An Apple I Emulator in shader language - <AUTHOR> https://www.shadertoy.com/view/tlX3W7 <comment><USER2> Wow, I was expecting graphics in the style of Return of the Obra Dinn, but this is much more impressive.

Lucas Pope's work on bringing the 1-bit aesthetic into the modern age is fascinating in itself. One of my favorite excerpts is how Pope 'stabilized dither' in order to reduce the harsh effects that dithering moving images can create: [https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg136374...](https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg1363742#msg1363742)

</comment><comment><USER3> Careful: froze my browser (Chromium) for 30secs or so

Shader language programming is one of most fascinating environments I know. Everything tells me that reading and writing data via texture coordinate lookups should be orders of magnitude slower than "normal" programming, yet it often is orders of magnitude faster.

<comment><USER4> To be clear, this particular emulator is a _lot_ slower than an Apple I emulator on a normal CPU.

<comment><USER5> The delay is the shader compile time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool! This emulator even correctly mimics some of the hardware in the Apple 1 TV interface that strips out invalid characters. Many emulators miss this and simply replace them with a blank space. [https://apple1org.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/a-common- apple-1-...](https://apple1org.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/a-common- apple-1-emulation-bug/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice! I'd pondered using this technique for a while; since each shader compute element is a fairly powerful processor on its own, this can effectively run one copy of the emulator for every pixel.

Unfortunately since emulation is an "embarrasingly serial" problem, it doesn't go particularly quickly.

<comment><USER4> Actually, not inherently serial. If you think about, an Apple consists of a lot of chips, which could be nicely modeled in say, Verilog, which is good for modelling parallel stuff. But it does not lend itself well to shader language.

<comment><USER8> To clarify: it does not lend itself well to ShaderToy, because the computational model is hamstrung by the fact that the threads can't communicate with each other within a draw call. On a more modern GPU platform with compute shaders, you get a lot more of that, and I think interesting things will happen. I'm personally really looking forward to WebGPU, as I think it will make a lot of this stuff much more accessible.

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately, after spending a _lot_ of time in the committee, I think it's ultimately doomed. Chrome has WebGL-with-compute-shaders behind a flag. Really, they should have standardized and shipped that years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't enter "+" on my US QUERTY keyboard. It is shift-equals, but both the shifted and unshifted show up as plain old equals in the emulator.

</comment><comment><USER11> So I'm running macOS in KVM with pcie passthrough (Vega64) in order to emulate an Apple I on the GPU. What a tremendous era we live in ;D

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been trying to understand the tao of shaders for a while. Any good resources (besides The Book of Shaders)?

</comment><comment><USER13> Can't run it on Linux in Chrome or Firefox, even though the console says WebGL support is available.

<comment><USER14> Shader compilers are pretty bad an result depends on browser and driver. There is plenty of platform differences when accessing uninitialized memory, using more complicated constructs like structures, performing math operation with undefined result, incorrectly defining if function argument is in,out or inout.

<comment><USER13> Oh hmm, that's interesting. Thanks.

The shaders on [https://shaderfrog.com/app](https://shaderfrog.com/app) all work fine for me and those looked pretty complex. Maybe they're not using the same type of "shader compilers"? Or perhaps making a CPU emulator with shader compilers is just more complicated...</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can anyone recommend a good markdown viewer that auto refreshes? - <AUTHOR> I use vim to edit markdown and have been using MacDown to preview the files. However, MacDown doesn't automatically reload the file when changes are made in vim. Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> I would have a background process continuously doing .md -> .html conversion.

Then I would have a FireFox tab open on the .html, and using an add-on, set that tab to auto-refresh periodically.

Actually, regarding the first point, I wouldn't have a background process. In my Vim environment, I already have a custom command :W which saves the buffer and runs :make. I would have a Makefile which builds the .html from the .md.

So by saving the .md with :W, the .html would regenerate and the auto- refreshing FF tab would pick that up however many seconds later.

</comment><comment><USER3> Marked 2: [http://marked2app.com/](http://marked2app.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been a fan of Dillinger for years, automatically updates, side-by-side layout and converts Markdown to PDF/HTML.

It's not a CLI program though, web app.

[https://dillinger.io/](https://dillinger.io/)

</comment><comment> jonathan-kosgei Checkout VSCode [https://code.visualstudio.com/](https://code.visualstudio.com/)</comment>


A funny rap song about the pains of pair programming - <AUTHOR> Song URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psw9G9Lp7ac
Quick background on the project: I'm a full time programmer and I love making rap music. I see a lot of humor in the profession/industry, and thought it would be fun to combine the two.
Here is what I'm planning on for next steps. I'm always open to feedback!
1. Get something for Patrons (ordered stickers, will probably order mugs as well)
2. Paid ad on a popular Twitter account(s)
3. Rent a GoPro and shoot a music video for one of the existing songs (if you have any tips on recording, please let me know - I have done some music video editing but don't know much about video cameras) <comment><USER3> This reminds me of a rap I wrote a while ago! I hadn't shared it before but here it goes. It's based on Eminem's 'Lose Yourself':

      Yo

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy

There's build errors already, his code is spaghetti

He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready

To start debugging, but he keeps forgettin'

The code he wrote down, has no comments at all

He starts to type, but more build errors are comin' out now

He's choking, how, tabs and spaces are mixing now

The breakpoint runs out, null exception, blaow!

404, oh there goes code quality!

Oh, there goes overflow, he choked

He's so mad, but won't give up that easy? No

He won't have it, he knows this whole repo's a joke

It don't matter,

All that's left is to type in disgrace,

'git rebase'

<comment><USER4> Ha! See if you can work in something like:

 _So he's got no remorse

git push origin —force_

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So I'll start the HN let's-ignore-the-headline-and-discuss-the-topic-thread

For some reason my boss was mentioning that we should do pair programming (they don't program). There's only a handful of devs. Nothing really happening. Personally I prefer asynchronous interaction, so I've been pushing for code review. But two of my coworkers started pair programming & both seemed to think it helped work through their issues. I've personally fallen into what might be called "pair programming" when pairing with a coworker who doesn't know how to program but knows all the business logic for a task

How are people pair programming? Does it work better when it happens organically? Does it change how much time you spend printf debugging?

<comment><USER6> I interviewed for a week at a consultancy known for pair-programming a long time ago.

Each workstation had two chairs, a large iMac in the middle, and the developers had an individual macbook/kb/mouse on each side.

The code was on the middle machine, and either kb/mouse could control it. They also were using software named Teleport(?) that let you seamlessly interact with both the main iMac and your own laptop. I don't remember exactly what it did, maybe let you drag files between the two computers or something.

I got to pair-program with them on assorted real world tasks that week, a different employee each day. I was generally impressed with the workflow. There was basically zero downtime in terms of progress. I can easily them imagining at least getting a 2x productivity boost, but I'd imagine it was more like 2.5x or more.

Sheepishly, what I didn't like about it was that I'm the kind of person that likes to get a lot done and then work on my own stuff on the job, or have the freedom to surf HN when I'm ahead of schedule, and that was kind of impossible there without your teammate knowing it. :)

But I will say it was very stimulating and fun. The other developers were really nice and fun to talk to. I work remotely, but I would certainly consider that arrangement if I were to get a desk job again.

It's better than the sort of office job where you're languishing on your own and nobody has a firm grasp of what exactly you're even working on in precise terms. I've been there before and it's incredibly stressful when you fall behind pace and your work performance starts to suffer. I feel like pair- programming eliminates that kind of thing.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, the _focus_ and the full 8 hour work days is one of the attractions of it.

<comment><USER8> I did it for two years. I found that it was draining to be focused the full time every day. I liked the way it worked, I _loved_ the code quality that came out of it, but I can't do it 8 hours a day month after month.

<comment><USER7> I was _exhausted_ the first month, but... I actually hate myself when I slack off. I love few things more than getting things _done_ , and pairing provides me with that euphoria and discipline.

I do fully understand that it's not for everyone!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love this so much! Musical comedy is a favorite genre of mine, like this[1], for example.

Re your plan:

1\. I'm dubious this is a top-priority. I'd probably focus on the content for a while before focusing on swag and other perks. Patrons, especially early patrons, are there to be supportive. They aren't looking for "things". They want more of your quality stuff in the world. (This is just my attitude as a patron. I could be wrong. Are your patrons are clamoring for stuff? Have you asked them?)

