Ask HN: Does web design business still work? - <AUTHOR> I am into web development field and seeing the trend of drag & drop builders like Squarespace and Wix, making developers lose more business. What is the best advice to survive in the market or leave and find other business to work on? <comment><USER2> There are still many business owners out there that don't have time to build their own website with squarespace or wix or maintain it.

Sell them on you building and maintain their website while they do what they do best, run their business. You can handle the design, setup, adding content, updating content adding new content, handling updates and monitoring uptime.

Expand to offer custom web applications (rails/laravel) most businesses can use something custom for their business/data, a simple stripe ecomm setup, surveys, CRM, allow customers to customize and/or price services/products, email/sms alerts for customers, appointment reminders, there are lots of things you could do with businesses and custom web apps.

Talk to them about their business, what are their pain points, how can you solve them with technology, website, forms, web app. Three is still lots of opportunity out there.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think there's a big market out there for custom Web designs, but some part of it has been excluded (thanks to Web builders you've mentioned).

I think small companies that doesn't want an astonishing, unique website has gone to these, as in short term it's cheaper solution.

Most designers I know are no longer searching for I-need-simple-web-design but for clients that need complete design project/guidelines (that includes public facing website and internal admin panel etc.)

</comment><comment><USER4> My last client uses both Squarespace and my current site. Squarespace is great for static information. But it's also lacking things like states. For example, you can't make a habit tracker with it or a marketplace or a condominium management system.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the various builders and tools out there actually made the market bigger. * Building various themes and designs and plugins for various platforms like Shopify and Squarespace and others are a major business, and can provide recurring revenue for an initial investment for a developer * Those builders, no matter how sophisticated, require custom development to reach their potential. The opportunities for consulting are immense. * A custom platform is and will always be superior than a mass produced one. There is always a market for custom work, and today more companies understand how this might benefit them.

</comment><comment><USER6> There are still plenty of people literally living only from web design.

Just because you have access to good Drag&Drop builders does not mean web design or web design programmers (CSS etc) are out of business.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. The builders actually made the market bigger,and at some point some of these folks who use builders run into the limits. Next stop, webdev shop.</comment></comment>


A tale of two coffee machines - Weapon of Influence in action - <AUTHOR> http://blog.smartupz.com/2010/03/tale-of-two-coffee-machines-weapon-of.html

<comment><USER2> I think that this Social Proof is one of the most important factors we take under consideration, also in the internet - how often do you check google search results that are not on one of the first three pages?

And in this case it is also not hard to show that such behaviour is not a winning strategy, if you want to maximalize your chance to make the best choice. But still it seems to be a winning strategy, if you want to avoid making the worst one.

I think the catch here is that people tend to think that they in fact want to make best choices and not just avoid the worst ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> Social Proof is one of the most important automatisms we use everyday. Yet I don't agree that it makes sense to use it to avoid making worst decisions.

Last weeks of Bull market on stock exchange is the best example of the situation where people follow Social Proof and at the same time they are making worst possible thing (buying overpriced stock).

<comment><USER2> I agree that it's a very good example that following Social Proof can be misleading, but I still think it makes sense as a strategy to minimalize the risk of making a very bad decision. I realize that it's preety vague ant thus not exceptionally interesting point though :).

Actually, you can even point out that a decision made by the majority can't be the worst one in a social sense and I don't think it's completely stupid - after all, if you're in a social group and don't know what to do, it's always good to make sure that you won't end up worse that the majority since it happens quite seldom that the majority ends up very bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Summary: an anecdote about a hotel dining room with 2 bean-to-cup coffee machines. One exposes the beans so that users can see it is fresh ground, the other does not. A queue forms for the explicitly fresh coffee whilst the other machine remains largely unused.

Hypotheses: we are pack followers, we like to _see_ our coffee is fresh.</comment>


From Paper to Product: How We Built the New Zaarly - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zaarly.com/post/32015639594/the-paper-trail-behind-building-the-all-new-zaarly

<comment><USER2> Zaarly is a dynamic company which continuously seeks to help provide people with their needs!

</comment><comment><USER3> Zaarly is the best!

</comment><comment><USER4> Great Stuff :)</comment>


Superb.net Dedicated Servers Discounts up to 70% - <AUTHOR> http://www.superb.net/dedicated-servers/server-specials-and-promotions/anniversary.php <comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to spam HN, but thought this was a good deal for anyone needing dedicated hosted servers for their startups. I don't know anyone there, but have heard some good reviews about their services.

If you don't think this belongs on HN, click the flag button. :)</comment>


An overview of elementaryos - <AUTHOR> http://elementaryos.org/discover

<comment><USER2> I don't understand who this is aimed at, or what problem it intends to solve. Is it supposed to be a fully-featured operating system or not?

<comment><USER3> That makes two of us. Apparently some pretty screenshots and vague, meaningless fluff is enough to get to the front page of HN.

As best I can tell, it's a GNOME skin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Didn't I download an install this exact OS a year or two ago? I don't believe they've changed the website, or the OS, in any significant way since then... Not exactly sure why this was posted or how it made front page :|

Oh, and I didn't keep it, can't even remember why (probably because it was just another boring linux distro with nothing particular to offer)

</comment><comment><USER5> So they ripped off the OSX UI completely and then changed a couple of things?

<comment><USER6> They did a better job of ripping off Apple's web site. Impressive commitment there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm so tempted to be snarky as Elementary OS seems to be reinventined everything. But you know what, they seem to be doing a very elegant job of it. God knows that even Marlin in its very unstable state is a god send for the person whose been using Nautilus for the past N years.</comment>


The UK "Porn" Filter Blocks Kids' Access To Tech, Civil Liberties Websites - <AUTHOR> http://bsdly.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-uk-porn-filter-blocks-kids-access.html <comment><USER2> There are many ISPs in England. One of these ISPs is called O2. A service that O2 offers is a whitelist only internet service designed for parents to enable if they wish to give their young children access to a mobile device without concern for the content that the child can access. This whitelist has existed for many many years. This has __nothing__ to do with the UK "Porn filter". Absolutely, categorically... nothing.

Here is a screenshot of one of the actual filters recently implemented (by an ISP called BT) with new accounts defaulting to the "Light" pre-set, which customers must opt out of: [http://i.imgur.com/dWxORfJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/dWxORfJ.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> Although it is not The 'porn' filter itself as promoted by the goverment, it is the exact same thing, under the exact same logic, as implemented by the ISP instead of having been forced by the goverment. So when the legislation comes into effect the particular ISPs will already be compliant with it and the ones currently not having any such filters will have to set them up.

Does changing the settings in BT require any passport details, sex details or UK driving licence number? Also is blocked access to filtered content limited to the content providers the ISP has a commercial relationship with?

Reason for asking is the above applies for the Giff Gaff network(running on top of O2) if you want to have the filter lifted. [http://i.imgur.com/Y3BEKEU.png](http://i.imgur.com/Y3BEKEU.png)

What is sad is that Giff Gaff is supposed to be run by it's own users(i.e. like a cooperative) yet checking at the forums this change was unannounced. Furthermore people that do not have a UK passport or driving licence but live in the UK simply can't lift the filter... [http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff- Ideas...](http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/Adult- content-unlocking-I-am-not-a-UK-passport-holder-and-I-don/idi-p/7375928)

Curiously the URL I was blocked on was a link in the WayBackMachine for a biography of Alfred Bester(sci-fi writer) [http://web.archive.org/web/20120722084039/http://www.empmuse...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120722084039/http://www.empmuseum.org/exhibitions/index.asp?articleID=922)

<comment><USER2> > it is the exact same thing, under the exact same logic, as implemented by > the ISP instead of having been forced by the goverment

No it isn't. That is an optional opt in feature available to customers of O2. A customer has to explicitly opt for the Under 12 filter to be applied to their account. O2 do have an adult content filter that is enabled by default (which requires identity verification to disable) but that does not block access to tech and civil liberty websites, it blocks access to pornography, it is not what this article talks about. There are 2 filters, adult content (default on O2 accounts), U12 (opt in). This article uses the filter status of websites on the U12 list (a whitelist) that has existed for many years and has nothing to do with the government as evidence that the government filter is oppressing children. They have no connection.

I get it, this country wide opt-out filter requirement is bad and it shouldn't be happening, I agree, but whining about something that has nothing to do with it makes absolutely no sense. The O2 U12 filter is fundamentally different, it's an __optional extra __customers can __opt in __to. This article has nothing to do with the "porn filter". Nothing!

<comment><AUTHOR> First of all, it is about blocking by default and opting out(as you mention yourself at least for O2 before editing it to 'opt in', furthemore different providers provide either in or out by default). Then if you look at the img you posted yourself at [http://i.imgur.com/dWxORfJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/dWxORfJ.png) you will see that it is not only about pornography but a dozen other things including areas such as 'Obscene and Tasteless'(?).

The government's job making a law of(and therefore enforcing) the above is easy to justify under the rationale that this thing existed for years(with a few specific ISPs). Now everyone will have to do it, and on top of that it will be the government that will be defining what is 'Obscene and Tasteless' as opposed to a mere ISP.

I understand what you mean too, but my disagreement genuinely has to do with me seeing that both filtering schemes are identical to each other and have the same purpose and effect. Both are opt-out and both do not have to do with pornography only. I sincerely do not see how these can be different.

<comment><USER2> > Both are opt-out and both do not have to do with pornography only. I > sincerely do not see how these can be different.

