2018's Software Engineering Talent Shortage– It's Quality, Not Just Quantity - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/2018s-software-engineering-talent-shortage-its-quality-not-just-quantity-6bdfa366b899 <comment><USER2> I like how all the problems with getting engineers are listed and then they include "salary demands are too high". There's a higher demand for software developers at a certain skill level than there is supply.

Either bid more than your competition, or invest in bringing people to that skill level.

Whining about how you have to pay money to people so that you can make even more money off of them is just childish

</comment><comment><USER3> >Forcing every prospective engineer to attend 4 years of formal computer science education isn't a realistic answer — and ultimately it doesn't even solve the problem. Formal comp sci education is a foundation, but the application of comp sci to problem solving is a skill that is learned by experience and mentorship.

This is the thing that has been killing me and incredibly demoralizing as I've been trying to find a position at a company, along with not having production experience in the specific frameworks that they're looking for. I've started a project from the ground-up with my bare hands that managed to make over $500,000 in crowdfunding, but because I didn't do it in a framework that modern companies want, and because my degrees are in Biology and Psychology rather than Computer Science, even when I've trained myself in the frameworks in question I'm a pariah to hiring managers.

I'm seriously beside myself now. I have no idea what avenues I even have left open to me if I want to have a career at this point. The only way I see myself getting a job is going further into debt by going through a bootcamp.

<comment><USER4> Maybe reevaluate your resume and interview skills also. There nothing scientific abnout hiring decisions. so much is subconcious.. I like this person. My experience, most hiring managers are not as smart as the programmers that work for them are are not super analytical, they make decisions on instinct.

I started on the IT support desk cause I had zero experience with nothing on my resume except an Economics BA and pizza delivery job. Within a year I transitioned into a programming job. My experience is in IT depts of large companies, many have a good attitude with letting you change positions once youve been an employee for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This quote from the article really stands out and may become my 'go-to' analogy for explaining being a software engineer:

      If you know a programming language, then
      are you an engineer? No. Knowing a language
      does not make you an engineer. The same as
      knowing how to speak elementary Spanish
      does not automatically make you a good
      Spanish teacher.

</comment><comment><USER6> The shortage of software engineerng talent exists only in media articles. When I try to help these poor companies, shortly after declaring salary expectations miraculously they discover abundance of talented candidates in their recruitment pipeline. The location is central EU and the salary I'm talking about is not even six digits in USD, in fact well below.

</comment><comment><USER7> I haven't been at this that long, and already the bar of entry is so much higher than it used to be. If you could sling some HTML and rudimentary JavaScript, slap together some PHP or ASP backend, and knew what a database was, that was enough to get in and hit the ground running, once upon a time.

I haven't seen that people coming out of college know anything more now than I did then, which even then was based on best-practices and experience from the mainframe and dawn-of-the-PC eras, and so was at least a decade out of date.

The complexity seems to be growing on a trajectory akin to Moore's Law, with layers and layers of abstractions papering over the cracks and making this labyrinthian mess barely manageable.</comment>


Kai-Fu Lee, Ex-Google China Chief, Diagnosed With Cancer - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/hengshao/2013/09/05/kai-fu-lee-ex-google-china-chief-diagnosed-with-cancer/

<comment><AUTHOR> This makes me really sad because I really like this guy a lot..Watched some of his speeches for young people..He seems to be a really kind and easy going person.</comment>


The Atomic Bomb Considered As Hungarian High School Science Fair Project - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/ <comment><USER2> Executive summary: this is a pitch for the idea that Ashkenazni Jews are uniquely intelligent, and that this might be linked to certain genetic diseases. The latter should be food for thought for those people that want to CRISPR out poorly understood genetic diseases. The former, like all instances of "race science", should be regarded with extreme caution.

"For centuries, Europe was sitting on this vast untapped resource of potential geniuses. Around 1880, in a few countries only, economic and political conditions finally became ripe for the potential to be realized. The result was one of the greatest spurts of progress in scientific history, bringing us relativity, quantum mechanics, nuclear bombs, dazzling new mathematical systems, the foundations of digital computing, and various other abstruse ideas I don't even pretend to understand. This lasted for approximately one generation, after which a psychopath with a stupid mustache killed everyone involved."

<comment><USER3> ok that's interesting

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The breakdown of famous Jewish Manhattan Project physicists by country of origin appears to only be looking at those born outside the US.

But surely many of the US born Jewish physicists on the Project had parents who emigrated to the US. For example, Oppenheimer's parents came from Germany. Feynman's father came from Belarus. Olum's father was from Russia.

For the purposes of the article, shouldn't these be counted as coming from those countries?

<comment><USER5> Well, the thesis of the article is that both nurture and nature contributed to the success of the Hungarian Jewish scientists. The author says Hungary had an excellent education system and Jews were no longer persecuted there, allowing their children to pursue a scientific education.

For the "nurture" part of the argument, Feynman and Oppenheimer certainly count as American.</comment></comment>


LLVM/GCC Integration Proposal (2005) - <AUTHOR> https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, RMS wishes he'd seen it at the time... [http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs- devel/2015-02/msg005...](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs- devel/2015-02/msg00594.html) (bizarre)

<comment><USER2> It's only bizzare out of context.

Here's my explanation: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9029285](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9029285)</comment></comment>


Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28266341/why-has-apple-spawned-so-few-startups <comment><USER2> Maybe another reason why Apple spawned comparatively few startups might be that some of the areas of expertise for Apple and their employees are harder to do in startup-sized companies; namely hardware engineering and mass manufacturing innovation.

Apple does a lot of work in hardware and hardware manufacturing, both areas which are pretty capital-intensive and might not lead themselves as easily to the startup world.

Say, you are an Apple engineer working on the Ax chips for the next iPhone and have an idea for something great in CPU design, you cannot exactly rent a scalable 14nm chip fab from AWS to try to build it on your own and sell it market.

<comment><USER3> > rent out a scalable 14nm chip fab from AWS

I was pondering the viability of almost exactly this. Could one invest in a hardware pipeline that efficiently combines e.g. 3D printing with FPGAs to create the consumer-electronics equivalent of Lulu.com's just-in-time small- batch book printing + drop-shipping.

Or, in other words: you can do pretty much anything with the sensors in a modern smartphone. All most manufacturers probably need is smartphone boards (with maybe some options of extra sensors) in custom cases with fancy buttons and displays, maybe custom remotes, and a cute little 4-colour double-walled box. That describes everything from Nest to Roku to some drone controllers.

<comment><USER4> At Plethora, we're building the mechanical pieces of this - starting with full-auto, on-demand CNC milling as fast as LuLu or similar, then adding more capabilities.

Happy to make some free parts for anyone's ideas on here!

[http://plethora.com](http://plethora.com)

firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER5> Compare emachineshop.com. They have been doing that for years, and have a site with useful information instead of just pretty pictures.

<comment><USER4> Ha - yea, we're not the first machine shop, but we're doing something really new in regards to: instant pricing/feedback (inside your CAD), speed, and much more to come

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> (I really hope I don't offend any Apple people saying this)

My impression, which comes from meeting a handful of Apple employees and several friends who took jobs and later left, is that the culture of Apple is that of "show up, do good work, cash the paycheck, and go home to your family."

It is not one of "Let's conquer the world and become bazillionairres while we're at it" — the Google culture — which is more prone to eventually jumping ship and creating a startup.

I could be totally wrong about this.

<comment><USER7> > My impression, which comes from meeting a handful of Apple employees and > several friends who took jobs and later left, is that the culture of Apple > is that of "show up, do good work, cash the paycheck, and go home to your > family."

I have a lot of friends and former colleagues who are at Apple and you're wrong about the 'go home to your family.' At least the friends I have (mostly nerds admittedly) are routinely in the 60-70 hours mark (have only one exception and he's worked at Apple since the 1980s). But they seem to like it.

> It is not one of "Let's conquer the world and become bazillionairres while > we're at it" — the Google culture — which is more prone to eventually > jumping ship and creating a startup.

This feels more like Google propaganda. My impression is that google folks seem to work a lot less (long hours its true, but less) than the Apple folks. Unlike Apple I _only_ know nerds at google -- no marketing or business folks, so it could be different.

But of my google friends there are two groups: the übernerds who get to work on whatever they like (basically research) and they seem to have a lot of fun. A bunch of them are former colleagues from PARC and MIT, so they are doing the same kind of work we did years ago -- probably Microsoft research is the same.

The rest are doing product work of some sort of another and none of them seem particularly happy. A lot of them are on the market (I have hired a couple). It feels like Google has reached the microsoft phase: they have two real cash cows and are struggling to find more. Product managers have a lot of sway. They aren't really organized like an effective business.

Apple went through that mode and was within a few weeks of dying. Luckily they debugged themselves. My Apple friends, even those deep in the bowels of tools or drivers, amazingly are still super excited by the Apple products (I guess they would have given up by now if not).

<comment><USER8> > Product managers have a lot of sway

Can you elaborate on what you mean to say here? Is it that PMs have a lot of influence compared to engineers?

<comment><USER9> it's actually a funny statement given the definition of a product manager... it's like saying the CEO has a lot of sway over company policy. well, yeah.