2\. Why not focus on the content and going viral organically? You're already at the top of HN. Keep doing more things like this and save your money! Have you seen First Round Capital's holiday videos? They get tens of thousands of views. I don't see any reason why your videos couldn't organically get a similar number.

3\. If you have a newer phone, the cameras are pretty solid and probably good enough for a first video. I've used a DSLR in the past to make a medium- quality music video. I'd even consider using whatever webcam your computer comes with and doing something super low-budget to start, such as you simply saying the lyrics. Another quick improvement idea: instead of a static screen why not put the lyrics in the video?

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZltTy9T-98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZltTy9T-98)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback! You make a lot of solid points...I'm now re-thinking what would be actually valuable as next steps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is still one of my favorites...

[https://soundcloud.com/marak/marak-the-node-js- rap](https://soundcloud.com/marak/marak-the-node-js-rap)

Lyrics here

[https://github.com/Marak/node- raps/blob/master/The%20Node.js...](https://github.com/Marak/node- raps/blob/master/The%20Node.js%20Rap/lyrics.md)

<comment><USER11> Aww, thanks!

Saw this comment and now I'm listening to the back catalog of nerd raps I've made.

Fun times.

<comment><USER10> I smell a rap battle coming...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love the song. I personally would be much more interested in high quality lyrics, beat, audio recording, etc than a music video but that's just my opinion.

Your flow in this song is much better than your "Opinions" song so I'd say keep working on how you spit, not producing a video.

<comment><USER13> Thank you for the feedback! I keep getting comments that some visuals would go a long way. I also think it'd be fun to do, so it's pretty tempting. I do agree that the focus should be on song quality though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You need a GoPro for a music video? What, are you going waterskiing or something :)

I'm no expert, but I'd say just use mobile phone cameras. Go to different places, have someone (or a tripod) film you lip-syncing the entire song there. Import all of the clips into a video editor, place your backing audio track and wiggle around the video clips until they sync up. Cut scenes between the best bits of each video track. Of course, you need a friend or two to cast as the other half of the pair programming pair :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Damn your channel is gold. Subscribed. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER13> Thank you so much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The hell.js is funny as hell. Pair-programming is the worst practice I've seen in my life. The lyrics says so.

</comment><comment><USER17> What's the opposite of a sweet spot? Pain spot? Pair programming has a big one. Basically whenever you sit with another programmer and try to do initial design of something while coding it. God that is awful. Don't ever do that.

But it is useful for other purposes. Two people think better than one, when the solution space is well defined. And you always pick up, or teach, some good tricks and habits from other people. If you're working on some code that you wrote yourself, you also learn a lot about how easy it is for others to understand it.

The pitch for pair programming should _not_ be increased productivity - <USER2> least not directly. Almost everything about the setup means things are slower. The benefits are in other areas, and are real. That said, the fact that you are two people means that you are 100% focused and not goofing off and procrastinating, so in the end you get things done just about as fast as you would have alone. It's pretty exhausting though, I would not recommend it for more than a few hours in one day, at most one or two times a week.

Also, cool song :)

<comment> rooam-dev 2 people != 2 devs :) Each dev will have their own solution for the same problem, which one should they pick? Then you are either a jerk that does not consider others' ideas or follow blindly other idea and don't get to solve the problem == no work satisfaction.

I personally don't like it. For me it always felt that I had to justify my thinking, but many times it's just a gut feeling. Also, the need to explain what I do is very exhausting, and slowing down my thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've never been a fan of rap music, I've actually mostly been repulsed by it, but after hearing this I think I'm a fan. I guess it was all about what the songs are about (not a fan of violence).

<comment><USER19> Rap can be as diverse in terms of subject matter and style as any other musical genre.

If you want some more "nerd" or parody rap here's some MC Frontalot[0] and Optimus Rhyme[1] that HN might enjoy.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm getting somewhat of a Jon Lajoie vibe out of this - great work!

</comment><comment><USER21> Hi, here's an angle: make music/videos to advertise for startup products. There is a video agency that specializes in making TV commercials for software products that you could emulate: [https://sandwichvideo.com/](https://sandwichvideo.com/)

So for this one, find some pair programming/screensharing tool and sell them a license for the song (or produce a video) as marketing material.

</comment><comment><USER22> These rap songs are both funny and ring true. Please make more, and a video would be cool too :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Brilliant! This reminds of the Python I heard not too long ago...

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

</comment><comment> antonio-ramadas This made my day. Great work. Keep it up!

A small suggestion: include the lyrics either in the video itself or as subtitles. (I know they are in the description, but this way it would be easier to follow them).

</comment><comment><USER24> Now that it's Sunday evening here in Europe I took the time to listen to your pair programming rap (again) and some other songs and wanna say, this is really gold. Keep it up!

</comment><comment><USER25> \---

Video unavailable This video is restricted. Try signing in with a Google Apps account.

\---

I am logged in with my google account, but I'm just learning there are two kinds of google accounts... wtf google...

</comment><comment><USER26> Loved it... but I felt bad for subscribing :D [1]

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/dvKvR2Y.png](https://i.imgur.com/dvKvR2Y.png)

</comment><comment><USER27> That made me laugh. Thanks for making this and sharing.

</comment><comment><USER28> Sooo good!!</comment>


Apply HN: EcommerceBot – A bot for ecommerce to handle customer support - <AUTHOR> A platform that would make it dead simple for ecommerce sites to have a bot to help them with customers support.
Problem: Live chat has the highest satisfaction rate over email and phone for customer support [1] and is the preferable channel. As companies like Facebook, Telegram, etc make it super simple for customers to connect directly with businesses, having someone in front of a computer to answer questions is not a scalable solution. Ecommerce owners should not spend their time/money building and training a bot.
Solution: We will provide ecommerce owners a platform where they can get their own support bot up and running with a few clicks. Our service will connect to their ecommerce solution, gather the necessary data, learn their FAQs and with all these information the bot will try to answer customers questions. As more ecommerce companies join the platform and more questions are asked, the bots will become smarter.
Who are we? I am Guillermo, a Software Engineer with over 10 yrs of experience working for big companies and started a handful of startups. I have a successful bot running on Slack and the lessons learned there will help me build this platform. Angeli, my wife, has been a PM in the software industry for over 5 years. She has been running an ecommerce for about 4 years with annual revenue in the 6 digits. We recently quite our corporate jobs and became digital nomads, ready to work on this full time.
[1] https://econsultancy.com/blog/63867-consumers-prefer-live-chat-for-customer-service-stats/ <comment><USER2> I help out with the online chat for my wife's business sometimes and it is amazing how many different types of questions you get asked. Sure around 50% are one click away in the FAQ, but around 50% are unique in some aspect.

The key to making this work will be the quality of the data behind the bot and the quality of the AI. These are hard problems, but if you can make them work then you will have a very impressive product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there, funny enough this idea came up helping my wife with her online store. Yes, it is a hard problem and we are up for the challenge. Initially will be a hybrid of manual answers and automatic while we train the algorithms But with enough questions and multiple stores we should be able to have a very good knowledge base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a interesting field to go into and the potential market is large. Is it more efficient for a user to use a chat bot instead of searching a FAQ or other current alternatives?

<comment><AUTHOR> Imagine that you just made a purchase at an online store and you want to know how long is it going to take for you to get the product. That information is available on the site, somewhere. You can do that or you can open your favourite messenger platform and ask "hey how long does it take to get an order", just like you ask your partner what to get from the supermarket. It is a way people are use to communicate. The result is the same but the customer satisfaction is higher. The bot will be able to answer that kind of questions quickly without human intervention. Is more efficient for the customer and the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Will the chat bots self identify as chat bots to customers?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is something that should probably be tested and see how people react. "chat bot" is something that is common for us but not for non-technical people and could actually hurt more than help. The experience for the customer should be quite smooth and once the bot is not able to answer a questions something like "Let me get back to you about this" could mean that the questions is being redirected to a real human. Again these are assumptions and data will give us the real answer.</comment></comment>


Designing for the web ought to mean making HTML and CSS - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/designing-for-the-web-ought-to-mean-making-html-and-css/ <comment><USER2> I think CSS is a very powerful language for designing both a document and a user interface. It will not go away soon, so learning CSS as a designer will be a good investment.

<comment><USER3> From my perspective, I think I'm seeing the big debate about this whole front- end dev.a[html/css/ux] vs front-end dev.b[js/programmer], is not that people in the know, know that CSS is a powerful language for designing doc/ux/ui and fear it will go away.