No they are not. The filtering scheme covered in the submission is the Under 12 O2 filter, that is a filter designed for parents to enable (it's opt in, not opt out) when they wish to give their children access to a mobile device. That filter scheme uses a whitelist, every single website is blocked by default until a person at O2 adds it to the whitelist. This service has existed for many many years and has absolutely nothing to do with the government, it's a feature that O2 added for their customers. O2 do also operate a porn filter, but it is not what this article talks about, it does not block tech articles and civil liberty websites.

The article that you have submitted is FUD. Read this: [http://news.o2.co.uk/2013/12/24/parental-control- questions-a...](http://news.o2.co.uk/2013/12/24/parental-control-questions- answered/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry but in your original post you specified opt-in. In any event, different providers are either opt-in or opt-out, O2 is not the only ISP in UK and the link you share is just the boilerplate text on O2's parental controls policy, so what?

I feel I explained my rationale and there can be no more constructive conversation in the particular thread. As for the article being FUD, sorry darling I guess we'll have to disagree on this one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looking from afar, this type of debate is becoming more interesting to me as a recent parent and as a strong anti-censorship type. As of now I'm thinking that I'll never block my kid from looking at any kind of content. If she happens to come across some nudity or sex and she has questions about it I'll be open and honest and explain it. Life is sex, sex is why we exist, sex is beautiful and sacred. I hope my daughter will have great sex someday, why hide it from her now? The impulse that so many parents have to hide sex from their kids seems like their brain damage that they want to pass on to their kids. And impose it on mine. Their line of thinking is what I wish I could hide from my daughter. But I won't. She'll be exposed to it along with all the other ugly and beautiful things in the real world.

<comment><USER4>
      > As of now I'm thinking that I'll never block my kid from
      > looking at any kind of content. If she happens to come across
      > some nudity or sex and she has questions about it I'll be open
      > and honest and explain it.

There's some really, _really_ nasty stuff out there. _Really_ nasty stuff. Not just people having sex, but some brutal stuff that a medic friend of mine says gave him significant nightmares for some days.

It's not just about nudity and sex. If it were I'd be less ambivalent. As it is I feel that you're being a bit naive.

<comment><USER5> > It's not just about nudity and sex.

Agreed. Even the "just sex" vanilla porn is pretty unhealthy for children to see. That way leads to a skewed and unrealistic expectations and understanding of relationships, sex, and bodies.

<comment><USER6> Media in general gives you skewed and unrealistic expectations about all facets of life. What is special about porn?

<comment><USER7> It's more so. Anyway that's an argument for restricting other media until the kid is ready, not letting them see porn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ridiculous article. Firstly there is no single "UK Porn Filter". Each ISP does their own thing in their own way. Secondly, the writer of this article is apparently surprised that none of the sites they're checking are on a WHITELIST of websites for children under 12, and concluding from this that "The UK Porn Filter Blocks Kids' Access To Tech ... Websites", etc. That's such a complete misunderstanding of the true situation that it's impossible to believe it has been made in error. Drawing the conclusion from this, as some of the article's commenters have, that "the UK Government must really hate open source" is a level of stupidity that has no place on HN.

Make no mistake about what the (non-existent) "UK Porn Filter" is - it's a political stunt from the right-wingers currently in power. As yet it has no legal basis or enforcement and is just a "strong suggestion" from politicians to private businesses. There are ISPs who don't engage in this filtering, and even for those that do, it is not mandatory. (The "on by default" is something that even the compliant ISPs said they would not do, and the politicians announced it anyway. Even where it is implemented and on by default that is only for NEW customers, and the "do you want this filter" question is part of the initial setup.)

I'm strongly opposed to filtering and censorship too, and as I've said before, publicity-seeking politicians wanting to display their "family values" by getting big businesses to "voluntarily" introduce such filtering IS the thin end of the wedge. But, at least now, it's still optional and voluntary, and you absolutely have the freedom to sign up with an ISP who offers no such filter, if you wish to take that stand. (The UK broadband market is pretty open compared to other countries - you're not restricted to one or two ISPs based on your location or phone company, in most cases you can pick any ISP you want to provide you with a service.)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is nothing to do with what he dubs the 'Nanny Tory' initiative.

O2's parental controls is an opt-in whitelist. Only sites like Disney.com etc are allowed. It is presumably intended for when children are left alone with devices like tablets. Seems like a useful service to me.

<comment><USER10> I don't really see what's so useful about giving parents tools to block their children from accessing sites like Childline.

<comment><USER11> You should bookmark this so you can come back and laugh at yourself when you have kids of your own.

<comment><USER12> You do know what Childline is, right? It's a counselling service run by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children that deals with child abuse, teenage pregnancy, bullying etc.

As a parent, why would you want to block that?! I know I wouldn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> UK has turned into an Orwellian surveillance state (I live in Ireland)

Hell I am watching news now and they are about to setup a centralised database of every woman who got breast implants, you couldn't make this shit up!

</comment><comment><USER14> Here is the truth - watch too much porn and you get erectile dysfunction:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU)

Why did it take me decades to find someone able to present that reasonably plausible reason as to why I should definitely not want to watch porn under any circumstances whatsoever?

The argument (with science) in the above TED talk is that if you do watch a lot of porn then you are not going to aroused by real women as much as you should, leading to unsatisfactory bedroom performances. Yep, porn is actually that dangerous.

I might not care for the traditional 'don't watch porn because it is porn'/'think of the children'/'porn exploits women' arguments, however, I do have enlightened self interest and loss of libido is so not what I want to have.

If I was in the UK government I would want to get this message out to kids in schools, not to scare them away from porn for the sake of it, but because they deserve to have 'normal', happy sexual health. By censoring porn they are not going to get this message, in fact they will be further away from it than they are now, doing what they can to get the 'forbidden fruit' instead of knowing why they just should not bother.

Instead of censoring they could have demanded that there be a banner on the pages of porn sites warning that use of porn leads to erectile dysfunction. This would be a proactive move, no harder to get into law than that stupid 'this site uses cookies' directive. They could get the ISPs to do it so porn from outer Mongolia would be suitably warned of too.

We have had a block on mobiles in the UK for some time now. There were no riots in the streets because of this, people are fine with it. The ISPs can take the block off for people and the system just works. This new move is an extension of what we already have, not some Orwell-nightmare-slippery slope thing. The politicians will get their votes, some people will grumble but that will be it.

<comment><USER15> Two things.

1\. This is a TEDx talk, not a TED talk. Very different. TED talks are given by experts, TEDx can be anybody who has something to say.

2\. The science in this talk felt shaky at best. And frankly, from spending even a short period looking into Gary Wilson and his website yourbrainonporn.com, he comes off as an anti-porn conspiracy nut.

I think you need to apply more skepticism to the argument.

<comment><USER14> Points taken. However his talk was the first time that dots were connected for me in a way that made sense to me.

I am far from against banning porn, however, in certain situations some people can get addicted to porn. They may not be physically addicted as per heroin addiction, however, some addiction to porn has crept up on a couple of friends, to have a negative effect on their relationships. At the time I lacked anything helpful to say, a warning that 'erectile dysfunction' is the result of porn addiction might have made things easier.

There are lots of people on the lecture circuit that go on and on and on about one thing. Dawkins is a bit like that, he irritates the hell out of me. Yet, despite his presentation, he is correct.

There are others that have the opinion that porn has a negative effect on male libido, Gary Wilson does actually quote some science in his talk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original poster here, in my opinion the best article I've found online so far showcasing clearly the effects of the so called 'porn' filter, and that it is not at all about safety but control. The list of websites blocked and the nature of the websites is just shocking.

</comment><comment><USER16> This was submitted at least twice last week, does anyone have the link to the original that was on the front page 6 days ago? There were some useful comments.

My search skills are failing me righ tnow and all I've found is this one from 5 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6954463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6954463)

</comment><comment><USER17> The great firewall of UK.

</comment><comment><USER18> Even if it's not actually the 'porn law' itself that's causing this (rather O2's blocklist it seems) - the fact is that it's the same attitudes and discourse underlying both. Both are censorship and both are maintained and supported by the government's position and policies.

<comment><USER19> Customers ask their ISP to supply a blocklist. The ISP supplies a blocklist.

This is what companies should be doing, no?

<comment><USER20> yes, the article is confused about opt-in censorship as a service (for parents, demo tablets at supermarkets etc;) vs opt-out censorship.

I gave a scathing comment last time about the ramifications of opt-out censorship, but in my examples of it working properly opt-in was singled out as being ideal.

FYI, this opt-in filter has been around a few years, I dislike that it also filters explicitly pornographic sites unless you call in (yes, I had o2, yes, I tried) but that seems to have been the norm with a few cellular phone providers (such as T-Mobile).

the thinking is probably along the lines of: "We give sim cards away for free, we don't know who will use them, internet costs very little, we should probably stop the worst stuff just in case of complaints"; contracts are instantly unblocked and the same goes for broadband (because getting a contract means you must be over 18 anyway), at that point it's the responsibility of the contract holder to filter internet for any under-age people on the line.

well, that's how it was, the way it's going is... slightly different.

<comment><USER21> Yes, "this opt-in filter has been around a few years" \-- since 2008 -- and it's not even specifically British. It was announced by TELEFÓNICA and covers "O2 businesses in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany and the Czech Republic".

[http://pressoffice.telefonica.com/documentos/nprensa/PR0808_...](http://pressoffice.telefonica.com/documentos/nprensa/PR0808_Child_Protection_Press_Pack.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Opt in or opt out filter. It makes no difference.

Blocking of these sites should be opposed, loudly.

<comment><USER23> Absolute complete ignorant arrogant rubbish.

First, an opt out is a declaration of perversion or subversion. And opt in is a genuine choice, which IMHO, should be available.

