Google Cultural Institute - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute <comment><USER2> I was looking at Museo Napoleonico and saw the Google camera in one of the mirrors: [https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset- viewer/yAHftz...](https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset- viewer/yAHftzZiPgkYuA?location=41.9015935%2C12.4722782%2C0.78%2CZHfFlFbt- KLa_FNzAZUwrw&projectId=art-project)

It looks very HAL 9000: [https://i.imgur.com/TsZ1Q9a.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/TsZ1Q9a.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm impressed by the resolution at which some of these paintings have been scanned.

I'd love to hear more about this process - is it a custom scanning rig? A Gigapan-style pan/tilt DSLR? I'm wondering how they would scan something like the Wedding at Cana? [1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_at_Cana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_at_Cana)

<comment><USER4> According to the presenter at this year's Museums and the Web conference they're using the bike / person-mount Google Street View system. Each partner gets 1 gigapixel scan as a perk and can get more at apparently quite reasonable rates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's kind of insane, but I live a block away from the Walters Art Museum, and i've been inside three times, yet i'm spending more time reflecting on the pieces from this website than at the museum itself.

[https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/collection/the- walt...](https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/collection/the-walters-art- museum?projectId=art-project)

<comment><USER6> That's too bad, the artwork is really amazing in person.. and not even giving the Walters the web traffic (instead, Google gets it).. A troubling Google Art Project concern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found this site a few months back and was absolutely impressed. I hope to one day have a 4k tv mounted to a wall and framed in my house with slide shows from a custom curated set of art playing on repeat.

<comment><USER8> I am building this exact thing, called ArtsMuse ([http://artsmuse.io](http://artsmuse.io)). It's early days yet: signing artists and getting a beta-ready system built. I have the same vision as you: using the screens in my house to show art instead of being a big black hole on the wall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love these, but I always have this compulsion to dig into the source and try to find the giant asset itself, if it's accessible and not just tiled and streamed in like a map. Some museums and collection sites have their source images better obfuscated than others.

Anyone else have any luck, for example on getting the full-size pic from this piece?

[http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/the- col...](http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/the-colosseum-as- seen-from-above/FAGaNw4vi613cg?projectId=art-project)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is amazing! Any thoughts on why Google did this?

</comment><comment><USER11> The name creeps me out.

<comment><USER12> Sounds like an institution the Asgard would have named.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love the concept but these days I mostly wonder how long it will last before getting the Reader treatment and what that will mean for the partners who are using it for their best-quality web presence.

<comment><USER13> World is impermanent, the internet world magnifies this tenfold. Things will get ever more transient.

Accept the impermanence.

<comment><USER14> >>Accept the impermanence.

You're talking extremes, which is a little funny considering the time scales of all the links in the chain: artifact/art (millennia to centuries), museums (centuries to decades), google inc (?).

<comment><USER6> It is a shame google is aiming at Institutions that don't have the resources to know better than to trust them.. meanwhile their usage rights exists in perpetuity.. not simply for duration of the project..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SuperHappyDevHouse Tomorrow - Saturday 01/31/2009 - <AUTHOR> http://superhappydevhouse.org/ Bringing any fun projects?<p>I'm thinking about going to meet some people and working on my GTD spending tracker, or an art gallery dedicated to meat. <comment><AUTHOR> Bringing any fun projects?

I'm thinking about going to meet some people and working on my GTD spending tracker, or an art gallery dedicated to meat.

</comment><comment><USER2> The last shdh event I actually made it to (23) was pretty fun. For some reason, such environments tend to be very conducive to my productivity.

To this event, I'm bringing some zentu*nix stickers, free for anyone who has defenestrated Windows (or who at the very least has a dual-boot). :)

<comment><USER3> do apple users count?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What software is best to manage graphic design projects? - <AUTHOR> and why? <comment><USER2> I would suggest [https://zenkit.com](https://zenkit.com). It offers many different data views like a mind-map, spreadsheet, list and calendar. You can attach files, keep track of deadlines and see the overall progress in your kanban-board. Disclaimer: I am the co-founder of Zenkit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Manage in what way? Like Zeplin?

<comment><AUTHOR> communication from client to designers. Plus all the design projects from all the clients.

I am also looking for a good invoicing software</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for documentation? - <AUTHOR> Curious to hear from the non-tech readership - what tools do you use to document knowledge & processes at your company? Especially interested in legal, consulting, accounting (professional services) if anyone knows?<p>In my world (software) we use Confluence + Quip and the biggest problem is search and file structure - things get lost almost as soon as they are created. <comment><USER2> Hugo + docdock theme

Readme based with search, code snippets, diagrams, stored in git

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing - seems developer-centric, no? Don't mean that to be snarky, just curious what people outside of tech are using</comment></comment>


Bypass the horrendous custom installer for Flash 10.1 on Mac OS X - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/111334/good-job-adobe-flash-team <comment><USER2> Does anyone have a similar trick for Windows? I can't seem to access anything but the horrible "Download Manager" extension/ActiveX using IE or Firefox on Windows.</comment>


The decentralized WeTransfer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alexsicart/Decentralized-Cloud <comment><USER2> So the server which hosts the application stores the file I upload, right? As I recall web implementation of js-ipfs isn't ready yet. This project could potentially be much more useful when js-ipfs is mature enough.

</comment><comment><USER3> Huh. Does this tool encrypt your files before sending them? If it is like "WeTransfer", you would expect your files to be available only to people who know the private sharing link.

However, my understanding is that IPFS will publish the file hash to adjacent notes, so unless they are encrypted people can listen for your provider records and look at your (presumably privately shared) files: [https://discuss.ipfs.io/t/is-it-possible-to-store-private- ob...](https://discuss.ipfs.io/t/is-it-possible-to-store-private-objects-in- ipfs-without-encrypting-them/460/2)

</comment><comment><USER4> has anyone thought that I dont want to store other people's files. that I dont want to store my files on someone else's computer? Decentralized is neat until 1 virus spreads in one second. beef it up then roll it out.

</comment><comment><USER5> At least, I like the name - IPFS (the InterPlanetary File System)

<comment><USER6> Note that the submission is not about IPFS itself ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System)), but about Decentralized Cloud, which is a project that is built on top of IPSF.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This HN title needs revision.

Otherwise, great link; nice looking project.

<comment><USER8> Suggestion: "Decentralized-Cloud IPFS file transfer"

<comment><AUTHOR> Good one

<comment><USER8> If you're no longer able to edit the submission title yourself, you can contact the mods via the Contact link in the footer and have them change it for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay thanks a lot :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bittorrent protocol is decentralized wetransfer right?

<comment><USER10> It would not be inaccurate to consider IPFS as an evolution of the Bittorrent protocol.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very different protocols!

<comment><USER11> From the primary IPFS paper [1], which mentions "torrent" 26 times:

"In IPFS, data distribution happens by exchanging blocks with peers using a BitTorrent inspired protocol"

[1] [https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/tree/master/papers/ipfs- cap2pfs](https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/tree/master/papers/ipfs-cap2pfs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the problem I see with decentralized projects.

The user experience here, is essentially the same as WeTransfer. The only difference is the underlying technologies.

Now, one would have to either blindly trust that the infrastructure is truly decentralized, or have the time and necessary skills to audit the code.

And then they'd have to trust that web server is actually hooking up to the code that was just audited!

What this means is, "decentralized" projects still require a level of trust, even on the behalf of people who understand what decentralization means.

Next is the problem of the "masses". They already are using WeTransfer, or Dropbox for that matter. Why should they switch to this? Because it's decentralized? Now you have to explain to them what that means and why that's beneficial to them, and if you're successful there, they still have to: trust the code (and they only can do that by understanding it) and trust that you're actually deploying that code on your live interface.

Thus, the decentralization community has got a marketing problem. Fortunately for Bitcoin they've got and continue to have massive amounts of free press, press which does not even actually highlight the decentralized aspect of Bitcoin, just the price action. There is no press movement to help catapult "decentralized infrastructure."

