Google launches utility company: Google Energy - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10427993-54.html <comment><USER2> According to Google their intent is not to enter the utilities market, but to be able to more easily manage their goal of becoming a carbon neutral entity.

<comment><USER3> Right, thats why they have the google power meter stuff too. Having a large pile of statistical data, and realtime data, and a major statistical analysis engine AND the ability to buy low and sell high for power is not at all a massive money maker.

<comment><USER3> So I work in the power grid space, and talking to some collegues about this, turns out the behaviour in my speculation is actually VERY illegal. There are many regulations about keeping groups that handle these types of data and operations very separate. Otherwise it is essentially collusion.

<comment><USER4> Can you please elaborate? Are you really saying that it isn't legal to be able to use one's data on usage intelligently? Don't utilities need to -- and do this -- anyway? Is it true internationally?

<comment><USER3> So my understanding is limited, and only applies to the US as far as i know, but it goes something like this:

The power grid involves a few distinct parts -- generation, transmission, distribution. Distribution is the aspect most people ever deal with, its the "last mile" part. Generation is self explanitory, and transmission is the high voltage lines between the generators and the distribution.

Some companies only do one aspect, some do 2 or all 3. The "deregulation" of the power market, was actually the creation a wholesale market of a commodity. This means that A generator operator in michigan can "sell" electricity to a utility in florida. In reality, the electrons never get transported that of course.

The way the market works is -- Various generators place a bid on the market: x watts for y price/watt. An official, neutral party aggregates all the distribution loads, and does some fancy analysis, and puts out an official number -- how many watt of power the peak draw will be for that period. All bids are sorted, lowest price to highest price. Like this (very very fake nubmers):

5W $1/W

10W $2/W

3W $3/W

In our example the peak draw is projected at 13W. Starting with the lowest bid and working up, the available power is used. in this case the first 2 bids. The highest bid under the line sets the price for power. So in this case power is sold at $2/W. This is the price for the whole market, it is what wholesale power costs to distribution companies for that period. The company that can provide 5W at $1/W makes a healthy profit. The expensive company doesnt make any money, their electricity is unused.

The regulations keeping metering groups separate from the power market groups are there for market efficiency. First the generation only companies lose out. Second, if some companies had extra data, they could start playing with things, arranging for thier power bids to be raised/lowered in ways that are market inefficient. This enforces everyone to try to bid as low as possible to try to get their power sold at all.

So to answer your question: no it sets up the stage for price gouging on the power market. the data is used intelligently for various long-term forecasting, efficency determinations, and for reporting to the markets, but the markets use the data intelligently for setting loads. Note, the data reported to the market by a utility is in effect statistical prediction, but the people who determine bid price for electricity never see this data. (people means algorithms here too).

I'm pretty free-market, but these regulations make sense, in the same way that insider trading regulations make sense, and regulation against monopolistic competition. If it is not clear they are the same thing, it is more likely my explanation than the alternative.

<comment><USER4> But, as I understand it, most energy markets in the US and internationally are _not_ commodity markets: they're regulated monopolies, often with a certain regulated maximum rate of return. I would _think_ that these monopolies can use the data that they themselves collect: they _have_ to in order to plan and to supply the power to the grid on a cycle by cycle basis. Isn't this true?

But even if it's not, I personally, along with other members of the public, can access historic clearing prices in several day and hour ahead markets (e.g. Midwest, Texas, etc.) Surely I'm allowed to use _that_ data. And it seems to me that this is the important data -- unless one wanted to use metering data to do price discrimination, which the law already protects against.

But even ignoring that... I don't know of any other such regulations on commodity markets. Can you think of any?

<comment><USER3> The regulated monopolies are on the distribution end, not on the generation end. The generation end is hour- (and day-) ahead markets. The data in question -- metering data in this discussion, is enough to do price fixing. Those utilities with distribution divisions gain enough of an edge over those who don't to gouge consumers and go all monopolistic competition on thier competitors at the same time. Both of which are actions that break market efficiency.

As for other commodity markets, im not super familiar with them, but I know in general price fixing and insider trading is illegal -- for good reason.

Also an interesting observation on electricity is that it is far more "ideal" than a lot of commodities, in that there is absolutely no way to distinguish between generator A electricity and generator B electricity (unlike say... corn). There is also not nearly the consideration about movement involved -- Put it on the wire and the whole system adjusts accordingly (this is a physics thing more than a "good system" thing (mostly, but the system is good too)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hate to be a downer, but this just sounds crazy to me. Yes, I understand that they use a ton of power and can probably get it cheaper this way, but this is an advertising and software company, not a power company.

Am I being a total neophobe or do others think they're drifting dangerously far away from their core competencies?

<comment><USER4> Actually the practice of companies managing their own energy preceded the creation of the electric grid, and preceded the existence of software companies by over a century. Even today most large scale engineering outfits are both vertically integrated and use vertical integration to launch into other markets (e.g. General Electric, and Tata, which was a steel company.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great news for internet startups. The more unfocused they are more companies they have to buy to catch up. Also, more time for startups to outmaneuver Google.

<comment><USER7> At some point one of these new, non-core, ventures will be identified by historians as the point at which Google made the same mistake as Microsoft and started out on the slow path to insignificance.

<comment><USER8> Do you really think that MS is in trouble because they focused on non-core ventures?

If anything, I'd say the complete opposite: they're in trouble because they're _not_ good at focusing on the web, which is a major non-core venture for them (I think MS Windows & Office are their bread & butter).

Fundamentally, MS never "got" the internet, and they have too much weight to maneuver effectively now.

<comment><USER9> They are in trouble because they are in so many things that doing something good in one niche will cannibalize sales in another niche.

Make a killer web office suite? Kills off sales of Office and Windows. Make a great webmail site? Kills off Exchange and Windows Server sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> dupe of <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1037287>

<comment><USER10> I'm really starting to wish there was a way to merge submissions.

<comment><USER11> I am too. I see that done on the online forum I spend the most time on after HN.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363>

Maybe this should be a feature request.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It would be interesting to see how they implement a market for this.

</comment><comment><USER13> "The search giant formed a Delaware-based company called Google Energy "

Gotta love those Delaware state tax laws

<comment><USER14> It's not just for tax purposes - Delaware also has the most established corporate law, so companies can expect fewer legal surprises.

<comment><USER15> Why do they have the most established corporate law? (Please explain for a non-American. Thanks!)

<comment><USER14> It's the most established just because that's where most corporations have incorporated. Corporations don't want any surprises when it comes to legal dealings, so it's very attractive to incorporate in a place where most plausible scenarios have been tried and resolved in court previously.

There are a number of legal reasons for incorporating in Delaware (in addition to the favorable tax situation):

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

The short summary is: A long history of legal precedence, a separate court for corporate law which ensures a judiciary that is deeply familiar with corporate law, and the State of Delaware has generally corporation friendly laws. In the United States, corporations are held to the laws of the state they are incorporated in, even if they do business in all 50 states.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Buy and sell electricity. Gooron!</comment>


Ask HN: How to find devs for feedback in London - zupa-hu

I'm working on a new website builder, aimed at developers, and I wanted sit down with devs to get feedback (invite them for a coffee). I talked to almost every developer I know and they all loved it (subscribed for free beta), now I wanted to get feedback from strangers. I just moved to London for work so I barely know anyone here. I set out to talk to 100 strangers. With a pace of 1 stranger a week, it would take 2 years.<p>Any ideas would be great on how to shorten this time. If you are in London and would enjoy a coffee with me, that would be double great. <comment><AUTHOR> There are some occasional hacker meetups in London that are good networking opportunities, and also things like the appsworld congress and silicon milkround recruitment events. I'm an amateur web dev in London and I know one other one who would be interested in anything to make it easier. We can meet if you want. My email is in my profile.

<comment> zupa-hu Thanks a lot for the nuggets! I'll definitely go after those meetups. As for appsworld congress, do you mean apps-world.net?

siliconmilkroundabout.com - woohoo, that's fairly close, thanks!

I'm definitely interested in meeting up! Can't find you email on your profile though.

You are awesome :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Go to Google Campus and put up a flyer, or just ask around in the cafe.

<comment> zupa-hu that's cool, cheers! :D</comment></comment>


Yahoo Open Sources Traffic Server  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/02/yahoo-open-sources-traffic-server/ <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912777> \- good comments about it here.</comment>


Uber Transparency Report - <AUTHOR> https://transparencyreport.uber.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Warrant canary:

      As of the date of this report, Uber has not received
      a National Security Letter or FISA order.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you work for the company being paid in Bitcoins? - <AUTHOR>

any thoughts..? <comment><USER2> Would my salary be determined in Bitcoins or dynamically converted from a desired agreed upon fiat amount? I'm really interested in crypto, but BTC has never stayed stable within a sane threshold for say, 12 months, and there's no reason it would in the near future, so the first option seems to be bad for at least one party. Either its value falls and so does my salary, or it increases and my salary increases beyond what you want to pay. At least from what I've seen there isn't a functional BTC only economy yet, so the second option just seems like a way to lose part of my salary on conversion fees.