\- It's that, the notion of HTML/CSS is being considered to be entry level knowledge, so you can diminish its value/quality and to have a front-end job, focus on Javascript Framework-XYZ and disregard their significance yourself.

With that said, some people are just meant for more of a design/visual front- end dev, and some are more in it for the code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That seems like a huge waste of time to have designers do all that work. There should be a component library and a design language established in the company that the designers use to derive new applications. With how things are coupled in modern javascript frameworks I think you would get minimal re-use out of html and css that a designer made.

<comment><USER5> This is exactly what Bootstrap does and why most Bootstrap-built sites end up looking very similar. If all you're after is functionality, that's easy enough to achieve, but you're going to need designers at some point if you want to differentiate yourself visually.

<comment><USER4> I didn't say you don't need designers. The designers need to create the design language and help with the component library. It should be unique to your company, but once it is done once there is no reason to do it again unless you want to change branding or update the design for all your companies applications. However, having the designers code out prototypes is a waste of time IMO. They are not likely going to be proficient enough in a modern framework to ship the prototype like the author was saying they do. Design is a full time job and so is front end and at least at the companies I've worked at designing requires full attention of the designers and FE requires full attention of the FE developers.</comment></comment></comment>


Median Rent SF: One Bedroom Apartment Map - <AUTHOR> http://tiles.mapbox.com/mizmay/map/map-j5tv8jkr <comment><USER2> Some other related statistics I thought were interesting:

According to the Census, the median household income in SF was $72,947. According to census data from 2007-2011, approximately 1/3 of SF residents make over 100k. There's a notable doubling of households making >200k between 2000 and 2011, from ~20k to ~42k.

Based on the two datasets, it seems like 2/3rds of the population of SF either cannot or can only barely afford to live in the city.

I for one am ready for the rent bubble to pop.

<http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0667000.html> [http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/...](http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk) [http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/...](http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk)

<comment><USER3> There is no rent bubble. Bubbles are caused by speculation. There isn't a large amount of people renting or owning speculatively in San Francisco. In fact, pro-tenant regulations in San Francisco make it an especially bad place to speculate. I have heard of the city forcing landlords to renew leases for suspected drug users that leave spent needles all over the porch.

High rents in San Francisco are caused purely by scarcity. That is, everyone wants to live there, but the city refuses to allow more units to be built or make it easier to rent. This damage is self-inflicted; California liberals hate density and gentrification although such things are green, decrease broad-market housing costs thereby serving the "displaced" poor, increase urban vibrancy, and reduce traffic congestion compared to the status quo.

I saw a study that suggested the economic cost for permission to build a unit in SF (calculated by subtracting a unit's cost from the value of the land it sits on plus the cost of building it) is $600k. By contrast, it's $100k in Chicago and five figures in any major city in Texas.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's correct to imply that the city refusing to build more units is why SF is expensive. There's only so much space in SF, regardless of how high, fast, or dense you want to build.

<comment><USER5> SF isn't particularly dense. It's twice as big as Manhattan,[1] but has only half as many people. It's the second-densest major city on paper, but it seems to me that this is because the city itself doesn't have the "long tail" of less-dense urban area merging into the suburbs that other cities have.

If you look at the downtown areas of Manhattan, places like Midtown are over 100,000 people per square mile. Neighborhoods like Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia top out over 60,000 per square mile, and neighborhoods like Gold Coast in Chicago are around 50,000. The only neighborhoods that dense in San Francisco are Chinatown (75,000/square mile) and Nob Hill (50,000 per square mile).

There are a lot of neighborhoods in San Francisco like the Mission District that are in the 20,000-30,000 range. The near north side in Chicago is about 30,000, and there are vast swaths of low-rise areas there that could be built up (the whole west side of the near north side is semi-industrial). If built with high-rises with generous street set-backs, 50,000 people per square mile is very easy to achieve without feeling cramped.[2]

[1] And frankly, even Manhattan as room to grow. If upper manhattan were as densely built as lower manhattan, you could probably fit another half a San Francisco onto the island easily.

[2] When people think of 50,000+/square mile density, they think of Manhattan, but that's a bit misleading. Manhattan's paper density is understated because it has an absolutely enormous daytime population (almost 4 million people, or 180,000 per square mile). This is the result of everyone commuting in from NJ, CT, etc. Manhattan also has relatively poor set back and air and light requirements, no alleys (so people share street space with trash bags), tons of tourists, etc, which all make the place feel more cramped than it would otherwise be. My neighborhood in Chicago is 50,000 residential per square mile, and it can feel pretty empty if you stay away from the tourist areas. That's because land area is saved by having residential high-rises, which allows very generous set-backs for air and light and broad sidewalks.

<comment><USER3> The Gold Coast in Chicago is a particularly good example.

It's Chicago's most prime real estate, preferred by celebrities and high powered executives. Yet it's cheap enough that most people here could live there in a studio or 1br on a code monkey salary and have plenty to spend left over. This is because Chicago allows supply to meet demand, and has the Manhattan-like neighborhood of the Gold Coast in a city without nearly as much as housing demand as the real Manhattan. (Also, the Gold Coast is way nicer for reasons the parent post talks about.)

<comment><USER5> The thing I love about Chicago is its design reflects a deeply midwestern sensibility. Illinois is plain, flat land. Chicago isn't an island (MFH), or on a peninsula (SF), or sandwiched between two rivers (PHL). They could've sprawled, but instead they built this compact downtown, because it was _orderly_.

The town my wife grew up in in rural Iowa has less than 2,000 people. Yet, it's got this perfect 10x8 little street grid. Why? The town founders didn't want the layout to be disorderly in case the town ever became a huge city.

<comment><USER6> Often, it reflects the age of the town.

Grid layouts were very common from the mid-19th century to about World War II. For example, Boston's colonial-era city center is a mess, but Back Bay and Cambridgeport are an orderly grid, and the postwar suburbs outside Route 128 are sprawl. A city like Chicago did not exist in 1776, and so it has a more orderly downtown.

There's also a certain path-dependence at work. Western states were also laid out in a rectangular grid by federal land surveys, and thus arterial roads often fell on the boundaries. Subdivisions, however, can be much messier, depending on when they were developed and what the developer felt like doing. Compare Seattle (prewar) to its outer suburbs across the lake (postwar). Or inner Phoenix (prewar) to outer Phoenix (postwar).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great map, but the financials are a bit misleading. Maybe a note qualifying the salary numbers with a message indicating that the stated number is more of a minimum would help.

Take Mission for example - would you really spend $2250 per month rent on an 82,000 salary? That's nearly 2 weeks' take-home pay after taxes. Good financial practice says that your rent/mortgage should only be 1 week's take- home pay. A responsible spender should make closer to $120,000 to be spending $2250/month on rent.

<comment><USER2> "most likely you can afford to live here"

Seems like a good enough qualifier. Especially since these are median prices, so cheaper rents are to be found _.

_ not actually. SF is nuts.

<comment><USER8> >SF is nuts.

True: but it can stop being nuts, or at least be less nuts, whenever voters want it to be: [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/facebook_george_lucas_and_nimbyism_the_idiotic_rules_preventing_silicon_valley_from_building_the_houses_and_offices_we_need_to_power_american_innovation_.html) . SF's housing price problem is entirely self-inflicted, even if many people seem to treat it as some law of nature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very cool. I wish there was a time dimension on this. Also, would love to see Berkeley/Oakland. SOMA was actually one of the best values merely 5 yrs ago. My friends got a huge 1BR loft with parking spot for 2500. Granted they had no rent control and got effectively evicted when the rent increased to 3300. So maybe it wasn't the best value afterall.

<comment><USER10> Seems high for a 1br, I have a 2br for that price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When the hell did bayview become so expensive comparatively?

<comment><USER12> You haven't seen anything yet. Bayview is where Google's new googleplex building will be located.........

<comment><USER13> Bay View is just the name of the new complex. It will still be located in Mountain View. [1]

[1] [http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/02/exclusive- pre...](http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/02/exclusive-preview- googleplex)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The data not reflected here is the housing quality for the given price, and included features. For example most of these locations East of the park probably don't have parking, which could be an additional hundreds of dollars per month, if it's even available.

</comment><comment><USER15> Are the including Studios in this or just 1BR? I ask because a 1 BR is a luxury apartment for a single inhabitant. Most folks living by themselves would have a studio. SF is expensive but it's not that expensive.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised it's that cheap. I pay $1,550 a month for a 430 square foot studio 20+ miles north of Manhattan. In a gentrifying, working-class neighborhood no less.