<comment><USER10> PMs of old were supposed to be the smartest or most experienced people in the room. Now, mostly due to microsofts export of thousands of poorly trained politically savvy, they are infecting other companies.

<comment><USER11> IIRC, when Simonyi invented the term "product manager", he was referring to what is now called tech lead or architect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Article doesn't seem to give any evidence of this. Apple's been around forever and former Apple (and NeXT, if you stick to the logic it's some sort of Jobsian startup-suppression field) employees have been involved in zillions of startups over the years. EA, Danger/Android, Nest, Flipboard come to mind.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. Though technically, NeXT is "a startup that Apple spawned", I think?

Also: Be Inc., Palm/Handspring (Donna Dubinsky), General Magic, Eazel.

<comment><USER14> Claris? (FileMaker)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Few compared to what? Microsoft? Google? Facebook?

Oh, the article doesn't quantify what it means by "few." It just throws that idea out there for no reason and then pretends it's a thing.

<comment><USER16> "Although firm figures are hard to come by, Ganesan estimates Apple's tally of startups is about 50 percent smaller than companies such as Google, Yahoo and PayPal. (Coincidentally, smart thermostat maker Nest, the most prominent startup hatched by Apple alums, was acquired by Google last year.) "

They did. Wheather that data is accurate is another matter.

<comment><USER17> I would argue Pixar is a far more well known example outside of SV.

<comment><USER18> What are you talking about? Pixar didn't come from Apple. It came from folks who left Disney. Then Steve Jobs, as himself - not Apple - invested in Pixar.

<comment><USER19> This is not true. Pixar was originally Lucasfilm's computer graphics division lead by Ed Catmull. It was separated and sold to Steve Jobs.

<comment><USER18> True or False, the guys running Pixar were ex-disney cartoonists?

What does it matter if they were a division of lucasfilm when Steve Jobs became majority shareholder?

<comment><USER20> The central core of Pixar, when it originated at Lucasfilm, were people from NYIT led by Ed Catmull. John Lasseter didn't join until later, and he's the only prominent ex-Disney person I'm aware of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not sure if this is true - I would like to see some stats.

I think the problem is that the press will not write about some founder as "ex Apple engineer", "ex Oracle engineer", etc. It is not cool. The story will sell if founder are "ex-Google", "ex-Facebook", "ex-Dropbox", "Y-combinator", etc.

For example, if you are ex-Oracle, then you need to have significant revenue in order to be mentioned in the press as ex-Oracle fonder (PeopleSoft, Salesforce, Sibel, etc.). If you are ex-Google, you need to raise 100K seed and press will say ex-Google.

<comment><USER22> I disagree entirely. Many of the Nest articles that I read were heavy on the "ex Apple" rhetoric.

<comment><USER23> Maybe because it was founded by former Senior VP and the "father" of iPod, not just some random Apple engineer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here's one minute of methodology to throw at this question.

Search LinkedIn for title keyword "founder", past company Apple. I get 7668 hits.

Same search for Google, 7277 hits. For Yahoo, 4268.

<comment><USER25> To add a bit of context: Apple is 39 years old. Google is 17 years old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> A non-techies idea of innovative might not match startup ideas of innovation. Or rephrased apple-scale innovation might not scale down to startup-scale innovation.

Total amount of innovation (for the sake of argument, big) divided by number of employees (staggering) equals not innovative on average and even the outliers will also suffer.

Its a mindcrime to say it in public, but if some successful companies are innovative, and apple is successful, that doesn't logically follow that Apple is innovative. Rolex has a good reputation, makes nice watches that are very expensive; however they don't sell many cesium atomic clocks which are technologically far more innovative than a mechanical or quartz movement. A timekeeping startup could sell a GPSDO that sells for less than 50 cents, that would be impressive and innovative but not very Rolex-like. Perhaps Apple is the same.

<comment><USER27> Innovation in the context of big companies is a far different and more subtle thing than innovation in a startup context. A lot of the innovation large companies do is never really seen--not even in the sense that it isn't customer impacting, but rather in the sense that you never see the innovation that goes into simple functions that you take for granted.

For instance, Apple is immensely innovative in terms of designing manufacturing processes. Do you see the results? You might notice that Apple products have more fit and finish, but the results are measured in millimeters at most. The end result is not as earthshaking as a whole new product category would be.

Even more striking is any large web property. Any idiot could write a working version of Twitter, Amazon, StackExchange, or maybe even YouTube in a week. Scaling these to actually work at scale takes immense levels of innovation. But if you use these sites every week since they have been launched, you might not see any of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Summing up: Apple's good pay, benefits and soaring stock.

<comment><USER29> That's not really an answer. Many companies offer just that and more.

<comment><USER30> But with Apple there is the "aunt and your friends and family factor". Everybody has heard of Apple and a large swath of people would tend to be impressed by the fact that you worked there. It would also tend to be the type of place that obviously looks good on your resume if you need to get another job in the future so it offers that as additional security.

Techies might care that you worked at Tesla, much of the rest of the world does not.

<comment><USER29> There are many companies that offer just that "status" as well.

I don't know why you think Apple is special in any way when it comes to jobs. In fact, I heard they're worse, exactly because of the "status" that comes with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Because Apple is not a webapp company, and webapps are the easiest and most common kind of startup.

<comment><USER31> Mobile app startups are a big #2 at the very least, and what with apple being a manufacturer of a very popular phone I'd expect more from there.

<comment><USER32> Apple doesn't have very many people working in software compared to hardware, sales, design, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Younger companies spawn more startups because they have many employees who just experienced the hypergrowth phase of going from startup to known company. These employees have not only the right experience to start a company, they want to recreate the experience.

</comment><comment><USER34> Like others, I'm not sure that Apple has spawned few startups. The evidence here is weak.

Apple's innovations have been primarily about hardware design. I would think there are many fewer hardware startups than software startups due to the amount of capital required to build hardware. It might be more apropos to compare the number of startups from other hardware companies (Intel, Nvidia, TI, HP, Sun).

<comment><USER35> Still, don't they employ something like 100k software engineers?

<comment><USER29> Not really, most of their workforce are "geniuses" and the like

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe it's because the company DNA attracts less entrepreneurial minded employees in the first place than for example Google. I think that people working for Apple:

\- like to have a strong leader in front of them (or at least used to when Jobs was around).

\- are engineers comfortable to be less at the center of product development than at other big tech companies.

Whereas an entrepreneurial-minded person is famously rather reluctant to subordination. Exceptions confirm the rule.

</comment><comment><USER37> Because no one ever leaves!

</comment><comment><USER38> UpThere?

</comment><comment><USER39> Curious

</comment><comment><USER40> For some reason the only Apple-spawned startups that come to my mind are the ones that ultimately failed, like Be, Inc.

</comment><comment><USER41> Perhaps people with an innovative or entrepreneurial bent don't gravitate to Apple in the first place, even if they love Apple products.</comment>


Electrical Tape on Sign Fooled a Tesla into Speeding in Test - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/electrical-tape-on-sign-tricked-a-tesla-into-speeding-in-a-test <comment><USER2> Previous submissions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370346) (businessinsider.com) 3 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370879) (yahoo.com) 2 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22368762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22368762) (jalopnik.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22365454](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22365454) (bloomberg.com)</comment>


MySQL 8.0 features which will improve a DBA's life - <AUTHOR> http://lefred.be/content/top-10-mysql-8-0-features-for-dbas-ops/ <comment><USER2> So, can anyone explain what's the state of MySQL vs. MariaDB in 2018 and going forward? It's hard to find up-to-date information on this. A few years ago, everyone simply assumed that Oracle would kill MySQL, which it seems they didn't, but it's unclear two me what kind of sustained development one can expect from either of them.

<comment><USER3> They are both under heavy development. MySQL is still increasing revenue for Oracle, and MariaDB raised another $27M towards the end of 2017. They're both here to stay. The less clear question in my mind is how long they will remain compatible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's no official release of MySQL 8.0 yet, correct? Or... something that isn't an RC?

I was confused by the numbering, but perhaps never paid attention to major point releases before. I saw 8.0.0, 8.0.1, etc through 8.0.6, but looking closer, they're all dev or RC releases, but nothing has been declared 'production ready' yet, officially (or so it seems). Will that be reserved for the 8.1 label? Or will we just see something like 8.0.11 as the first "production release"?

EDIT: thanks for the replies - GA is the term I need to be looking for.

EDIT 2: Also: [https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql- nutshell.html](https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-nutshell.html) is a decent overview both of new features and removed/deprecated stuff.

<comment><USER5> You are correct - it is currently in RC. The GA release will be a named point release. For example, in 5.7 it was 5.7.9: [https://dev.mysql.com/doc/relnotes/mysql/5.7/en/](https://dev.mysql.com/doc/relnotes/mysql/5.7/en/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There will be atomic DDLs, which is great. I didn't understand if this means that a DB migration altering multiple tables can be embedded in a transaction and rolled back in case of errors, like with PostgreSQL, or if it's only the single operation that became safer.

<comment><USER5> The short answer is that it is only single operations that become safer.