IMHO, every router in a home should have in its config a tick box which concerned parents can tick if they want to. Along side that should be an "advanced" button or link for more knowledgeable parents to tailor the the filter as they see fit. In a home parents should have an _easy_ way to chose. And dont give me nonsense about installing firewalls and what not. That is way out of most normal people's scope. Even I can't be arsed with that, so I dont see why some single mum who works in a supermarket should either.

I also think there should be a simple system for parents to control mobile devices for their kids too. Not hard to work out something reasonable.

While I despise national and ISP level blanket filters and censorship, I fully respect the choices parents might want to take. I have 6 kids, aged 2 - 20, but personally dont and wont filter or censor. However, I am not arrogant enough to tell other parents what to do. I might be very wrong.

Look, on one level I do not want censorship. If I, as an adult, want to watch porn I dont see why I should be humiliated to do so. However, I also see that parents are left in the shit and are expected to be responsible, but have no help to be so. And no, its not good enough for hackers to offer hacker solutions that are not practical for anyone other than hackers.

There has to be a reasonable balance here. And I say it comes in the form of a simple tick box in the router.

Either that, of we agree to free parents of parental responsibility in both law and society.

<comment><USER22> So Alan, I resent ignorant but i'm definitely arrogant enough to tell you when you're misguided.

"opt in is a genuine choice"; it all boils down to this, opt in to what exactly?

We _have no idea_ and noone is accountable for the list. Given this, it makes no difference whether it's an opt in or an opt out. It should be opposed, loudly.

Whether you think these sites are unsuitable for consumption by your kids, it really doesn't matter.

Whether you think a tick box on a router is not hard to work out. Whether you think that'd be a reasonable balance (maybe it would). Whether you think the only 2 options are "give me my tick box" or "absolve parental responsibility", it's all by-the-bye; in today's situation.

Because there's no accountability for this hidden list. There's no checks or balances. My opinions on list content, like yours, don't mean much in this context. There's a bigger problem to deal with first and it's nothing to do with what sites are on the list.

FWIW my personal view, I'm less convinced these days that there even "has to be a balance". The internet is fundamentally a pull medium, not push (despite advertisers best efforts, i can still just drain the battery). So my current thinking leans heavily towards "you can always just choose not to use it".

[1] "these sites": bsdly.net nuug.no usenix.org ukuug.org flossuk.org eff.org amnesty.org.uk slashdot.org linuxtoday.com nostarch.com blogspot.com arstechnica.com openbsd.org undeadly.org freebsd.org geekculture.com linux.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Get ready for more and more of this sort of thing. Parents are too busy to raise their own children. Better let the government take care of that. Soma anyone?

</comment><comment><USER25> It seams, that porn, crimes and terrorism are the honeypots of choice for the voters, to lead them into any form of surveillance and mind-control.

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems legit..

</comment><comment><USER27> Slippery slope of censorship. Censorship placed there by Bilderberg group kissing politicians. What is their real agenda? Map the politicians real group affiliations on nndb.org

Hint the wierd ones almost always: Bilderbergroup, Altalfa, Council on foreign relations, Skull and Bones

<comment><USER28> Seriously? On HN too?</comment></comment>


California county plans to seize underwater mortgages. Resell for profit. - <AUTHOR> http://agbeat.com/real-estate-news-events/california-countys-plan-seize-underwater-mortgages/

<comment><USER2> I don't know that much about this, but it's kind of annoying to me to see the frequency with which governments are protecting people from the negative consequences of their own decisions. I have the vague sense that this happens more than it used to "in the good old days". But I also know that those days are rarely as good as people remember them. Is there any truth to it?</comment>


Students, law prof want RIAA trial live and online - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090107-students-law-prof-want-riaa-trial-live-and-online.html <comment><USER2> As a law student I would love for this to happen. Charles Nesson is a first rate lawyer. We have studied several of his cases in law school so far.

It would be a good learning experience to see an experienced lawyer in action. Sure beats reading hundreds of pages of trial transcripts. Reading a transcript is not the same as seeing the play in person.</comment>


Response Times: The 3 Important Limits (199X) - <AUTHOR> http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html

<comment><USER2> From a few years of testing and several hundred mainstream users I would add to this: 4 seconds -- the trusted progress period: the approximate amount of time you are allowed after the user clicks on something, after which some users begins to suspect that perhaps things are not proceeding on track as expected.

Example: User clicks on a web page link. Half of the next page is drawn (clearly not finished). After about 4 seconds without visible progress, the user will assume that the process has failed. A longer (>4 seconds) page download/draw may be accomplished with progressive feedback.

Example: User enters some text and clicks a Search button in a desktop app. A thermometer control shows initial progress, then stalls. Again, you get ~4 seconds in (apparently) stalled state before the user _starts_ thinking something may be awry. (Time to actual give-up varies more).

Interestingly, lower-resolution progress feedback that includes animation is vulnerable to the same threshold. So for example if instead of the progress thermometer we simply put up an hourglass cursor, we can assume that some users will start to question the integrity of the process after ~4 seconds of watching the hourglass do its usual thing. Likewise with a barber pole/ thermometer that spins but doesn't grow. Normal animation, or rotating slide shows, or whatever other easy-to-display distractions that we have come up with, don't actually address this fundamental problem. I believe habituation teaches even many naive users that those indicators cannot always be trusted. Trusting the integrity of a process, after that 4 second threshold, requires something progressive or novel. This makes getting through any process that takes an unknown amount of time but more than 4 seconds a tricky unsolved problem. I believe a higher level of novelty would extend the threshold considerably, but the real key is demonstrating that the process is still making tangible progress toward a known end goal.

</comment><comment><USER3> Totally agree that you should not separate the web from desktop applications. The user doesn't care. They just want a fast response. Looking at an application like workflowy.com it looks and feels like a desktop app when using it. This is definitely the future.

I think 10 years from now any web page that has a 1 second response delay when clicking on a link or doing something on the site will be considered totally unacceptable usability ... um maybe make that 5 years :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Still true today, and highly applicable.

The most annoying example of a poorly responsive application I can think of right now is the HULU app on my Roku. It is truly appalling, especially when compared with the much much better Netflix app.</comment>


How Morocco is already living in the future - <AUTHOR> https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/44509/1/morocco-afrofuturism-solar-power-climate-change-technology <comment><USER2> Why is the website background slowly changing from light to dark pink? That's distracting from the text in front of it.</comment>


Nuclear Fusion: the long road from dream to reality - <AUTHOR> http://www.paristechreview.com/2015/02/23/nuclear-fusion/

<comment><USER2> I kind of wish that ITER and NIF would go away. In my opinion they are money pits with little clear path to practical energy generation.

There are many credible, practical, small fusion research projects poised to leapfrog the international megaprojects that are being grievously starved of funding and mind-share by those big lumps. [http://www.industrytap.com/us- fusion-funding-call-change/267...](http://www.industrytap.com/us-fusion- funding-call-change/26786)

<comment><USER3> Whatever happened to that shipping box thing the military was evaluating a few years ago that was going to revolutionize everything?

<comment><USER2> Hmm, not sure. EMC2's Polywell (my favorite underdog) project had Navy funding for quite some time, since it would fit handily onto a submarine. The only other boxy generator that I recall was the Bloom box fuel cell. [http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/](http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/) will have a very reasonably sized final product too if their work pans out. Same goes for Lockheed's compact fusion - they're one to watch since they have big money ready and waiting if their experimentation yields progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is also relevant and fascinating: "A Star in a Bottle – The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor" ([http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a- bot...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bottle)). The HN discussion is good: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8307584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8307584).

</comment><comment><USER5> "the fossil reserves (oil, coal and natural gas) are being depleted, while the cost to extract and exploit them is increasing"

Fossil fuel depletion aka peak oil is a fantasy that's been heard for decades.

The costs of extraction are not increasing. Why do you think the fracking business took off - the costs to get to these previously untappable sources dropped.

<comment><USER6> If oil prices fall, fracking is too costly to be economical.

[http://static.cdn- seekingalpha.com/uploads/2014/10/695520_14...](http://static.cdn- seekingalpha.com/uploads/2014/10/695520_14132960335271_0.png)

<comment><USER7> Although low oil price seem to be stopping new wells, it looks like the existing can be profitable down to $40 (as told to me by the folks in western ND). I posted a link a while back showing the breakdown.

<comment><USER8> The industry expects a large number of fracking companies to go bust if oil stays under 60$. Traditional wells are generally profitable at 1/3 that price. Worse, fracking has a lot of up-front cost in oil exploration and wells are there not useful nearly as long so expect US production to fall quickly over the next few years.

The good news is at ~100-150$ it's profitable to directly manufacture oil, but the price needs to stay there for years before companies will do the kind of investments needed to meet current demand.

PS: Oddly enough, on average extracting oil and turning it into gasoline is already a net negative in terms of energy due to all the extraction, transportation, and refining costs.

<comment><USER7> Can you point to your sourcing, I am doing a bit of comparison and I am seeing a bit of oddity in the reporting.

<comment><USER8> Which bit?