<comment><USER16> I know people that live in Manhatten studios that big for less, so there must be something else to your location, benefit wise?

<comment><USER5> It's a new building right on the Metro North line (which takes you straight into Midtown). But the surrounding neighborhood is otherwise like Harlem (and not the newly gentrified parts of Harlem).

I think average studio in Manhattan is over $2,500, and that includes Harlem, etc, which drags down the average. The above chart seems to top out at $3,250 for financial district. In comparison, the average 1BR in TriBeCa is pushing $5,000.

<comment><USER17> Harlem studios are nowhere near $2500 - $2500 is at at the upper bound of studio prices in Manhattan, outside of anomalous neighborhoods like TriBeCa.

You can easily get into the $2K range in Chelsea, a bit less on the Upper East Side, and in the high $1Ks in the Village. Harlem is gentrifying, but the last prices I've seen there aren't anywhere close to $2500.

Manhattan housing prices are more or less stabilized as all of the manic demand has moved to Brooklyn. DUMBO, Williamsburg, Park Slope, are now giving even the most expensive parts of Manhattan a run for their money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I pay far less living in Tokyo, and I can walk to Shinjuku station in 20 minutes. I pay a lot more for food and my apartment is tiny, but rent is affordable, and if you share a place, it becomes really reasonable.

However, it's certainly not as cheap as Philly was.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why is the area around the Golden Gate park so much cheaper than the surrounding areas? Is it working class? Seems strange that with access to a large park (and no other info) that it would be considerably cheaper than neighbouring areas.

<comment><USER17> Transportation. San Francisco's Achille's Heel (though the city has many, many such heels).

If you look at the heatmap you will see that it corresponds to transportation infrastructure almost to the T. Areas with access to BART are expensive. Areas with access to a _functioning_ MUNI train are expensive (along the J-Church, for example).

Outer and Inner Richmond _has no mass transit_ , whatsoever. The Inner Sunset has the N-Judah train, which has about 1/4 the capacity it really needs - i.e., don't count on it getting you to work during rush hour. In fact, don't count on it getting you downtown during _off_ hours either, given its notoriety on breakdowns... From the Outer Sunset to downtown the N-Judah _easily_ takes a full hour.

Yes, to go six miles.

Transportation in San Francisco is really a clusterfuck. For the second densest city in the US it is positively shameful. Even sleepy Portland, OR, has a better transit system. In fact you can find mid-sized cities in the Midwest with better transit. SF is really the worst-run city I've ever lived in.

San Francisco is where people move to live the car-free, urban lifestyle, and then yearn for a car and beg for rides all the damned time.

Ultimately, you either give up and buy a vehicle, or you give up and develop legs of iron cycling over hills, or you move to the Mission.

<comment><USER19> Thanks, that makes sense. It's odd though - when I visited SF I found it bizarre the sheer variety of public transport available - trains, trams, buses, ferries, cable cars, half-tram/buses, half-bus/trams...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Lol they forgot about the loin.

</comment><comment><USER21> As a graduating student destined for San Francisco this summer this map is a godsend! Great help in narrowing down areas to look for good housing. Finding a place in SF seems brutal.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER22> I would not have expected a light patch in the lower haight. That's one of the most desirable spots in the city. (Maybe due to very low availability?)

<comment><USER23> The nice-ish two bedrooms in the Lower Haight for 3600/month are where I suggest new transplants to the city move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Awesome. Wish there was a legend for the color scale.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why is Seacliff so low? That's one of the nicest parts of town.

<comment><USER26> Constantly foggy?

<comment><USER23> And has a longer commute to downtown by public transit than Oakland

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I would love one of these for LA!

<comment><USER28> And I for Chicago!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Surely a one bedroom place is the least efficient way to live? Also, bear in mind most people live in couples, so if there's two of you, a combined income of $100,000 is very reasonable, and you should be able to live anywhere here.

<comment><USER17> Ah, if only SF housing was so simple.

> _"$100,000 is very reasonable, and you should be able to live anywhere > here."_

$100K is really not total-freedom money in a city like SF. Take the FiDi and Mission Bay for example - $3200/month for a 1BR means $38,400 in rent every year.

That's spending $39% of your _pre-tax_ income on rent, a deeply inadvisable amount, if any sane landlord would even allow it. Even if we drop the rent to $2500 to open up options in the Haight, Castro, and Mission, we're still talking about $30K in pure rent.

Nowadays I'm in NYC, where no sane landlord will let you break the 40X Rule, where your monthly rent multiplied by 40 may not exceed your pre-tax annual income. On $100K that's $2500 a month - and that's an _absolute_ upper bound rent. $2500 is totally feasible in SF, but you definitely won't have your pick of apartments. A income of $100K would be well-advised to stay _under_ $2500, where pickings are increasingly slim.

> _"Also, bear in mind most people live in couples"_

Citation needed. I know a lot of people who have roommates in SF, but SF is a notoriously single city. I'd be _extremely_ surprised if >50% of SF's population is living with a spouse or partner.

Some quick Google-fu:

In fact, it looks like as of the 2000 census[1] that 38% of the city lived alone, and 56% of households do not have a spouse or partner living there. I wouldn't call that "most people".

[1] <http://sanfrancisco.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm>

Side note: it's crazy that you can rent places in _good_ parts of Manhattan for cheaper than parts of SF these days.

<comment><USER16> > I'd be extremely surprised if >50% of SF's population is living with a > spouse or partner.

I think when the grandparent said "living in couples" they mean "in pairs" not "romantically engaged." Most well-to-do SFers I know live with 1+ roommate. That's all they're saying. A 2(+) BR apartment cuts costs per person because you share the "core" (kitchen, bathroom, living room).

<comment><USER30> "Couple" used to mean romantically engaged. When I lived with a roommate, if somebody asked "are you guys a couple?" it'd certainly suggest something we were not :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Surface 2: Repeat Or Redemption? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/23/surface-2-repeat-or-redemption/

<comment><USER2> Sadly, I think it's a repeat, though I'd be getting a Surface Pro 2 with 512gb/8gb if the price were say $1300, but $1700 just strikes me as a lot of money.

At the same time, I haven't seen a comparably spec'd ultrabook for $1300, so maybe the pricing isn't that far off, and Microsoft doesn't want to be seen as undercutting it's partners.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll take the safe bet of saying repeat.</comment>


7-inch pocket gaming concept blows our minds six ways from Sunday - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/razer-switchblade-7-inch-pocket-gaming-concept-blows-our-minds/ <comment><USER2> Yeah this isn't gonna fly. They're basically just adding OLED keys to a netbook, and the result looks like an ugly netbook.

I know exactly how to make the best mobile gaming device. You need something more along the lines of a wide Playstation controller with dual-analog sticks on the thumbs. I never understood why they think the buttons need to be facing upward and used only by your thumbs, that's wrong. Your thumbs are the most dexterous and should only be used for analog joysticks. Buttons should be on the backside of the device under each finger so you can press them while gripping the device.

<comment><USER3> To the average person, being able to see the buttons is hugely important. I've seen plenty of otherwise capable people struggle with the B (trigger) button on the Wii. I can't imagine if there were more than one.

And that's besides trying to name the damn things (PS2/3's L1 L2 L3 is horrible)

<comment><USER2> The Xbox has 2 buttons (one analog trigger, one digital) that are not visible, so it's not a totally alien concept. I'm just saying to use that idea, and move a few more buttons to the backside and leave the thumbs for analog input. Imagine using a thumbstick and a trackball at the same time, while your other fingers are available for other button presses at the same time. Desktops can't even do this type of input correctly because they're stuck with that ancient mouse-thing from the 1980's.

<comment><USER4> It's been done, people hated it:

[http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i53.tinypic.com/e...](http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i53.tinypic.com/e5fnus.jpg&imgrefurl=http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D53%26t%3D40586&usg=__xbd2fbl_Wodb0UhvFUe2ferAQgA=&h=457&w=500&sz=41&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=BXsB_c99WgGQ-M:&tbnh=131&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dxbox%2Bcontroller%2Bbuttons%2Bunder%2B-360%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1249%26bih%3D681%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=322&ei=-DomTanANMH98AbR7_TaDQ&oei=-DomTanANMH98AbR7_TaDQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=80&ty=40)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a reason that they use 6 year old games like the warcraft rpg to demo underpowered gaming platforms like those based on atom chips. You really need a last generation core 2 culv at a minimum to see decent performance on games that have come out semi-recently and aren't intentionally crippled. The GPU can make up for a lot but it doesn't magically remove the cpu ops needed. They'd have a hard time fitting a decent gpu in there too, my 14" with a mobile 5650 and a core i5 still struggles to play many modern games at anything but medium, and gets up to ~85c in a much larger chasis.

take a look at the alienware 11" if you want to see the realistic world of ultra-portable pc gaming.

verdict = pipedream

</comment><comment><USER6> What a blatant copy of Jony Ive from Apple style videos by this Singapore man. The voice, the camera, the light, is a clone and feels unnatural to me.