Are there any benefits yet that I'm missing?

</comment><comment><USER3> [I am not a tax lawyer]

In the US, no fucking way. As property, bitcoins are collateral against business loans and therefore subject to claims by creditors even after they have been used as 'payment' to employees [or anyone else].

[http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/03/is-ucc- articl...](http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/03/is-ucc- article-9-the-achilles-heel-of-bitcoin.html)

The IRS can probably claw them back too should there be an unpaid tax liability.

</comment><comment><USER4> With the current scenario and what we have seen in the recent past, I wouldn't prefer to work in the company being paid in Bitcoins.</comment>


A Self analysis tool? ( a startup ) - <AUTHOR>

This site believes we need a little self analysis tool to record our day to day emotions so that we can go back to time to track our mood (a trend analysis of our emotional flow?? )
We analyze subconscious and conscious mind on www.yumety.com  - it's based on applied psychology with a social networking flavor.
What do you think? <comment><USER2> I like! You shipped! :)

One suggestion... I would come back to it if you would take my phrase that pays and email me when someone enters a phrase that does match so I can talk to them.

<comment><AUTHOR> this happens now. But rather than focusing on what you said we try to find what you are :)</comment></comment>


Online Course: Programming Languages - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/117185293319274359863/posts/9rfginQ3w82

<comment><USER2> Is there any way to see this without signing up for google+? It is trying to make me agree to terms I would never accept.

<comment><USER3> I also agree. Isn't it against the ethos of hacker news to post links that require being logged in?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please change the level of recognition names. Especially the highest one - NINJA - sounds really `Script kiddie`-ish...

<comment><USER5> We've already discussed this in the G+ thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> people will learn racket? A lisp dialect... Javascript is too cool for school

<comment><USER4> I'd personally prefer a language with static typing and ADT support, like Haskell or any ML-like one. But Racket (PLT Scheme) would be my second choice - and it is quite popular in overseas (USA) PL research circles. Also, I find it one of the most elegant lisp dialects out there.

<comment><USER5> It's not an either-or. Typed Racket is a statically typed language, and students would be welcome to use it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Building a team in Berlin vs. the rest of Germany - <AUTHOR> I've recently been offered a position to become a technical lead of a new startup in Berlin, a city where I've worked as a developer for the last four years.  For context, our product will involve large-scale data processing and analysis for heavy industry.  I had assumed I would build up the team in Berlin, but talking to founders/CTOs/engineering managers in other companies here has convinced me to also consider other options.
My question is to anyone who has done a bit of hiring or managed a team in Berlin AND somewhere else.  Was it easier/harder here, everything else being equal?  Would you do it again? Are there hiring/personnel problems unique to Berlin that might have been invisible to me as a individual contributor?
We are particularly interested also in Munich due to some pre-existing customer relationships, but comparisons to anywhere else in Germany/Switzerland/Austria are welcome. <comment><USER2> I am a technical lead in Walldorf, Germany. This area and surroundings of around 15-20 km radius (Walldorf, Heidelberg, Speyer, Schwetzingen) can also be an option with some of the reasons mentioned: -Good concentration of people working in SAP having technical experience as well as specific industry and business experience \- Not in a very big city but still close(driving distance) to Frankfurt and Stuttgart and close enough to stay in mid cities like Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Mannheim \- Startup scene is not that developed so less competition and can be quite attractive to talent from big companies like SAP, Bosch, etc. \- Available pool of students from universities in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Mannheim \- Traffic and congestion in this area is quite manageable \- Not a very happening nigh life like Berlin but there are good party and night life options in above college towns \- Decent cost of living and rental options ranging from very expensive (Heidelberg Altstadt, Walldorf) to economical (small towns like Bad Schonborn) in 15-20 km radius \- Tolerant, peaceful, family-friendly neighborhoods in numerous small towns with people from different nationalities

Maybe someone in this area can also add other points.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the detailed reply!</comment></comment>


Show HN: No more "idea websites" – here's a problem solving website - <AUTHOR> https://www.thinkero.us/app

<comment><USER2> The first comment in your previous submission is accurate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6077395](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6077395)

Ideas are just ideas. Actually solving problems requires a different skillset that can't be accomplished with the "magic" of crowdsourcing. Calling this a "problem solving website" is incredibly misleading.

<comment><USER3> The entire point of the site is that solving issues comes first. That's why our algorithms rank ideas based on the importance of the issues they solve. This way the ideas that solve the most important problems will rise to the top of the list that is what makes Thinkerous different from other "idea list" websites: we target problems directly while idea lists don't.

<comment><USER2> > _That 's why our algorithms rank ideas based on the importance of the issues > they solve._

What? Ranking by the number of likes/upvotes (which is the method I see when looking at the Hot view) is not "ranking ideas based on the importance of the issues they solve."

I know CMU teaches actual algorithms for this type of ranking, because I went there. :P

<comment><USER3> Perhaps you're underestimating the complexity of the algorithm. The linking between ideas and issues is not superficial, the ranking of an idea is based directly upon the ranking of the issues it is linked to.

Issues are a bit simpler in that they mostly are based on activity related to them. However doesn't it make sense that an issue that's popular would reflect the magnitude of it's importance?

<comment><USER2> > _However doesn 't it make sense that an issue that's popular would reflect > the magnitude of it's importance?_

Not exactly. You're confusing correlation with causation.

On sites with Reddit-like rankings, the number of votes which a submission receives is one of the primary _causes_ for the subsequent number of comments/activity of those respective submissions. And "importance" is not necessarily causal to submission ranking (aggregators are weird).

<comment><USER4> Hey not sure if you're aware, but this isn't TechCrunch...heh.

<comment><USER2> Commenting is universal. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where are the "idea websites?"

<comment><USER6> Good question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's something I've always wanted to build, much better than I thought it.

Here are some thoughts:

\- Flagging can be good. Some things just don't fit, so they must be put out.

\- Maybe you could make it easier to give negative feedback. Some buttons (customizable?) to just click: "I don't see this as a real problem" or "This is more a dream of yours than a problem". Could also help with flagging.

\- For ideas, there could be an option to quickly point the potential common problems an idea can suffer of (and also count the "votes" to these), such as: insufficient market; network effect; solution looking for a problem; this already exists; this has been tried.

\- Pull requests. Let people at least try to modify others' ideas, add information etc. Maybe this will help people feel like their feedback is valuable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We'll definitely look into 1-click feedback and flagging.

Regarding Pull Requests - we're in the process of adding a "team" functionality, but maybe an intermediate level of involvement (between joining the team and just commenting) would be useful. Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> At a glance many of the submissions seem to be problem statements, or simply maxims. Is that the idea? To list and rank problems? Or is the idea to have some sort of solution in mind as well?

<comment><USER3> We differentiate issues and ideas with icons (an umbrella and light bulb respectively). Issues are typically statements of facts regarding problems that people have seen or experienced themselves. These issues are meant to be tied to an idea which solves them and are separated on purpose (problems and solutions don't follow have one-to-one relationships). Ideas play an important role on the site - to provide a call to action to actually solve a problem.

For this reason if a user submits an issue they have a solution for we encourage them to submit the problem and solution separately so other people can contribute other related submissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _sharing ideas that solve impactful issues_

Except ideas don't solve impactful issues, groups of people applying time and resources to a problem solves impactful issues.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the service is for "sharing ideas for how to have an impact on complex issues."

I'm still not really sure what it is supposed to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, that is a bit unclear. Essentially, we want to make it easier for people to find issues that many people can identify with, and in the process, show people what some potential solutions are.

By filtering out some of the noise, the ideas that could solve widespread issues can get more resources put behind them and hopefully a greater chance of succeeding.

This might make more sense in the enterprise software realm, but we saw some interest in the startup community as well so we wanted to test it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks like an idea site to me?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe [https://www.thinkero.us/app/?type=issue](https://www.thinkero.us/app/?type=issue) will change your mind?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this like Quirky for everything (not just products)?

</comment><comment><USER11> Can you give some instances of what you call "idea websites"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Any website where ideas and voting on ideas are the key focus of the platform, and don't go one step further of finding the underlying problems that these ideas trying to solve.