I don't want to undersell it though: some single operations require multiple steps (i.e. DROP SCHEMA in 5.7 needs to unravel all the tables it discovered and making sure a replica slave produces the same result. 8.0+ does this much cleaner). So it still remains important to have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm currently in the process of trying to get the team at my new workplace to switch from MySQL to PostgreSQL. They chose it before I started and are now complaining about features it lacks (but Postgres has. Actually, some of the things they're complaining about can be done with MySQL, if only they knew how to use it, or knew enough to run a non-ancient version of it).

MySQL just seems like the amateurish "I don't know about databases but I need one" choice.

<comment><USER8> MySQL has several features Postgres doesn't have, and there's tradeoffs between them. As a bonus, choosing MySQL doesn't make you smugly dismiss everyone else's database choice, unlike some other databases.

<comment><USER7> > As a bonus, choosing MySQL doesn't make you smugly dismiss everyone else's > database choice, unlike some other databases.

Maybe, but in my case I was smugly dismissive of others before I ever encountered Postgres.</comment></comment></comment>


Does anyone know of an alternative to Google Voice? - <AUTHOR> I've used it pretty much since I got my first phone in the US ... but in the context of Google bot-banning entire businesses without human recourse, I don't want my phone number to be at risk of that. If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them! <comment><USER2> After GV went down during business hours once, I realized I needed to control the number. It's more expensive than free, but worth it.

You can port out a GV number to any telecom provider for a small fee, including any of the big SIP/VoIP providers. They'll usually provide voicemail and dirt cheap rates -- but not VM transcription.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got any recommendations?

<comment><USER2> Ward Mundy's nerdvittles blog had a recent overview of the SIP/VoIP market. [0] Looks like he currently recommends Vitelity, VoIP.ms, or CallCentric.

Ward's PBX in a Flash projects (business class features on a raspberry pi or in the cloud) are also fun if you really want to go down a rabbit hole.

[0] [http://nerdvittles.com/?p=26128](http://nerdvittles.com/?p=26128)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is the very last Google service I use. I've been looking for an alternative for a couple of years, and have never found one. In particular, the ability to use a single phone number that rings my cell, office, and home.

<comment><AUTHOR> What did you switch out for Gmail?

<comment><USER3> Fastmail. Works great.</comment></comment></comment>


Building a web framework from scratch in Elixir - <AUTHOR> https://codewords.recurse.com/issues/five/building-a-web-framework-from-scratch-in-elixir <comment><USER2> Busy learning Elixir myself and this was a great read, explains a lot of concepts simply and clearly.</comment>


Switch USA govt computers from Windows to Linux, for security and cost savings - <AUTHOR> https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/switch-all-government-computers-microsoft-windows-over-linux-extra-security-and-government-cost-savings <comment><USER2> This is an interesting idea, but you shouldn't disparage '"pro-business" Conservatives', many of whom, I assure you, would not be your enemy in this endeavor.

<comment><USER3> Right. This concept really can be a truly non-partisan issue, if folks wouldn't introduce partisan politics into things.</comment></comment>


Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://www.intentional.com/charles-simonyi/ <comment><USER2> It always amazed me that during their ~10 years of existence they never actually produced anything visible, other than demos. I remember I had been very excited about their "intentional" approach, even though so many years later I tend to think that it is actually an evolutionary dead-end (anyone remembers 4GL and 5GL languages? The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no silver bullet.

I'd love to be proven wrong, though, and hope to see some of the "intentional" stuff in any real software product.

<comment><USER3> I worked there for about a year, there were a number of contracts fulfilled using the workbench and associated technology (mostly NDA). At some point there was a pivot to a graphics-heavy reinterpretation of the core tech, which was pretty secretive and so didn't get a lot of press.

My project didn't use the core 'intentional' tech and we got spun off into an atrociously mismanaged, doomed sub-startup, so don't ask me too much about the intentsoft tech itself (though I can probably give rough answers for any high level stuff if you're curious).

<comment><USER4> I worked at Intentsoft in its earlier days (2006-2011) and left just as it was really starting to seriously staff up. I look at the pictures of the office these days and it's so surreal to me to see the absurd growth of what had stayed a small team for a really long time.

Is the Pole Position cabinet still there? Did anyone ever fix the monitor? I miss that thing.

<comment><USER3> They actually moved down the street from that original office about 2 and change years ago. This is around when I left, coincidentally, so it's hard to remember which cabinets made the trip or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 2009 article by Martin Fowler on Intentional's Domain Workbench, [https://martinfowler.com/bliki/IntentionalSoftware.html](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/IntentionalSoftware.html)

> _Afterwards a couple of people said it was the most important demo they 'd > ever seen, comparing it even to the Mother of all Demos. For many there was > a sense that the whole world of software development had just changed._

<comment><USER6> For the curious: it's difficult to find that particular demo on the web now, but the system didn't look too much different from its earlier incarnation at Microsoft in the '90s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSnnfUj1XCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSnnfUj1XCQ)

<comment><USER2> I know it is not a fair comparison, but modern IDEs such as IntelliJ IDEA do pretty much everything demonstrated in this video. They build a database of the project, and let you do refactoring with the help of that.

The only thing that is notably missing from IDEA is the graphical representation: but raise your hand if you ever missed to see your program represented as a flowchart, for example. Does it actually have any real value? Perhaps, while you are learning programming.

The diagrams that are actually important and useful are mostly architecture diagrams and are impossible to create from source code - and it is also very hard to generate meaningful programs from architecture diagrams.

<comment><USER7> > _The only thing that is notably missing from IDEA is the graphical > representation: but raise your hand if you ever missed to see your program > represented as a flowchart, for example._

(raises hand).

> _Does it actually have any real value?_

Yes.

> _Perhaps, while you are learning programming._

Or when you're trying to understand the structure of a program you've just been assigned to work on, or that you wrote years ago and have to do a change, or when you want to see the big picture, etc etc.

Ever worked with a visual language?

<comment><USER2> Whenever I try to understand a program, I do draw structures of it. But it is NEVER the structure of the source code as is, but some parts the main flow with the unimportant bits left out (what is unimportant depends on the goal of the task at hand), mapped in some way that aligns with the goal of the investigation. It also has to include the runtime components, eg. objects, not classes.

Watching Eric Evans talk about DDD along the example of maps was a real eye opener for me. This: [https://www.infoq.com/presentations/model-to-work- evans](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/model-to-work-evans)

I tried to use tools like Enterprise Architect in the past but failed to produce anything useful with them (that includes architecture diagrams - charts based on standards never seem to be fit for what I actually wanted to communicate).

The closest I ever got to usefulness was with database structures, we did manage to generate the actual production schema from ERwin for a SQL database at one place I worked, but of course, not the stored procedures.

<comment><USER7> > _Whenever I try to understand a program, I do draw structures of it. But it > is NEVER the structure of the source code as is, but some parts the main > flow with the unimportant bits left out_

While some tools might be more or less accommodating, there's nothing about visual representation per se that can't do that (including filtering the non- important parts, producing something akin to UML's interaction diagrams, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I respect what Simonyi did for the industry back in the day, but Intentional Software is just useless vaporware (or -at best- weird academic research without practical applications). As a Microsoft shareholder, I'm disappointed they're paying money for it (probably only to get Simonyi back, though his technical expertise is totally outdated and his management skills are questionable).

<comment><USER9> Genuinely curious how you're assessing his technical expertise - you must have serious insider access to be able to judge it as totally outdated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had never heard of Intentional Software until I recently read Dreaming In Code[1] where the company is mentioned briefly.

Prompted me to wonder if they were still around, which led me to their Glasdoor reviews page which is sort of entertaining popcorn fodder[2].

Then lo and behold a few weeks later the acquisition popped up in the news. Synchronicity at work I guess.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreaming_in_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreaming_in_Code) [2] [https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Intentional-Software- Revie...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Intentional-Software- Reviews-E284295.htm)

<comment><USER11> > Synchronicity at work I guess.

Gotta love the Baader-Meinhof Effect: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequency_illusion).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My introduction to intentional software was by way of the book "Generative Programming: Methods, Tools, and Applications" by Czarnecki and Eisenecker. I can't say that the book has had broad application to my engineering work, but it's been fun to think about from a philosophical perspective, bits like feature modeling have stuck, and even the early research into IP covered in the book impressed me...

</comment><comment><USER13> For reference, Simonyi worked on the legendary Xerox Alto, where he wrote _Bravo_ , the first WYSIWYG editor.

He later joined Microsoft in 1991, where he started Word.

<comment><USER14> He is also the inventor of so-called Hungarian Notation [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's the difference between Intentional's product and JetBrains' MPS? To me it seems like MPS can do much more and can accommodate Intentional's model as well. Anyone knows better?

<comment><USER16> It's hard to know. Intentional asks people who they show the product to, to sign a restrictive NDA, so they can't share what they do. I hope, after MS acquired them, they will release it under less restrictive license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, it's been long since I looked into Intentional Software. I was so enamored with their ideas back in the days.

Also reminds me of subtextual (jonathan edwards phd)

<comment><USER18> [http://www.subtext-lang.org/](http://www.subtext-lang.org/) This?

<comment><USER19> that's it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _Research has shown that handwritten notes are more effective for learning and recall than typed notes, and for this reason pen computing will flourish whenever notetaking is required_

Really? This smells like over-fitting the research to justify a desired commercial outcome.

</comment><comment><USER21> Charles Simonyi is also the person behind the Hungarian Notation of naming variables.