I'm just saying, decentralized projects currently only seem to appeal to people who are interested in decentralization. There needs to be a way to move pass this hurdle if there's going to be the much sought after "mass adoption."

The average person doesn't care how something works, they just care that it _does work_. And plenty solutions _already work for them_.

I just hope in the end, we aren't just tinkering for the sake of tinkering.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe we should build distributed projects, seems equally to products already people love, but using great tech as ipfs, to have permanent and unlimited files.

<comment><USER13> Large, unlimited, and permanent files sounds great to the average person. One nitpick I have with the IPFS crowd is the use of the word 'permanent'. They know exactly what it means, but the connotation for the average person is incorrect (persistent data for the latter, permanent address for the former). The marketing problems run deep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm trying to figure out how this would be decentralised. As far as I understand, merely hosting something on IPFS doesn't make it decentralised if there is only one node.

\- Where is my file hosted when I receive it?

\- Has your server pinned and seeding that file?

\- Is there a distributed set of nodes that also host it?

<comment><USER15> > As far as I understand, merely hosting something on IPFS doesn't make it > decentralised if there is only one node.

Doesn't that apply to torrents, too? If 2 or more people don't own (and share) the exact same content, then of course it's not decentralized.

<comment><USER14> Sure, I guess the difference is, torrents have an inherent mechanism of becoming distributed. Once someone else has a whole/part of the file, they begin seeding immediately (unless stopped of course). In the case of this app, I just receive a download link which is a proxy for pulling something from the network. It would be something else, if the way to get a hold of this file would be through an IPFS node that the user was running.

<comment><USER16> I'm not really sure what you mean. IPFS works just like torrents. As soon as you receive the file, you start "seeding" it.

<comment><USER14> Yes it does. But I don't believe this app is using any actual seeding mechanisms of IPFS from a user perspective. Which is why i'm asking about where the nodes would be to make this distributed and decentralised.

My guess is that the server of this project uploads and "pins" this file in IPFS, in which case it would be no different than a centralised solution. If the server goes down, your file is unaccessible.

Also, when you use this app, you aren't doing this through an IPFS node to then be able to seed it. You are just downloading the already hosted file using a HTTP proxy service that can download from IPFS.

<comment><USER16> > But I don't believe this app is using any actual seeding mechanisms of IPFS > from a user perspective

I'm not sure what you mean here. Any user can "seed" any IPFS file they want, they don't need anything from this service.

> in which case it would be no different than a centralised solution

A distributed solution with N=1 isn't the same as a centralized solution. The difference is that distributed solutions can easily increase N, but centralized solutions can't. In this case, you can distribute the file from as many nodes as you control, which makes this service much better than a centralized solution.

> Also, when you use this app, you aren't doing this through an IPFS node to > then be able to seed it

Sure, but you can use something like www.eternum.io (or just run your own IPFS node) to fix that. If you don't want to do either, of course you won't have any of the advantages. It's like saying "cars aren't better than couches, they aren't much more comfortable and they don't run if you don't start the engine".

<comment><USER14> You might be misunderstanding my position. I think IPFS is great and should be used. But this specific project is not really attending to any problems.

It's in the core functionality of IPFS to be able to host a file and the http proxy is available by default by IPFS. So the real problems are distributing and decentralising the file (such as by running an IPFS node) and this project is not making the slightest attempt at that. Without that there is little point in using this service as it is just like any other centralised hosting service, just so happens that the file is on IPFS.

<comment><USER16> Oh, I see what you mean now, that it's not much better than raw IPFS. In that case, I might agree, although I think UX matters a lot too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you talk to your GitHub community? - <AUTHOR> I work on an open source project with a small community.
https://github.com/jtablesaw/tablesaw<p>I want a place for our users to hold discussions, ask questions, etc, that aren't bug reports or feature requests. We'd be lost at Stack Exchange, as the community is too small.
I'm looking for an app like Discourse that is integrated with github. I've used gitter on other projects, and found the endless stream format awkward. What do you use for your projects? The only 'must haves' are sign-on-with-github-account, and asynch communications. <comment><USER2> Create a #tablesaw IRC channel and promote it with a kiwiirc link (webchat).

freenode is the home of most software related channels but I prefer Rizon that I find more benevolent to newcomers.

The channel I'm always on (as example of kiwiirc url): [https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.rizon.net?channels=#/g/dpt](https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.rizon.net?channels=#/g/dpt)

<comment><USER3> The biggest communities are on Freenode and OFTC compared to stuff like slack & co.

Using FLOSS services that are federated/decentralized or at least run by no profits is necessary to keep a healthy community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Google Groups, no it doesn't have any deep integration with GitHub, but plenty of very active projects hosted on GitHub and elsewhere use it, and it's a great free forum provider with an easy web UI for those that want it, and E-Mail for power-users.

Keep in mind that most of the value people get out of such forums is being able to search possibly years old posts after the fact, and something like E-Mail is much more likely to be useful in that fashion than some glorified IRC client.

<comment><USER5> The main thing I really dislike about Google Groups is that it doesn't provide any reasonable export option.

Disclaimer: I work for Discourse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _I 'm looking for an app like Discourse that is integrated with github. > [...] The only 'must haves' are sign-on-with-github-account, and asynch > communications._

So, Discourse? It supports OAuth logins, what you need for GH.

<comment><AUTHOR> I might go with discourse but I can't afford the saas version ($100/mo) and was hoping to avoid having another thing to maintain.

<comment><USER7> You should be eligible for the 50% non-profit discount and could maybe even get it for free as an open source project: [https://blog.discourse.org/2016/03/free-discourse-forum- host...](https://blog.discourse.org/2016/03/free-discourse-forum-hosting-for- community-friendly-github-projects/) (you don't exactly meet the threshold criteria yet but look at the top comment on that post).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This can entirely depend on the type of project and how many active contributors there are - if you have a lot of contributors then you may find more cross-user communications in which case gitter really does help (they answer each others' questions). If there are just a few people able to answer questions or just one (you), then using issues as Q&A would be good enough for now. The latter is quite common with apps rather than libraries. It is also more searchable which helps others.

Curious to know, how are you defining small community? I see you have ~100 watchers, ~900 stars, ~200 forks. Are you basing it on that, or some other criteria (# issues per week etc)

My project - I have a project with roughly same numbers as you. I did set up a gitter but everyone ignored it and emails me directly or just uses the issues. Despite not being actual issues, and despite its awkwardness, it's back to what I said earlier - searchable for people with similar problems in the future. I'll be sticking to issues until I reach hyper-popularity and then the gitter may revive itself.

<comment><USER9> I see 19 contributors, which do look small.

<comment><USER2> 19 is very good. Recruiting active contributors is extremely difficult.

<comment><USER10> Boy oh boy is that an understatement. One of the ~15 year old ~70kloc projects I help maintain only has a handful of active contributors at any point. Even with efforts put into marketing it there's not a large pool of people to pull from.

I wish there was a formula for making things more attractive to contribute to (in both the short and long term), but it's a fiddly process.

<comment><USER2> > I wish there was a formula for making things more attractive to contribute > to (in both the short and long term), but it's a fiddly process.

I'm trying to elaborate something for that. On way I see is to reduce the entry level as much as possible.

I deduce that a project aiming a lot of contributors should be heterogeneous (contributors can choose their favorite language)and shouldn't have a single build system (interfaces exists at runtime with a middleware, vms, or files).

<comment><USER10> That might work or it could backfire. With more build systems and more languages, then you can easily end up in the category that someone needs to know all of them to make meaningful changes. If you have people staying in their own part of the codebase it's easy to imagine significant bitrot occurring over time.

<comment><USER2> I imagine software isolated in vms.

Many people could do the same thing or overlap with someone's else project. It would allow projects to compete.

<comment><USER10> Interesting. That's a radically different view on what a project should strive for than my own. My own FLOSS work focuses on getting work closer to the system's metal in order to have a responsive low-latency/realtime configuration (realtime being in the realtime signal processing sense).