Almost all innovation management and feature-request platforms are like this.

For example: [http://www.ideastorm.com/](http://www.ideastorm.com/) [https://ideas.sap.com/](https://ideas.sap.com/) [https://success.salesforce.com/ideaSearch](https://success.salesforce.com/ideaSearch) [http://engagetacoma.mindmixer.com/activity](http://engagetacoma.mindmixer.com/activity)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Getting a 504 Gateway Time-out over here

<comment><USER13> That's the first problem to be solved.</comment></comment>


Why wasn't the Linux kernel written in C++? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/gifxn/why_wasnt_the_linux_kernel_written_in_c/

<comment><AUTHOR> Linus Torvalds' popular comment is dissected here (<http://warp.povusers.org/OpenLetters/ResponseToTorvalds.html>):

"C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do _nothing_ but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C."

You know the clip I'd like to see: Linus vs Stroustrup, discussing the pros and cons of C++. The hotheaded hacker against the calm language developer. Who'd win?

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not such a great programmer, but it seems obvious to me that you'd want to write a kernel in the most minimal (as in close to the hardware) but portable language possible.

Further, a language as expansive as C++ on a collaborative volunteer project probably wouldn't work so well. (Don't folks complain all the time about how everyone uses a different C++?)</comment>


Show HN: Yelp for Cops - <AUTHOR> http://www.copscore.org <comment><USER2> Love this idea. I think it should be able to do three things, and have a map interface to navigate those things. 1: u should be able to tell who are bad cops and who are the best cops in a given department 2: u should be able to tell which are the best/ most highly rated police depts and which are the worst 3: u should be able to analyze this by race, gender and maybe age of the reviewer. That way we can answer the question: which are the best/model police depts from the perspective of black youth. That would be invaluable to the current movement.

Love to talk more abt these of ur interested. @samswey

<comment><AUTHOR> 1: working on map now, should be done by Tues.

2: this will be the key for color coding the map.

3: doing this next week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the idea, but not the execution. I'd like to be able to just browse by state, etc... without having to know so many details to look up reviews. Kind of like when I go look on yelp for restaurants I don't need to know the cooks name at the restaurant to be able to find it.

Also, I have the feeling that if this ever gained any traction it would be abused with fake reviews, both positive and negative.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Also, I have the feeling that if this ever gained any traction it would be > abused with fake reviews, both positive and negative.

This is why I require badge number to rate an officer and also why I don't just let people browse by state etc...

<comment><USER3> But then it won't get any traction, kind of a catch 22.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> It could be that ppl submit a picture of the officer and the police dept, civilian review board or the developer tries to match to a namebadge number. In NYC, the civilian review board almost always identifies the officer involved in a complaint even when no name or badge number is provided.

</comment><comment><USER4> Requiring a valid badge number might encourage only negative posts. I personally haven't demanded a badge number unless I'm displeased.

I think there may be many instances where someone has something to say and do not know this piece of information.

Maybe you can accept different details if this number is not known?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Example profile: [http://billings-police- dept.copscore.org/police_officers/gra...](http://billings-police- dept.copscore.org/police_officers/grant-morrison)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have made some updates

\- Added a 5 stars page to highlight the good cops

\- Added a high profile page to show the high profile cops

\- Adding a community organizer user type

\- Added login for police departments

\- Redid post verification process

\- Completed API for iOS app

I am pushing more updates tonight and tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is certainly illegal here in Brazil. And if it isn't right now it will be right after someone launches a tool like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why is it illegal? All of the information is public.

see: [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=grant+morrison+billings+mt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hope this attracts both positive and negative reviews of police officers.

<comment><USER7> Given the nature of the example profile, which lists nothing but stories about an alleged killing by the officer profiled, and the option on the submit form calling the post title and url 'evidence' (suggesting the user is reporting a crime) and a badge number (also suggesting the user is reporting a crime, because no one asks for a badge number if they're happy about the way the cops have treated them) I would assume this site is not intended to present cops in an impartial light, or at least, that it's intended to favor negative reviews over positive ones.

Which could still be a valuable service either way. I hope it does get both positive and negative reviews. I see the tragedy of the commons dragging it down into the mire pretty quick, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I put the badge number there because I did not want people posting fake reviews, I wanted only people that had actual interaction with the Cop to be able to vote.

As for the word "evidence" I did not see that as having a negative connotation; which is why the example tag is 'awesome' and not something bad.

Also, currently there are more positive cop reviews on the site than negative.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure that would stop fake reviews though unless somehow you're validating these badge numbers somehow to make sure they match the name posted, etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> Im validating badge numbers to make sure they match the name and police department listed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The default config of Airbrake's gem will crash multithreaded Rails servers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/airbrake/airbrake/pull/334

<comment><AUTHOR> Summary: There is a bug in Airbrake's gem that will cause a connection-pool leak in multithreaded Rails instances. This leak will eventually cause your app to crash.

I'm posting this here because this is a very common configuration and I imagine there a lot of people dealing with unexpected Rails crashes that are hard to track down.

The bug is actually fixed in master, Airbrake just needs to push a new gem.</comment>


Why Elixir - <AUTHOR> http://www.functionalcoder.com/2016/01/10/why-elixir/ <comment><USER2> I've been learning elixir for a bit now, and it's actually as awesome as people say. In more functional languages like Haskell, i feel like i am not as productive (mostly because i still don't quite understand it yet). In elixir, it feels like i'm building javascript or python, just in a more functional way. Seriously, give it a shot guys.</comment>


Is a Smartphone in Amazon's Hardware Future? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/is-a-smartphone-in-amazons-hardware-future/

<comment><AUTHOR> > Indeed, Amazon's curated (read walled-off) app store and fragmented version > of Android could push developers away. "The further they go out on their own > branch of Android, the tougher it gets for developers," Ask says.

As a developer, the idea of a very well selling Kindle Phone device from Amazon would make me far more likely to develop for it exclusively.

My company is already limiting its Android tablet development efforts to the Kindle Fire, for similar reasons.</comment>


Ask HN: Working at Pivotal Labs?  - <AUTHOR>

Hi HNers, here is a follow up to  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1488273.<p>There is surprisingly little of Pivotal Labs on HN, if you consider their reputation. Any opinions on them as a work place? Pivots? <comment><USER2> I used to work at Pivotal and I really enjoyed it. I learned more in a month there than in a year at my previous job. If you're into the idea of TDD and Pair Programming it's incredible. I got to spend time at a bunch of different companies (Mavenlink, Twitter and Get Satisfaction to name a few), and really get a sense for what works in a startup. They have most of the smartest, most pragmatic and nicest programmers I've ever met. I'd highly recommend the place.

If you have any other questions I'd be happy to answer them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. It's refreshing to finally see some feedback on them.

Are there any "cons" of working there? What made you move on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I run Engineering at a Pivotal Labs partner, Xtreme Labs (www.xtremelabs.com), so also happy to comment on experiences at my shop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, please do comment! Or how should I reach you.

<comment><USER3> Well.. was more thinking of answering any questions you may have :)</comment></comment></comment>


The Internet wins: SOPA has been shelved, but we must remain vigilant - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/114045-the-internet-wins-sopa-has-been-shelved-but-we-must-remain-vigilant

<comment><USER2> The timing of this withdrawal seems to fully indicate that the politicians involved have just tried to flush out their opposition and force them to play their hand.

Now Reddit, Wikipedia et al. will go dark, but they will not generate the support they could have if SOPA was still under debate. Now when someone sends a letter to their local politician, that politician will just send an automatic reply of "This isn't as issue, we're not even debating this right now, I don't know what you're talking about.", further confusing the public.

This is just a delay tactic being used to crush the groundswell around the current SOPA/PIPA bills. They'll come back when all opposition has faded away to a distant memory. Plus it gives the politicians who were involved plausible deniability on both sides; they're not dropping it, but they're not currently pursuing the matter either.

</comment><comment><USER3> All that has happened is the following: the Congresscritters have decided that an overt, named, Internet censorship bill may not work.

Now look for SOPA to appear as a part of some defense spending bill, or the debt ceiling bill, or something like that.

Anyone else remember the land shark from the SNL of old? Yeah, SOPA/PIPA are the land sharks. They'll keep trying.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is winning a battle, not a war. There is going to be more legislation, both in the US, and the World.

The internet is unique in that what makes it powerful is it's interconnectedness. It doesn't make sense for some nodes to have different rules than others. I believe the internet needs it's own bill of rights, but it should be presented in an international forum.

It's probably a pipe dream, but the idea of the US being able to take down international nodes by any method is devastating to me.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. We haven't won anything and treating it as a victory is dangerous. It turns us in to a boy cried wolf after we tell everybody it's OK to go home and put the pitchforks down. Only to start up the hysterics again the next time we face down dire straits.