<comment><USER22> According to Joel Spolsky, Hungarian notation ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation)) has been misunderstood (as System Hungarian). In its intended form (Apps Hungarian), it's a good idea: [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong- code-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong-code-look- wrong/)

<comment><USER4> This is true. We used Hungarian Notation internally extensively. The most counterintuitive thing is that having a cryptic name for a concept can have advantages: it has a precise meaning, and if you don't know what it is, you can't convince yourself that you do. If there's a class in my code called, I don't know, "View", that's going to give me clues as to what it is, but it may also mislead me into thinking it should support certain operations that it doesn't, or that we're talking about a UI view when actually it's referring to a database view, or whatever. If you just string together a handful of random letters, at least when communicating with someone else you know you're talking about the same thing, and you'll use the same name consistently.

Not a good idea for code that you want people to be able to use without gaining a deep understanding of, but for collaborating on inventing new things, it's a very effective communication hack.

<comment><USER23> > The most counterintuitive thing is that having a cryptic name for a concept > can have advantages: it has a precise meaning, and if you don't know what it > is, you can't convince yourself that you do.

To see complete and total saturation of that concept, take a look at the source code of Urbit

<comment><USER24> Example: [https://github.com/urbit/urbit/blob/master/noun/vortex.c#L23...](https://github.com/urbit/urbit/blob/master/noun/vortex.c#L239)

I can confirm this is roughly what the intentional source code looked like.

Personally I found it a huge pain and an unnecessary difficulty, but opinions differed :). The bigger problem was a lot of the code was crap (yay research code!). The lack of english names only made this more difficult because it removed valuable clues as to what the intention of the author might have been.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is this massive ontology similar to what Leibnitz attempted with his characteristica universalis?

<comment><USER26> Nope. Not really related except in the most vague way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "I wasn't able to make anything interesting out of Microsoft so I'm joining them again"

<comment><USER28> Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN. Please don't post like this.</comment></comment>


Planning for hypergrowth - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> it depends on where your bottlenecks are. if you're serving static content (e.g. an image hosting or photo sharing service), amazon S3 is a cheap and simple way to do so. if you have a big database involved anywhere (e.g. facebook, which has to keep track of user profiles, mappings between users, groups, and god knows how many hundreds of other kinds of connections), it's a lot tougher.

in general, you can "scale up" (buy bigger servers) for a little while, but eventually you'll have to "scale out" (divide the load across a lot of smaller servers.) amazon's EC2 service lets you do this relatively easily. it's hardly plug and play though; you have to figure out how to scale out within your app and ensure that you can split up your data across multiple servers, which is often not trivial. for example, even if you can partition your data, what if one "piece" gets hammered with a disproportionate amount of traffic (i.e. one particular photo album or whatever gets dugg/slashdotted); what if a server goes down; what if you need to dynamically add servers; how do you protect data if a disk completely fails; etc.

here's some food for thought from the sysadmins of livejournal and digg, and how they dealt with growth.

<http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/Interesting/servers%2C%20infrastructure/danga.com%20livejournal%20backend.pdf> <http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/Interesting/servers%2C%20infrastructure/digg%20sysadmin%20presentation.pdf>

perhaps better than the technical solutions are social solutions to hypergrowth: you can use invites, beta periods or waiting lists to control your growth instead of turning people away indefinitely, and also set users' expectations that things may go wrong and to bear with you. it's really tough to anticipate on the technical side where things will break if you're adding hundreds of k users; just look at ilike, which got rocked by f8 signups.

there are more pieces too besides just serving the http requests properly :P presumably you'll need to provide some support to these people, answer emails, fix things when they go wrong, have some method of discovering and triaging problems, etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So, how does one plan for massive growth during first few days/weeks? Consider possible scenario of launching and within first 3 days millions of users are visting the site daily. Maybe this is an obvious (or nonsensical) guestion - thought I'd ask anyway.

<comment><USER3> I would say plan for some traffic you can afford, but know of someone that can help you out if you really get into trouble. It's along the lines of "worry about that problem when you have it, because that problem is a great one to have".

<comment><USER4> It's a great situation to be in, but it's not a great problem to have. Worry about this before you launch because turning away potential users isn't a goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Actually, a related and perhaps more interesting question might be: considering a viral marketing scenario, how can one compute a practical upperbound on how quickly website traffic would grow?</comment>


Election hacked, drunken robot elected to school board - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/01/electronic_voting_hacked_bender/

<comment><USER2> I find it impressive that not only did they circumvent the security measures, but that they used their access to prevent _others_ from doing so, AND gained access to the cameras.

</comment><comment><USER3> The original paper: <https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/dcvoting-fc12.pdf></comment>


Ha-ha wall - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-ha <comment><USER2> See also the 'Punic ditch'. I can't find a good description online ([1] is the most specific), but basically it's a fortification comprising a human-scale haha with the wall on the outward side, and the slope on the inward side. The idea is that attackers can cross it easily, by jumping down the wall, then charging up the slope, at which point you open fire on them, then when they turn to run way, they have to climb up the wall to escape, at which point they are sitting ducks.

These ditches are called Punic not because they were invented by the Carthaginians (Punic is the adjective for things from Carthage, don't ask me why), but because they were incredibly brutal, and Rome's early wars with Carthage were so horrific, they became a byword for anything eye-wateringly cruel like this.

[1] [https://luntfort.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/punic- ditches/](https://luntfort.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/punic-ditches/)

<comment><USER3> Seems pretty irrelevant if you've got the numbers on the defenders. Just don't retreat and throw bodies into the wide open breach. You'd drive right over just fine like a spike strip facing the wrong way.

<comment><USER4> The ditch itself is also filled with caltrops and ankle breaking traps. The fortifications behind the ditch usually involved a wooden palisade or stone walls. Even so, these defenses were generally for defending against small groups of loosely organized attackers. If a large force attacked, infantry and cavalry would deploy to the field to oppose the enemy with the fort perhaps protecting a flank or offering other strategic support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The personal injury team at Penningtons Manches LLP has successfully negotiated a settlement of over £10,000 for a client who was injured during a wedding at a prestigious county manor house.

The claimant attended the wedding with her partner in September 2014. They decided to leave the celebrations at around 11:30pm and make their way back to their on-site accommodation. The claimant was required to walk across the manor garden in order to reach her room. Unfortunately, there was inadequate lighting along the route and they found the lawn to be in darkness, with only a small light in the far distance to guide them. Due to the poorly lit area, the claimant walked from the lawn and over the top of a brick wall, falling 3 feet downwards into the grass area of a 'ha-ha'."

<comment><USER6> In a similar case:

> The presiding QC judge, Alastair Campbell, deemed a ha-ha wall to be outside > the scope of the law regarding obvious dangers, such as cliffs or canals, > where an occupier is not required to take precautions against a person being > injured. This was due to it being an unusual man-made feature that the > public would be very much unaware of, especially across a wide lawn.

which I find an odd decision. I didn't know what they were called (so I followed the link curiously) but certainly I'd expect one at a house such as that. Unusual for the average dwelling, sure, but not 'across a wide lawn' or at a property with a wide lawn for it to be across.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They're not just to protect from animals. You'll often find them in gardens where the area below isn't even open to livestock. The other reason for these is to hide unsightly parts of the view. If there is a road, village or other buildings in front of the house, for example, building a ha-ha could make it look like the park stretches unbroken to the horizon. It could also make it look like distant hillsides are part of your park if your own land is a little on the small side.

Source: my wife is a landscape archaeologist, specialising in post-medieval parks. We visit a lot of stately homes.

</comment><comment><USER8> And in Ankh Morpork, there's the hoho: A cunningly designed ditch like a Haha, only the Hoho is 50 feet deep. Has claimed three Palace gardeners. Also once trapped Dr. Cruces, then head of the Assassins' Guild.

<comment><USER9> Yep, and as mentioned in the article, there's also a he-he. A description is never given of it, but it's a safe assumption that it's a tiny haha, possibly only a couple inches high.

Interestingly, if this is accurate, it means that the front/backness of the vowel in hehe/haha/hoho correlates with its size.

<comment><USER10> A Hon-Hon is a Ha-Ha where the incline leads directly into a tunnel.

<comment><USER11> And the chon-honnel is the one from France to England

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The examples section on the Wikipedia page feels rather poor. The first example is a photo from the back (where the wall cannot actually be seen) and needs to be supplemented with a picture from the front, so you can actually see what the structure is! The other examples just look like standard walls.

The diagram at the top does get the idea across though.

<comment><USER13> I disagree, but regardless, this sounds more like a comment for the article's Talk page instead of HN. Better yet, you could go find better examples (with a free license) or take your own and add them to the article.

Contributing to Wikipedia is quite fun and not enough people do it. You don't even need to make an account.

<comment><USER12> While my comment may fit well on article's talk page, I don't think it's off topic here. A few upvotes agree.

I contribute to Wikipedia already by improving maths articles, so I know the process. Your comment appears to have incorrectly assumed certain things, and worse still, you've tried to educate me in a rather patronising manner. I don't think that's in the spirit of HN.

<comment><USER14> > Contributing to Wikipedia is quite fun and not enough people do it. You > don't even need to make an account.