In this area in particular people doing the same things results in reasonable breadth of work, but insufficient depth. So plenty of options, but all of them not good enough to compete with larger development teams.

<comment><USER2> I've seen your website. It's really fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I suggest Discourse too. Users can login with their Github account and you can deploy a small instance very cheaply in Digital Ocean. It's better than a chat and the content will be indexed in google quickly.

</comment><comment><USER12> We at StackStorm now do a combination of SAAS Discourse ([https://forum.stackstorm.com/](https://forum.stackstorm.com/)) and Slack (~1200 members). Discourse allows newcomers to search for relevant issues and allows us to do async support well. With 3000 members in slack, a paid version would be unimaginable in terms of cost. Plus, even if we pay (which we do for the team itself), the search is unbelievably bad in slack. Discourse seems to be doing well for us so far. We'll know more in a few months now. BTW we also allow people to file bug reports in github. It's a lot of tooling around customer engagement and support but people like that they can hop on slack, get pointed to forum if the question they ask cannot be answered by larger community. Core engineers answer discourse questions and point people to github issues if there is a legit issue. Sometimes people ask support questions straight on github.

</comment><comment><USER10> A major characteristics that you need to decide upon is how searchable/disposable are you expecting the conversations to be. Coarsely you have forums, mailing lists, and chat options. My own open source projects are split between the different mediums. Chat via something like IRC on freenode (+ matrix if you want extra features) is easy to setup and great for casual discussion or very bursty conversation (time-zone permitting). Mailing lists make for decent multi-day and searchable conversation, but they can pose signal-vs-noise issues (freelist would be a good option). There are various options for forums (e.g. discourse) and they work well for longer lived, but marginally more disposable conversations compared to mailing lists.

As long as you can pick something that the community is interested in using any option should be reasonably viable.

</comment><comment><USER13> Most of the time through [http://gitter.im](http://gitter.im)

<comment><USER14> Gitter for dev communities, for broader communities a lot of projects also use Slack and Discord, perhaps Rocketchat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> IRC channels. Accept no substitutes.

</comment><comment><USER16> I use [https://gitter.im](https://gitter.im), I think it would be what you're looking for.

</comment><comment><USER17> Would team discussions be an option? [https://help.github.com/articles/about- team-discussions/](https://help.github.com/articles/about-team-discussions/)

Might mean having to bring people into the project as outside collaborators though if I read that correctly.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you're willing to add people to your org, you can make use of the team discussions in GitHub itself. It's like a stripped down forum and is fairly hidden in the UI, but you can get to it from your org profile (or the team page for it).

</comment><comment><USER19> omg... I released this a few months ago...

[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/elseif](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/elseif)

without much fanfare... and I quickly moved onto another project.

<comment><USER20> That looks really nice and cleaned up, is there a GitHub URL instead? That post leads to a URL that is down.

<comment><USER19> A bigger project that I have been working for a long time is HelloBox

[https://www.hellobox.co](https://www.hellobox.co)

<comment><USER21> Any project that dog-foods is a good sign, in my view. Good luck with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 100% recommend discourse for this. It is what Hugo uses, and I find it very useful and well laid out.

Example: [https://discourse.gohugo.io/](https://discourse.gohugo.io/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I use the free version of slack for [https://github.com/nanohop/sketch-to- react-native](https://github.com/nanohop/sketch-to-react-native)

I mostly chose it because it was free (despite the 10k message limit - which I don't see us hitting anytime soon), and people already know how to use it. I know about the limitations and problems with it - but it was basically the easiest thing to get started.

</comment><comment><USER24> Use Reddit! Create a public/private subreddit (whatever suits you). It's a perfect place for discussions, and you can use IFTTT to provide you with webhooks.

<comment><USER25> > It's a perfect place for discussions

Reddit is _terrible_ for discussions. It is perfect for current, forgotten- tomorrow consumation of things.

<comment><USER26> I used to have a community that was on facebook before. What a terrible mistake it was. Besides many bad things, it is what you described. There was no way to search for anything.

Reddit isn't perfect, but it's much less intrusive than facebook and people can search for past discussions. I know it is a low bar, but then I don't have to worry about spams, registrations, etc. Plus, if I don't have time to read/deal with it today, the discussion and the person isn't gone tomorrow which chat services tend to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's some new thing called Spectrum that looks really interesting.

[https://spectrum.chat](https://spectrum.chat)

</comment><comment><USER28> There used to be messaging within GitHub. You could simply message any other user. Now you have to look at someone's profile to hope to see if they have some form of contact there.

Im not sure why they removed it - they could have extended this into more discussion and community space. They say they are social, after all.

<comment><USER29> Keybase has a github integration via browser extension. Not sure how many people on github actually use keybase, but iam a fan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Have a look at Talkyard, it's like open source Stack Exchange, + Discourse topic list, and Slack like chat topics.

[https://www.talkyard.io](https://www.talkyard.io)

Yes there's GitHub login and async communication. (I'm developing it.)

</comment><comment><USER31> Issues tagged as discussion would work, no? Many projects use the bug tracker for almost any discussion.

If you would want sth. like a mailing list, there's [http://librelist.com/](http://librelist.com/) .

<comment><USER32> I briefly considered Librelist, but their UI is a disaster.

To create or subscribe to list, you... send a message to the list. It's beyond me why would anyone want it like that.

I ended up using [https://groups.io/](https://groups.io/) for my pet project.

<comment><USER31> Disaster is too heavy of an adjective there. You may not like it. But interacting with mailing lists using mail is common practice, possible also with mailman and majordomo, and probably with most other mailing list software. You should also be a bit nicer when talking about an open source project hosted for free for everybody.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm building an OSS thing just for that; simple, built on top of GitHub, doesn't require any hosting, has Q&A...

Shoot me an email and I should be able to direct you to the repo in the next week or two.

</comment><comment><USER34> Is it not possible to just use GitHub? I mean, by creating a second repo which would be only for discussion, like tablesaw-support. I have no idea if is it again their ToS however.

</comment><comment><USER35> Why do you think stack-exchange is not the right place for questions and user support ?

I'm asking because I am building a tool for tracking mentions on stack- exchange. I need your opinion. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't looked in a while but I don't believe there was a way to get notified on a mention. With a small community that would be key

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A little XMPP chatroom, there's plenty of clients out there and there is a nice native Github integration (to have the PR, commits… notifications) :)

</comment><comment><USER37> Gitter looks like what you're looking for.

</comment><comment><USER38> Trello.

On another note, if i've ever seen a startup idea, this has to be one!

<comment><USER39> There is little money in this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> My favorite is gitter

</comment><comment><USER41> Like them is my dawgs!

</comment><comment><USER42> What about Slack?

<comment><USER43> The free plan allows you only to keep the latest 10K messages. And it tends to be messy

<comment><USER30> And (IMO) it's sooo annoying that everything is hidden behind a login screen. I usually don't signup, just to see what might be behind.

Here're open source Slack alternatives for public communities, no login screens: [https://spectrum.chat](https://spectrum.chat) and [https://www.talkyard.io](https://www.talkyard.io) (I'm developing it).

(Rocket Chat & Mattermost & Zulip are other alternatives, all require login to see what's there? )

<comment><USER44> Many organization and companies don't want outsiders to see what is happening due to privacy and security issues. Anyway, there is a PR opened for Zulip which allows people to see the content of public streams without logging in. It's up to the administrators to decide which streams would be public to users which are not logged in.

[https://github.com/zulip/zulip/pull/8135](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/pull/8135)

<comment><USER30> Interesting to know, thanks for mentioning :- ) B.t.w. I like Zulip's threads.

A thought: What if Zulip, during installation, let the admin choose if things should be public or hidden-behind-login, by default? E.g. useful for open source projects

<comment><USER45> We're actually working on something like this in Zulip; it's advertised as "coming soon" at [http://zulipchat.com/for/open- source](http://zulipchat.com/for/open-source)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> We moved the Open Data Kit community from Google Groups to a Discourse forum at [https://forum.opendatakit.org](https://forum.opendatakit.org) and it's been awesome. Over the last year, we doubled in size (now up to 7,000 members and growing) and a lot of that growth has been enabled by Discourse.