[http://www.cnbc.com/id/102094881](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102094881) has some numbers on regional break even prices.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/08/energy- bankruptcy-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/08/energy-bankruptcy- idUSL1N0UN2MA20150108) oil bankruptcy filings also [http://www.cnbc.com/id/102318531](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102318531) "$68 a barrel is not economical for a lot of these shale oil wells. [http://www.cnbc.com/id/102222911](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102222911)

Manufacturing oil: _The new fuel is initially expected to cost around $3 to $6 per gallon, according to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory ... "We 've demonstrated the feasibility, we want to improve the process efficiency," explained Willauer. _ [http://www.ibtimes.com/goodbye-oil-us-navy-cracks-new- renewa...](http://www.ibtimes.com/goodbye-oil-us-navy-cracks-new-renewable- energy-technology-turn-seawater-fuel-allowing-1568455)

<comment><USER7> The CNBC article jive with what I've seen $40 - $70 / $80 is the break even price for shale in ND & Texas (although one section in ND is listed at $36 from other sources). I keep seeing quotes like the second one ($70 in most cases) that quote the top of range. I'm still collecting a bit of research, but it looks like the majority of wells are closer to the bottom than the top.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your favourite geospatial algorithms? - <AUTHOR>

I'm developing with a metric ton of polygon data. As with anything in our field I've been tasked with making our products faster / more scalable.<p>I don't want to reinvent the wheel and I want to see what algorithms are out there for my perusal. I'd prefer original published papers if you've got links like that. <comment><AUTHOR> Here's a good one I read the other day.

Optimal Partitioning for Efficient I/O in Spatial Databases

"It is desirable to design partitioning techniques that minimize the I/O time incurred during query execution in spatial databases. In this paper, we explore optimal partitioning techniques for spatial data for different types of queries, and develop multi-disk allocation techniques that maximize the degree of I/O parallelism obtained during the retrieval. We show that hexagonal partitioning has optimal I/O cost for circular queries compared to all possible non-overlapping partitioning techniques that use convex regions. For rectangular queries, we show that although for the special case when queries are rectilinear, rectangular grid partitioning gives superior performance, hexagonal partitioning has overall better I/O cost for a general class of range queries. We then discuss parallel storage and retrieval techniques for hexagonal partitioning using current techniques for rectangular grid partitioning."

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.16.8...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.16.8088)

</comment><comment><USER2> If you are new to GIS, PostGIS would probably be a good implementation to review.

</comment><comment><USER3> What are you currently using for storing/accessing your spatial data?

<comment><AUTHOR> Depends on the purpose. Our GIS department uses PostGIS for one off analysis. Our interactive mapping engine uses Shapefiles with quadtree indexes.</comment></comment>


Fighting climate change with massive geoengineered forests in Brazil - <AUTHOR> http://www.economixt.com/2009/08/geo-engineering-and-climate-change-can-artificial-tree-farms-really-be-the-answer/

<comment><USER2> Wow, geo-engineering. The Orwellian Earth.</comment>


Heat waves could increase substantially in size by mid-century, says new study - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-10-substantially-size-mid-century.html <comment> ga-vu I think they already "substantially" increased already</comment>


Steve Wozniak: Apple Should Make an Android Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2014/02/woz-interview/

<comment><USER2> As absurd as this sounds, I think he is getting at Apple providing services for Android phones. Which, to me, might be a smart move. Just like they opened up iTunes on Windows, iCloud and its services, might be a good replacement for Google's on Android devices. Maybe sometime in the future when they make the services better</comment>


Don't tell me your tv supports Twitter (part 2) - <AUTHOR> http://elshawwa.blogspot.com/2010/09/dont-tell-me-your-tv-supports-twitter.html <comment><USER2> We recently bought a 5.1 Samsung sound system for the home after the original TV speakers died. There's all kinds of weird Internet enabled junk on it, including Twitter. The Interface is slow and clunky (and appears to be based on Java if the logos are to be believed). I'd struggle to see why anyone would use Twitter on something like this, especially without a keyboard.

Then again I'm writing this comment from my couch on my TV via a Mac Mini... Maybe there is a space for a decent implementation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. I'm just saying that its not just about accessing Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, NetFlix etc. Those are just marketing tactics that remind me of telecom tactics back in the early days of the iPhone. Clearly the iPhone/Android has shown that its all about the apps, not the phone. I think that "war" will start to move on to TVs where someone like GoogleTV and maybe AppleTV (at some point) will have apps for your TV, while others like Samsung will boast about Twitter, Facebook, and NetFlix.

I'd put my money on the guys behind your own personalized apps for your tv.</comment></comment>


JavaScript Growing Pains: From 0 to 13,000 Dependencies - <AUTHOR> https://pragmaticpineapple.com/javascript-growing-pains-from-0-to-13000-dependencies/ <comment><USER2> One can see why this happens when packes like [1] and [2] not only exist, but are frequently used.

[1] [https://www.npmjs.com/package/is-even](https://www.npmjs.com/package/is- even)

[2] [https://www.npmjs.com/package/is-odd](https://www.npmjs.com/package/is- odd)

EDIT: my favourite part, is-even depends on is-odd.

[https://github.com/jonschlinkert/is- even/blob/master/index.j...](https://github.com/jonschlinkert/is- even/blob/master/index.js)

<comment><USER3> I immediately thought: "But no one would actually add that dependency!" Only to see 120k weekly downloads of is-even.

I... don't understand...

<comment><USER4> It's not _just_ checking if the number is odd. It checks if the input is a number (modulus on a non-Number value returns a NaN in JS), if it's an integer (not strictly necessary I guess), and if it's within the bounds of JS's safe integer range (again, you'll get a NaN if the number is too big). If you want to make sure your code is safe those _are_ sensible things to check.

A lot of JS devs wouldn't bother check those things, so really a lot of code is _improved_ by this library. It's kind of a shame that so many developers just skip over checking inputs really. That's the real problem.

<comment><USER5> The obvious solution would be to have some stdlib or even a common-utils project or something like it, which contain all such items. In one package.

Because, indeed, no-one should be rewriting obvious code like isArray, leftPad, isEven and so on.

Yes, that might cause _some_ overhead in some situations (when you need isOdd, but not leftPad). But I'm certain that overhead is minimal. In practice, however, we currently see dependency-trees where these "should-be-stdlib" modules like "leftPad" or "isArray" are repeated numerous times in one project.

Any stdlib could even be optimized by browsers and engines, turning that "overhead" into a net benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> JavaScript really needs a proper standard library. Has any sort of central authority ever tried to drive this forward? Maybe it should fall upon the ECMA people to get this done, seeing as they're the ones that define the ESx specs? I don't think npm/node is the answer either, this needs putting together from scratch without being too bloated, much like the C or C++ stdlibs.

<comment><USER7> > JavaScript really needs a proper standard library.

Well, Deno ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deno_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deno_\(software\))) has that as one of its explicit goals. As well as fixing a lot of the other grown idiosyncrasies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The only way for this deluge to stop is when big packages adopt a 'as little deps as possible' attitude. React clearly did so with only 22 deps, it's time for others like webpack to do the same.

<comment><USER9> That, or for the JavaScript community to get their shit together and start investing in a modular standard library a kin of C++'s Boost to bundle basic functionality.

<comment> the-dude Smells like jQuery.

<comment><USER9> > Smells like jQuery.

It does, if all you care about is mainly DOM stuff. That usecases is taken out of the table once you adopt any framework such as React, Vue, Angular, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How many of 13000 dependencies are duplicates in different versions? Would it help if npm didn't allow more than one version of a dependency? If I understand correctly, now you aren't even warned if you have transitive dependencies to two versions of a library?

</comment><comment><USER11> I was a javascript enthusiast till a short while ago.

But now I strongly encourage every developer to look at .net core and asp.net for web development.

The entry is a slightly steep learning curve, but its well worth it. Especially if you are a lone developer, deploying to a vm in the cloud, the cost savings due to the enhanced throughput itself is substantial.

Creating a web api is a breeze.

Standard websites with a few pages and some forms can take advantage of razor pages.

And Blazor is an awesome alternative to React/Angular/Vue etc.

Edit : Also, the full tech stack, including developer tools are open source, as in with proper licensing. And the open source dev tools experience is also very very good. VS Code is an awesome IDE.

<comment><USER12> Thank you for writing this. I saw how well ASP.NET Core performed in the 2020 Stack Overflow Developer Survey and I was curious to hear from people who have had good experiences with it.

[0] [https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology- mo...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved- dreaded-and-wanted-web-frameworks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The author left out another option. Run away from JS ecosystem when you can. Unfortunately, it's not possible for client-side code on the web.

<comment><USER14> We're at peak JS and WASM hasn't managed to get their JS integration done to any acceptable degree. Where do we go from here? Simply avoiding the web isn't viable at this stage.

<comment><USER15> We used to have more options. There was Flash and Java. Flash is insecure, Java too (it's basically running code that can do anything a native executable can do). Java also has the competing JVM problems, backwards compat,... But instead of getting our hands dirty and fixing the issues, the powers that be decided to throw away all the hard work from the past and move to WASM which is incomplete, barely supported and will have the same security issues Flash and Java had once it gets more broader adoption. And so the circle continues.

<comment><USER16> Java had sandboxing from the beginning. There were some bugs that allowed client code to escape the sandbox, but it wasn't nearly as bad as some people made it out to be. I'd dare to guess that Javascript has had more sandbox- escaping bugs than Java has had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Something that may not be obvious: JavaScript absolutely, can not under any circumstances, break backwards compatibility. If JavaScript breaks backwards compatibility, it literally breaks the web.

Most of the complexity we're seeing in projects is around that constraint applied to 'modern' JavaScript - we have to translate all of our modern code into older code that older browsers can still understand. JavaScript can't just forget the past right now - there might be a point in the future where it's given the IE6 treatment: "if you're using a browser that can't support a standard that is 10+ years old, tough, you need to upgrade." But we have to all move there, together, as an industry. It took a long time for us to dump IE6 in that way, it'll take a while before we can dump ES5.

This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no standard library in JavaScript. Check out some of webpack's dependencies: [https://github.com/webpack/webpack/blob/master/package.json#...](https://github.com/webpack/webpack/blob/master/package.json#L14-L23). A lot of these are replicating basic functionality a standard library should provide.