How is this _not_ in the spirit of HN? Sure you might already know, but are we not to share knowledge/opinion because readers _might_ already know it?

Plus, other people (like me) also read these comments, and they might lack relevant knowledge... educating is not a bad thing.

<comment><USER12> Educating is a great thing. Patronising not so much.

If the OP's comment is for the good of the wider community, it should probably not contain a friendly yet subtle insult to the tune of "rather than just criticising, get off your backside and do something about it, you might even enjoy it".

And I'd be very surprised if someone reading HN is unaware that Wikipedia can be edited...

<comment><USER15> I did not find the comment patronizing. Assuming bad intent on the part of other commentators is ALSO not in the HN spirit.

<comment><USER12> How is it not patronising?! The person is telling me that they disagree with my viewpoint - and rather than then explaining why they disagree, they decide to explain to me that I can edit Wikipedia! To me, that is patronising.

While their language is mild and friendly, their message is utterly patronising.

<comment><USER15> > To me, that is patronising.

To me, that is not patronizing. Just like your original comment about the photos and the original reply, this is all _subjective_.

That you chose to take offense to subjective, measured comments is something you may want to spend time considering.

<comment><USER12> I disagree, but regardless, this sounds more like a comment for Reddit instead of HN. Better yet, rather than criticising my interpretation, you could go find examples of better comments and enjoy reading them at your leisure. Or you could even come up with your own and add them to the HN page. Contributing to HN is quite fun and not enough people do it. You do need to make an account, but it's free and only takes a sec. \-- Sound familiar? Do you feel patronised at all?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In Quebec, there's a town named Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! for similar reasons (as well as two Baie des Ha! Ha! and one Rivière Ha! Ha!).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-du- Ha!_Ha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-du-Ha!_Ha)!

<comment><USER17> I did not know what a ha-ha wall was until a few months ago when we happened to pass by Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! while driving from New Brunswick to Montreal. It's right on the Transcanadian Highway route so hard to miss. To be sure a few laughs were had when we saw the town's name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A small youtube channel I follow just posted a video about these- specifically one next to an unfriendly military base on a street aptly named "ha ha road".

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=pHHGSfd6rPk](https://youtube.com/watch?v=pHHGSfd6rPk)

<comment><USER19> I live right across the street from there.

The video obviously explains the history of this military base, but what the ha-ha "protects" nowadays is actually not a firing range but a football/cricket pitch and some other MOD sports facilities that are open to the public. I'm using them several times a week. You can also book the space for events.

So fortunately this area is not quite as scary and unfriendly as it appears in the vid. Sadly, the sheep were all scared off. No trace of them, ha ha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> These are quite common in Gloucestershire but you would not know it unless you have some reason to be invited to the big houses that have estates.

The health and safety considerations cited in the Wikipedia page don't apply to the ha-ha walls that are situated in sizeable estates. The big house, the extensive gardens and the fields beyond are owned by the same family. It has all been inherited rather than bought with 'new money'. The family and the staff know where the wall is and random members of the public just don't have access to the area, in part because of the ha-ha. The surrounding fields are not open to the public either.

Others may use the ha-ha in a modern context to hide a car park in a hilly city setting but this is not a true ha-ha wall. These fake ha-ha walls are also for postage stamp sized plots of land. A real ha-ha is at the end of formal gardens that are so big that only gardening staff would need to go that far out from the house. The lawns should be big enough for erecting a marquee, having a large croquet lawn or whatever else goes with having a house that size.

In the true country setting, e.g. Gloucestershire or another English shire, there are far worse hazards. A child could fall from a hay barn onto some combine harvester. Or a sheep dip with those neuro-toxin chemicals could be a grizzly end. Normal cows or the bull in a field could get you too. Hopping over a barbed wire fence might not kill you but isn't necessarily easy. Only a stupid, trespassing city dweller who should not be in the countryside under any circumstances could possibly fall off a real ha-ha and any ha-ha that is not part of a grand estate is not a real ha-ha.

Rivers and flood prevention can also provide a good excuse for a stately home to have a version of the ha-ha. This will be a ditch arrangement with a berm, this hides the riff-raff using the riverside path and the ironwork that takes the place of a wall for keeping them out.

<comment><USER21> The Royal Crescent Resident's Lawn in Bath is protected by a ha ha.

It's more of a discouragement than a fortification. It's not hard to scramble over it if you really want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> When I read "Ha ha Wall" and saw the picture, I instantly assumed that it meant the people on the "safe" side of the wall could tease/taunt the people on the "difficult" side of the wall - like Nelson in the Simpsons, "Ha ha!"

Guess I was wrong. Maybe less than 100% convinced I'm wrong, but I probably just fell in love with my own explanation & I'm unwilling to fully concede.

</comment><comment><USER23> As a French, I have never heard about this name. The article mentions the Château de Meudon, which I know reasonably well (I took the aerial views linked to on the wiki page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Meudon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Meudon)): "ha ha" isn't found on that page, and I can't think of an example of such a construction in the domain.

Isn't this a term attributed to the French but exclusively used in English...?

</comment><comment><USER24> I thought it's named haha because so the person can still laugh at the intruder while they try.

<comment><USER25> This was precisely my assumption. I was surprised by the etymology.

<comment><USER26> I'm both surprised and skeptical. It makes me wonder whether there's a larger story, now lost... Perhaps the archetypal occurrence was someone famously humorless, and their outburst was forever burned into the minds of those present. Or perhaps the first instance was on the estate of a noble who thought it funny and insisted everyone else find it funny, too...

<comment><USER27> You might know this already given your username, but for the sake of the thread I feel I should mention "Ha ha" is a common expression in french when discovering something, and not exclusive to this feature (which I felt wasn't made clear in the article). It has a specific intonation pattern and doesn't sound much like laughing, so to me the etymology isn't all that surprising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It does seem a little bit dangerous if there's no warning signage at the top. I could imagine someone running off the top landscape by accident if it's hard to see the divider.

</comment><comment><USER29> Interestingly, I'm a web developer at a company housed in a stately home in Yorkshire that has a ha-ha. Can confirm that a herd of cows were not able to get on the lawn.

</comment><comment><USER30> My initial guess was that "Ha-ha" stands for someone laughing at the face of the ones that were stopped by the wall. Something you wouldn't be able to do had it been a traditional wall.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've see the opposite of this, building fences on top of berms, in areas where fence height is limited.

<comment><USER32> An ah! ah! wall?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Zoo uses this effectively to give scenic view to visitors.

</comment><comment><USER34> This was a major Baader–Meinhof phenomenon incident for me. I literally had never heard the term before yesterday when I visited Exbury Gardens.

One of their info signs mentioned that female officers were forbidden from attending a royal visit during WWII but got round the ban by standing behind a Ha-ha wall so only the tops of their heads could be seen.

I was planning to come back and look up "Ha-ha wall" but it conveniently turned out to be on the front page of HN!

</comment><comment><USER5> "A man who tripped and fell into a historic boundary ditch within the grounds of a stately home while taking his grandson on a guided bat walk has been awarded £8750 damages.

John Cowan badly fractured his right ankle after falling into a ha-ha ditch at Hopetoun House on the outskirts of Edinburgh on September 5, 2008, as he and his grandson returned to a car park in the dark."

</comment><comment><USER35> Not suggesting this should be done, but for the sake of practical engineering argument, if a wall like this was used on the southern border, and I guess in areas where there is no hill it would have to be essentially a moat, with this theoretically save a lot of money over into nonsensically expensive concrete wall that offers a similar level of human blocking power?

<comment><USER36> They're even more vulnerable to the 'ladder' attack than a regular wall, since you don't have to worry about the drop on the other side of the wall.

<comment><USER10> It seems that you don't even need something as complicated as a ladder, a sufficiently long and sturdy plank could act as a ramp. Make the wall ADA compatible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> To be installed around the Berlin Reichstag [https://www.tip-berlin.de/berlin- considers-security-moat-for...](https://www.tip-berlin.de/berlin-considers- security-moat-for-the-reichstag-building/)

<comment><USER38> German politicians feeling threatened? By whom? Angry taxpayers? Would be terrorists? Antifa youth? The article is quite hillarious as it ridicules this plan. I can already imagine tipsy German MPs going to work and accidentally fallinng into the ditch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Disney's Animal Kingdom uses these in the Kilimanjaro Safaris ride.

</comment><comment><USER40> This type of wall looks quite unsafe, especially at night. It seems easy to fall off the top of the wall into the ditch.

</comment><comment><USER41> Apple Park implements this as well to hide the fence (and the city of Cupertino) from the employees inside.

<comment><USER42> I'm not sure if I'd call the raised mound that surrounds the campus a ha-ha wall. It probably was built to hide everything outside but the mountains, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does a moat count as a ha-ha wall?

<comment> compiler-guy Although it serves something of a similar purpose, a moat interrupts the view and usually doesn't slope on one side only.

<comment><USER43> > a moat interrupts the view

No, it doesn't: it's just a ditch. (But it's not very effective as a defensive element if not combined with a wall).

<comment> compiler-guy Skimming through the first hundred or so hits on "moat" on images.google.com shows that pretty much every single one does in fact interrupt the view.

So at the very least, keeping a clean view isn't a fundamental property of moats. But keeping a clean view is the raison d'etre for haha's. In fact that's how they get their name.