This device looks too thick, it seems Intel continue needing big batteries for portable computing and ARM is going to eat them alive in this segment.

<comment><USER7> It's such a blatant copy of Ive that it makes me think they did it very purposefully just to see if people would notice.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, Min-Liang Tan seems like he's doing a parody of Ive to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't the most important part of PC gaming the mouse? How are they playing WoW and DotA without a mouse?

<comment><USER10> Que the $80 Razer mouse.

<comment><USER11> Razer. Don't make fun of things you don't know about. High quality mice are important. What would you buy instead? I looked at logitech mice of high enough DPI to use on my 27" iMac without any acceleration and I was not impressed. Razer makes nice stuff.

<comment><USER12> I actually use a Logitech G5 mouse and a Logitech G15 keyboard and I love them both. The mouse has a really nice rubber feel, adjustable weight (which is actually a nifty thing once you realize how much that weight matters), and some really nice side buttons.

Not that Razer is bad. I used to have one of their keyboards and I liked that as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hmm... I'm not sure how a player would walk diagonally in RPG shown in the screenshot if they've only got one thumb for two keys.

Gimme a d-pad or go home.

</comment><comment><USER14> This device reinforces the fact that I have an irrational desire for oled buttons.

It would be even better if the button surface was the same capacitive sensor stuff that new trackpads and the old touchstream keyboards use.

</comment><comment><USER15> By the way, does anyone on HN have hands-on experience with the Pandora console?

</comment><comment><USER16> Let's take a page from Steve Jobs' playbook.

Get rid of the hinge. This also gets rid of the latch and reduces manufacturing costs. Get rid of most of the buttons. This way, you don't have to pay for the displays on most of them. Keep the buttons with the dynamic displays, but have fewer of them along the side. Add some "trigger" buttons on non-visible surfaces and two D-pads. Software keyboards are good enough for in-game use. Multi-use buttons with displays have the same problems as a software keyboard anyhow. (The space is not available for the other controls when you are using the qwerty keyboard.)

<comment><USER14> One of the things that really distinguishes pc gaming from console gaming is the availability of lots of buttons. did you see the wow example in the video? you really want lots of buttons for some games. Well, i do anyway.

<comment><USER16> I suspect that "lots of buttons" is really just a consequence of the available interfaces. I think something better could be designed.

<comment><USER14> Is a piano without keys but instead 4 strings and a bow still a piano? You could build a different interface, no question. I'm not sure what the threshold is, but at a certain point, you're not playing the same game anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does it come with a free visit to the chiropractor?</comment>


Time Tracking solution for self-management and teams - <AUTHOR> http://duefocus.com/ <comment><USER2> Looks nice but I am unwilling to try even with a free account due to the permissions requested when logging in with github.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok gotcha! thank you for your feedback</comment></comment>


The Happiness Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/magazine/the-happiness-code.html <comment><USER2> 4th time posted in last 8 hours.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10901634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10901634)</comment>


Stripe will cut pay, offer bonuses to employees who relocate - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/stripe-cuts-pay-offers-bonuses-to-employees-who-relocate-report-2020-9 <comment><USER2> I think this is a temporary fuss.

When the covid pandemic will be over and employees start moving again salaries could start rising again.

Picture the following:

\- Oh you want me to take this 10% cut because I'm remote? Ok I'll take it, but at least now I'm permanently remote.

\- Six months pass...

\- Oh hey look this other company is offering me a 10% salary bump (how ironic, isn't it?) and since I'm already remote I negotiated to stay remote.

\- Goodbye stripe/vmware!</comment>


How NYC's subway buskers are faring - <AUTHOR> http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/future/economics/216567-is-busking-on-the-nyc-subway-more-lucrative-than-streaming-on-spotify <comment><USER2> I busk solo violin in San Francisco's Powell Station -- 45 times since January 4, 2014. I last played on September 20 and made $51.02 per hour. My friends have encouraged me to write about my experiences onto Hacker News, but I never have.

You learn a lot about people and crowd dynamics. Donations come in clusters; if a person sees someone else donate, he/she is more likely to. In an attempt to teach empathy, mothers often give cash to their three-year old kid to put in the violin case. The few who drop a $10 or $20 are often over 40 years old.

Twice I've had money stolen, both by dudes in their late teens or early twenties.

Sound definitely matters; you can't just "look good". Busking at the Ferry Building was a bad idea; no one can hear you. I'll never do that again.

High-density foot traffic is not always a good thing. In the evening rush hour, there are so many people obstructing view and making noise that I imagine it's difficult to appreciate the music by the time you've reached the fare gates. I believe that a medium traffic density works best where the sound can travel and there is always a direct line of sight between pedestrian and performer.

Sometimes the "great works" make poor busking choices. The Bach Chaconne is a great example.

Unsurprisingly, an ensemble with more performers earns more than a soloist. On August 20, 2014, we played the Mendelssohn Octet in Powell Station and collectively made $461.64 over 90 minutes, or $307.76 per hour. However, that's $38.47 per hour per person. I make $15-50 per hour solo. So I wonder where the diminishing returns begin, i.e. what ensemble size maximizes revenue per hour per person.

Is it scary? The scariest part was leaving the apartment that first day. Exiting the apartment door was the point of no return. "Okay, I have my jacket and shoes on and my violin, I might as well go on with it." That moment when, for the first time, alone, I plopped my music stand in the middle of Embarcadero Station was one of the most _uncomfortable_ moments of my life. However, once you start playing, that's easy. The music is the easy part.

If you want to busk but are scared, I recommend going at a less busy time, e.g. Saturday morning at 10 am. Get used to the surroundings; embrace your anxiety. Once you're comfortable, try again next week at 2 pm.

<comment><USER3> Would it be worth it to pay a someone to appear to donate every time a crowd walks by?

I love seeing live performers although it depends on the situation. In Paris the hallways are too small and the buskers are basically blocking the already crowded hallways. In NYC the ones that actually come on the trains and then go around with a hat make me feel uncomfortable although any performer who's really good I appreciate.

I'd also be curious how those numbers change in countries with larger coins. I assume it's easier to give coins? No worries about bills being blown away. Coins "feel" more disposable? There are €2 coins in Europe. There are 500yen coins in Japan (about $5) where as there are only basically 25 cent coins in the USA (yea 50 cent and $1 coins exist but are not common)

<comment><USER2> Hmm, interesting. Perhaps it is not worth it to "hire" a spectator to donate, but I think simply a spectator to stand around like an audience member can be more effective. That's another thing that often clusters; people who stop and listen. At really odd times, I'll look around and all of a sudden notice five people who stopped to listen.

Yeah, positioning is key. I do not disrupt traffic flow at all; for those who know Powell, I stand at the end of the long hallway on the 4th street side. That gets me a captive audience for about 30 yards. They have no choice but to listen to me on their way to the BART/Muni gates. Acoustics are good too.

Indoors, there is little chance of bills being blown away, but otherwise, I agree with you about coins. $1 coins are actually not that uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anecdote: For the summer between high school and college, I made am average of $17 per hour busking on the subway (an average of 24 hours a week)

</comment><comment><USER5> I always wonder about how these people will keep getting money as commerce goes increasingly cashless.

I never carry cash so whenever a beggar asks, I say as much. One guy I encountered recently, jokingly said "I take credit cards too!" If he actually did, he would probably clean up.

<comment><USER6> I've seen a live performer in Stockholm, Sweden (where I live and I haven't had cash in my wallet for a few years, although I guess most people have some "just in case") accepting Swish [1], the instant mobile cash transfer solution (no fees).

I believe it is more about cash being more physical and thereby more immediately noticeable to the perfomer who can give the donator acknowledgement that is the major issue, not the technical transfer aspect.

I guess next step is to have performers carry a small LCD screen and an Arduino to instantly acknowledge received transfers to make it more "physical". (Wooah..! YC, here I come! (jk)).