We use the forum for exactly what you described, longer conversations that aren't necessarily tied to a closable issue. And we also use it for all our support requests. Handling support is great on Discourse because the new topic interface shows users (a lot of them non-technical) similar questions and it has great search and SEO.

I think for a small community, Google Groups would work, but my gut says Google Groups is not long for this world. Also, while mailing lists are workable for support, but I find them miserable (e.g., you can't move posts from one topic to another, you can't easily prevent duplication questions).

Anyway, I'd say try Discourse. And if you have any questions about started with Discourse or using it for open source projects, I'm glad to help! My handle is "yanokwa" on Gmail and HN and Twitter and GitHub and pretty much everywhere.

And I guess while I have HN's attention, I can give a quick blurb on Open Data Kit!

Open Data Kit (ODK) is a set of tools that replace paper forms. Our tools are mostly used by social good organizations to collect mission-critical data in difficult environments (e.g., collecting polio vaccination data on 1 million kids in Mogadishu [1], monitoring elections in emerging democracies [2], protecting forests in Indonesia [3]).

I love working on ODK because the project has a measurable positive impact on the world and we have a very kind and welcoming community. As one of the project founders, I'm a little biased, but if you are looking to get into open-source software, ODK is a great project to contribute to.

To get started, go to [http://github.com/opendatakit](http://github.com/opendatakit), find a pinned repo, read the readme, and claim a "quick win" issue. Oh, and sign up on the forum [http://forum.opendatakit.org](http://forum.opendatakit.org) and introduce yourself!

[1] [http://www.emro.who.int/som/somalia-news/somalia-to- conduct-...](http://www.emro.who.int/som/somalia-news/somalia-to-conduct- second-round-of-focused-polio-vaccination-activity-in-banadir-and-lower-and- middle-shabelle-regions.html)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-CGzo3m4PA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-CGzo3m4PA)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7rJCgwV3-g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7rJCgwV3-g)

</comment><comment><USER47> Would you pay for a service like this if it existed and worked well?

If so, please email me! I'd love to discuss the concept and may have the the time and inclination to build it if a great answer doesn't already exist.</comment>


HIV virus used to turn white blood cells into cancer serial killers  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1106965

<comment><USER2> Same story - much discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873630>

And even more discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873604></comment>


Companies Are Hiring the Most Software Engineers - <AUTHOR> https://insights.dice.com/2019/10/14/compaies-hiring-software-developers-engineers/ <comment><USER2> Besides Amazon (maybe?), are these companies with high turnover for various reasons?

I would not work for any company in that top ten list.</comment>


A lecture on differential equations using GNU TeXmacs [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILiL4m61BLw <comment><USER2> This is slow going, but informative and topical. The differential equations in question are to do with propagation of infectious diseases.

[EDIT] I posted too soon! Just the first two out of three examples are about disease.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good content, but the speaker sounds really down!!

Hope all is well in life man!</comment>


Ask HN: Suggestions for summer Startup Accelerator Programs? - <AUTHOR>

	5 of my friends and I are working on a project and we think that being a part of a startup accelerator program this summer would be really cool. Any suggestions for programs we should apply to? We're all freshmen in college studying CS. <comment><USER2> Well, Y Combinator of course :-) Depends on where in the USA you want to go. There are many programs. Though I think for some you might be to late to apply if you want to go in the summer.</comment>


Autonomous transportation launching to 125k residents in Florida - <AUTHOR> https://news.voyage.auto/self-driving-cars-in-a-city-like-no-other-c9b38807a9a6 <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone! Oliver, the CEO of Voyage and YC alum (2011) here.

I got started in the self-driving car world as a member of the team that built Udacity's self-driving car curriculum, and also an open source self-driving car. This industry is crazy fun and moving ridiculously fast.

Let me know if I can answer any questions at all about absolutely anything.

We're really excited about bringing Level-4 transportation to the world, but especially so at places like The Villages, Florida. Whether it's helping those with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, vision impairment, or just those who want to get around with less friction, we've seen first-hand the positive impact autonomous transportation can have for seniors.

<comment><USER2> Hi Oliver, a few questions:

(1) Will these cars have a Voyage employee in them to supervise?

(2) What are your driver intervention rates, eg. compared to Waymo? [1]

(3) Is there anything unique about The Villages, FL that makes it easier (or harder) to deploy self driving cars?

Congrats and interested to see the responses!

[1] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/01/13/waymos-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/01/13/waymos- self-driving-cars-need-less-driver-intervention/96529888/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi marcell, great questions.

1) Yes, at least today. We call them Operations Specialists, and they're highly trained in operating autonomous vehicles and customer service.

2) This is a tough one, since it's not apples-to-apples. That said, Waymo is clearly the industry leader in this regard, and we're glad that at least some of their formula is observable from the outside. We've been at this a little less than a year, and today many of our passenger rides are 95+% autonomous. A long way to go, though!

3) We love these communities for a number of reasons:

A) Speed limits in these communities tend to be a little more restricted than everyday public road. The faster you (and others) can go, the more complex it becomes. The roads are also spectacularly well-maintained.

B) Customer acquisition is a non-trivial problem, and with these sorts of partnerships we gain (exclusive) access to 125,000 potential riders. It would be brutal for us to achieve the same in San Francisco, and not necessarily cost effective to retain them.

C) If we wanted to try out concepts that may accelerate the timeframe to remove the Test Driver, a private community is easier to collaborate with.

D) Above all else, there's just a lot of demand for what we offer in these sorts of communities. Self-driving cars will lower the cost of transportation, and for those with vision impairments (or Parkinson's, Alzheimer's etc.), it enables such residents to get around with less friction.

<comment><USER3> Hi Oliver. Good luck with this great project.

>> (1) Will these cars have a Voyage employee in them to supervise?

>>>> 1) Yes, at least today. We call them Operations Specialists, and they're highly trained in operating autonomous vehicles and customer service.

My understanding of the autonomy levels (for what they're worth) is that while a human is behind the wheel, autonomy is not at level 4. If a human is required to take control in certain situations, it's either level 3 or 2.

<comment><USER4> I have a feeling human operators are there for more customer service purposes. Given the location selected it might be wise to have staff on hand. The idea of no humans makes me think of the news story recently on the front page here about the hitchhiking robot being destroyed also seems relevant, although private areas may be less prone to incident like this. ([https://www.wired.co.uk/article/hitchbot-usa-vandalised- phil...](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/hitchbot-usa-vandalised- philadelphia))

Also according to this techrepublic article, while level 3 may still require a driver, a level 4 vehicle can still be limited to the "operational design domain". So human drivers can still be in place for extreme edge cases. Although I don't know the specifics of these vehicles, and don't think the "levels" of driving are very useful.

Edit, forgot link: [https://www.techrepublic.com/article/autonomous-driving- leve...](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/autonomous-driving- levels-0-to-5-understanding-the-differences/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was what Google was thinking for their little 25MPH bubble car. The one they discontinued in 2016.[1] The great thing about a 25MPH speed limit is that slamming on the brakes deals with most problems. You don't have a stopping distance long enough that you have to steer out of them.

Good idea, still too expensive per unit. Votage has a huge upfront cost spread over very few cars. Plus human drivers, which means "it doesn't really work yet". This is a "can we get market share before the money runs out" play. It worked for Uber. Things like this will be in retirement communities everywhere around 2025, once the sensors are in volume manufacture and cheap.

When I was working on self-driving (2005 Grand Challenge) I saw two initial use cases - this one, and airport rental car pick-up and return. Both require only slow-speed driving in reasonably controlled environments, something which can be made to work. Neither is yet economically feasible.

[1] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603126/google-puts-the- br...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603126/google-puts-the-brakes-on- its-autonomous-bubble-car/)

<comment><USER6> > The great thing about a 25MPH speed limit is that slamming on the brakes > deals with most problems.