But we can't just blame this on environmental factors - a lot of this feels very much self inflicted. For example: node provides a file system utility for but wepack is using a different one. Maybe the fs utility can't solve all of their problems and they need an extended one. Instead of just using the standard file system and dealing with the quirks of it, we have to write a new, slightly better one and use that instead. Locally, it might make sense for webpack to do that, but when you do it in aggregate across the industry, you end up with the death by a thousand cuts situation we find ourselves in.

<comment><USER18> To me it is preferable to write JavaScript like it is 10 years ago (using slightly more rudimentary functionality) than to deal with transpiler hell and write shiny ES6 code. Old tech gets the job done and if you are aiming for stability, is probably a better choice. I know it isn't exactly a fair comparison, but C developers don't code everything in C18 and then transpile to C99 for maximum platform operability (I hope). We usually just use the older standard until the shiny new one is supported on the platforms we care about. I may know of one or two legacy C89 code bases that still exist that have not caused the sky to fall yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can you imagine trying to find 22 New packages for your Java application?

</comment><comment> awinter-py > there's not much you can do except be aware of what you add to your project > ... try to avoid nested dependencies when possible

how? cultural expectations around transitive dep size?

I'm _certainly_ making decisions about graph complexity when designing software in house (avoid circular import deps in code, be careful about call depth in service graph)

But I've given up doing this for 3rd party deps in JS, except _maybe_ at the point where `npm install` starts to bog down and I'm like 'this one isn't for me'

</comment><comment><USER20> Why is javascript (seemingly) so much more prone to dependency hell?

Is it just the standard library falling short?

<comment><USER21> \- Standard lib falling short \- No control over the execution env (user's browser), which mean we need polyfills, transpilers, abstractions \- Web is everywhere => JS needed for many many things => lots of library for all sorts of stuff => common problems extracted in small libs (which is has good and bad aspects) \- Last point exacerbated by JS being a frontend and a backend language \- Developpers tend to be more junior in average (not sure that's actually true, it's believable but never seen numbers) \- NPM made it painless to add dependencies, so that's what happens

<comment><USER22> A bit also stems from the fact that NPM installs dependencies as trees. I.e., if you and two of your dependencies use is-odd, you will have three copies of it laying around, possibly in different version.

<comment><USER5> And now I'm stuck wondering why anyone ever would need to release a new version of isOdd. Apparently isOdd had 6 releases. Does that mean that the previous 5 times they had "calculating if a number is odd" wrong?

<comment><USER22> Looking at the commit history, they've mostly added checks for edge cases: [https://github.com/jonschlinkert/is- odd/commits/master](https://github.com/jonschlinkert/is-odd/commits/master)

Which is, to be fair, exactly the reason you'd use a library like this.

<comment><USER5> > Which is, to be fair, exactly the reason you'd use a library like this.

There is a crucial nuance here:

Which is, to be fair, exactly the reason you'd use a library.

With which I mean to emphasize that -indeed- libraries are crucial. But nano- libraries, like nano-services are an antipattern.

This could be a stdlib (ideally), a bundle (like Lodash) or even a numberUtils. Having a gazillion packages that have a rediculous biolerplate- to-code ratio, contain just one (well evolved!) function and so on, is doing more harm than good.

A library "like this" is harmful. If only because it gives people an argument, or just the idea that libraries are stupid and should be avoided.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One of my big reasons why I like Typescript. It doesn't have any dependencies. Sure it's a big package but very self contained.

Don't use Babel if you don't want a gazillion dependencies.

The JavaScript ecosystem is vast, with many tools and trade offs.

</comment><comment><USER24> The problem is really not as big as most commenters here make it out to be.

With most modern bundlers, bundle size is rarely the problem anymore. NPM audit helps detecting and fixing security vulnerabilities of dependencies. And build process breaking because of dependencies is rather a sign of having a bad CI pipeline.

I am not saying it is great to have many dependencies, but it's really not THAT bad.

<comment><USER22> The problem is really not the size or the number of files (both a pretty manageable by modern hardware), but that you execute mostly unverified code by several thousand people. It only takes one of those to go rogue to have your data siphoned, your drive encrypted ... you name it.

Sure, big projects (hopefully!) watch their dependencies, but you auditing 13k packages is simply impossible. And, given how much these numbers explode, it unfortunately seems like people simply add a dependency without doing their due diligence.

<comment><USER24> This is what `npm audit` is for. It's not perfect obviously, but it should prevent the worst.

Besides, my guess is that the vast majority of developers do not verify their dependencies in the first place. No matter if it's number is 5 or 5000.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Just thinking about npm makes me feel really ill.

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't believe "13,000 dependencies" is counting the right thing at all. In actual fact, I think the number is only 756 or 691, depending on how you count it.

If you look at the eventual package-lock.json and filter it to just lines containing "resolved", it's only 756 lines, because it does plenty of deduplication. I don't have the time to waste on installing it all myself to check, but I _think_ it fails to deduplicate some that could theoretically be deduplicated, because of incompatible versions: I _think_ that if you have dependencies _a_ → _x@1_ , _b_ → _x@2_ , _c_ → _x@1_ and _d_ → _x@2_ , it'll pick one of those versions of _x_ (no idea how it chooses—first it encounters, perhaps?) to sit at the top-level node_modules, and any packages that need another version will install their own version, so that in this situation you might get node_modules/x (version 2, used by b and d), node_modules/a/node_modules/x (version 1) and node_modules/c/node_modules/x (version 1, again). I say this based upon very vague recollections of things I read and interacted with years ago, and the structure of package-lock.json; I may be wrong in the details of it.

This way of having multiple copies of the same version of the package is the difference between 756 and 691—there are 65 exact duplicates. For example, you get debug-2.6.9 at the top level, and then within other dependencies, you get three copies of debug-3.2.6, and five of debug-4.1.1. That's just one example. There are eight copies of four different versions of kind-of. After excluding these exact duplicates, there are then another 67 cases of multiple versions of the same package being installed (kind-of's four versions is the most).

A few days ago I looked at a case that was double the size of all this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23488713#23490055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23488713#23490055).

When you get duplicates with incompatible versions like this, it strongly implies unmaintained, or occasionally incorrectly maintained, software. If they all got their act together and simply updated to the latest version of all their dependencies, the number of packages you'd install would not exceed 624.

Look, it's still a lot, and I scorn many of them as unnecessary and oft counterproductive frivolities, and there's way too much overlap in many of them; but 13,000 is just a shock number that doesn't represent what people expect it to represent, or match what they're concerned about.

(Also this number doesn't mean you're taking code from over six hundred sources; some things are just split up into multiple packages because they genuinely are separate concerns; for example, there are 93 packages named @babel/*, indicating first-party code from Babel.)

</comment><comment><USER27> The weekly JavaScript/NPM bashing thread is there. I started to fill my bingo grid.

<comment><USER9> The fact that this problem is discussed weekly should be enough to raise a red flag.

<comment><USER27> It's very repetitive and such a minor problem isn't enough to justify a red flag in my humble opinion.

<comment><USER28> It's a minor problem until it becomes a major one. All it takes is one common dependency to go rogue or a bug to be exploited without the maintainers being around to fix it and a large part of the ecosystem becomes unusable. Using a dependency implies an element of trust and now we have a huge web of trust between thousands of maintainers that we really have no way to check. The larger that number grows, the higher the chance of catastrophic failure.

<comment><USER27> Indeed you can't trust that many people and check all the code of that many dependencies. It's a chain of trust, but how is it different than other parts of your stack?

Do you trust every employee working on the Intel CPU microcode? Every maintainer of the Linux kernel? The people who maintain the glibc? The developers of V8 and nodejs? Do you do the same for your database? Your cloud provider? The codebase of your business partners?

I would guess you don't, despite most of what I cited being highly critical in terms of security, and some being written in memory unsafe programming languages with tons of critical issues all the time.

If a NPM dependencies goes rogue, you will get notified. It will also do the frontpage of HN and be mentioned in a comment of news about javascript for years.

But what will most likely happen : a maintainer will fix the issue. If the maintainer is in jail because s•he killed someone, well, someone else can still maintain it or someone else will fork it and other maintainers will use the fork.

In practice when a NPM dependencie of your project has a security issue, all you have to do is to accept a pull request from a robot on Github.

I know it's not perfect, but it's really not that bad.

<comment><USER28> You bring up very good points. I certainly don't trust most if any of the other critical pieces of the stack. I think those are attack vectors or points of failure as well and that risk needs to be mitigated. But on the other hand, the NPM package web is much larger and the barrier to entry is much lower so I would consider it to be much higher risk than the rest of the stack.

We as an industry need to put work into reviewing, simplifying, and increasing visibility at all levels of the stack, especially firmware. We're building high and fast and while standing on the shoulders of giants is a great place to be, we need to make sure the giant is more than just a house of cards.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Godot 1.1 Out - <AUTHOR> http://www.godotengine.org/wp/godot-1-1-out/

<comment><USER2> _" Python-based scripting language, designed to make games."_

:(</comment>


The True Valuation of Tesla? - <AUTHOR> http://trypital.com/research <comment><AUTHOR> Pital just launched its research section where instead of blogging, we utilize our valuation and projection software on public and private businesses. Take a look and let me know what you think!

Best, Joe</comment>


Microsoft to Explore Using Rust - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-explore-using-rust/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting that someone in Microsoft is talking about Rust, but the article is very flawed. For example,

> C#, a programming language developed by Microsoft, also features some memory > access improvements but is not as advanced as Rust. [..] Besides [Rust] > being superior to C# in regards to better memory protections

That's false, isn't it? C# is a memory safe language, period. It relies on GC for that.