[1] [https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_(mobilapplikation)](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_\(mobilapplikation\)) (Swedish)

<comment><USER7> I've always thought it'd be cool for a bitcoin ATM to be able to laser sinter bitcoins out of steel or titanium on the fly, with the wallet info etched into the coin as a QR code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just for fun, one night I sat next to a street performer in Japan on his performance from the start at 10pm to end at around 3am. Total take was 2500jpy ($25), which was 100 jpy from 5 different people + 1000 each from two generous gentlemen.

He said the highest donation ever was 30000 jpy from a very drunken salaryman.

<comment><USER9> was this in Tokyo? It's true I don't see the performers earning much, but wasn't expecting 500 yen an hour

I guess most of these people have day jobs

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Jeff, the multi-instrument guy in the Times Square station who briefly shows up in the article's picture section, needs to be thoroughly documented by some kind of historical-record-preserving outfit. Now that James Brown is dead, Jeff is probably the hardest working individual currently working in show business. He's always hustling.

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't it generally thought that albums are just marketing for live performances, and concerts are where all but the biggest artists make all their money anyway? Since busking is live performance...

</comment><comment><USER12> Live shows are typically more lucrative for artists than recordings anyway...

</comment><comment><USER13> I've seen dozens of articles with similar headlines. I don't think anyone should be concerned with how much Spotify pays, for 2 reasons:

1\. The people who made the music sold the rights to the music to the people who own the music, who then licensed the music to Spotify for an agreed-upon amount. Everyone agreed, presumably because this deal was beneficial for every party involved, which it most likely is otherwise Spotify wouldn't have been able to obtain licenses to almost every artist's music.

2\. There will never be a shortage of art in this world, whether it's compensated monetarily or not. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't see a big need for artists to be compensated. If they stopped being compensated, we'd just be left with a few million artists of every medium producing art for free because that's what most artists do, whether it pays or not. If they weren't compensated, there would be less mass-market art, but since the quality of art is both subjective and relative, we'd probably all be just as satisfied with it.

If you stop compensating most professions, their output drops to zero. If you stop compensating artists, they just keep producing art. One could argue that we'd get even better art if we stopped compensating artists. We'd be left with nothing but the passionate ones.

<comment><USER14> I can't believe you can say this seriously. Have you not played an instrument or drawn before? Art is in many ways relatively, but objectively, quantitatively more people enjoy listening to Mozart than Cage's 4'33", and more people enjoy Picasso than a 5 year old's finger painting.

Those art things require training just like any other profession.

<comment><USER15> I don't think GP's argument hinges on art enjoyment being 100% relative. Whatever kind of art you happen to enjoy, be it Mozart's string quartets or Cage's 4'33'', someone out there is making exactly that kind of art for free. The difference in quality is tiny compared to the difference in popularity.

Yes, making good art requires training, but so what? These people are willing to get training, create art, and give it to you for free. You might say that it's immoral to take stuff from them for free, but _that 's what already happens_. The overwhelming majority of artists lose money, rather than make money. If you removed artist compensation completely, fewer people would go into art hoping for the pie-in-the-sky chance of success. The overall societal loss in terms of smashed hopes etc. would become _smaller_. And the quality of art you consume might become higher, because you'd lose the cookie cutter commercial crap. That's how the argument goes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Silly comparison -- linkbait headline. It doesn't even delve into Spotify economics, nor particularly the passive aspect of streaming income that starkly distinguishes it from busking.

<comment><USER17> All income from content creation could be seen as passive, but there's an initial amount of work that is much more difficult with little chance of success.

<comment><USER18> Except busking (indeed any performance) carries an active component. There's opportunity cost with busking - not so with Spotify.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article doesn't even attempt to answer this question.

<comment><USER20> Probably OK since the question doesn't really make any sense.</comment></comment>


Greplin (YC W10) open sources Tornado and Twisted utilities - <AUTHOR> http://tech.blog.greplin.com/utilities-for-tornado-and-twisted

<comment><USER2> Great. Thanks for sharing. Was in middle of integrating SES and now I just need to just use your package.</comment>


Why the Automation Boom Could Be Followed by a Bust - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2018/03/why-the-automation-boom-could-be-followed-by-a-bust <comment><USER2> Pretty sure this idea has been sitting in the back of the mind of anyone really thinking about what technology is now capable of. What happens when all of the "drudgery" is taken out of life, and we can't consume any more media?

There's certainly no way you could put 10 billion people to meaningful work if it takes a million to supply all of the basic needs for those people. Even including all the forms of art we pursue, is there enough "work" to be done that we would value all 10 billion people?

I'm still really hoping for the Star Trek timeline. Yeah, we get blown into oblivion in about 30 years, but the recovery looks like a world I'm happy to work towards. I'm really afraid that we're steadily marching towards 1984, though. I don't know that I believe there's much realistic middle ground between the two.</comment>


My beef with gittip - <AUTHOR> http://charlesleifer.com/blog/my-beef-with-gittip/

<comment><USER2> I'm really confused by this post. It seems like "linkbait." The author doesn't like gittip because it doesn't pay out well enough, then turns around and dislikes it because people are getting paid. I doubt many gittip users right now think that they are helping to provide a living wage for the artist, or that their tip awakens some dormant passion for the project.

</comment><comment><USER3> > I don't believe very many would trade their jobs for tips from the fickle > public.

someone has yet to work as a freelance contractor, apparently.

If your project is funded by recurring tips from 1000 different users, if the quality and/or relevance of your project began declining, you'd see those tips start to decline over time, sending you the message that it's time to change how you're doing things, or move onto a different source of income.

That hypothetical situation is _far_ more secure than receiving one salary from one single employer who could fire you or go out of business at any time, more often than not with no warning whatsoever to the paid employees.

Also I'm not sure why one needs to have a beef with gittip at all. If you don't like it, you are free not to participate. Trying to figure out what the actual "beef" is:

> The other flaw is that this inevitably boils down to a popularity contest.

Which almost makes no sense. What in this world is _not_ a popularity contest already? My only guess is that it sounds like he prefers a market where open source projects remain underfunded and undermaintained, perhaps making it easier for hobbyists to make a splash.

> Tips are not a replacement for passion.

The idea is that for once, those of us who are passionate enough that this is _much more than a hobby_ for us, who don't just come up with handy tools on github but in fact provide large pieces of infrastructure for dozens or hundreds of money-making companies, can finally get some regular compensation for it, exactly _without_ being "beholden" to anyone.

<comment><AUTHOR> not sure how "one website" -- a relatively new website, too -- is much more stable than a full-time job. also i noticed you've got quite a few little gittip buttons on your blog.

<comment><USER3> Um. It's not (note the term "hypothetical"). The site has only been up a couple of months, and who knows if it as well as my projects will be that successful in it. Gittip _is_ paying for my hosting completely however, and it took only a few weeks of the site's existence to do so. The PayPal link couldn't do that in 6 years, and PayPal donations still leave you more beholden than gittip since they aren't anonymous.

Your whole take on this is very odd as it's not clear what exactly you are expecting from gittip or why you care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I missed the discussion surrounding gettip - so this may have been said before; I agree that the hacker spirit often leads to projects forming from a passion of some sort - and that passion generally keeps the project going - but I also find myself coming up with new projects constantly, often leaving projects to wither away. It might be due to passion for a specific project just dwindling down, or a different project enticing far more passion. Would a couple of tips for an older project re-ignite the passion? That is hard to say - but it will make me think twice about the future of it and whether I should give it some love and care, or should pass the reigns on to a new maintainer that will give it the proper attention it might deserve.

</comment><comment><USER5> gittip and flattr are examples of an emerging gift economy. If that doesn't appeal to you, then you don't have to participate in it.

The point is not that people are receiving market rate for services rendered. It is a way to thank, and perhaps motivate individuals by showing an appreciation that is material beyond a simple thank you email.

Many of these people work on free software in their free time; free software that sometimes saves other individuals many hours of work. So what if all I'm doing is buying the person lunch? That is a generous expression and one that builds community and creates emotional and social incentives for the recipient.

<comment><AUTHOR> I take issue with the anonymous "tip" format. I would always prefer a short, personal email -- to me, this is much more meaningful and reflective of why I do open-source. I also think that offering monetary tips encourages tip grubbing. I've already seen a bit of this from big names in the community and, for me, its a big turnoff. I give my code away, that's what OSS is all about. Thank me by writing an email, or better yet, contributing some patches!

<comment><USER6> As mentioned on your blog, you might be interested in this ticket:

<https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/165>

The idea is to expand Gittip to encompass other ways of communicating appreciation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like it. It's always been hard to give someone a stipend due since you might like a project but not have enough income to spare.