We have the momentum, we have people's attention, we need to keep pushing. Keep organizing. Keep educating. We need to get our lobbying groups in to Washington and start influencing some legislation that works for The Internet. Not against it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Leahy (PIPA sponsor) has announced that his chief of staff, Ed Pagano, is leaving to become Obama's liaison with the Senate. If you carefully read Leahy's press release and Obama's Response to We the People Petitions, the only thing that either has backed off on is the DNS language. And is packet sniffing any better than DNS censoring for freedom on the Internet? I don't know.

Not saying that the vote will happen on Jan 24, but also not putting any money on its not happening. Both Pagano and Obama are basketball players, so keep your eyes on the ball.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does this mean that Jan 18th is cancelled?

<comment><USER8> There is still PIPA out there. Basically the Senate version of SOPA. Just a change in focus is all that is needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The next battlefield will have a different terrain, I suspect if I wanted to censor the Web for political power I would strike next at the freedom to securely encrypt internet connections between devices. We need a right to bear encryption right next to a right to bear arms, so that a nation of citizens can mobilize to protect itself from an out of control government.

<comment><USER10> Neither a "right to bear arms" nor "free political speech/press" are actually all that protected by modern US jurisprudence. ("political" is important - pornography does have significant protections, far more than political speech.)

<comment><USER11> What political speech exactly is censored in the US today?

<comment><USER10> > What political speech exactly is censored in the US today?

Take out an ad about a candidate and you'll find out.

There's a whole federal bureaucracy, the FEC, devoted to regulating political speech. Many states (and some cities) also have campaigning laws.

Citizens United changed this somewhat but ....</comment></comment></comment></comment>


We fired our top talent. Best decision we ever made - <AUTHOR> https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/we-fired-our-top-talent-best-decision-we-ever-made-4c0a99728fde/ <comment><USER2> For some reason I had a feeling of "The Apartment, from Billy Wilder"

It seems that he helped everybody to solve their problems and doubts for years. If this is not "being able to work in a team" I don't know hot to define it.

After the years, this created a demigod, they drive him crazy and overworking and when the stream of favors eventually stopped people got angry (because "he ownes you infinite whishes"?).

Of course starting from scratch helped, but the efficiency increase can be explained also in part because people got a clear message: "If they let go the rock star, nobody is safe from being fired. Better we stop playing politics and schemes, say that all was Ricks fault, fix our shit and have something, anything simple, to show tomorrow"

Buying code is also a symptom. Displacing responsibility to an external company is a common "covering ass" strategy.

I could be wrong, of course, I don't have all the data but... the man helped you for years. I understand that didn't ended well, but... didn't deserved some respect? What is the point on criticizing an easily identifiable former coworker on internet?

<comment><USER3> One of the ways you tell you have someone with exceptionally high IQ on your hands is people will scapegoat them. Talent is being able to hit a targets nobody else can hit, genius is being able to hit targets nobody else can see, and the problem with hitting unseeable targets consistently is that the ground starts shifting under people's feet and they have no idea why.

For example, at one place I worked I found the source of a 7-figure inventory shrink problem that had been there for 10ish years and was caused by 1 line of SQL Code. Now you'd think out of THOUSANDS of employee's and THOUSANDS of management and IT Staff, someone would've gone "Gee we have a lot of inventory shrink" and go take a look.

What does your management do when they lose all of their bargaining leverage with customers due to customers finding out their warehousing co lost tens of millions of dollars of inventory? Staff theft accounted for a lot of the missing inventory, so you have employee trust issues added into the mix. You wouldn't believe the blowback from that I got, total nightmare fuel. Managers could not, psychologically, handle the truth of the situation; it was armegeddon to them.

At another manufacturing company I fixed serious data quality issues that were caused by previous management, over decades, forcing the place to run too lean. A High rate of order change had guacamole'd all downstream data from the order book to the AR register in their workflow process. They had hired a BP guy just to do nothing but BP for years on end and he couldn't figure it out. Because nothing appeared consistent to managers thus the data was never consistent. I put together a powerpoint and had a whole boardroom of c-levels grimacing at the findings.

What do your c-levels do when you show them all of their data is literal trash? What do they do when you correct the manufacturing product data so they don't have to go on research projects all the time, which in turn de-controrts the rest of their data enough to begin to make it look usable, and staff begin making big changes to processes that save buko bucks because they have the information when the c-suite couldn't do it for 20 years? Imagine how motivated someone who has 20 years into a company is going to be to fuck over or the guy who comes in and shows them where their limitations were at? Again, they are not psychologically equipped to handle the change.

Instead of accepting the failure and addressing it then moving on, what do they do? A Great deal many of executives and staff engage in engineering and management emotionally; they use their limbic system to navigate their day to day, but developing that takes years of work and deep integration with their personality, identity, and sense of self. When a seriously traumatic event occurs, like the above situations which BTW are great for an org; we're adding million in revenue by fixing mistakes; people deal with it like a trauma. Their limbic system wants to maintain emotional regulation, thus, they will often go through the process of grief in a corporate setting, presenting a number of "feel good" strawman arguments and isolating the person who found the issue.

The empirical data, however, does not care about your emotions, and if this is done consistently in an org, the genius gets associated with "pain, bad, nightmare fuel, bad". Hence, you get scatching articles about the genius we didn't need that got in our way and if you put the word "we should burn all geniuses" at the end, it'd fit right in with the undertones of the article.

The genius knows what they are doing, they can see it clearly, they can proove it empirically, and they are often doing it for an altruistic reason because they want the world to be a better place. They have a difficult itch to scratch, to be satisfied with their lives they need to do things that challenge them, it's human. But the fallout for an org can be detrimental.

What they don't have, due to a lack of adaquete socialization, is a sense when they are reorienting other people's realities too much. To develop that socialization, they need people of similar IQ that can keep pace with them because they start out life with a seriously debiltiating situation. Someone with an IQ of 150-170 will have the mental developement of a 9 year old at age 5, and a 20 something by age 9. Imagine being 25, in a room of people who look just like you but who inside are all 9 year olds and that's your life, end to end.

You will, guarauntee'd, develop complex trauma due to this. And the 9-year olds, quite naturally, demand you pick up "social skills" and "soft skills" because they sense instinctually something is wrong or off. What they don't understand is that someone with an IQ of 160 is literally 1 in 10 million; they figure if you're so smart you can figure it out. It does not work that way.

HR people are beginning to figure this out, and their response in general is not to hire geniuses because they know they cannot handle them. The problem they run into is, it's almost impossible to tell if someone is less intelligent than you, and utterly impossible to tell if they are more, and if you measure them by success, then eventually, their success will turn into the above at some point.

A better way to have handled the OP's situation is to give the genius an architectural role to alleviate from them the burden of writing boilerplate code, and have them working on system design and doing proof of concept projects. Many established companies have built internal think tanks for this purpose; it's how they house their geniuses.

<comment><USER4> Love this, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems odd that they waited so long to fire "Rick", and seemed quite fine letting him work on everything solo for years, despite the continued delays to the customer.

In the event that this article is actually a true story (tbh it reads like a long version of one of those LinkedIn thought-leader posts), that seems like a company culture failure several levels deep.

</comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, that sounds more like acting on envy and perhaps Rick noticed and withdrew himself further.

I guess being too eccentric isn't good for teaching, just like lacking patience leads to problems.

I get the message, performance isn't everything, but there are other shallow truths about the workplace. Like competency doesn't make you the most loved person. And this article honestly feels a bit like that.

</comment><comment><USER7> >He was our top contributor. He was killing our flagship project.

I would define that pretty clearly as NOT being a "top contributor".

</comment><comment><USER8> "Rick" is a Bizarro Mary Jane character. Zzzzz</comment>


Amazon: cops should set confidence level on facial recognition to 99% - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/amazon-cops-should-set-confidence-level-on-facial-recognition-to-99/ <comment><USER2> Amazon: The default confidence level is 80%, but our documentation says law enforcement should use the 99% confidence setting.

Human nature: Most individuals do not read documentation.

Result: Many law enforcement searches will likely occur at the default 80% confidence level.

Amazon should, when they know an account is for law enforcement, set the default to 99% for those accounts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why default to 80% at all? Why not 99%? At 80% it should be "suggestions", not "matches".</comment></comment>


Facebook Moves Into Its New Campus [Photos] - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/24/facebook-campus/

<comment><USER2> I expected something more lush, along the lines of 37 Signals' offices, or perhaps Twitter or Google's bases. The photos give me the impression of a spartan and somewhat uninviting place, somewhat like unfinished versions of various areas in Half Life.