In fact C# has arguably better memory safety than Rust because you can do things safely in C# that you would be forced to use 'unsafe' in Rust for. (Granted, then you have overhead from GC, but that's not what the author is talking about.)

> Rust is also more popular with developers these days and might be easier to > recruit for.

The author has misinterpreted what "most loved" means in the quoted survey: it means that _among Rust developers_ , it gets a very high rating. That says nothing about how big that group is, nor how popular it is in the general population of developers.

The Rust community is growing but still very small - it's an emerging language. Almost everyone that uses it _decided_ to use it because they like it. (That doesn't diminish the accomplishment - there are other emerging languages that are not as loved by their users.)

<comment><USER3> > C# is a memory safe language, period

It's quite possible that what the author intends by "memory protections" is broader than what is captured by "memory safety"; e.g., the borrower checker is, in a sense, a way of protecting memory from unexpected changes in parallel tasks.

<comment><USER4> Is the author's purported "wording" in the article from extensive coding experience in rust and c#, or _any_ other language?

Or, did someone prod a journalist with little familiarity in programming theory, to write positive "spin" on Rust being explored by Microsoft? Is it even news for the world's largest software company (by market cap), to explore the use of emerging languages?

<comment><USER3> > the author's purported "wording"

I missed the part where whether the author used words and, if so, which words they were was a matter of controversy.

<comment><USER4> > "memory protections" is broader ...

That's the part you cited, and went on to imply the author might be referring to Rust's borrower checker. Nothing from the author's "wording" implies knowledge of Rust's memory protection techniques

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "70% of all Microsoft patches are for memory-related bugs".

This says a lot. I'm sure Microsoft has very smart and competent engineers, yet they still get all these bugs. It's because manual memory management is really, really hard.

I'm baffled to keep hearing some people saying that manual memory management is okay when the evidence is this huge.

Perhaps for very simple programs is okay to do manual memory management, but for complex ones like most of them nowadays, it seems close impossible for humans to write safe programs.

<comment><USER6> Keep in mind that, in kernel mode, things like garbage collection just won't work!

<comment><USER7> Could you please expand on this. When garbage collection works in applications and webservers that handle large number of requests, why wouldn't it work in OS kernel?

<comment><USER8> GC can create noticeable pauses in the whole windows UX because windows scales vertically in a machine not horizontally in a DC. And per another comment I made, if your OOM handler needs to JIT it can be catastrophic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The historic data related to memory access is really damning, 70% of CVE's are memory access related, and that hasn't changed significantly over the years charted, 2004 to 2018.

What's annoying in this article is that it doesn't come right out and say that MS is considering offering a full Windows SDK with a Rust API. The closest I see the article come to mentioning this is: "Exploring the use of a memory- safe language such as Rust would provide an alternative to creating safer Microsoft apps.

But Thomas also argues that third-party developers should also be looking into memory-safe languages as well. He cites reasons such as the time and effort developers put into learning how to debug the memory-related security flaws that crop up in their C++ apps."

It would be interesting to know if a Rust native API is something being actively worked on at MS.

BTW, MS does ship Rust in a product today, the VSCode editor/ide uses ripgrep for search, which the article fails to mention as well.

<comment><USER10> > What's annoying in this article is that it doesn't come right out and say > that MS is considering offering a full Windows SDK with a Rust API. The > closest I see the article come to mentioning this is: "Exploring the use of > a memory-safe language such as Rust would provide an alternative to creating > safer Microsoft apps.

Creating a fully Rustified Windows API interface would be a massive task. The WinApi is vast and parts of it are ancient. It's practically a living history of Windows. And that's before you get to the more modern COM and UWP stuff.

What they might offer is a more focused subset.

<comment><USER11> We (primarily Patrick Reisert, I'm trying to contribute a bit) have been working on WinRT support for Rust. It is a work in progress but is already usable now, with some missing capabilities such as UI support. [https://github.com/contextfree/winrt- rust](https://github.com/contextfree/winrt-rust)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if this applies to Windows at all (and in which parts). Windows Longhorn (using this name for the two years of effectively scrapped work on Vista) was written in c# but abandoned. The best reason I've heard is that the GC wasn't suitable for an OS, especially in edge cases. For example, the C++ code I wrote at Microsoft had to gracefully handle an out of memory situation after any alloc (including setting the STL to not throw exceptions). An out of memory exception in C# can be catastrophic if the handler had to JIT in low level OS code.

<comment><USER12> There's also Midori written in a spin off language of C# by Microsoft:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_\(operating_system\))

<comment><USER8> I was fascinated with Midori as a Microsoft employee but nearly 10 years later I've resigned that it will probably be forever a research toy and not be subject to the same scrutiny as Windows.

<comment><USER13> Midori was laid to rest a few years ago. Production OS kernels in GC'd languages remain a pipe dream.

<comment><USER8> I'm still holding out for Fuchsia, which is partially built in Go and Rust:

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

<comment><USER13> Last I checked all the kernel bits were in C++.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Besides being superior to C# in regards to better memory protections, Rust is also more popular with developers these days and might be easier to recruit for"

Citation needed. I'm quite sure the pool of C#/.NET devs right now is quite a bit larger than the pool of Rust devs, to be honest, if anything for the sheer amount of headstart that C# has got over Rust.

<comment><USER15> Especially as he mentions SO:

C#: 450 asked today, 2548 this week

Rust: 14 asked today, 82 this week

Yeah, sooooo much more popular.

<comment><USER16> There might also be the aspect that Rust programmers ask fewer questions due to the fact for example that C# might be taught in a university whereas Rust programmers come to the language mostly on their own.

<comment><USER17> Would that not skew questions toward Rust, where people rely on online resources to learn the language and cannot first ask questions ~~during office hours~~ on piazza?

<comment><USER18> I hang out a every once in a while in the Rust discord (official and comminity) and theres always a bunch of questions, probably close to the amount of what SO shows. I haven't dipped into it myself but from what I hear the Rust book (available for free on their site) and documentation are _really_ good. So maybe that in combination with other tutorials is a reason why SO isnt so active. It's a similar deal with Elixir, elixir SO isnt too active because almost everything is asked on the Elixir forums, so if you go with SO as your sole popularity meter you're not always going to come away with accurate conclusions.

<comment><USER16> Can you link to the Rust Discord servers?

<comment><USER19> [https://discordapp.com/invite/rust-lang](https://discordapp.com/invite/rust- lang) for the team's server

[https://discordapp.com/invite/aVESxV8](https://discordapp.com/invite/aVESxV8) for the community server

<comment><USER16> thx

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If MS is serious about this, I'd like to see them make Rust a first class option for Windows kernel development. There are a lot of drivers that really should be "rewritten in Rust".

<comment><USER21> Eventually they should get there, but I don't think that the Rust ecosystem is ready for that.

Experimenting works the best when MS doesn't yet commit to external Rust API, but writes new code in Rust (especially CVE bug fixes) and transforms gradually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article is a reblog of Microsoft's post: [https://msrc- blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/16/a-proactive-appro...](https://msrc- blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/16/a-proactive-approach-to-more-secure-code/)

</comment><comment><USER23> If this goes anything like their "exploring integrating Python into Excel", in 18 months we'll have heard no more about it and it will be presumed abandoned.

<comment><USER24> in both cases, it was teams/users within Microsoft and not Microsoft itself, was it not?

Dunno, I'm glad there are teams looking at things outside of Microsoft developed technologies. NodeJS receiving kudos for being so good at serving requests lead to articles about how it could be done in ASP.NET (with some rearchitecting of the ready bake application code) which apparently gave way to ASP.NET Core and I'd say if all of that is true, we're all better for it (ASP.NET developers, anyway).

<comment><USER23> I'll definitely agree with that. Broadly, I like the direction Microsoft has been headed in, I guess I'm just disappointed that there has been no more information (even them saying they've shelved the idea) after the huge outpouring of support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is interesting coming from MS! I've used a lot of VM/GC languages and IMO C# is the best of them all. All the things people complain the most about, like type erasure in Java, or lack of generics in Go, are done right in C#.

I used it for years and don't have any major complaints.

Hearing that the company with the "best" language (all subjective) is interested in Rust is exciting.

<comment><USER26> It looks like it's more about breaking into the C++ domain than the C# domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Get ready for R#.

<comment><USER28> This language should be called `Visual Difficult` since it seems to offload memory management to the human; while the compiler aggressively critiques them. It is safe though; as in fool proof.

<comment><USER29> "Visual Difficult"

I belly laughed. And I really needed to just then. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I thought Microsoft has already been using Rust and contributing to its ecosystem indirectly via its developers such as Actix and Actix-web, although it might just be that the author happens to work for MS while building it in spare time.

<comment><USER19> Microsoft has been using Rust for several things; this is a broader announcement for a broader audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Interesting, I would have expected doubling down on c# and .net maybe some compile to native. Obviously not for low level, but the stats are not clear on if it's general subsystems and applications or low level either

<comment><USER32> Microsoft uses a lot of different techs. Isn't a lot of their cross platform and web code for office 365 build with React?

That doesn't mean they aren't moving forward with .Net or C#, but the main thing they want to sell to developers in 2019 is Azure where it used to be enterprise licenses for VS and windows server. And they don't need C# for that.

Also, they seem to be wanting Rust as a replacement for C and C++, so it's probably mostly unrelated to C#.

