to program themselves. And had more firepower, of course.

<comment><USER7> I think a number of terrorists are going to be willing to figure out how to hook such a system up to a gun on a $300 RC quadrocopter. I hope it's a small number. It's going to be interesting.

<comment><USER8> Are you serious? Do you honestly think a $300 RC quadrocopter can handle the kick of a gun?

<comment><USER9> opposing barrels fired simultaneously might work, though it would be a bit wasteful.

<comment><USER10> I don't think so... Where is all your extra energy going?

<comment><USER11> In roughly equal and opposite directions. You'd just need something between the two weapons to withstand the compressive force.

<comment><USER10> "In roughly equal and opposite directions" sounds like you think energy cancels other energy like opposing forces do. The energy needs to go somewhere; it can't bump into MORE energy and disappear. What would this "something" that absorbs all of it be?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A real python would probably take care of the squirrels even better.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm impressed that he can get low false positives with such simple methods. That's great to know.

If he tried using line detection, vectorize it, then train the algorithm with the tagged shapes of squirrels. Would that be too slow to do in real time? Or could it work to reduce false positives?

<comment><USER14> Adding complementary features such as edges (I'm guessing this is what you mean by lines) tends to improve the accuracy. It would also be possible to do this in real time.

I don't have time to watch the full video so I don't know what features he is currently using, but in object detection nowadays most people are using some variant of the SIFT descriptor. These are built not upon edges but on the image gradient per-pixel. The current 'hot' feature in terms of frequency of use is probably Histograms of Oriented Gradients (HOG) which do exactly what they say on the tin: Take a region of the image and count how many times a particular gradient direction occurs and the total magnitudes. Slightly more difficult to run in real-time but libraries exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I attended the talk. It was pretty cool, especially the OpenCV part. Frankly I think he needs to upgrade the armaments. Hook that bad boy up to the hose with a nozzle.

Frankly, if you wanted to, you could hook such a system up to an automated sprinkler control system and just turn on the water for whatever area the squirrels happen to be in at the moment. It would only have to be on for a few moments. Soon they'd think your yard is some sort of special hell, where water follows them wherever they go.

<comment><USER16> I was there too :) It was such a fun talk, especially the part where in the end of the demo video, the squirrel stopped caring about the water cannon anymore, and decided to steal food while getting sprayed on. I wonder if there is a better way to deter them instead of bigger water cannons?

<comment><USER17> Well the arms race can begin... more potent water pistol. Then nerf dart gun... then golf balls gun... then gotcha gun... (at this point gets dangerous)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Reminded me a bit of this old project from someone trying to stop non-cats or their cat carrying a dead animal from entering a cat door:

[http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/Flo_Control_1/flo_...](http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/Flo_Control_1/flo_control_1.htm)

</comment><comment><USER19> One of the spectators in that video talks about <http://info.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/Z.Kalal/tld.html> which was discussed on HN before and a nice demo of what computer vision can do...

</comment><comment><USER20> Awesome talk, but I can't resist: Leave it to a software engineer to find a $250 solution to a $10 problem :) (<http://www.wbcboulder.com/pole_mounted_baffles_sub.html>)

<comment><USER21> I can tell you right now that those don't work at all. We've got a few on our feeders with NOTHING else around them and the squirrels still get on them. They only work if you have a single feeder/pole within about 10 feet of each other. Those little fsckers pull some ninja-esque moves jumping from metal pole to metal pole to get around them. It's entertaining to watch but it can get expensive since when they get up there they eat their fill which can sometimes be 1/6th to 1/5th of the feeder at a time.

<comment><USER22> _they eat their fill_

That's when you apply the $5 solution: a slingshot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What about airsoft? You could mount a cheap, automatic, battery-powered unit and seriously sting those squirrels! I thought of using a similar system to protect the chickens I've got from the feral/neighborhood cats (I do have a fence... but that doesn't feel "complete").

<comment><USER24> We have chickens too, around 25 free range + a pony + a few ducks, and had issues with dogs and wild coyotes. I think harming the animal is a bit inhumane but I totally understand where you are coming from. Remember you are a guest in their space.

Here are some suggestions that have worked for our farm:

1\. Pee around the coop. Enough said.

2\. Get a puppy and train him. We have an aussie that does a great job, but there are other breeds that make even better farm dogs.

3\. Train the chickens to go back into the barn when the sun goes down. This isn't very hard and most of the time they will do it themselves.

4\. Motion sensor and/or electric fence on a timer.

5\. Be aware; this is by far the hardest thing.

Our first year we lost 10 chickens. If that's not motivation enough to do something, I don't know what is but I would never hurt another animal for doing what they do naturally.

<comment><USER23> Our chickens aren't exactly free-range, but they have a large fenced-in area. The fence is electric, and the chickens do go in at night. But when a cat walks by and scares them, they have a tendency to get outside the fence and not know how. And outside the fence... some of the cats would be interested in getting them. And since a big siamese-like cat comes around that will hunt ground hogs, a chicken isn't such an intimidating target.

While I understand that cats are born predators, I can't afford to lose chickens. I wouldn't kill them because they do keep pests down and may belong to someone, but I do want to scare them away from the coop.

<comment><USER24> Oh yeah, I understand that. We all face different challenges when raising animals. I was just spitballing at 'cha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 15:50 for the cannon in action.

<comment><USER26> Relevant XKCD: <http://xkcd.com/382/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if something like the Blender Defender (<http://www.plasma2002.com/blenderdefender>) would be more effective than the water. A strobe light and/or a rattle to frighten it off. Ultrasonic would be good as well if there was decent evidence it worked.

</comment><comment><USER28> Seems like you'd be better off cutting off the approaches to the feeder. But the project is super cool. For more power, I'd use a power washer. :)

<comment><USER29> Squirrels are notoriously ingenious at raiding feeders. They are really good at defeating feeders that are specifically designed to be "anti-squirrel" too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> My bro has a problem with a mole digging all the backyard, any idea for that problem? maybe a flying drone that drops bombs on its head ? :)

</comment><comment><USER31> The presenter's personal site: <http://kurtgrandis.com/blog/>

</comment><comment><USER32> neat and awesome talk</comment>


Ask HN: Cheap and Reliable IAAS Provider for a web app? - <AUTHOR>

If you had an on-line product/web app to launch, which IAAS provider would you pick, knowing that initially your funds are very limited? You don't want to break the bank but would like to have the option to scale out if necessary without it becoming very expensive with load (I particularly want to stay away from solutions that are free or almost free to start but expensive to scale). <comment><USER2> If your funds are truly limited (<$100):

\- design your app in a way that isn't locked to a given IAAS provider so that you can switch if the economics change

\- go find a special interest group (e.g. local startup incubator) that is eligible for IAAS credits; if you tell people you're doing a startup and you look legit, IAAS providers will trip over each other to give you thousands of dollars of free credits

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks you. Your last point is very interesting. I'll do some research on that.</comment></comment>