<comment><USER3> I completely agree. 37 Signals actually feels more comfortable and where work can be done, while FB seems a playground for kids.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks quite depressing, to be honest.

<comment><USER5> Maybe the finished thing will have lighting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a little surprised to see this on HN.. Did I miss some crucial point in this story? Is their new campus inside a hollowed out volcano complete with fluffy white cat?

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems really sparse, and all the furniture looks like it came from Ikea (although I bet it was actually really expensive)

<comment><USER8> "The lines on the ground are supposed to recall factory floor marking" >> Hay developerz: you're in a factory, now go make me some more highly personal, normally private data about teenagers! Now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks kind of like the old one, but with smaller enclosures.

</comment><comment><USER10> What I got out of this post...

This is one of the worst ways to display images I've ever seen. What a mess!</comment>


The Social Justice Warriors Are Right - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3285 <comment><USER2> It's great to see someone who, despite facing personal criticism from a group, is still able to praise out the strongest points they have to offer.</comment>


Test Comparison: Which Browser Will Make Your Laptop's Battery Last Longer? - <AUTHOR> http://www.7tutorials.com/test-comparison-which-browser-will-make-your-laptop-battery-last-longer

<comment><USER2> Lynx</comment>


Ask HN:  WTF ever happened to FingerPrint Logins? - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2004/05/21/cx_ah_0521tentech.html

<comment><USER2> most thinkpads have integrated fingerprint readers and are able to log you in to windows using only your fingerprint.

fprint (<http://reactivated.net/fprint/wiki/Main_Page>) supports many readers on unix that can be integrated into the login process with pam/bsd auth.

<comment><USER3> Yep, my T61p worked great with the fingerprint reader in Windows XP. Of course the rest of that machine was pure crap (software/driver wise). I had more BSOD's on that one laptop then all of the Windows machines I've owned in the past 15 years.

<comment><USER4> I've used a T60 with Linux installed for several years as my laptop, and I love it. I ended up with two RMAs (CPU fan died and screen had some sort of display issue), but the third has been a trooper with no issues.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Crypto trading game - <AUTHOR> https://coin.nxtmtn.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr: It's a crypto trading game. It has coins, bots, and more. Yay, feedback!

More details:

I don't know about you, but personally, I've found myself doing more CPU/GPU mining than actually trading or even buying crypto.

And one day I may push through the minimum mining payout threshold on XMR (and I've spent way more on electricity, GPUs, and Xeon upgrades than I'm likely to get back, well, ever), but...

I've also talked to a lot of people who want to get into trading/investing in crypto, but really don't know where to even get started.

On the other hand, maybe you have a friend like mine, who kept posting months ago on Facebook about what he was HODLing, and now he's posting about where he's traveling. "Wheels down in <exotic locale>..." I'm happy for him, really (it helps that he's actually a really nice guy).

Raging jealousy and FOMO aside, I have been looking at getting more involved in cryptocurrencies.

I wanted a simulated trading app.

A lot of stock trading firms have simulated trading, but I didn't find anything for crypto. It may be out there, but I didn't find it.

So, I set up a simulated trading game. It's got coins, ICO's, bots, stories behind the coins, live quotes, etc.

Orders are at market, and there's a maker fee. You start with 1000 coins in a base currency, figure out what to invest in/trade, and away we go.

Right now, it's SaaS -- I've tested it on Chrome, FireFox, IE Edge, and Safari. (Full disclosure, I'm full stack, but better at backend than frontend, so I'll recommend going with Chrome) Mobile is coming...

More info: [https://nxtmtn.com](https://nxtmtn.com) Try it: [https://coin.nxtmtn.com](https://coin.nxtmtn.com)

Thank you in advance for any feedback!

JR</comment>


DAE have problems with images in Gmail right now? - <AUTHOR>

Even which I click "Display images", all the image links are dead. If there's a problem over at Gmail, how do I report it? <comment><USER2> NP ! ;-)

</comment><comment><USER2> what is DAE ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Does Anyone Else

<comment><USER2> IHNPRNWMGMA, AISUWNP

Ohh sorry, maybe you won't understand, i have no problems right now with my gmail account, all images shop up with no problems

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahahah thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Compare different JS minifiers' output online - <AUTHOR> http://compress-js.com <comment><USER2> "An error occurred while trying to compress javascript text."

Hmmm....

Firstly I think I gave it too much JS code to deal with and it choked (about 3,000 lines).

Running it twice in a row always causes it to fail in my experience so far.

I am not quite sure what it is trying to do. I get a little report like:

Original file size : 1,009bytes JSMin : 706bytes (30%) UglifyJS : 644bytes (36%) YUI Compressor : 647bytes (35%) Closure Compiler : 638bytes (36%)

but no sign of the compressed code except the code I enter has most new lines removed. The newlines between function declarations are maintained.

The above report I pasted inline is after I asked for one algorithm to be tested (Closure Compiler) but it reported on all of them.

This is a good idea, and it would be useful if:

(a) it could cope with 3,000 lines about 120K. That is not much

(b) Gave me a bit more information about what the compression is doing. I care about more than the sizw. At the very least show me the compressed code.

(c) Let me test one algorithm at a time

peace W

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. I will try to improve it within the upcoming days!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow, great idea. I wish this was available as a npm package.

A couple of things, sometimes the service doesn't work and returns "YUI Compressor : 0bytes (100%)" or "JSMin : 886bytes (0%)". A typo: succees.

The references section could be expanded with resources about writing JS code in a way that enables optimizations:

[http://toddmotto.com/what-function-window-document- undefined...](http://toddmotto.com/what-function-window-document-undefined- iife-really-means/)

[https://curiosity-driven.org/minimal-loader](https://curiosity- driven.org/minimal-loader)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it! I will do my best to fix this ASAP, and I was planning on adding more references anyways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty cool, but comparing file sizes probably isn't enough. We should also compare the file sizes after gzipping. smaller js files doesn't necessarily mean smaller zipped files.

Also, size comparison ignores speed improvements due to load time and runtime optimizations that closure compiler does and uglify doesn't. (Although you'll have to use ugly code annotations to get closure compiler to do its magic).

<comment><USER5> Also - On the negative side, de-compression may be costly on the client. That would be really interesting to see measured as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice one, thanks for sharing!

I've been researching for a minifier recently and on my tests Closure Compiler always win on the file size metric. However, due to the Closure Compiler Java dependency, I'll likely choose UglifyJS (which is always the second best on my tests).

Have you noticed cases where Closure Compiler or UglifyJS aren't the best?

<comment><AUTHOR> From my personal testing UglifyJS and Closure Compiler are usually the best as well. They're also pretty close most of the time, but still I go with which ever one saves more.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I fixed many of the bugs happening on the site, and there's much less traffic now, so if someone didn't get a chance to see it, you can come back now :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Very nice, could you display the best output result? So that we don't need to compress again ourselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> When uploading files, you can just download the one with the best compression. When inserting text, your text is replaces with the best compressed version. I understand I need to make that clearer. Thanks for the feedback, I will improve it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 502 bad gateway

<comment><AUTHOR> REALLY sorry about that, it seems like I'm getting quite a lot of traffic from HN now. I'm trying to deal with it, and keep it up. Sorry for letting you down... :/

<comment><USER9> Sorry we broke your site!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks like it might have been an interesting submission, but I'm getting a bad gateway error when clicking through.

Also, you should re-title it as Show HN to get better visibility!

EDIT: author has fixed it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I noticed that pretty fast, and got it back up. Hope it stays up for now...</comment></comment>


Ext4 data corruption trouble - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/521022/

<comment><USER2> Best comment on that thread (from the bug reporter)

"Those following along at home is probably half the human race, now we have posts on Phoronix, Slashdot _and_ Heise. Who the hell submits things like this to random-terrified-user media outlets before we've even characterized the bloody problem? Every one of those posts is inaccurate, of course, through no fault of their own but merely because we didn't yet know what the problem was ourselves, merely that I and one other person were seeing corruption: we obviously started by assuming that it was something obvious and thus fairly serious, but that didn't mean we _expected_ that to be true: I certainly expected the final problem to be more subtle, if still capable of causing serious disk corruption (my warning here was just in case it was not).

But now there's a wave of self-sustaining accidental lies spreading across the net, damaging the reputation of ext4 unwarrantedly, and I started it without wanting to.

It's times like this when I start to understand why some companies have closed bug trackers."

<comment><USER3> Also (same overall gist but with more technical detail), <https://lwn.net/Articles/521090/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is symptomatic with one of my two big problems with journalling oriented file-systems.