<comment><USER33> Yes, they announced at BUILD the new React Native for Windows using WinUI (UWP update).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anyone see an article that says bad things about rust? these articles are shitty.</comment>


How Jack Dorsey Runs Both Twitter, Square - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/article_email/how-jack-dorsey-runs-both-twitter-square-1450713601-lMyQjAxMTA1OTI5MTUyMDE5Wj <comment><USER2> I think his status as a single child-free person goes understated in this article. It takes a special kind of husband/wife to be okay with someone who works this hard and not having to juggle a home life frees up his schedule to a huge degree. I can imagine working hard 18hr days while still in my 30s, but I cannot imagine doing that while maintaining a marriage and taking care of a kid or two. The guy is a billionaire so I guess he could pay for full time staff to help out but that isn't really the same as being there in person.

<comment><USER3> Plenty of executives work long hours. In fact I imagine most do. I can't find it, but I remember reading where Scott McNealy talked about his dad working long hours as an executive at GM.

Elon Musk has 5 kids, as another example.

<comment><USER4> Except Elon only gets the kids for only half the time (shares custody with his ex-wife) and has a current wife and nannies taking care of the kids when he has them. He mentioned in videos that he doesn't get to spend that much time with his kids.

Just because it's possible for executives to work long hours, it doesn't mean it's healthy for their family life to.

<comment><USER5> Why does one have 5 kids if there's little intention* to spend time with them? Surely he's bright enough to grok birth control?

*I'm not a believer in "doesn't get", rather it's "doesn't want".

<comment><USER6> Maybe he was more interested in spending time with their mothers than with the kids... Very few parents prioritize their kids before themselves even if many feel that is what they one is supposed to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would you guys agree that Jack Dorsey is a good CEO? And one of his roles as a CEO is to be able to motivate the employees towards the mission and vision of the company? And one would also be able to delegate tasks accordingly?

Also, would you guys agree that working hard for more than 16 hours a day for an extended period of time (months) is not really productive? Even more, I'd even say unhealthy and almost unrealistic (Yes, there are special cases).

I am predicting that Jack Dorsey spends less effort on most tasks and his most cognitive demanding task is about making tough critical decisions. Would you guys agree on this?

Now, why is it that some writers like to make CEOs look like gods? I wish there was a platform where you can rate writers based on their work. I'm pretty sure making them look like gods is very unhealthy for the community. Like doesn't these kind of articles piss you off?

<comment><USER8> > Would you guys agree that Jack Dorsey is a good CEO?

No, from what I've heard, Square isn't a particularly nice place to work - with very poor work-life balances throughout the company, and Dorsey micro- manages every little detail of design and product.

Twitter, on the other hand doesn't appear to be doing particularly well, as evidenced by the current share price, and the large amount of criticism from the tech community targeted at them.

<comment><USER9> Not that I have an opinion on Twitter, but

> and the large amount of criticism from the tech community

has never been a particularly good oracle (Apple and Microsoft are two prominent examples).

<comment><USER10> Apple was lauded for years by the tech world for many reasons: dominance in audio/video/image production, the switch to a bsd based os, their dev kits, etc...

Microsoft has suffered greatly from the tech world's hatred. And, one has to wonder how different the mobile world would be if MS had built a better/more open community around their brand.

The techies, developers, etc... are the early adopters. They are the ones that are needed to keep your products fresh and relevant. Once they leave, the company is left with the unwashed masses and the platform stagnates (e.g. Microsoft).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Jack actually walked out of the Twitter meeting where they were explaining the layoffs to the leftover employees. I'm sure he had an important meeting though.

<comment><USER12> FTA even the chairman of the board who, by definition, is Jack's direct boss had to taxicab him to have their weekly one on one. I am not sure I buy this, unless Jack is avoiding these meetings. WTF else is Jack doing? For God's sake, the other guy is not just some type of investment bank MBAs, he's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Kordestani](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Kordestani) and was early employee and executive at both Netscape and Google.

I really think the future is bleak for both Twitter and Square.

<comment><USER13> He has a pretty hot girlfriend. I follow her on Instagram and based on her Instagram posts it looks like she and Jack jet set around the world traveling pretty constantly. Lots of art galleries, fashion shows, film festivals type stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Poorly?

I am surprised that boards allowed him to do this. Even if he manages to do some of the time, there is no way to do this well all of the time.

<comment><USER15> For what it's worth, he's done this before.

[http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/13/technology/dorsey_techonomy/](http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/13/technology/dorsey_techonomy/)

<comment><USER16> Isn't that interesting? Everything that's old is new again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article is as bland as it gets. How does Jack Dorsey run both Twitter and Square? By managing his time. Of course, we know he manages time, which is the biggest constraint in accomplishing the task of managing two companies. How exactly does he manage time? Said that, I believe the only reason this is in news is because some investors are worried that Jack Dorsey being a CEO of two companies will affect the company's performance, and this article is sharing Twitter/Square's view that Jack Dorsey isn't alone and that there are other CEO's who did that.

</comment><comment><USER18> Aren't both Twitter and Square not doing so well? Maybe he should focus on one, or learn to delegate better instead of working 18-hour days.

<comment><USER19> compared to what? they are two of the most successful tech companies built in the last decade

<comment><USER20> They really aren't. Or at least if they are it's a terrifying commentary on tech companies because neither of them have ever actually made money.

<comment><USER19> in terms of returns for investors/founders/early employees, yes they are, and twitter is undoubtedly in terms of reach/impact one of the most important tech companies in the last decade, whether they actually sustain moving forward is another question

<comment><USER21> So was pets.com at its time (and countless others). The time scale is different, but ... if twitter crashes and burns soon because it can't make any money, it will have left more impact on the history books, but ultimately will be remembered as "a facebook like also-ran, that only had a whats-on-your-mind line"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I typically work 14-20 hours a day, as a DevOps. Sounds crazy, yeah. This is an illness. I am depressed, and also bored. I am compulsive to working and sitting in front of a computer. And finally, I am super micro-manage. I like things to be done in my way. Now, I can't get up early in the morning because the lack of sleep. I don't understand how he can be on time every day and manage to work 18 hours a day. This guy is just nut, to be honest. Rumor has it that he's trying to be Steve Jobs or someone similar. My bet is he's just very controlling.

</comment><comment><USER23> Jack Dorsey cut a deal with Starbucks that's lost $100k every day for three years -- and gave up equity and a board seat for the privilege.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, but it came with a bunch of free advertising at the time. Square also thought Starbucks would help Square launch new customer-facing products because of Howard Schultz's board seat, but that never materialized.

I think it was a good deal at first, but definitely wasn't worth it over the long haul. Square was betting that Starbucks would help them in exchange for subsidizing their payment processing, but Starbucks pretty much just stuck to the contract they signed.

<comment><USER23> You can buy a lot of advertising for $100k a day. More importantly, you can stop buying that advertising when the product doesn't catch on. Dorsey pulled the product in 2014 and is still paying close to a Super Bowl spot every month to advertise it.

<comment><USER24> I don't think anyone at Square thought it was a good deal for the last two years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think it is premature to judge his performance as of yet. If he makes both companies succeed, it will be worth a post-mortem to figure out what worked. If not, then there really isn't going to be much of interest to talk about.

I'd suggest everyone revisit this in a year.

</comment><comment><USER26> why dont both companies develop PRO features?

Imho Twitter should be offering a PRO feature for easier handling of accounts with large amounts of followers, with increased analytics, possibilities for promotion etc.

Square is already charging a fee on transactions (as it should) but imho it should also aim at beeing the number 1 provider of POS hardware to merchants, and again deliver a pro offering, with analytics of revenue, customerbase and much more.

</comment><comment><USER27> I read somewhere that the purpose of monks for society was to meditate outside of the demands and temptations of daily life, allowing them to make the wisest and clearheaded decisions. Jack Dorsey kind of reminds me of that.

</comment><comment><USER28> Jack is a genius at starting things.

However, he has yet to prove that he's good at finishing them. Twitter seems unfinished. Square has stopped putting panic into PayPal.

</comment><comment><USER29> I would hesitate to invest in either of these companies they each have a CEO that isn't fully focused on only the company.</comment>


FedEx customs duty fee a convenience that makes them a lot of my money - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.denverpost.com/thebalancesheet/2012/03/29/fedex-customs-duty-fee-unfair/3411/

<comment> o0-0o 40% of FedEx and UPS revenue comes from these accessorial charges.

Fuel Surcharge Address Correction Surcharge Delivery Area Surcharge Biz vs Residential Surcharge Customs

etc, etc, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Is deploying a Docker container less secure? - <AUTHOR> hey all,
I'm a software engineer thinking about using Docker in my deployment proces at a large company. I was wondering if this has any security implications?
Normally a developer checks in code, which is reviewed, and my automated build deploys it on all my servers.
Now with docker I deploy a container, which I could infect with extra software, or with code I manipulated.
Isn't this a huge security flaw? <comment><USER2> Your container should be built by an automated process as part of a continuous deployment setup, just like your automated build, so I don't see the difference.

</comment><comment><USER3> You could as well infect all your code with extra software, I fail to see how introducing Docker would change anything.

Of course, you should consider deploying containers only from your own private registry, and vetting any third party container before uploading it to your own registry as well.</comment>


Show HN: Income Tax Calculator - <AUTHOR> http://incometaxcalculator.net.in <comment><USER2> Nice. However I must ask, the official tax department's site has been revamped and added a very slick calculator [1] a few months or maybe a year ago. Is there a good reason to prefer yours ?

However, if you are an expert in tax rules, here's something I'd pay money for - clear tax guidance in the form of a decision engine, where I can feed my inputs and get an accurate interpretation of the tax rules. I will pay for this as long as you can back the interpretation by a certified tax consultant.

[1] [http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Pages/tools/income-tax- calc...](http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Pages/tools/income-tax- calculator.aspx)

<comment><AUTHOR> > Is there a good reason to prefer yours ?