Might still not be that great if your clients are elderly.

<comment><USER7> On suburban roads, nearly all obstacles will be seen early enough to allow for slow breaking. It's very different in cities where people can appear between parked cars.

<comment><USER6> I meant as passengers. Restraint systems are designed with healthy bodies in mind, and they wreak havoc on the elderly. "Slamming the breaks" is not a valid strategy in this environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this business model has a far greater chance of succeeding than something like Tesla's. It's easier to just focus on a small averagely populated area than high density urban cities or in Tesla's case, the entire country. It's safer to deal with construction/road issues, unique quirks present of each city when you're only focusing on one community at a time.

It's far less of a headache dealing with one set of regulations for a community that has few, impressionable decisionmakers than trying to scale while trying to meet ever-changing individual regulations from each state/city and an uncertain national landscape. Only Google and the big automakers have the available influence to push for federal regulation standards and even those can be scrapped if some major incident happens or morons refuse to follow proper safety protocols to chase profits (uber).

If Tesla pushes level 4 or 5 autonomy, they need to consider every circumstance (rain, snow, dust storms, tornadoes, ice, and so many other random unique Mother Nature quirks), every road construction issue, hazards, fallen trees etc. all at once. It just isn't feasible. You need city employees to report fallen trees, garbage truck routes, area with frequent deer or animal crossings etc. They can't just say it's autonomous in one particular area where maybe only 100 Teslas are present, it's just not economical.

I think this route of small community adaptation is the most likely and it's great to see most players shift to this model. This means that automakers aren't going to be the big players in this space for another decade or so. It's not economical for big beuracratic, slow moving businesses like Ford to enter into this landscape. Small companies and startups pushing into this has its advantages and disadvantages however.

<comment><USER9> I'd just like to point out that Tesla as you're speaking of it is a car manufacturer, whereas Voyage is a car service.

Tesla is apparently planning to launch their own car service, which from an economic standpoint may be poised to win. It will involve Tesla owners being able to add their car to a public fleet and essentially have their car make money for them.

It's plausible the Tesla model will win out because, in the majority of hours, only about 20% of the fleet is used in a car service. RideAustin, as a nonprofit, has publicly available ride data to support this. So with a dedicated fleet, you'll often have a lot of unused cars that will be quite inefficient. With the Tesla model, however, the money-making portion is a secondary purpose for the car's ownership, with the primary one being the owner's own convenience when needed.

Hope this is explained accurately!

<comment><USER10> If you can afford a Tesla why would you let your car be used like this?

I am the kind of person who would get a tesla and I would never want to deal with the inconvenience of lending my car to a public fleet so it could get fucked up by drunk people.

Also how does the car know if someone throws up in it before picking up another passenger?

<comment><USER11> What if it made you an extra $6000 per month? Even $3000?

Obviously the market would adjust from current taxi rates, but this is based off of the following rough estimate:

20 hours per day of you not driving * 30 days * 11$ avg taxi take-home per hour[1] = $6600

[1]: [https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/taxi-driver- and-c...](https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/taxi-driver-and- chauffeur/salary)

<comment><USER7> Most car owners today could save money by owning a different car, reducing the cars in the household or using more public transport.

Owning a car is (for most) not just a necessity, it's an expression of freedom. Being reliant on a car sharing app is not ideal for everyone, esp. families.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Congratulations.

Especially if there are serious competitors in this space, governments could enact laws that speed up safety requirements (and maybe speed up innovation too).

One thought: Governments could force driverless companies to share their data, in some inter-operable format (think a 3D map, or 6D if you had speed information?) that could be read by other cars nearby. For instance if there is a stroller with a baby in front of the car in front of you, or if an accident happened in the street you are about to enter, you would be able to read it from the information emitted from cars that are closer to the danger/obstacle. Current technologies allow this. My guess is that sensors will gain substantially in terms of robustness. (Imagine what you can do with one set of lidar/thermocamera/visial cameras; now imagine what you can do with data from 10 of these sets from different locations!)

Smaller players (such as Voyage, although it seems you got there far already!) would probably benefit from this and it would benefit competition/innovation. Governments would likely be happy to force this into law because if it makes sense for safety.

Anyway, congrats for the real-life launch

</comment><comment><USER9> I haven't heard of Voyage before, but this is interesting.

Would it be accurate to summarize that while most autonomous car companies are going for gradually higher levels of autonomy nationwide/worldwide, Voyage has the opposite strategy of starting at a higher level of autonomy in one controlled community and will aim to expand geographically from there?

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct! We think people would be surprised at how big some of these private communities are, and how many places look like them other than retirement communities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> With a human behind the wheel, with hands off? Or are they really launching with nobody in the vehicle?

<comment><AUTHOR> Human behind the wheel today. A key reason we choose private communities is that we see it as a way to remove that Test Driver much faster, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Beginning in early 2018, we'll start rolling out a door-to-door self-driving taxi service to residents."

Now? Isn't that a bit optimistic? To me it looks like they have just one car for testing. At least they understand that they need the environment mapped to a very fine degree.

<comment><USER15> Relying on fine-grained maps always seems to me like the Wrong Way to do these things. Fine-grained maps are guaranteed to be wrong, so you can't rely on them. And if you don't rely on them then you don't need them.

<comment><USER14> It's how you start. At some point computers will have general cognition at a level that enables them to understand typical traffic situations and improvise. Right now the road network is not standardized enough for them to rely on their sensors. One way streets? Need a plan. Turn regulations? Plan! Interpretation of lights? Hah, plan. Go over a curb? Not in the plan!

They simply can't take those decisions. Yet. As companies such as this make headway, roads will become more standardized to help them along.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Pretty cool idea to go to private, well constrained areas so that it scopes down the problem and allows for quick iteration. Good luck! Excited to see autonomous vehicles in these environments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you Dhruv!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This sounds really a great project. Good luck.

I wonder there was any consideration given to just adding automnomy as a module to the golf-carts that are currently widely used in these communities. It seems that could allow for faster deployment, lower legal barriers and lower capital investment.

The autonomous vehicles in Black Mirror's recent _Hang the DJ_ fits this concept.

</comment><comment><USER18> More details on wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Villages,_Florida#Autonomo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Villages,_Florida#Autonomous_vehicles)

</comment><comment><USER19> I had no idea that retirement communities could grow to the size of cities. This place is amazing [1] [2]. Peter Thiel and Y Combinator talk about building cities or planned communities, but it looks like it's already been done. And now they're adding fully autonomous vehicles. I think this is also the perfect place to test fully automated grocery stores, restaurants, and home automation. You could set up automatic payments for everything via facial recognition / GPS / bluetooth. I never considered that the "city of the future" would be a retirement community with lots of elderly people.

I wonder if they have security cameras covering every street, similar to the UK. You could set up some facial tracking across all the cameras, and a centralized security system in every house, and it might become the safest city in the world. It could also make a great episode of Black Mirror.

I work remotely on my laptop, and my wife and I have a lot of hobbies, including yoga, ballet, archery, art, music [3]. We're living in Chiang Mai, and many of the archery club members are retirees from the UK. So we're already interacting out with some older people, and don't have any qualms about it. All residents of The Villages must be over the age of 19, but 20% of the houses can be owned by younger people who live by themselves. Not saying we would want to live there, but it's not too hard to imagine.

This would also be a great place to build home automation startups (or even city automation), just like Voyage is doing. For example, many of the residents might be able to afford robotic chefs [4]. The system could automatically order your groceries, and they'd be delivered by a self-driving Voyage car. Then another robot in your house could receive the delivery and store the food in your smart refrigerator.

It also makes me realize that a blockchain might be unnecessary. You trust your neighbors, you trust the people who manage the community, and you trust the legal system, lawyers, judges, and prisons. So there's probably no need for a trustless payment network in a community like this. The Octopus card works fine in Hong Kong, and it's just integers in a database.