This way a number of people can make individual small payments that will add up.</comment>


Why iCloud won't send the competition to the ground - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/09/why-icloud-won%E2%80%99t-send-the-competition-to-the-ground/

<comment><USER2> Why would you try to sell Apple's syncing to someone using Windows and Android? It's for people using Macs and iOS, though while before I only asked for Windows client with SSL, I now add the requirement of portable (I don't work on any Windows computers I own or have admin access on).

If something a bit nicer, bit differently integrated, like Cloudapp tried to fill the gap I wonder what it would need.</comment>


Tell HN: Dropshare.app also runs a web server in localhost:34344 - <AUTHOR> A fairly simple menu bar application available for macOS called DropShare.app [1] allows you to upload files to a remote server (3rd-party like Dropbox, Google Drive, or personal like your own AWS EC2 instance via SSH) and also manage these files once the upload is complete (delete, share, etc). After the security vulnerability discovered in Zoom [2] I decided to inspect all the apps that I have currently installed, and found that DropShare is also running an unprotected web server that any other app can access, and with more potential to make damage as it gives you full access to upload and delete files to/from the server.

  $ strings "/Applications/Dropshare 5.app/Contents/PlugIns/Share.appex/Contents/MacOS/Share" | grep 34344
  http://localhost:34344/status
  http://localhost:34344/connections
  http://localhost:34344/upload

  $ curl -i -XPOST "http://localhost:34344/upload"
  > HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  > Cache-Control: no-cache
  > Content-Length: 17
  > Content-Type: application/json
  > Connection: Close
  > Server: Dropshare4-Interface
  > Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2019 06:15:57 GMT
  >
  > {"success":false}

  $ curl -i -X GET "http://localhost:34344/connections"
  > HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  > Cache-Control: no-cache
  > Content-Length: 17
  > Content-Type: application/json
  > Connection: Close
  > Server: Dropshare4-Interface
  > Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2019 06:16:14 GMT
  >
  > {"success":false}

  $ curl -i -X GET "http://localhost:34344/status"
  > HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  > Cache-Control: no-cache
  > Content-Length: 38
  > Content-Type: application/json
  > Connection: Close
  > Server: Dropshare4-Interface
  > Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2019 06:16:22 GMT
  >
  > {"version":"5.1.8 (5094)","ask":false}
 [1] https://dropshare.app/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20387298 <comment><USER2> Hi there,

Dropshare developer here.

I'd like to quickly clarify that the initial statements are untrue. The Webserver is used as communication bridge between the Share Extension and the app. It only accepts requests with a signature. It cannot delete, share or else manage any uploaded files, and has no code that could potentially cause any harm on your server (e.g. by executing things). It only accepts file urls from your local machine to be uploaded and again, only with a properly signed request.

It is unfair to compare this to the Zoom case since there is no potential vulnerability and other than you explain, there is no danger involved with someone making damage to files on your server or whatsoever.

Best, Timo

P.S.: Of course in case you think you did find indeed a vulnerability I am not aware of, please get in touch via firstname.lastname@example.com according to responsible disclosure.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been considering doing something like this for my company, as some activities cannot be done on a web browser. My plan was that when the client is associated with the server via OpenID Connect, a public key is transferred to the client. The server will then sign all commands with its public key and timestamp so the client knows they are genuine. (Can I get HN's opinion on this design please?)

So, I don't think it's strictly necessary that when you find something like this it indicates some sort of vulnerability, although you are trusting the skill of third-party developers.

That said, if this is a vulnerability I'd first try getting in touch with their security team. If you have discovered a vulnerability you should give them a fair chance to patch it first before reporting it further, as you might be giving bad guys ideas.

</comment><comment><USER4> How do you inspect apps to find if they are running local servers?

<comment><USER5>
      lsof -i

Works on GNU/Linux and should also work on macOS.

<comment> o-__-o lsof -iPn |grep LISTEN</comment></comment></comment>


Open Floor Plan Office [opinions] - <AUTHOR>

I've been in cubicles since joining my first company out of college as a software engineer. Recently, I discussed an opportunity with a company that has an open floor plan office. I'm uncomfortable with the idea. I feel I can focus more in a cubicle. Also, I like that I can partition my focus and social time by entering and leaving the cubicle.<p>What are your thoughts and experiences with open floor plan office space and how they compare with cubicles? <comment><USER3> Assuming the work is of any difficultly, your ability to get anything done in an open floor plan office will depend on your ability to focus despite the vastly increased distractions. And heaven help you if you aren't facing a wall.

You can possibly do the music with headphones thing (although that tends to result in higher error rates) and using noise canceling ones can make a small but significant difference.

One question: does this company do this because they don't have much money or because they think it's a good idea. If the latter, I'd pass unless desperate, they don't understand what they're doing (again assuming the work is at all difficult).

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd prefer a room with a door, personally, for the partitioning you speak of. Even in cubicle situations, you still have a lot of spillover from adjoining areas. That said, for the control over environment, cubes are a step in the right direction if you're concerned about focus (imo). "Open floor" plans are generally championed by people who don't have to work in them.

Now... having an open collaboration space where team members can work on something, then go off to private cubes/offices to work separately - <USER2> _both_ options - would rock, but I've seen desperately few places that offer that sort of setup (none personally).

</comment><comment><USER5> The best open floor plan offices I have seen seem to cluster the workstations to three of the walls (or windows). When people need to collaborate, they wheel their chairs into the center of the room where there is a big table and a big whiteboard on the fourth wall.

<comment><AUTHOR> That does sound like a good approach.</comment></comment>


GitHub's OpenAPI Description - <AUTHOR> https://github.blog/2020-07-27-introducing-githubs-openapi-description/ <comment><USER2> I am excited to see this addition to GitHub, as git's own interface is ideal for only a single, current repository, the OpenAPI makes the vast sea of various repos scriptable. I intend to analyze repos for similarity metrics.</comment>


The Exquisite Precision of Time Crystals - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-exquisite-precision-of-time-crystals/ <comment><USER2> I like that his idea arose when he was going to teach a course on symmetry in physics. Nice reminder that teaching is absolutely useful to a person whose job it is to think.

</comment><comment><USER3> Timing crystals are also exquisitely precise. For example, top-of-the-line ovenized crystals achieve uncertainties of around 1 part per _billion_. This seems somewhat surreal for an effect that is based on mechanical resonance.

<comment><USER4> Time crystals mentioned in TFA are an entirelly different thing from crystal oscillators.

<comment><USER5> Can you help me understand that? The concept of "temporal symmetry breaking" sounds exactly like oscillators.

Is it that it's a quantum-scale effect, creating a truly identical system at each cycle, as opposed to the approximate classical-scale system of a conventional oscillator?

<comment><USER6> If I understand the article correctly, it is a less strong constraint on the signal than being periodic, like an oscillator would be. The signal is only periodic for specific value of time, in between those value of time the signal is not periodic.

To give a music analogy, the constraint is like always play the same chord on the first beat of each measure. In between you are free to play whatever chords you like.

How does a physical system can acquire such property? I have no idea that's the mystery a physicist will have to explain.

<comment><USER7> Can it be just a sum of periodic signals? For example if one signal has a period of 7 and another of 11, the period of their sum is 7x11.

<comment><USER6> No, that's something different, there is a definite state that is visited at a regular interval.

I get your idea of using various periods : If instead of a sum of periodic signals, you do something completely nonphysical like a product cos(x) _cos(x /3)_cos(x/5) _cos(x /7)_any_f(x) you can observe indeed that the zero crossings come back periodically. (Edit: something kind of an amplitude modulation may not be so nonphysical after all)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 'Time Crystals' sounds very retro Sci fi.

I'm sure Dr Who has fought a rubber masked alien or 2 over Time Crystals.

<comment><USER9> There was an entire season arc where the Fourth Doctor collected the pieces of the Key to Time, which were "crystals" that assembled into a little plastic cube...

<comment><USER8> Isn't that the plot to Through the Dragons Eye[1]? Although that came 15 years later, it could just be ripping off a combination of The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Dark Crystal though.

[1] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v9MXx9xej10](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v9MXx9xej10) (I remember the special effects being a lot better)

Bonus points for guessing how old I am from those references.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, "collect all the pieces of the macguffin[0]" is a really common plot device, especially in anime and obviously RPGs. It's a really simple way to show "progress" without needing to bother with character development or power scaling. Bonus points if each piece of the thing has a unique power that turns out to be the cause of the conflict of the week.