<comment><USER43> Moats do in fact provide a very clear view of whatever is on the other side (often a castle or a wall). But of course that's not why they are built, nobody disputes that.

<comment> compiler-guy The key here is "uninterrupted" and "clean". with a well done haha, you can't tell that anything is there at all. With most moats, you can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The popularity of freerunning/parkour makes me doubt their usefulness as a security device, unless they're made significantly wider & deeper than the wikipedia examples.

<comment><USER3> Or just drop a log on it and stroll over.

<comment><USER45> Problematic if you're a sheep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> There's a great song about it: [https://youtu.be/HBUMuDLCLpk](https://youtu.be/HBUMuDLCLpk)

</comment><comment><USER47> I've seen a house in the united states that was built into the facing wall, from many angles the house was totally invisible.

</comment><comment><USER48> One of the greatest creations in landscaping.

</comment><comment><USER49> I have heard or read allegations that there is a wall like this along parts of the border between North and South Korea.

</comment><comment><USER50> They use this technique in the Singaporean Zoo.

<comment><USER51> It's used in quite a few zoos. Main animal enclosure is at same height as visitors, but slopes down to a 15 ft wall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Nice hack - lateral thinking for fences.

</comment><comment><USER53> Also known as a ditch :)

<comment><USER6> I would say a ditch is sloped ground both sides. The vertical (whether brick wall or otherwise) is a key feature here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Ha-ha-broke-your-leg wall would be a more accurate name.

</comment><comment><USER55> Ha ha

</comment><comment><USER56> Seems relatable to contemporary digital paywalls and walled garden variants.

<comment><USER57> Or perhaps more broadly consumption-oriented (popular mobile) platforms versus general computing. As the young and curious user approaches, the limits of the permissioned experience, previously hidden, suddenly loom large. The realization that one is constrained by the willful labours of an opposed miscreant creator either weighs heavy or is denied... as another meaningless notification redirects their attention to the myopic stream of infinite-scroll minutiae in the central circus of permissioned experience.

<comment><USER58> That's a good analogy.

Unfortunately the young is left on the unfortunate side of the "wall".</comment></comment></comment>


Your portfolio needs plenty of stocks, whatever your age - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.com/2016/02/06/your-money/why-your-portfolio-needs-plenty-of-stocks-whatever-your-age.html <comment><USER2> Note: that is part one of a two part article. Here is part two [1].

Spoiler: "Indeed — except for known, near-term financial obligations like a large tax bill that you might owe on April 15 or a down payment on a house you're buying in the next few months — the best asset allocation, nearly all the time, is 100 percent stocks."

Here is the HN discussion of the second part from a few days ago [2], although I'm not sure it counts as a discussion since there was only one comment.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/your-money/how-much-of- you...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/your-money/how-much-of-your-nest- egg-to-put-into-stocks-all-of-it.html)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105038](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105038)</comment>


Show HN: Infinite Loop – simple, free game for mobile and web - <AUTHOR> http://loop.lekevicius.com

<comment><USER2> Fun game! Some suggestions:

\- It took me a bit to see the "play online" option, maybe just start the game and show the mobile app links at the top?

\- I eventually guessed the aim of the game but was confused at the start. Perhaps make the first few levels easier or add more instructions?

\- I kept forgetting to click when the level was completed so perhaps go to the next level automatically?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! Thanks for feedback.

\- I deliberately de-emphasize the Play Online option. This game is much, much more fun to play on a smartphone. I even thought about not having web version at all. If you have a smartphone, try downloading the game.

\- Generally people are happy about "no instructions at all" design, and that again is deliberate. I'll think about improving tutorial ramp a bit, there are some things to improve.

\- This design choice comes from mobile. There I want to show the completed design so you could screenshot it and share it, or just use as wallpaper.

<comment><USER2> I like no instructions design as well. What I meant was change the first level so you can win it within one or two clicks without even trying to make it more obvious what the goal is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is actually a really surprisingly enjoyable game. One cool feature would be to add level numbers/hashes/identifiers so that I could share a particularly fun level with someone.

Apart from that, I really love the lack of points/levels/bonuses/timers/etc, makes it a nice and relaxing game. Also very visually pleasing

</comment><comment><USER4> This is simple and clean. Why dont you add score and no of moves/rotation player did?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no score, and because levels are random, number of moves is not important. I plan to add level numbers in version 2.

<comment><USER4> This game is addictive. I played it and loved it. I like to play simple games.

But I feel this do needs some kind of gamification and proper ordering of levels. As twice I received simple puzzle after completing some harder!

Plus if possible do change some colors once the loop is completed. I felt those colors are like olden days. Rest whole game has cool colors.

<comment><USER5> I like it just as it is, without score and with random levels. I think that having an easier level after a harder one makes me want the play it even more. Please author, if you add those suggestions, maybe add them as a different play mode, since some of us enjoy it exactly as it is. So much so, that I've rated the game on Google play, I think it's my first one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even adding another play mode would be too much. I want this to be the most minimal game it can possibly be.

There were quite a few suggestions for level number, so you could feel your progress, so that might be the only visible feature in version 2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is got to be the best game I have ever played that is this simple.

</comment><comment><USER7> Broken on my desktop Chrome/Firefox as you're using Modernizr.touch to toggle between clicks and touches, which only detects support for touches, not an actual input device.

</comment><comment><USER8> There may be a problem on Android/Chrome. I selected "play online" and it's unresponsive at the splash screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I am aware of the issue, and wasn't able to fix it easily, but will try. Also I didn't spend much time with web version, because on mobile there are much better native apps. Actually, I might even remove the Play Online option from mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> reminds me of planarity; same sort of appeal.

bug report: the web version does not work on mobile (chrome for android), though it does if i request the desktop site.

</comment><comment> cs- Very nice! there's a certain amount of elegance in the shapes, really beautiful!

Wouldn't say relaxing, but a good time-killer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Addictive, simple and logical. Love it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Addictive and relaxing. Loved it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very eloquently designed, glad you didn't add any music. Keep it up!

<comment><USER13> I feel like some sort of white noise would be rather nifty. Although i don't know if I would count that as music exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not able to play it online</comment>


Intel budges Samsung out of its seat at the top of silicon-slinger league - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/17/intel_is_back_on_top_of_the_silicon_foodchain/ <comment><USER2> silicon-slinger? cringe.</comment>


Ask HN: Is promoting myself as a freelancer on my project's website a bad idea? - <AUTHOR>

Since launching BugMuncher I've actually got a little bit of freelance work from people who have seen it and wanted to hire me because BugMuncher impressed them. BugMuncher is already profitable and makes me a modest income, but I still need to supplement that income with freelance work.
I recently had the idea of putting a 'Hire Me' link on BugMuncher as a way of getting more freelance leads, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking this could have an adverse affect on sign ups. I'm already A/B testing having the 'hire me' link, but I'd love to know what you all think. (you can see the hire me link by going to http://bugmuncher.com#whm)
Cheers, Matt <comment><USER2> Considering that your Hire me banner covers one of the Sign up links then yes, this will have an adverse affect on signups.

I would suggest putting it as a small text link in your footer instead, maybe "Want to hire me? Email..." under the copyright note.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah crap, I only just hacked it together, and didn't consider smaller screen sizes. I really should have learned the dangers of late night hacking by now - fail. Cheers for the heads up, I've put a quick fix in for now, I'll re- evaluate it properly tomorrow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Include a form that is specifically for getting work leads. Then put it somewhere on the page under the following title:

"You can hire the engineer behind BugMuncher to work on your own project. Just write your email below and click on send. I will get back to you through email, so we can discuss how I can make your ideas a reality."

        </comment><comment>-
        |     |  <- a text input
        </comment><comment>-

        </comment><comment>
        |send |   <- a button
        </comment><comment>

Thats it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think it will have an adverse affect on signups. I don't think the banner you put up will have a positive effect on getting more freelance work either though. Like hndjmrh posted here, I think a link in the footer is more effective.

</comment><comment><USER5> Your website says "I get stuff done, and well".

A Hire Me on such an app is a big plus.

I've sent an email offer to you.</comment>


Three Days on the Startup Bus - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-lives-of-hackathon-junkies/397895/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Nice article. I had a good time.

Here are some pearls from it:

> Nothing useful is ever created at a hackathon.

> sometimes "entrepreneur" means "runs a successful company" and sometimes it > means "more ideas than money."

> Eddie [...] dresses exclusively in free t-shirts from tech events. [...] his > job is to go around the country attending hackathons, throwing pizza > parties, and handing out t-shirts to developers to convince them to use > SendGrid.

Reads exactly like the hackathons I've attended.

<comment><USER3> I read somewhere (can't find it now) that hackathons work better when there are specific problems to solve rather than just having a general theme. Makes sense, but I'm curious whether anyone has any experience regarding this. I've only ever attended one, a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER4> Haskell community has hackathons around the world that end up being 60% conference, 40% hackathon with people jumping between each depending on interests. A lot of infrastructure has been built or improved, tutorials, tooling, etc. at these hackathons.

BayHac and ZuriHac are two of the more prominent ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "There's even a term for the useless software that people make: vaporware. The idea is that it's created, and then it evaporates because nobody works on the project after the hackathon (despite everyone's best intentions)."