Lots of people are working from home these days, so I think this might lead to more planned communities. The digital nomad lifestyle is great for a while, but it gets exhausting after a few years. Hopefully there will some communities that are geared towards younger people and people with families. I've also been following the High Street Cohousing Project [5] in New Zealand. Would be very interested to hear about other cohousing projects and planned communities.

[1] [https://www.thevillages.com](https://www.thevillages.com)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Villages,_Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Villages,_Florida)

[3] [https://www.thevillages.com/calendar/](https://www.thevillages.com/calendar/)

[4] [http://www.moley.com/](http://www.moley.com/)

[5] [http://highstreetcohousing.nz/](http://highstreetcohousing.nz/)

<comment><USER20> Perhaps a less obvious benefit is financial. No schools saves a lot of property tax.

<comment><USER21> The Wikipedia post seems to indicate that they are still zoned to school districts.</comment></comment></comment>


Making the Moon Camera - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacecamera.co/ <comment><USER2> I wonder why NASA opted for an SLR when the modified versions would need to be operated through an external viewfinder. Same with the first Nikon Fs they sent up in later missions. I guess they were the only option for solid cameras with high end lenses at the time.

<comment><USER3> That's a good point and as you say there likely weren't any medium format viewfinder cameras. A twin lens reflex might have been easier to use but would have been much larger.

<comment><USER2> Oh, there were plenty MF viewfinder cameras. Plenty of folding cameras in particular, but also box cameras and some rangefinders. Just none that could feasibly be sent to the moon and be operated with astronaut's gloves.

Really the only one I can think of that could have worked is the Graflex Combat70[1], which is essentially a giant Contax that shoots on 70mm film cartridges. That one was developed for the American Military to be used in the Korean War.

[1] [http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Combat_Graphic](http://camera- wiki.org/wiki/Combat_Graphic)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm curious to know how they dealt with the lack of atmosphere - were the cameras and lenses fully sealed and pressurized?

<comment><USER5> The refractive index of air is really close to a vacuum.

The cameras likely just worked in a vacuum.

I would only worry about extreme temperatures (probably not an issue unless left in the sun for long) and outgassing causing fog on lenses or embrittlement of the film.

I would also be worrying about charged particles causing exposure of the film when not in use.</comment></comment>


Call to ban killer robots in wars - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47259889 <comment><USER2> let's just require robots and ban human soldiers...</comment>


Earning Self Respect and Agency 5 Cents at a Time  - <AUTHOR> http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2014/06/earning-self-respect-and-agency-5-cents.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a self link. My hope is that it gives a different spin on how to view this problem, one more constructive than the typical hand-wringing, _we have no real solution_ type pieces so often seen in the world. Those types of pieces seem to foster general criticism of how _the world is going to hell_ without giving anyone any place to get a handle on any of these problems and move forward. I really loathe that kind of approach and it is very common.</comment>


Full list of sites that must be censored in Russia - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=678022#c5 <comment><USER2> The context appears to be requesting Chromium to support an extremely large custom proxy configuration that will use proxies for all of these sites but not for others.</comment>


Amazon's Fraudulent Practices to Sellers - <AUTHOR> I am an infidividual who has been selling products on Amazon for over ten years. I order products through a drop ship wholesaler. Our wholesale outlet is one of the msot respected in the country and purchases only from verified trademark holders for redistribution. Because of the numbers involved, the manufacturers might not know my name. However, I have an account in good standing with the wholesaler. I list my products on Amazon by means of a data feed directly from the wholesaler. Occasionally a manufacturer/trademark holder may grow concerned about counterfeit products offered on Amazon and submit blanket complaints about every retailer they see on Amazon whose name they do not recognize. When this happens I immediately contact the wholesaler to ask for a letter of verification and an introduction to the manufacturer/trademark holders as proof that I sell products sourced only from the trademark holder - not couterfeits. I also request and receive letters of verification from the manufacturer/trademark holder. Once these documents have been submitted Amazon stopped communicating with me.
After several weeks of sending automated e-mails Amazon suspended my account and held the funds for the sales I had already completed. When I requested the release of the funds, Amazon sent an automated e-mail saying Amazon will not release the funds, they will not provide the reason and will no longer communicate with me. The customer paid me, not Amazon,for the merchandidse I delivered. This money does not belong to Amazon. The maneuver of not transmitting to me the proceeds of my sales does not seem to be even legal. The use of robot e-mail replies on Amazon's part hints to mym mind at fraudulent intent.
I believe this process of (1) Accusing a seller of wrongdoing (2) Ignoring a seller's defense (3) Holding the seller's balance due presumably for be kept as Amazon's personal business property - this process is a generalized fraudulent scheme. <comment><USER2> I'd advise you to get a lawyer who can send a letter to Amazon. If they ignore you, might be able to at least take them to a small claims court.

</comment><comment><USER3> You want to be able to continue selling trademarked items no matter what the trademark holder says or does?

You realize how unreasonable this position is, right?

<comment><USER4> Not sure that's such a black and white situation without knowing all the facts.

Regardless, the reaction from amazon by stopping communication and auto- stealing the money doesn't feel 100% legit either.

I think the OP will need to craft letter from lawyer to awaken some human behind amazon corp brick wall.</comment></comment>


How Cats Infect Human Brain - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/308873/

<comment><USER2> This story from months ago has been submitted several times before with the original article title.

[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=Cat...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=Cat+Crazy&sortby=create_ts+desc&start=0)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis>

</comment><comment><USER3> > eating meat on the well-done side

I'd rather be dead

<comment> daniel-cussen Oh, but it's so delicious! Meat almost like charcoal, become what born to be, broken to amino acids by fire outside my stomach! The efficiency!

Denatured--red in only claw...ahh...</comment></comment>


Introducing Inferno 1.0 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/inferno-js/introducing-inferno-1-0-f3da5c4e773b <comment><USER2> Was I the only one who saw the title and thought of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_\(operating_system\))?

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. I was confused by the version number but otherwise happy to see something happening with Inferno. Then the disappointment...

<comment><USER4> Thankfully it wasn't about the movie – that certainly was a disappointment!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There was a good interview [1] with Dominic, the author, a month ago, where he covered much of the design rationale behind Inferno. And he's on HN [2], and his comments often offer valuable insight as well. In a strange twist, he also just joined Facebook to work on React [3], so some of his ingenuity will find its way into React in the future. Meanwhile, Inferno is now run by a team of core committers [4].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13160757](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13160757) [2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=trueadm](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=trueadm) [3] [https://twitter.com/trueadm/status/813313438759919616](https://twitter.com/trueadm/status/813313438759919616) [4] [https://github.com/orgs/infernojs/people](https://github.com/orgs/infernojs/people)

<comment><USER6> Dominic seems like a truly awesome guy. He also frequents /r/javascript. What I hope is that eventually Inferno can be entirely replaced with React and the teams merged. Right now though the two are similar enough to not stop someone from moving back and forth (especially when Inferno offers a React shim), but are different enough to warrant their own existences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a beginner to JS frameworks (and a medium proficiency), is it advisable to skip React and target to learn Inferno instead?

<comment><USER8> Yes, because in a few months it will be topping the HN headlines on how everyone is porting their applications to it.

<comment><USER9> I think that seems unlikely, if only for the fact that React has a path for developing native apps. Writing shared business logic in Redux and allowing both DOM and RN seems like a slam dunk to me.

<comment><USER8> I was being sarcastic.

In any case RN isn't something I would ever use, given the choice for writing native applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great work! I'm so excited to use Inferno now it's finally out of beta and stable :)

</comment><comment><USER10> excellent!</comment>


NameCheap DNS servers are down - <AUTHOR>

Someone can't handle all those Transfers from Godaddy.
ping DNS1.REGISTRAR-SERVERS.COM - down
ping DNS2.REGISTRAR-SERVERS.COM - down
ping DNS3... - down
etc...
Update: their support rep has confirmed the issue and promises a fix within an hour <comment><USER2> Ping is not a good way to check that, since it could be blocked. Try

        dig @dns1.registrar-servers.com [some-domain]

Here it's slow but working.