[0][https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DismantledMacGuf...](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DismantledMacGuffin)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://blog.mathspace.co/stones-and- apples/](https://blog.mathspace.co/stones-and-apples/)

This is a useful description of space time.</comment>


How Calibiri font could bring down Pakistani government - <AUTHOR> https://www.dawn.com/news/1344654 <comment><USER2> Some actual context would be good.

<comment><USER3> The current Prime minister of Pakistan (who is under investigation in Supreme Court of Pakistan), provided an official document (I am not sure if it is a document from some bank in UAE or from UAE government) from 2006 which happens to be written in Calibri font which was not commercially released until 2007. This fact is being used a possible evidence for a forged document presented to the highest court of country.

Edit: spell check</comment></comment>


OneWeb, Softbank seek dismissal of Intelsat lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://spacenews.com/oneweb-softbank-seek-dismissal-of-intelsat-lawsuit/ <comment><AUTHOR> Submitting this because I've been following progress from Starlink and OneWeb for many years, and I'm unsure what the situation with Intelsat might be. So I figured maybe someone on HN has some insight into this story.</comment>


Hungary issues entrepreneurial permits to prostitutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/09/24/hungary.prostitutes.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

<comment> patrickg-zill There is a joke about lawyers in there somewhere.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Talk about moonlighting...</comment>


Opendoor Launches - <AUTHOR> https://www.opendoor.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice looking site. Just letting you know, the video really slowed up the loading time. Took about 30 seconds+ for the second half of the page to load up. And, I've got a super fast connection.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to get to learn Ruby for an experience programmer - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
what is the best way (I'm thinking specifically at books and tutorials) to get up to speed with Ruby for an experienced Java and C programmer ?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Use the search at the bottom of this page. This question gets asked weekly->monthly, depending.

Summary:

[https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/](https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/)

[http://ruby-doc.com/docs/ProgrammingRuby/](http://ruby- doc.com/docs/ProgrammingRuby/)

[http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org](http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org)

Why's Poignant Guide To Ruby

For Rails:

[http://railstutorial.org](http://railstutorial.org)

Rails for Zombies, etc etc

</comment><comment><USER3> I learned Ruby coming from a similar project with ruby koans:

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

</comment><comment><USER4> Make a Rails app, then look at how every feature you use is implemented. Just reading through the ActiveRecord source will get you some mileage.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://ruby-hacking-guide.github.io/](http://ruby-hacking-guide.github.io/)</comment>


Telegram is down - <AUTHOR> https://telegram.org/ <comment><USER2> EDIT: I am still able to send and receive messages through the app. Looks like a partial outage only.

Seems like this could be related to Russia's attempt to block the service [1].

Since the 500 message is served under a valid TLS certificate, it seems likely that Russia managed to down their backend, leaving nginx with nothing to proxy to.

Since Russia has attempted to force Google and Amazon's hands by blocking wide swaths of cloud subnets in the country, they might have caved under the pressure and suspended Telegram's VMs. Alternatively, perhaps the FSB pulled off a successful hack.

1\. [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/04/in- ef...](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/04/in-effort-to- shut-down-telegram-russia-blocks-amazon-google-network-addresses/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Damn :/

I have come to love Telegram. Its mobile client is impeccable, which is all the more impressive after you look at its open source code..

Web and native osX clients are just as great (the OsX client is even a great example of a native app done well).

And sadly, not being owned by FAAMG is a big plus nowadays.

If the worst happens and Telegram is definitively down, what do you suggest I use to replace it ?

<comment><USER4> Same here, the app has way better features than WhatsApp, which of course is the obvious alternative. Signal is supposedly very good and has a desktop app to match, but no Windows Phone client makes it a deal breaker for me

<comment><USER3> I purposefully did not name WhatsApp.

I use it of course and as far as the clients go, they are ok.

I trust its owners less and less with each passing day though.

<comment><USER4> Likewise. I detest the organisation and everything they stand for. And yet, i have to use it, because lots of my didn't family are on WhatsApp and not on telegram

<comment><USER5> Took a few months but my family is now on Telegrams.

They were the last of my groups to migrate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Verge is reporting Russia has blocked all their hosting IP addresses. Where by "their" I mean AWS IP addresses they might use. only 15 mullion of them. No biggie, right?

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246150/telegram- russia-...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246150/telegram-russia-ban)

I wonder if there's some low level network tech who knew _exactly_ what he was doing when his bosses bosses boss _demanded_ to know every IP address Telegram's hosting company used, and just happily handed over a bunch of /15s and went to buy popcorn? (That's what _I_ would have done...)

</comment><comment><USER7> Quite concerning. IIRC Telegram is based in Russia. And Russia has been trying to ban the app. Maybe they just decided to shut down the company itself. It's within the state's power anyway.

<comment><USER8> You IIRC incorrectly. It is not based in Russia. Moreover, its founder got relieved of his business (VKontakte), by a state affiliated oligarch, whereupon he bought a passport from St Kitts and left Russia to never return. So he's pretty pissed at the regime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wonder why is flagged now.

</comment><comment><USER10> Let the speculation about Russian involvement begin!

<comment><USER11> Well ...

* the author is Russian

* the operators are Russian

* the latest state to want to shut it down is Russian

* the telecom operator that was working hard to block it was Russian

So I think we can conclusively say that whatever is going on, it was "the" Russians !

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Time for a Blockchain version.

<comment><USER13> Is that like some new sort of Godwin's Law? "As an HN discussion grows longer, the probability of a blockchain implementation approaches 1."

<comment><USER12> Are you kidding me?

A decentralized encrypted chat is completely resistant to such government censorship. Meanwhile, all Putin has to do is yank the plug on Telegram's servers. And of course, no amount of coercion could force anyone to give up the keys.

This is one of the killer apps for blockchain.</comment></comment></comment>


Dont Make an App. Focus on What Really Matters - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomas.co/dont-make-an-app-focus-on-what-really-matters/

<comment><USER2> This is true. Especially for small businesses that don't really need a mobile app. For example, a corner store in my neighborhood asked me to download their app. Why would I? It had no special functionality, just list of their products. I would just check their website (Which is ugly btw) instead of wasting 12MB on an app I will not use regularly.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the cheapest and quickest way to incorporate a company? - <AUTHOR>

That, ideally, won't cause problems later.
It's just me, for now. The only reason I'm even doing is it because I'm launching a lightweight app that will be charged for, and I need to set up a Merchant account, tax ID number, etc.
What are some good stock forms? A place to get a Delaware LLC? Etc.
Thanks so much! <comment><USER2> If you're serious about being in business I would recommend you get a referral to an actual lawyer, from a friend or business acquaintance you trust. The "cheapest and the quickest" doesn't usually match up with "won't cause problems later." If you're still in the information gathering phase, I recommend checking out <http://startuplawyer.com> as it has a lot of great info.

</comment><comment><USER3> The answer to your question depends on which state you want to incorporate in, and what kind of corporation you want. If you want an LLC in your home state, usually it's just a matter of filling out an Articles of Organization document and sending it with a check for a couple hundred bucks to your Secretary of State. Wait a week or two and they send you back a copy with "FILED" stamped on it, voila you are an LLC.

If you have a legitimate reason for needing an out-of-state LLC (Delaware and Nevada for example have special liability advantages), it's probably worth it to pay a company that does that sort of thing (sets up LLCs for other businesses) to do it for you, that way you know it's done right. Using an out- of-state business means you'll probably have to register with your state also saying you're operating an out-of-state LLC or S-Corp or C-Corp or whatever, and it can have tax implications -- that's why you want to discuss it with a professional.</comment>


DIY overhead spaceship control panel for PC - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/DyQZL

<comment><USER2> Best feature (so often overlooked):

"ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EMERGENCY OVERRIDE"

But then, this made me laugh: "(currently broken)"

</comment><comment><USER3> The level of sheer awesome here cannot be expressed in written words.</comment>


Evolution Of Arcade Games - <AUTHOR> http://www.mpamusement.com/evolution-of-arcade-games.asp <comment><USER2> You sort of missed the whole Atari 2600 rig which probably had a lot more to do with the fall of arcades than concerned parents did.</comment>


Why Uber Engineering Switched from Postgres to MySQL - <AUTHOR> https://eng.uber.com/postgres-to-mysql-migration/ <comment><USER2> I absolutely love this article if anyone has suggestions covering similar level of detail for SQL Server (related to Postgres or MySQL) they are appreciated.</comment>