Has anyone ever heard this definition of vaporware before?

<comment><USER6> Also see the new definition of shareware: an app going viral because so many people are sharing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Really enjoyed the article. Wonder if she sold the Pizza app to Dominos or something. Code it in their stack for easy integration, pitch common use case, and boom. Who knows.

On the overall thing, I've always suspected these were more a giant party than anything useful. The reason is that good things usually take time and quality thought to put together. Sleep can work wonders, too. Wish I was in Nashville for this event as it would've been fun talking to the Startup Bus crowd.

</comment><comment> dj-wonk If twisty mountain roads work "magic" for the Startup Bus, maybe it is time for the Start Up Vomit Comet. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_gravity_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_gravity_aircraft))

</comment><comment><USER8> Is that primary image from a gaming event, and not a hackathon?

<comment><USER9> Seems like it</comment></comment>


Entries for the Rails Rumble 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://r10.railsrumble.com/teams <comment><USER2> Some seriously nice apps in there. Really impressed by the concepts and execution.

My favorites (thus far):

An _awesome_ looking iPhone game powered by a Rails app: <http://warsquare.r10.railsrumble.com/>

AirportAtlas, find power, wi-fi, etc. in airports: <http://r10.railsrumble.com/teams/team-rocketpants>

Newspaper.ly looks like an app I had an idea for: a news reader that only shows you stuff the app thinks you would like: <http://r10.railsrumble.com/teams/infinity-pool-boom-boom>

A co-worker's IM gateway project: <http://r10.railsrumble.com/teams/this-we- can-have>

Project management that makes sense to me: <http://splendidbacon.com/>

(And of course my entry - <http://tldr.it> , a summarizer for RSS feeds and other URL's - <http://r10.railsrumble.com/teams/my-other-car-is-your-face>)</comment>


Lucy in the sky with doctors - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/10/14/lucy-sky-with-doctors/On92CQWm0YCQNeHL9tGJBM/story.html <comment><AUTHOR> If you're looking for things to support, MAPS and Heffter are great, and for a smaller project with less funding needed, the MDMA movie is may be an excellent project to support: [https://donate.mdmathemovie.com/en/campaigns/TTTR4Li6j7oskQM...](https://donate.mdmathemovie.com/en/campaigns/TTTR4Li6j7oskQMGJ)</comment>


Some thoughts on the new JOBS Act/Crowdfunding - <AUTHOR>

1. It's probably a good time to start businesses that focus on doing due diligence on smaller companies/start-ups raising money. I imagine some sort of standard will prevail in a few years (think S and P ratings for start-ups).
2. I have a feeling a good chunk of investments won't be financially motivated, it'll be more like Kickstarter where people want to support companies they actually believe in. If a company is building something that would solve your problem, why not own a piece of it?
3. Start-ups will realize that investors aren't for them. I mean, how bad would you feel if you lost someone's grandmother's money? With Angels and VCs, you might feel bad, but they're big boys and can take care of themselves.
Care to disagree? <comment><USER2> Where is this or these phantom crowdsourcing websites? Kickstarter is a good business model.</comment>


The inside story of Lenovo's ThinkPad redesign - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/17/the-inside-story-of-lenovo-thinkpad-redesign/ <comment> old-gregg Fuck that. The UltraNav is gone. Looks like I won't have the 3 trackpad buttons under my thumbs on the next gen. No more opening links in a new tab with a single button click. Ughh. I guess people just don't want to pay for nice things anymore...

The previous generation of Thinkpads lost their IPS displays and switched to el-cheapo "short screens", the current generation of Thinkpads lost the proper keyboard and switched to shitty chiclet style calculator keyboards, and the next one is going to lose the UltraNav.

Consumerization of computers sucks. They used to be tools for professionals, now everyone is optimizing for disposable facebook terminals. I hope that at some point the tablets and phones are going to completely take over the consumer market and someone will start making usable laptops again.

<comment><USER2> Since IBM sold the Thinkpad unit, quality has been downhill. :(

<comment><USER3> That'd be an obvious assumption to make, but I've been using both IBM and Lenovo versions and I frankly don't see much of a difference. Any concrete examples?

<comment><USER2> The T410 keyboard from my current model against my old T43.

The screen quality of some T420 here in office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh cuil, they took away tactile feedback from clicking and will probably require a binary blob just to make the trackpoint "buttons" work. And no more dedicated buttons for volume control (they probably took away the mixer hardware behind those, too. it was nice to not be at software's mercy). Although I guess these things aren't as bad as every new laptop having a shortscreen, sigh.

It's articles like this that are the problem, with phrases such as "still an Ethernet port" and "change too little, and your rivals maintain the edge in design". You don't compete by following Apple - the people who want buttonless sealed-up devices still won't choose you. You've got to stick to your strengths.

<comment><USER5> I never before wanted to reach through the tubes and slap a reviewer like I did when I read 'still an ethernet port'. I work in the heart of the city, and there are something like 20-30 wifi networks that pop up when you look. I've never bothered counting. But compare only having that connection versus having wifi for when you want it plus having a wired gigE connection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's what I got from the article.

\- Island style backlit keyboard

\- No more physical buttons for the touchpad or pointing stick

\- Function keys now default to Media keys

\- "Thinner and sleeker" is more important than anything else.

In other words, the machine is getting more and more similar to standard mass- market notebooks. I don't know why they'd ditch exactly what sets them apart from the competition.

<comment><USER7> I always tell my customers if they want a laptop that will last to get a Thinkpad T series. As long as they don't compromise the build quality I'll be happy.

<comment><USER8> Why not a toughbook? Something like an SX2[0] or a C2[1]

[0] [http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/business- rugged-...](http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/business-rugged- laptop-toughbook-SX2.asp) [1] [http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/semi- rugged-C2-c...](http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/semi- rugged-C2-convertible-tablet-pc.asp)

<comment><USER7> Toughbooks are extremely costly and heavy, I'd recommend them to people doing field work, otherwise they are a bit excessive,

<comment><USER8> They are costly indeed, for the same reason "original" thinkpads or MBPs are costly: they're worth it.

As to "heavy", I linked to "business rugged" series of toughbooks. Fully rugged toughbooks (those you see on field work) are built like tanks and heavy as fuck indeed (e.g. Toughbook 19 with 5.1 lbs or Toughbook 31 with 7.9 lbs), these are much sleeker machines: way above an average laptop, but not MIL-STD or IP65 by a long shot.

The SX2 is 3.1 lbs. By comparison, a 2012 MBA is 2.38 (11") to 2.96 lbs (13"). Would you really call 3.1 lbs "heavy"? Let alone "extremely" so? (the C2 is a big bit heaver at 3.6 lbs, as it's a convertible tablet with a bunch more features like hot-swappable batteries)

<comment><USER7> Thank you! I'll look more into the business line of the toughbooks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sorry, Lenovo, I'd rather have "dropped 3 feet onto tile floor and still works fine" than "thin and sleek". This is why I buy ThinkPads, not because they're trendy and look cool. My laptop is for getting things done, not acting as a fashion accessory.

I also don't really see the logic behind getting rid of the hardware buttons for the trackpoint but keeping the VGA port. How are hardware mouse buttons uglier than a VGA port? Every time I look at my VGA port, I wish it were HDMI or DisplayPort.

It looks like my current ThinkPad will be my last.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've had a T61p for 4 or 5 years. 1920x1280 screen. A Core 2 Duo that doesn't feel dated. I dread the day that something happens and I need to get a new laptop. I think other fans will know what I mean when I say this one is perfect.

<comment><USER11> I felt the same, until I put it in my backpack while on and the video card died. That particular model has a known defect in the soldering on the video vard (NVIDIA's fault), so be careful with how you use it.

Fun fact: apparently, people have fixed theirs by putting the motherboard in an oven to resolder it.

<comment><USER12> Ah, Bumpgate and BGA soldering problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, they removed a lot of good things but failed to add a better screen. I love my X220 and was looking to buy a newer model since the 1366x768 screen is really limiting, but I guess I'm done with Thinkpads for good.

<comment><USER14> I have the T430s (predecessor model of the article). It is almost a perfect machine - I have a fast CPU, 16GB of RAM, both 500GB HDD and a 250GB SSD, thunderbolt, fingerprint reader, a DVD drive I replaced with a battery etc. It weighs 1.8kg which is fine. This is an excellent mobile powerhouse. (I have a Nexus 10 for light fluffy stuff.)

But then the screen is 1600x900, 16:9 and there is a massive bezel (4.5cm vertically and 3.2cm horizontally). I want more dpi, I want a more sensible aspect ratio and I'll take a larger screen (unfortunately the 15" T530 plus wide bezel was just too large).

The screen is the thing they made no effort to fix.

<comment><USER15> I will second this. I have the same machine, the aspect ratio is completely obnoxious for anything productive. Not wide enough for two decently sized windows side-by-side, and cramped vertically. UGH.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The design looks great. But after I got my first Thinkpad I started to use the physical mouse buttons with the touchpad, and even disabled all the point-and- click stuff and after that you can use it almost as good as a separate mouse. I would hate to go back to push-and-lick actions.

To the media keys being default, that is not an problem, you can change them back in BIOS to work as regular F-keys.