<comment><USER3> Google keeps ping alive on their 184.108.40.206 nameserver, but that's probably just being polite. Most providers would rather block off ICMP than have to deal with the risk of getting flooded now and then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> right now several are down... here's a better link: <http://www.namecheap.com/status.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER5> If you guys are looking for a free DNS service I'm building <https://entrydns.net/> with a sysadmin friend.

<comment><USER6> Nice, but your SSL cert cannot be verified because you haven't installed the intermediate CA bundle: [https://knowledge.rapidssl.com/support/ssl- certificate-suppo...](https://knowledge.rapidssl.com/support/ssl-certificate- support/index?page=content&id=SO9556)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is not the first time and it won't be the last time. I recommend AWS's Route53. It costs a bit of money but it's worth every penny.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is just one of the many reasons I use either FreeDNS or CloudFlare. I never rely on registrar provided DNS servers.

<comment><USER9> While I agree with not locking yourself into one company for a lot of services, I'm not sure that using a third party DNS server puts you in a better position. The Namecheap servers were knocked offline by a DDoS attack. Do you believe that third party DNS servers are more resilient to that type of attack? At least with a registrar provided DNS server, you're a paying customer and so you can probably expect some form of customer service that you might not get with a free offering.

CloudFlare is probably better set up to deal with that kind of attack because they have a paying customer base and specialise in resilient website operation, but whoever you're with, if a DDoS is big enough it'll be hard to protect against.

<comment><USER10> Amazon Route 53 is $6 per domain per year and they have a whopping 26 anycast locations and 100% uptime SLA.

<comment><USER11> Just in case you ever want to backup your Route53 records... <https://github.com/Hack56/Route53-To-S3>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Still waiting. Unfortunately, I can't seem to transfer the DNS from namecheap to Dynect, my usual DNS provider. It keeps on coming back as "Please try again. 541."

Also, it's been on my todo list for at least a month. No excuses on my end.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is odd, I managed to move my DNS hosting away from NameCheap about an hour ago and my domains are back up... Make sure you click "My domains - Domains - Transfer nameservers to webhosting"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you are evaluating 3rd party DNS, I developed a tool for testing recursive dns query latency here <http://cloudharmony.com/dnstest> \- the test covers most major Anycast providers.

<comment><USER13> We have also created a report that summarizes and aggregates manged DNS performance and availability globally and regionally, features and pricing. It is still under development, and we intend to sell it in the future, but I'm happy to share it, and would appreciate feedback (caution it is a 10mb file): <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20765204/CH-DNS_Report-12_2011.pdf> \- it is a good resource if you are evaluating different providers.

<comment><USER14> Wow. This is great. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seems like even now, there are still problems. Here is a link to their blog post which they are keeping updated:

<http://status.namecheap.com/?p=7309>

</comment><comment><USER16> Was wondering what was happening. At least they are responding fairly quickly to the queries.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is why I buy domain names on NameCheap then host the DNS on Rackspace.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can't believe they're still down. GoDaddy's revenge?

</comment><comment><USER18> They've been having problems for at least a week.

</comment><comment><USER19> DDOS attack <http://twitter.com/Namecheap/statuses/178906079147728897>

<comment><USER20> Report on their blog: <http://status.namecheap.com/?p=7309></comment></comment>


Steve Jobs intervenes, approves Knocking streaming video app - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/12/steve-jobs-intervenes-approves-knocking-streaming-video-app.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss <comment><USER2> Having had an application approved and then later rejected for use of private APIs (WiFinder), this really pisses me off. Inconsistency sucks, as I told the AppStore reviewer I talked to on the phone. I'm fine with either nobody or everybody being able to use private APIs.

But maybe I'm just not hipster enough - I'm certainly not a "life-long user of all Apple products."

<comment><USER3> This triumph of the developer over Evil Apple would be a lot more compelling if the app can get past the splash screen without crashing.

<comment><USER4> It does that to me too. My guess is that the app is trying to connect to their(knocking vid's) "master" server to setup a session and the app was not coded to gracefully handle the situation of getting arstechnica'd and it is unable to respond to the requests in a timely fashion and some killswitch gets triggered. Now they have to wait another 2 weeks and (maybe) another email to steve to fix it or wait until the equilibrium point is met where there are enough dissatisfied people quitting that will allow the other people on.

Or they just programmed it too bloated and it chewed through too much memory in the outset and the iPhone killed the process.

Who knows.

<comment><USER5> Every iPhone developer has to deal with emails and reviews of this exact nature.

The Apple apps/background processes eat tons of memory up over time and the phone can get in a state where it has an absurdly small amount left to run apps. Restarting fixes this.

Try restarting your phone, and if that doesn't fix it, then yeah, the app sucks.

<comment><USER6> You can also kill Safari, Mail and Phone by activating the app, holding Power until the shutdown screen shows, then holding home until the app quits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the Mac community, emailing Steve Jobs is widely understood as an effective way to resolve the most grievous of grievances with Apple. I'm not sure if it has ever been the harbinger of company-wide process change though.

<comment><USER8> Weird, I had assumed he'd be almost impossible to reach unless you're Somebody(tm).

<comment><USER7> Nope, you just have to know his email address, which is kind of common folk knowledge. I sent him a fanboyish email when I was like 13 or 14 or so talking about how much I was looking forward to Mac OS X and he was like, "Thanks for the feedback".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What sucks is... they'll probably NEVER be able to push an update since it's still going to ring all the private API bells every time it's published. Here's to hoping things start changing soon...

<comment><USER10> It would surprise me if updates get rejected. I'd hate to be the reviewer who rejected the _one app_ for which Steve Jobs personally said the API rules don't apply, forcing the developer to write a second e-mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Quick question, why does the iPhone dev environment seem to have so many "private" APIs? Wouldn't it just be better to make them "non-private"? It sounds like, given the kinds of apps I've heard rejected over this problem, that they seem to offer a significant set of capabilities to app developers.

<comment><USER12> The moment Apple makes an API method public, they make a commitment that the API will be supported, unchanged, and maintained in the future. Any API creator must make careful decisions in that regard. You don't want to support something that you might want to change.

Other factors that might affect such a decision:

\- Is the API method potentially volatile, from a hardware usage standpoint? Will it appropriately use the system's resources? (Or the cell network's?)

\- Is this method hackish? Is "this" the way we want to expose such an interface to developers for years to come?

And, of course, Apple probably wants to keep the magic to themselves for some tasks. They want the upper hand, and generally speaking, there's nothing legally wrong with that.

Someone once wondered, "Why doesn't Apple just let us use private APIs with the understanding that they might change?" For one, apps might break. And then Apple would have to decide whether they want to continue selling a broken app in the store, or instead keep the API and the potential burdens/other issues associated with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is it just me or does this seem part of the famed reality-distortion field?

</comment><comment><USER14> I wish SJ would intervene with me. I've had two BS rejections in the last few months--one where the reviewers flat-out LIED about my application behavior, one where I wasn't even notified / given a reason.

I knew when I started that both apps would be kinda sketchy from Apple's end (nothing illegal, no private APIs, nothing against the contract, just something Apple wouldn't like). I walked into it knowing I ran a significant risk of rejection, but the apps were so cool I simply couldn't resist building them.

Needless to say, I've been focusing on contract work lately. I'm done bearing any sort of risk for the immediate future.

<comment><USER15> I am in a similar boat. I built an app that is somewhat "cheeky." It breaks no rules, no private APIs, etc. It's been in the review queue for 5 weeks now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Kind of funny when you compare it against this rejection, also done by Steve Jobs: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=950735>

</comment><comment><USER17> This is just going to be used for porn.

<comment><USER18> And pornographic pranking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> is this situation good or bad?</comment>


Monsanto Acquires Weather Big Data Company Climate Corporation For $930M - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/02/monsanto-acquires-weather-big-data-company-climate-corporation-for-930m/ <comment><USER2> I see that weather forecasting companies are now referred to as weather big data companies, even though most people know that forecasting means crunching large data sets.