My problems with journalling are two fold:

1) They are very slow:

1a) You have a nice big sequential write into the journal, which is OK.

1b) A flush track cache to make sure it is actually in the journal. This can sync whatever has accumulated in the track cache which might not just be journal data.

1c) The actual overwrites that spew data randomly over the drive.

1d) Writes to update the journal header/terminate the transaction.

1e) A final flush track cache which will sync who-knows-what onto the platters/flash.

2) Replay behavior of the journal log is _very_ fragile code. You need to handle lots of terrible cases, the most awful of which is to ensure that you don't play older transaction on top of newer transactions. You might say "hey, that shouldn't happen!" but it happens. It happens because the code is not trivial to write and detecting these bad cases aren't trivial. Even if you do get the code write, you are still screwed. Why? Because if your drive does not support the flush track cache mechanism you are in for a world of pain. You can have a journal and journal header that is ancient if it just stuck in some cache...

The ext* family of filesystems do not appear to have natural resiliency to this sort of problem. Instead, it appears to be a coordinated, concerted effort between various parts of the journaling code.

<comment><USER5> What is your main use case? What is your choice instead of ext*?

<comment><USER4> I like write-anywhere/COW filesystems.

Unfortunately the open source ones kinda blow due to interesting performance penalties (I'm looking at you, btrfs back ref management) or crazy memory usage/non-extent based systems/read-modify-write induced mania (I'm looking at you, ZFS block tree)

<comment><USER6> What non-open source ones do you like, then?

<comment><USER7> Oh, you've probably never heard of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Update here: <https://lwn.net/Articles/521090/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh great.

Ubuntu 12.04 Server crashes randomly due to some obscure bug in 3.2

I upgraded the kernel to 3.6.3 specifically to stop the machine from crashing. Now let's hope that INDEED it doesn't crash, else I might get hit by this newfangled Ext4 bug.

Sounds like the accelerated kernel development is hitting various limits, they should go back to more stodgy stable series like before.

<comment><USER10> > Ubuntu 12.04 Server crashes randomly due to some obscure bug in 3.2

Must be really obscure. With more than 100 servers under my watch, I never saw anything like that.

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing all those 100 servers are the same hardware, or a few variations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's the status with BTRFS? Also, is ZFS Linux performance still terrible, or did they find a way to fix that?

<comment><USER12> btrfs is shipping with OpenSuSE and Oracle Linux apparently as stable. Not sure I trust it yet. If they ship it with Debian stable I will consider it.

ZFS still uses FUSE AFAIK so is going to suck.

<comment><USER11> I thought they had a kernel module or something bypassing the need for fuse.

<comment><USER13> Indeed there is: <http://zfsonlinux.org/>

There's more than one ZFS port to Linux, which might be confusing some people.

There's also the more dramatic option of using FreeBSD or one of the illumos derivatives, which work fine in my experience too.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Side Show In Oracle, Google Patent Fight: Are API's Covered By Copyright? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110822/11242915616/side-show-oracle-google-patent-fight-are-apis-covered-copyright.shtml <comment><USER2> Didn't the AT&T -v- BSD saga establish that APIs aren't covered by copyright (in the USA)?</comment>


HyperRogue (roguelike in a non-Euclidean world) version 11.0 is released - <AUTHOR> https://zenorogue.blogspot.com/2019/01/hyperrogue-110-released.html <comment><USER2> It was released in January. Version 11.1 should be released soon, with some new stuff ("more new" than in most updates) :)

<comment><USER2> (and it is released!)</comment></comment>


Driverless cars could spell the end for domestic flights, says Audi strategist - <AUTHOR> http://www.dezeen.com/2015/11/25/self-driving-driverless-cars-disrupt-airline-hotel-industries-sleeping-interview-audi-senior-strategist-sven-schuwirth/? <comment><USER2> If long-haul driverless travel were so useful for business travellers, I would expect to see more rich people in chauffeured RVs or buses, rather like how bands on tour have a sleeper bus with beds and showers (eg, [http://www.nightliner-support.eu/5/our-fleet/](http://www.nightliner- support.eu/5/our-fleet/) ).

Since I don't, I suspect the business travel market isn't there.

</comment><comment><USER3> If I can spend six hours in a plane and get to the other side of the country, or I can spend 50-ish hours driving, I know which option I'm going to choose.</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News in Real Time - <AUTHOR> Over the past day or so I've been working on a small project called HNLive. Essentially it is just an alternative interface to HN that updates in real time. I thought it'd be interesting to watch the way the front page evolves during the day and how posts make it to the top. It's also convenient when you don't want to constantly reload.
All feedback is appreciated.
http://hnlive.cf <comment><USER2> A different user claimed credit for this a few hours ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10771675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10771675)

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome -- I find it rather fascinating not having to refresh myself and having the experience of seeing how posts gain traction. What technologies(frameworks)did you use btw ?</comment>


Dumbo Corp's Dumbest and Most Dangerous Startup Financing - <AUTHOR> http://accountalent.com/?p=410

<comment><USER2> I know companies that have made this mistake. As a small business owner, it's a very tempting one to make, but it can make things very, very bad for you.</comment>


Making Pulled Pork with React Native, Expo, and Express - <AUTHOR> https://daveceddia.com/perfect-pulled-pork-react-native-expo-express/ <comment><USER2> The takeaway piece at the end really hit-home for me:

        I think it's important to work some fun into programming projects.
        Give yourself permission to build something that already exists,
        if only to learn how to build it yourself. It doesn't have to be
        a big serious project, or a perfect portfolio piece.

        And on that note, don't be afraid to hack things together. It's
        a fun project! Write some terrible code that you know is terrible.
        Don't stress so much about perfect abstractions and Best Practices
        and feeling like you have to incorporate every new library and tool.
        It'll be fine. You can always refactor it when you write the blog post ;)

I can't even count the number of similar, fun projects I've started... but which turned into stress centers that felt more like chores than leisure, causing them to never be completed. Often I end up worrying about the "best" way to do something or start planning for when the project is huge and needs to be well formed; paralyzed before I even get the code working.

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn, yeah. Same here. That little voice of "is this really the BEST way" has grown stronger and stronger over the years, and I kinda have to fight it back to "allow" myself to do little hacky projects like this.

I always wanted to be better at software engineering, and software _design_ , and getting abstractions right, and all that stuff. I've slowly gotten better at all that, but I didn't know it would come with the tradeoff of being unable to switch it off.

<comment><USER3> That ability to switch it off is _very important_. A couple months ago, one of my co-workers was asked to do something quickly for an important customer. I would normally be the one to work on that codebase, but I was busy with something else. I gave him some suggestions, made it completely, crystal clear that hacks were allowed since the customer needed it by the next day at the latest and it only had to run for a few hours and we could use the excuse that it wasn't under version control if they wanted changes later.

He's a very good engineer and this was well within his ability, but he became hamstrung by the hackiness. He continually complained that it would be unsupportable (I know), that he would be asked to make changes (no: this was explicitly part of the agreement with the customer) and it was a bad design decision (yes!).

By the time 4 o'clock rolled around, he had made little progress on his well engineered and future-proof solution and I didn't want to be there late, so I offered to take it from him, finished the hack by 4:30 and pushed it to the customer.

Customer loved it; greatly appreciated that "we had dropped all our work to put two engineers on their project" and it did exactly what they needed to demo their own product.

I guess my point is that engineering is about getting stuff done. Sometimes, if you know time is more important than anything else, your only choice is either cut corners or don't ship. Being a day late can be the same thing as never shipping in some cases.

<comment><USER4> I agree with your approach here. However, there's one interesting problem we always run into with that approach and it's what causes the discontent, I think.

It's when something that is being designed and built with the intention of a short lifespan ends up being around for a long time, and causing problems for longer than it was intended to exist at all.

And I think this happens all the time.

I think you did the right thing (I would have too), but unless you have solid consistency, work ethics and a great memory, you may put in that quick fix and it never gets improved.

If the quick fix stands the test of time, then it was the right fix regardless of how fast it was done.

I guess that is why I have grown into the approach over the years of always.. ALWAYS checking expectations thoroughly, even when it hurts a little.

It's important in the early stages of problem analysis to know - 1) how long do I have to analyze the problem? 2) how long do I have to implement a solution to the problem? and 3) how long does the solution need to last? Of course there are a million other questions, but I think it needs to start there. Of course, while answering those questions, as a service function, we must always be thinking... hands down.. what is in the best interest of the customer (which can be subjective, but it must always be the forefront)?