Maybe not, yet. But over a period of gradual improvement, it may offer something unique to certain niche. e.g beginner users, who would prefer a tax calculation tool with a clear and easy to understand step by step guide, followed by some tax related advise etc (something similar to what you've recommended). Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How depressing is it for us in the US that the Indian tax code is simple enough that someone can "show HN" a tax calculator.

<comment><USER4> Have to keep TurboTax and its derivatives in business somehow :)

<comment><USER3> I've always wondered what would/will happen when the tax code gets so complicated that nobody can understand it, and we have to rely on a machine to interpret it. A sort of brave new world where the inputs are collected by computers, the tax is calculated by computers and taken by computers, all understood only by a small cadre of tax coders. Kind of scary.

<comment><USER5> Milton Friedman explains tax code complexity brilliantly here:

[http://youtu.be/TruCIPy79w8](http://youtu.be/TruCIPy79w8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great for just calculating the amount of tax that one needs to pay without going into the process of login and setting up a user account. +1 for the great interface.

Cleartax.in (YC funded) provides a much more comprehensive solution of filing taxes and returns. Although their UI needs a serious upgrade as per today's standards.

Yesterday only, I have used Cleartax.in to file my Income Tax Return. Their service is simple to use and they do appropriate checks to make sure that your filing is consistent.

PS - Not affiliated to Cleartax.

<comment><USER7> I have tried it, but I didn't understand why I would ever use it. The Income Tax e-filing is already dead simple in India, and has only become better over the years. You just put data in and it basically does everything for you. If you use DSC then it's as instant as it gets.

So I don't really see the benefit of using Cleartax for personal filing. It might be feeding on distrust towards Gov services among people. But IT filing tool is already dead simple and easy.

Cleartax may have uses for businesses if they Uber-ify the hiring of CA for short term.

<comment><USER8> Hi Arihant,

I work at ClearTax [http://cleartax.in](http://cleartax.in) \- so I'll add some feedback here.

Many people find the Government tool intimidating and difficult to use. It is hard to figure out which Form to file (there is ITR-1, 2, 3, 4S, 4) and now there's a new tax form (ITR-2A) which muddies the waters further.

ClearTax identifies the correct tax form for you automatically. You upload your Form-16 (W-2 equivalent for India) and our software will automatically read everything and fill out the correct tax form within seconds. We'll take you through a simplified form which will ask basic questions and help you make progress. If you get stuck, our support team answers questions or you can buy CA assistance for complex plans.

The Government form is sufficiently complicated for Income earned from Rent (if you own a house), because it won't give you the 30% deduction (Section 24) in the ITR-1.

If you need to figure out long term or short term capital gains when you sell assets, the Government form is very very difficult to use even for experts (We have 10K+ Chartered Accountants using the professional version of ClearTax).

I truly believe that the level of cognitive complexity in the Government's tool is much higher than ClearTax.

Lakhs of users in India e-File on ClearTax because they find it simpler than the Government's tool.

I do agree that for an expert user, the tools may feel equivalent :)

Regards, Archit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The British equivalent: [http://www.listentotaxman.com/](http://www.listentotaxman.com/)

Only for people with normal jobs or self employed though, doesn't take things like capital gains or dividends into account (but these have nicer rates than normal income anyway, so it's good as a worst case calculator anyway.)

<comment><USER10> Even if you're self-employed, it doesn't take into account National Insurance quite correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > "TDS Deducted from Salary"

It would be helpful to explain initialisms like TDS for those who don't know.

<comment><USER12> Tax Deducted at Source, basically the employer deducts the tax before making the payment to the employee

More here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Deducted_at_Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Deducted_at_Source)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't help but notice the .net.in domain. I haven't seen this before. Is this like .co.in but for .net versions ?

I feel the website is a good starting point but would be nice if it had more sliders for providing various inputs and a real time update of the tax to be paid.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, I couldn't find anything else.

Points noted. It's the initial version of what I wanted to build. I'll add more features gradually as I get some input/suggestion from the users. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> ClearTax has a tax calculator as well :D

[https://cleartax.in/paytax/TaxCalculator](https://cleartax.in/paytax/TaxCalculator)

</comment><comment><USER14> I think you may have a floating point bug or two:[http://imgur.com/zmOCoY0](http://imgur.com/zmOCoY0)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'll fix that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks nice. Just a question, are you storing the data. (I know not sensitive but still.)

<comment><AUTHOR> No. Data never leaves the browser (temporarily stored on client's browser using sessionStorage).

<comment><USER16> Do you store any other data other than typed in, like IP, browser, etc?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Fascinating. My income tax liability in India would roughly match my liability here in the United States (assuming I took similar deductions).

Are there Indian equivalents to the U.S. payroll taxes or other broad-based, non-consumption taxes?

</comment><comment><USER18> Ugh, taxes are due in 6 days. I have to remember to do them soon.

</comment><comment><USER19> Really wish this was open source. :/

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks good.

</comment><comment><USER21> I used Revenue Canada's instructions for computer programs to create a spreadsheet that I called "payswell". I GPLed it and published it at sourceforge however I only implemented one tax year.

In the US every state has different income taxes; some don't have income tax at all such as Washington. I always intended to create a US spreadsheet but the task seems daunting.</comment>


Namecoin: Distributed (p2p) domain registration system based on bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page <comment><USER2> Sweet! Now I can use money that nobody uses to own a domain name that nobody can visit!

<comment><USER3> The money that nobody uses is also apparently making me rich, for now.

Hopefully, it will get even better.

<comment><USER4> lets leave the ponzi dreams over on your smf

<comment><USER5> My partner dropped his work to work full time on bitcoin project back in February. I think he was one of the first, who have bitcoins as main income source.

Currently bitcoin related projects are an unexplored land of possibilities :)

<comment><USER6> Could you elaborate on what he does and how it all works out? Sounds pretty fascinating, does he use Mt Gox or something else to convert to more recognized fiats?

Does he (and you) have a backup plan in case things don't work out as planned with Bitcoin?

<comment><USER5> Mining pool (<http://deepbit.net>). Yes, mtgox for now, though i hope that in a year or two i will be able to pay my rent with it directly :)

Currently the growth is exponential, so it takes time to scale it.

For me it's a side project, though it's becoming a large part of my income. If bitcoins fail - no big deal, just move on.

<comment><USER7> I would definitely not be willing to pay my rent directly in bitcoins. It is much more interesting to pay in silly worthless fiat governmental currency.

<comment><USER5> Currently to pay it i have to convert bitcoins to fiat currency (and lose around 2% in the process). I'd like to be able to skip this part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a good project that attempts to add a bit of freedom back to the internet, but the DNS concept is not the right thing for a truly free internet. We need to take it one step further and get rid of domain names entirely, start building on the freenet concept and replace urls with hashes and domains with author signatures.

<comment><USER9> I am working on a simple system of that sort. I'm not sure I trust myself using crypto, so consider it a proof-of-concept. The system provides key-based domains, and allows sites to update them automatically over http or distribute them through websites.

This system can also work alongside ordinary DNS. When it is running, any domain you visit can provide a record and a public key. If the DNS record changes in future but the signed record isn't updated to match, the user continues to use the signed record.

The first version is probably going to be an HTTP proxy, but I'd like to make it a browser plugin if I can figure out how (it looked more difficult than I expected).

 _Example Scenario:_

\- I'm running wikileaks.com. I generate a key and upload a signed record with the IP.

\- Clients visit wikileaks.com and automatically download the record and associate the key with the domain.

\- Government sizes wikileaks.com domain.

\- Clients are redirected to wikileaks.com-via-a-long-generated-domain...

\- Clients are able to visit the site without interruption.

\- I now register wikileaks.ch, and I use my key to sign an updated record with the new domain.

\- Clients check wikileaks.ch and associate it with the key, then redirect any requests to wikileaks.com or the-long-generated-domain... to to wikileaks.ch.

I will provide a link when it's a little more complete.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Other links of interest regarding Namecoin:

[http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns- alter...](http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns-alternative- based-on-bitcoin.html)

<https://github.com/vinced/namecoin>

<http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=6017.0>

<comment><USER10> Plus a duplicate HN story that got some discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2586778>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think there is a scaling problem here -- every client in the network has to hold a full copy of the entire block-chain in order to know every host on the .bit TLD or to participate in acquiring and actively renewing one's domains. DNS solves this problem by virtue of its recursive nature. I'm not sure this is suitable for Internet-scale use.

<comment><USER12> I was wondering the same thing about Bitcoin itself. If Bitcoins took off, wouldn't they run into a scaling issue too?

<comment><USER13> This is how it is implemented now. However, it is not needed. The dev's have already said this can and will change when it needs too.

Pluss, even now it is only the mining rig's that need the full list. If you just want a wallet to send and receve bitcoin you don't need the whole thing.... Correct me if I am worng. Also, you can use an on-line wallet service to hold your coins and then you don't need anything.

<comment><USER14> So essentially there is going to be a big change to make BitCoin work better in a while. That sounds like IPv6, new web versions, and OS/browser upgrade head fuck.

<comment><USER15> No, it is not a change in the protocol. It will be a seamless migration for normal clients to not keep the entire blockchain. This was planned for from day 1.

<comment><USER16> And already exists in the Java client: <http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinj/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Technologies have a tendency to escape their niches. Namecoin is jailbreak out of Bitcoin technology's niches.

<comment><USER17> I agree completely. If this works, why tie its fate to bitcoin? With various governments deciding they can seize domains, this could be huge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> <http://wiki.opennicproject.org/ClosestT2Servers>

</comment><comment><USER19>
      Set $wgLogo to the URL path to your own logo image.

Well this sure was thrown together quickly.</comment>