Thinner and sleeker is always a good thing if the build quality is what it used to be, and I believe it is.

Keyboard backlight is also a great thing if you just can change the level to be very minimal to barely see the keys in the dark.

All in all, this very well may be my next laptop.

And to you guys you whine about not enough usb-ports or the lack of CD-drive, I'm sure there is a Thinkpad coming with the new design that gives you all that and more.

The fact is, people very rarely need CD-drive and tons of ports, this machine will suit really big part of the population and like me, im happy to sacrifice CD-drive and few ports for a lighter machine that I carry around daily.

(sorry for the bad english, it is not my native language)

<comment><USER17> I actually prefer the old Thinklight. I often use it as a reading light for notes while I'm working on my computer.

<comment><USER18> I have a T430s. It has both the keyboard backlight and the thinklight. I had an R500 before that had just the thinklight. I very, very strongly prefer the keyboard backlight for three reasons:

1\. no reflections on the keys

2\. part of the thinklight reflects off the screen, reducing perceived contrast (=(Imax+k)/(Imin+k) where k=ambient light)

3\. for some reason, I even find the backlight helpful in broad daylight

I didn't think it'd make so much of a difference before I got the T430s, but for what it's intended it's just vastly superior. And I've found that now that I have the backlight, I don't actually use the thinklight all too often anymore, even though it's only two Fn+Space away.

YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I noticed this post

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5392943>

and commented there (based on the specs sheet they show):

 _Not pleased.

Keyboard changes, including what appears to be a "sharper" front edge to the palm rest. (I hate having that pressing into my wrists when a table is not at the ideal typing height.)

Apparently only one DIMM; initial 4 GB soldered.

WWAN and mSATA share a slot; it's either/or.

No optical drive or spare drive bay. Yes, some of us still use those._

\--

P.S. Also, this perspective just occurred to me:

They are no longer offering a $1000 laptop. They are offering a $700 (perhaps generous -- soon to be $600 or lower equivalent) laptop.

I won't pay them $1000 for this. I'll pick up a competitor's $600 model.

Aside from the price inflation, there's little left in this model of Thinkpad to tempt me to make a longer-timeframe purchase decision. I'll probably switch to buying something else, and just upgrading every year or year and a bit -- if and as needed.

</comment><comment><USER20> 1600x900 display [1], but I don't hold much hope that it will be an IPS screen. The screen viewing angle and lack of contrast is by far the worst part of my T410.

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/17/lenovo- thinkpad-t431s-ult...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/17/lenovo- thinkpad-t431s-ultrabook-official/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I wish they'd just upgrade the screen and leave everything else alone.

<comment><USER22> Agreed. This is one thing the chromebook pixel got absolutely right: the resolution, and the 3:2 aspect ratio. Wish more devs would speak up against these useless 16:9 displays that this Engadget reviewer bemoans.

<comment><USER23> I was one of those 16:9 haters, but then I realized it's really handy to be able to have my progam's window and my editor/debugger on the screen and not overlapping, or have my browser for API reference, my Emacs, and my compile window all next to each other. You sacrifice vertical height, but make up for it by not having to switch virtual desktops between documentation/code all the time. Plus, it makes UI debugging so much nicer when switching to your program's window doesn't cause a repaint when it's the paint routine, or a menu or something that you're debugging.

Not only do I find it nicer for development, but there's the bonus that your movies fit nicely (I don't use an actual TV, since a 17" laptop on my lap is a similar visual angle as a large TV 10 feet away, and cheaper and more portable, too).

<comment><USER24> Absolutely. I love wide displays, and I do vastly more dev type stuff than anything else.

The amount of hate for wide displays you see on HN and other tech-centered sites, and the apparent presumption that 4:3 is "obviously" better for devs, has always puzzled me a bit. Surely it depends a lot on individual habits?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is an interesting list: <http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/TFT_display>

The T2x series from the early 2000s had arguably better displays.

</comment><comment><USER26> Do not like: no screen latch and no more physical buttons.

Luckily I buy a laptop for a few years and I run Linux, so I don't have to upgrade any time soon. Maybe by then they will make decent laptops again.

</comment><comment><USER27> From the looks, it seems like a well thought out machine. Clean but still distinctive design. If the innards and workings are as well thought out, it'll be a great laptop.

</comment><comment><USER28> Never again. I was a Thinkpad loyalist, and used it exclusively for 12 years. Last year I got a new one and the screen backlight died within 5 months. Lenovo shat on the brand, and I'm not going back.

After sampling a few different products, I got myself a $400(!) Asus X501A. Beautiful piece. Light as a feather. And has 3x the battery life of my Thinkpad.

<comment><USER29> Yep. I got an eMachines 732Z (Asus) for $400 last year. $80 for 8GB of RAM and $200 for a 256GB SSD (+$20 for an adaptor to put it where the DVD drive was) and I have a dev laptop that'll eat just about everything else for breakfast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Lenovo did some research "about understanding users and their behavior" and came up with a MacBook.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hope they didn't epoxy that TCPA chip on the back of the motherboard - <http://dribbble.com/shots/751583-Don-t-forget-your-password>

</comment><comment><USER31> The "Terminator Edition" prototype looks like crap - Thinkpads' rubber finish is what gives them their distinctive look, and changing that would be a horrible, horrible mistake.

</comment><comment><USER32> tl;dr

* horrible chiclet keyboard

* tap to click (no physical trackpad buttons)

* very few USB ports

* no CD/DVD drive

* no screen latch

<comment><USER5> It's not a chiclet keyboard - you can see the air gap under the keys in the first photo.

<comment><USER19> They already went chiclet with the T430. The photos out so far for the 431 have bad/odd lighting with some misleading reflections.

<comment><USER5> My mistake - I always thought 'chiclet keyboards, named after the gum' referred to the rubber-mat keys that are truly horrible to type on, when it refers to the style of contacts (rubber mat, but can have hard plastic caps).

<comment><USER19> Opinions vary, but I have read several (about the last iteration, e.g. the T430) that are more favorably inclined to the Lenovo version of these "chiclet" keyboards. That their action is better and that the hard topped, slightly curved keys are more comfortable.

Still, though, as far as I know one of those rubber mat "contraptions", under the surface. And with the "island" style key placements (surrounded/separated by a distinct surface, instead of the keys being immediately adjacent to each other).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Flattr on content sites - <AUTHOR>

If a content site that pays it's writers a salary were to set up a flattr button (flattr.com) on it's posts, do the writers deserve a piece or does the site get to keep it all? <comment><USER2> Morally speaking? _punt_

Legally speaking? No. If you receive a salary, anything you write is "work for hire" for your organization. They get exclusive rights to it, unless you negotiate differently.

Practically speaking? Nobody will make any money from Flattr so it doesn't matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Nobody will make any money from Flattr so it doesn't matter._

Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER2> See my comments here (about Flattr):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1499269>

and the thread here (about Contenture, a company with the same business model, which folded for exactly the reason described):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=627837>

<comment><USER3> Between those two comments, you seem to be the sort of person who would also claim the iPhone will never sell because people want to use their phones to _make calls_.

Not that I'm saying you're _wrong_ about Flattr / that business model. I just _hope_ you are, because it's a very consumer-centric business model, and I'd love it to succeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Depends on how common place you think 'profit sharing' is at normal companies. I have yet to work somewhere (as a dev) where I earned a salary and earned a bonus each time the sales team sold it. Should I demand a share? After all, its the developers who actually created the product right?

In the end, it really depends on the site. But seeing as they are paying you a salary, I'm guessing they aren't inclined to do so since you get paid the same paycheck regardless of the amount of visits or flattr tips that come in.

</comment><comment><USER5> Treat it as advertising income like any income.

Do you currently share advertising income with writers above their salary?</comment>


Walmart files patent for robot bee that detects pollen - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/au/news/walmart-to-make-autonomous-robot-bees-pollen-drones/ <comment><USER2> Can we see a picture of this robot bee? I saw a story about this and they had a cheerson drone as their picture. Apparently they are serious. Is the robot bee better than the bees they are killing? Is it self replicating? Bees cost nothing to produce and one person can maintain thousands of them with only a little training. And they make honey.</comment>


A closer look at the high school vs college wage gap - <AUTHOR> http://www.startinganedschool.org/2010/11/30/looking-harder-at-the-college-prep-message/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+StartingAnEdSchool+(Starting+an+Ed+School)

<comment><USER2> He forgot the third option! Learn to program, found a startup, get acquired by Google... I liked reading the nuances, though, it's fascinating that a HS degree has become almost completely worthless by itself.

It always seems, at least anecdotally, that for the tech industry degrees hardly matter at all, in the cases they do it's because it's a company policy to reject all non-degree-holding applicants. Any Bachelors, Masters, or Ph.Ds willing to share their incomes?

<comment><USER3> Nah, they don't at all. I'd wager that the tech field is mostly a trade more than anything; I'd like to say that my math and philosophy degrees have actually helped me, but if they ever did, it'd be way more subtle than what would actually land me a job.

I make a decent bit of money by the way, though I'd wager that I would've made the same amount sans college degree. Not yet willing to disclose my exact salary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one of the best blog posts I've read all year, I love getting to look deeper into data.</comment>