If you are given constraints for those 3 things, you can more accurately come up with an appropriate solution. My experience with this is hard-earned from just doing and always having to get creative.

Sometimes, I plain ask people - do you want a long-term solution, or a short- term solution? If you can come up with 3 options quickly based on your experience - short/mid/long-term and give the pros and cons, I've found most business users like this approach. Some prefer to just be given an answer and have the issue handled immediately - however, that isn't always the best for them nor the people doing the work. But, as they say, sometimes it comes down to "needs must".

<comment> semi-extrinsic There are few things as permanent as a temporary solution.

<comment><USER5> When I see yet another "# TODO: this a hack, it's doesn't really work but we'll fix it asap anyway" I like to make bets with myself as for what date I'm going to see in git blame. Today I've replaced one such 3yr old todo with another todo that someone else will probably discover three years from now. The reality...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Given the hype with AI, I was seriously expecting a section of this to be taking pictures of the pork itself, and then using machine learning to figure out whether to turn the heat up or down.

So, just in case you're feeling guilty for over-engineering this, it could have been WAY worse, hahaha. This is the just-right level of overengineering.

<comment><AUTHOR> I considered, for a very short while, trying to do some sort of OCR on the image to pull out the thermometer temperature and graph it over time. But that seemed a bit crazy. My first thought was [https://xkcd.com/1425/](https://xkcd.com/1425/).

<comment><USER7> You should check out Tesseract. You can do a lot with just running a cli command on your image.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have to admit that my first thought upon reading the title was that this was some satirical piece about the way some people announce or describe their software.

"Doohickey - CLI app written in C++, Boost, and the STL"

"whatchamacallit - an admin module written in JS, React, React Saga, Storyboard, Redux, Express, nginx, Electron and markdown"

"mugabe-rails - a library written in Ruby to parse JSON"

"lasagne - a meal made using cow, spaghetti, and tomato"

Instead, what I took away from it was something much more insightful and mature. He pretty much defined his most minimal MVP, committed to getting that working, and completely dispensed with the notion that he had to invest in the more fancy tech up front. He got a working solution for his problem and if needs be, it can be made fancier now it actually works for him.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, thanks! I had a tough time coming up with a title for this. The pulled pork was the star of the story, and this project wouldn't have existed without it, so I went with that in the title. I tried to come up with something more generic but it was tough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For years I've been wanting to write something that lets me use a cheapo webcam to plot timeseries temperature data from cheap (ie. non broadcasting) thermometers and thermocouples, something like the Chris' Coffee E61 grouphead digital thermometer[1] I have attached to my espresso machine.

Like you I was also keen to automate my WSM smoker, and ended up buying a £20 Inkbird PID controller[2], hanging the thermocouple off the lid and hooking the 12v relay output directly to an old case fan attached via ducting to one of the vents. For I now get temperature stability to +/\- 3 degrees C, and fuel that used to last 3 hours now lasts 11!

My 2c aside, I really enjoyed reading your writeup, and I wouldn't have stuck with it and learnt as much had your chosen subject not been so close to my heart.

[1][https://www.chriscoffee.com/e61-digital-thermometer- adapter-...](https://www.chriscoffee.com/e61-digital-thermometer- adapter-p/sss-04.htm)

[2][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inkbird-Temperature-Controller- Ther...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inkbird-Temperature-Controller-Thermostat- Thermocouple/dp/B00ADEJVXK/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. Your project sounds great, I've toyed with the idea of adding a PID/fan to this smoker somehow. The ones I had seen (from looking into adding a PID to a Rancilio Silvia) seemed awfully expensive, but hey, £20 ain't bad. I might just try this ;)

Another application I want to apply a PID to is coffee roasting, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

EDIT: Oh wow, this one is only $16! [https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-All- Purpose-Temperature-Contr...](https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-All-Purpose- Temperature-Controller-Fahrenheit/dp/B00OXPE8U6)

EDIT 2: Based on a review, it sounds like that $16 one won't measure temperatures above 210F. Bummer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a heater meter fan myself (with a combination blower damper)

[https://github.com/CapnBry/HeaterMeter](https://github.com/CapnBry/HeaterMeter)

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks like an awesome level of overkill. Right up my alley. Maybe I'll build one of these next :)

<comment><USER11> Sorry, Bob. I can't make it to the BBQ event this year. My grill's CPU just died.

<comment><USER12> Meh. It's not real overkill if you don't have fail-over hardware.

<comment><USER11> Suppose we could make it triple-redundant and call it "The Raman Grill".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For vegans and other vegetarians, it is possible to prepare green jackfruit into a reasonable approximation of pulled pork. Most people use liquid smoke, but if you can use the nerdified grill process to perfectly smoke your jackfruit with actual smoke, so much the better.

</comment><comment><USER14> Pressure cooker + liquid smoke. 9/10ths as good.

Disclaimer: I say this as a firm believer in the power of charcoal.

<comment><AUTHOR> The recipe I followed (AmazingRibs' Perfect Pulled Pork [0]) mentions a "fast method" that involves smoking for 2 hours with lots of smoke, and finishing in the oven. I wonder if smoker + pressure cooker would be even faster and still get the benefits of the smokiness. I guess it still wouldn't have the bark but it sounds like an experiment I'll need to try.

0: [https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/pork-chops-pulled- por...](https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/pork-chops-pulled-pork-ham-and- more-pork-recipes/perfect-pulled-pork-recipe)

<comment><USER15> Cool project! I've done the "low and slow" part using sous-vide then a chill bath and a quick smoke on the grill for bark. Same time-frame (probably even longer) but just a bit more convenient with the precision temperature of the sous-vide. [https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/07/food-lab-complete- guide-...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/07/food-lab-complete-guide-smoky- sous-vide-pork-shoulder.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Neat project, but thanks for making me hungry in the afternoon :P

+1 for OP's thermometer manufacturer Thermoworks, I'm a happy customer as well (and unaffiliated).

As an aside, if you're in the market for an electronic temperature measurement device, they're currently running a Father's Day Sale. ([https://www.thermoworks.com/](https://www.thermoworks.com/))

<comment><AUTHOR> Thermoworks is great. I think my first experience with them was their Thermapen product. It's awesome for checking internal temperatures damn near instantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dave, you should get a Weber Smoky Mountain instead of a Kettle and then you won't need React Native. :-)

Nice article, thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER18> I couldn't tell if Pulled Pork referred to actual pulled pork or, as I assumed, to some new framework.

<comment><USER19> I was really, really relieved that it was, in fact, pulled pork.

There are only so many namespace collisions I can deal with; that isn't one of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Neat, I'm a huge fan of anything in the intersection of programming and bbq.

</comment><comment><USER21> Besides a thermometer that can be read remotely, if you've got the money, a pellet smoker seems like the way to go: the heat and smoke come from actual wood being burned, but you can set the temperature and let it keep it there.

<comment><USER22> I have one. I like it a lot. I don't think they can hit quite the quality as a manual charcoal / wood vertical smoker except possibly at brands the higher end (above $2000, mine cost about 1/4 of that), especially if you like a deep rich smoke flavor, but for the convenience you get for the ease of use if you don't have the time to hone your pit skills (not to say a pellet grill doesn't have its own learning curve), I think it's worth the trade-off. Also, they are electro-mechanical devices kept in the outdoors and prone to the malfunction that you'd expect if not carefully maintained. Good companies have strong warranties, but some don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Nice.

Though I have to say, my favorite pulled pork hack involves C, PHP, an Arduino, a Pi, a couple of thermocouples, and a fan controlled by a solid state relay[1].

[1] [https://github.com/CapnBry/HeaterMeter/wiki](https://github.com/CapnBry/HeaterMeter/wiki)

Yours is simpler, and the photo part is really nice. But the fan control on the heatermeter project adds a whole other dimension.

</comment><comment><USER24> When all you've got is a hammer...

<comment><AUTHOR> Really just wanted to learn how to use the hammer, in this case. But still, yeah... you're not _wrong_ ;)

<comment><USER25> I was really looking forward to the part where you used servos to open and close the vents with a PID algorithm. Maybe v2 :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thought about it...

I've seen some people using a fan that they modulate with a PID to control the temp, which is on my list of "someday maybe" projects, heh. I wanna say there's even an existing product that does this, but I forget the name.

<comment><USER26> Flame Boss and CyberQ/PartyQ/DigiQ

<comment><USER27> And PitmasterIQ

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As long as this pulled pork doesn't include the use of Mustard I can approve this.

<comment><AUTHOR> No mustard. Sprayed with water before applying the rub. Added BBQ sauce sparingly to the final result.