<comment><USER3> _" Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick." \- Bruce Lee_

It's a little cool kung fu master cryptic, but what he means is that before you start boxing a punch is something you think you understand. It's hitting someone with your fist. Simple concept. Then, if you practice boxing you quickly build up an increasingly complex vocabulary: light-footed jab, leaping lead hook, low cross. You learn that a counter to a looping right hook is quick stiff jab and that it's very hard to get power into a straight punch if you are moving backwards. Then (when you get to Bruce Lee level) you leave those definitions behind. A punch is a punch. Even though there are infinite variations, you don't need all those words. The complexity is implied and understandable.

This is similar to a lot of other things. At first, designing web sites was just designing web sites. No one knew what they were doing really. Then when people had enough experience, learned new ways of doing things & technology advanced they realized _" hey, these websites are really software not documents and they're mostly about users creating content and interacting with each other!"_ So we got Web 2.0 . I think we're back to web design is just web design. _" Creating software that lets users interact with each other"_ is implied.

Same with number crunching. Number crunching-> big data -> number crunching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats, I hope all the awesome Cascalog hackers at Climate Corporation made out well in the acquisition. I was impressed by these guys out at Clojure/West a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, they're very kind to host many of the Clojure meetups here in SF, and seem to be very sharp. They were working with some impressive amounts of data, and made it look easy.

That said, Monsanto....

<comment><USER6> ....is what?

<comment><USER7> The equivalent of an agriculture patent troll.

<comment><USER8> Or an evil wizard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a smart move in several ways. For one, Monsanto has to grow all the seed it is going to sell, so knowing which areas will most likely have the weather patterns conducive to that particular hybrid will increase their yield. Secondly, knowing what to expect in weather trends means they can decide what to focus on for crop traits, both in research and marketing. The recent drought caused Pioneer's first-to-market drought-tolerant seed to sell out, and I'm sure Monsanto is looking to find the next hit seller trait.

<comment><USER10> I think it is worth mentioning that Monsanto is a general technology company, which includes the seed technology you mention, but they are also involved in research and advancement elsewhere, like in precision farming. Weather forecasting technology ties into a lot of areas of their business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think this has a lot to do with good PR. It's a smart acquisition. Weather plays a big role in agriculture in Asian countries.

<comment><USER12> Why in Asia more than in other parts of the world? Mitigation of weather- related risks and oportunities should apply to any farmer with enough sophistication.

<comment><USER13> Maybe the comment was more about the agricultural economy. Most farmers have been and continue to be small-scale farmers (a few acres?), and since there are a lot more people in Asia, I'd expect a lot more farmers. I'm guessing that climate changes would hit 1000 people each with 2-acre farms in Asia differently than it would the pocketbook of 1 person with a 2000 acre farm in America that grows crops that get partially subsidized by the US govt. The role the govt plays (or doesn't, for example, b/c of excessive corruption), is also a factor.

<comment><USER12> We don't need no climate change to ruin a crop with hail storm, too little rain fall or other circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How was a startup able to offer an insurance product with only a few tens of millions in VC? Were they partnering with someone? I would love to read more about their business model.

<comment><USER15> Most insurance companies have their insurance policies underwritten by a reinsurer:

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

<comment><USER14> You're right. I looked a little more on their site and found:

 _The policies are reinsured by Swiss RE Corporate Solutions Ltd which also has an A.M. Best rating of "A+" (Superior)._

It looks like Swiss Re has a pretty significant global crop insurance business.

[http://www.swissre.com/reinsurance/insurers/agriculture/](http://www.swissre.com/reinsurance/insurers/agriculture/)

edit: I'm still a little confused though. What is the point of developing their own sophisticated risk model when the price of the policy will ultimately depend on Swiss Re's risk model?

<comment><USER16> Former Climate employee here.

Swiss Re reinsures Climate Corp, not any individual policy. So Climate Corp sets the price for each policy and pays out each claim. Swiss Re pays out to Climate Corp if in aggregate all the claims are greater than the price charged.

Does that make sense?

<comment><USER14> It does. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The conspiracy crowd is going to go nuts with this.

<comment><USER18> Yes, I can't wait for the next nutcase to talk about Genetically Modified Bio- Weather Weapons :)

<comment><USER19> we have backdoors/trojans in chips. While not in seeds? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Congrats to David and the team! (I was an early investor, back when it was called Weatherbill)

</comment><comment><USER21> When I visit that page all the videos start auto-playing at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's a good time to be in the weather data and forecasting business. So much is possible now that was unthinkable just 5 years ago.</comment>


Ask HN: Any students aboard? - <AUTHOR>

I would appreciate feedback on www.schoolnotez.com<p>Think of it as the ultimate digital notebook. It is built on HTML5...Play with the graphing calculator:) or the sims (think virtual labs). <comment><USER2> To me, this looks like a really cool tech demo without a clear purpose. I can think of several possibilities: For instance, teachers using this as a way to distribute examples for people to play with, as an improvement over paper hand-outs. Or as a tool for remote tutoring, as in the collaborative drawing example. Or as a tool to organize study notes.

But I think it would help if you choose a single use case and _focused_. If this is a tool for remote tutoring, try to integrate it with other similar services. For example, a built-in code editor. (There was a really cool online tool I saw a while ago that let you step through python code line by line, showing the currently defined variables and values at each step, with arrows and such pointing to objects on the heap...).

Basically: the technology looks really cool, but it's hard to say anything else. I'm not sure who this is aimed at.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

It is primarily aimed at students. As a basic use-case it is a note taker that provides an easy way to organize school notes.

Beyond that you have access to apps for doing your school work, for example graphing calculator, diagramming (flowcharts..etc) and Sims for teaching science...

The Apps at the moment are just a small sample of possible school related apps that I am building.</comment></comment>


Cities of the Future Feat. Dryden - <AUTHOR> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cities-of-the-future-feat-dryden-brown/id1517105543?i=1000485309850 <comment><AUTHOR> In this episode, we talk to Dryden Brown, the CEO of Bluebook Cities. Listen as he shares his thoughts on the process of building a new city, why charter cities are required in the 21st century, and the challenges that come with reimagining the way we live.</comment>


iPhone Developer Websites - <AUTHOR> http://iphone.appstorm.net/roundups/design/40-stunning-iphone-developer-websites/

<comment><USER2> Advertising, love it or hate it.

Edit: to elaborate, seeing all those ads makes me kind of sick. As long as you keep believing and have the money to buy more apps, maybe you can remain in a kind of Disneyland, where everything is fancy and colorful. Very few of the presented apps provide any real value, though - definitely not compared to the "pomp" they are presented with.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice list and awesome looking sites. I wonder though - does anyone really visit these websites, discover the app and buy/install it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Only when the sites are featured in a roundup that appears on Hacker News :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The DJ app looks interesting. I'm wondering when someone's going to do their iPad take on Reactable.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm_FzLya8y4>

</comment><comment><USER5> does anyone have a list of great android developer websites?

<comment><USER6> Here are two I like:

<http://www.biggu.com/apps/shopsavvy-android/>

<http://replicaisland.net/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> nice list .. here what i found : [http://resources.savedelete.com/60-astonishing-iphone- applic...](http://resources.savedelete.com/60-astonishing-iphone-application- websites-for-design-inspiration.html)</comment>


Run with Postman: Test public APIs in 1-click right from the documentation page - <AUTHOR> https://www.getpostman.com/integrations/run-button <comment><USER2> At my company, we also share a ton of our collections internally (typically managed in git). My last meetup also covered the use of Postman, and showed off its ability to import from Swagger & RAML - and export into most language & cURL.

In short, I <3 Postman.

<comment><USER3> We also manage our collections in git, but merging is horrendous. Have you found any good workarounds for this? For example, often you don't know a collection has changed, because Postman doesn't reload it from disk automatically...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We also <3 Postman on the Transport for London API team, and have added the button to our documentation. For now you can grab it from our blog... blog.tfl.gov.uk</comment>