I must admit though, that I forgot to apply the rub before I put it on the smoker! (7am me was groggy, and rushing) So I applied it about 30 minutes into the cook. Surely not optimal, but it came out delicious anyway so hey, whatever :)

<comment><USER26> I've done very similar actions at 5 and 6am :D

I would recommend rubbing with oil before the rub, and not water. Most seasonings are oil-soluble and will work better if you've oiled them first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why would such a simple app crash?

</comment><comment><USER30> > _Or: Taking a Picture Every 30 Seconds and Sending It To A Server._</comment>


Nokia forks Android - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/23/nokia-x/

<comment><USER2> Well that's too little too late. Had they done this several _years_ ago, it might have been groundbreaking.

As it is, now they have _two_ operating systems they need to support and use. Have they not learned from their earlier mistakes with OS fragmentation?!?</comment>


Superhot game - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/375798653/superhot

<comment><USER2> I think I've seen a similar mechanic in the critically acclaimed side-scroller _Braid_ [1]. There's a world called "Time and Place" where the flow of time is tied to the player's horizontal position. Going right and left takes you forward and backward in time respectively, and standing pauses it. Amazing game, really.

Also, a new game from the creator (Jonathan Blow) is scheduled to release this year, _The Witness_ [2].

[1] [http://braid-game.com/](http://braid-game.com/)

[2] [http://the-witness.net/](http://the-witness.net/)

<comment><USER3> I got Braid after watching the movie Indie Game. I don't ever really play games anymore but I really enjoyed it.

The mechanic in Braid is clever in a bunch of ways. The key idea is that you can reverse time, so you never totally die. As the game advances things start being tied to the movement of time in strange ways. Sometimes not everything though - so you can (and need to) craft convergences of certain objects in order to solve various puzzles.

I'd highly recommend it.

<comment><USER4> I was not so thrilled when playing Braid. First of all I really liked the idea - but after some levels it got cumbersome. Some of the events can not be rolled back totally - so you have some annoying levels, where you have to start from the beginning (at least this is my foggy memory).

The story was absolutely cheesy - I simply lost interest in it. Which is not really something unusual, because I am not a gamer at all.

<comment><USER5> The story was only cheesy if you took it at face value.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_(video_game)#Plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_\(video_game\)#Plot)

<comment><USER6> You can say that about any story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As usual, I've played this one in the IGF. Great game that has that super addictive "one more try" feeling to it. It probably took my about 100 tries to complete the demo level, so it's kinda like Super Meat Boy in that regard. But the difficulty is why it's fun, and the quick loop of dying and trying again works well in an FPS. Recommended and thumbs-up'd.

This is a different game than you probably think it is. It's much more like the embodiment of the Matrix than Braid-like.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, it looks like a great mechanic and I really love to see that mechanic happen. But I believe that FPS don't live from such a mechanic alone. The atmosphere and the balanced, interesting set of weapons is what makes the game or not. Sadly the video does not show much about that area of the game so it's hard to say if it will be super hot or not.

<comment><USER9> One could argue the same thing about Portal, but it was quite successful.

<comment><USER10> Have you actually played Portal? The game is dripping with atmosphere. In fact, I would say it is completely the antithesis of your argument: there is far more to it than just an interesting game mechanic.

<comment><USER11> I remember playing Portal without knowing anything about it. The game mechanics drew me in at first, but my interest waned as it got more difficult, because much as I like puzzle elements, I'm not a hardcore fan.

And just at that point the story took some turns and I was hooked. Amazing game, and I can't imagine the amount of tweaking involved to get the balance just right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Apparently, I missed the excitement of this when it first rolled around. This is the first time I'm seeing this.

I backed them, and I don't often back things. I also don't often play computer games.

I think the comparisons to Braid are great - Braid is one of the rare Computer Games I actually _did_ play and really, really love. I think this has a chance of being a puzzle game with similar levels of awesomeness, if done right.

I'm also _amazingly_ impressed by the prototype that was built in 7 days. I'm not a game dev or close to it, but I'm very surprised by what they managed to get done in such a small amount of time.

<comment><USER13> From technical stand point, I agree. Pretty good result for 7 day work. But as a game, it feels like you gonna play it 1 time and forget about it. If you feel it's worth the money for essentially hour of entertainment with gimmick, good. Otherwise there are much better choices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The demo is nice, but it will probably be relegated to a single player experience.

How could they implement co-op or online multiplayer?

These features turn a game from something that you play once or twice for a few hours into something you keep coming back to.

<comment><USER15> If either player moves, the game moves -- players must coordinate

<comment><USER16> This would be amazing team play. It's bringing back memories of when I played in a top Quake clan when I was a teenager. You could practice and coordinate certain runs, some members sacrificing themselves to capture the flag - however with this the level of complexity and timing actually sounds fun and challenging enough that I'd be interested in starting to game again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I recently played this game at an indie games festival in Berlin.

I'm embarrassed to admit, I didn't realize that the time only moves when I move. It was difficult, but I still managed to beat all levels. I'm curious to see what level design they come up with that utilizes their game mechanic.

</comment><comment><USER18> Cool idea but I think there's much more you can do with the concept. Now it just seems to be about dodging bullets but I may be wrong. I also don't think the name is that fitting but those things tend to grow on you.

<comment> a-nikolaev Not only dodging bullets, they also have this: [http://forgifs.com/gallery/d/198537-1/One-bullet- left.gif](http://forgifs.com/gallery/d/198537-1/One-bullet-left.gif)

I think, this game could make sense if player's arms (and preferably the whole body), were simulated biomechanically correct (at least to some extent) so you had to move your guns and your body efficiently saving milliseconds for doing stuff like in [2] (This is a screenshot from the movie Equilibrium. I'm not a fan if the movie, but the "novelty" of Superhot could be justified only in a combat like that). But such game would probably require very strange controls, making it completely unplayable for most of its target audience.

[2] [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dDg50vH76yU/TjSbzw9G-TI/AAAAAAAABP...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dDg50vH76yU/TjSbzw9G-TI/AAAAAAAABP0/wHFfZhCeiaY/s1600/equilibrium1.jpg)

<comment><USER19> QWOP as an FPS?

<comment> a-nikolaev Don't know. I tried to play QWOP and did not like the controls at all. I tought about something more streamlined, but it's hard to say exactly what would be good controls. Maybe, you can select the target by clicking, and the player's ragdoll finds the most efficient way to target that enemy.. As simple as that but, you still have to think about the mechanics of the body, and use your momentum efficiently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't see a mention of the platform they are targeting anywhere on the kickstarter page. I would donate money if I thought there would be an iOS version, but I am guessing that no mention = windows.

<comment><USER21> from the first paragraph on that page: "PC/Mac/Linux."

<comment><USER22> I think there's something to be said about "headline blindness" (like "ad blindness").

I also came here to ask what platforms were supported, and I read the entire article and watched the entire video. I even searched the page for the word "platform". And still missed it.

If the information is important, it needs to be mentioned in the body text. Putting it in the headline, or in all caps, or in a big box at the top of the page actually makes it invisible to some people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Amazing. I didn't realize it until just now, but this is exactly how I wanted the Star Wars Jedi Knight series to work.

<comment><USER11> Damn, now I'm wishing for a remake of the original Jedi Knight with this mechanic as an integral part of it. Not only because it was by far my favorite game in the series, but also because Jedi Knight always felt like more than 'just' an FPS; it had a lot of puzzle elements in it.

I also would like to one day create my own level. I tried doing this for Jedi Knight, but the Unreal Engine-style negative-space engine and the incredibly buggy (community-created?) editor foiled my attempts :-(.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I felt like Neo from The Matrix ! :-)

</comment><comment><USER25> it has the aesthetics of a raw edgy antichamber, albeit completely different game mechanics, it definitely looks like fun, secondly i am a sucker for indie games and their unusual approaches, and with an oculus this will probably be the bomb.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very very cool game. Seems like it has a lot of cool puzzle opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hasn't this been on Greenlight for a while now?

</comment><comment><USER28> Cue John Woo inspired gameplay (ala Max Payne) ;)

</comment><comment><USER29> looks like a failure to me based on the fund pledge

<comment><USER30> Why does it look like a failure? As far as I can tell, the kickstarter began this morning at 7AM EST, and it has been pledged $10k in the past 2 hours it has been open. It doesn't necessarily mean it will reach its $100k goal, but I don't see how it looks like a failure already.

<comment><USER31> I think its a neat concept that definitely has legs. That said, all of the things they were going to do with the $100k makes me feel like these guys don't know what things cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I was considering backing but for me its pity that game is not for Mobile(Android tablet). I dont play games on PC (except Portal ;) )</comment>