Has anyone worked with the military or have military experience?  - <AUTHOR>

Some fascinating demographics about a transient population:
Vets, spouses, active and reserve constitute 45.5M people
Service members move twice as often than the general population
Average service member moves once every three years
Service members live in the communities around the base
63% of service members live off-post
66% of  military spouses hold full time jobs on the base or surrounding community
Veterans Affairs data indicates the majority of veterans retire near military bases <comment><USER2> My dad was in the Army most of his adult life. I was in the Navy six years.

We moved. I moved.

We lived on and off base, mostly off. I lived on and off ship, mostly off.

My mom had a few odd jobs off base but mostly didn't work. My (ex) wife had full time jobs off base.

My dad retired near-ish a few military bases, but it was more because of the ties he'd made in the community while stationed there.

And?

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha. Sounds like you are the prototype. I'm working with former Army officers who had an awful time finding the right gear before Ranger School, deployments, etc around the big bases that are in remote geographic areas (Benning, Bragg). I knew the military community was large, but it was incredible to find out how clustered it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 5 years - what is the question?

You're aware retired military are allowed on bases for tax free gas/shopping etc?</comment>


Bash Datalog: Answering Datalog Queries with Unix Shell Commands - <AUTHOR> https://www.thomasrebele.org/projects/bashlog/about.jsp <comment><AUTHOR> This takes queries written in datalog (or Sparql) and _compiles_ them to Bash (using sort, awk etc.) so you can run them on CSV files.

<comment><USER2> I saw this paper just yesterday from another source. This is brilliant in it's simplicity and the performance is pretty impressive. I hope to write something like this in Julia.

Wondering if I'm missing something but the example is

fact(X, R, Y) :∼ cat facts.tsv

locatedIn(X, Y) :- fact(X, "locatedIn", Y).

locatedIn(X, Y) :- locatedIn(X, Z), fact(Z, "locatedIn", Y).

main(X) :- locatedIn(X, "USA")

I think line 3 could just be locatedIn(X, Y) :- locatedIn(X, Z), locatedIn(Z,Y).

unless I'm missing something.

<comment><USER3> Welcome, your arrival is not unexpected: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17970854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17970854)

<comment><USER2> haha. will update if I have anything worthwhile.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Laptops, phones, and other devices banned from flights after Boeing 787 fires? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/19/british-airways-may-be-banning-laptops-phones-and-other-lithium-ion-battery-devices-after-boeing-787-fires/#FFQh8Qobbqj0y8oa.99 <comment><USER2> See discussion of the headline's inaccuracy in the other submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086720></comment>


KDE Usability and Productivity: Week 75 - <AUTHOR> https://pointieststick.com/2019/06/15/kde-usability-productivity-week-75/ <comment><USER2> KDE really has become my favorite nowadays. I used it a lot ~5 years ago and loved it but moved on, only to return recently. Glad to see it grow stable and full-featured unlike the direction Gnome's taken with didactic, knee-capped options (pulling in JS no less) and overbearing, overt politics.</comment>


Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements - <AUTHOR> http://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/1789253/enough-enough-stop-wasting-money-vitamin-mineral-supplements <comment><USER2> Is a well nourished elderly study body reflective of the population as a whole? I believe the body is sophisticated enough, that it can, in fact, crave the nutrients, even mineral and vitamin supplements that each individual body, age group, body type, is lacking. We have known for a long time about the bodies seeking out C vitamins particularly on the not too distant long cross sea oceanic voyages of our ancestors. I consider supplementation as dietary. I'm eating something. So those thinking in this light may as well take to banning or regulating the sell of oranges and grapefruit. Also why then are we still supplementing iodine and D vitamins, amongst a few others, if they are all so ineffective? What about gender studies where people seem to inherently seek out more commonly needed nutrients by gender? I do believe there could be some harm in certain nutrients. Study subject probably would quit taking certain combination of vitamins, given if they were not expected to do so, as part of the study. Bad research technique.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know. I use Mg and Ca supplements for sleep, reducing stress and increased energy. They really are effective. I don't think all minerals are ineffective as the article suggests, but maybe I am wrong and they know better. Then why are there good effects?</comment>


Leaving Python for JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://hire.jonasgalvez.com.br/2017/Aug/25/Leaving-Python-for-JavaScript <comment><USER2> I love JS for front end, but Python is MUCH better suited to back end work, where a synchronous programming style fits perfectly.

<comment><USER3> What kind of backend work? Scripts? Sure. CRUD app APIs (likely the majority of mainstream app dev out there)? JS is just as well-suited, and has the advantage of tech stack uniformity with the front end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> >> there's no acceptable way to pass a function body to another in Python

What exactly does this sentence mean?</comment>


Show HN: SQL Police Department – Learn SQL while solving crimes - <AUTHOR> https://sqlpd.com <comment><USER4> Worth considering capturing the keyboard input. I instinctively hit "delete" partway through to delete something I had clicked on and it took me back to HN and I lost my progress.

<comment><USER5> do you ever actually use backspace to go back a page? If not, turn it off in your browser settings, since you'll only ever use it accidentally anyway. (And what's more, you'll only ever use it accidentally _while you 're trying to edit text you've input_.)

to me backspace going back a page = a sense of frustration. better to turn it off in the browser, so I did so.

<comment><USER4> Good call. I use ⌘-← all the time to go back but never backspace

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me of the SQL Murder Mystery: [https://mystery.knightlab.com/](https://mystery.knightlab.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This was certainly an inspiration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is just like the real world because with the first example I have no idea what the deliverable should be or what data is available.

It's almost too immersive.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice concept but I really hate clicking on the buttons to form my statements... Is it possible to allow typing? Also, not ending my statement with a semicolon feels incomplete.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the semicolon bothers me too. I'll see how I can incorporate that in. The clicking around was meant to make life easier on mobile phone users. I'll see if I can add a keyboard support without undermining this.

<comment><USER9> This makes a lot of sense, actually. Definitely great for learning.

You could do it the way Duolingo does it - on desktop, it allows for "Hard Mode", where it lets you type the responses freely. On mobile however, it doesn't let you do that (unless you're using the app).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pretty cool! One piece of feedback: > An illegal site's servers were siezed in a recent operation. Please submit all users number of posts' details. Please make sure there are no duplicates.

There's no declaration of what attribute should be used for considering distinct users. After guessing it gave a hint to the effect of "there are duplicate Given Name values". This is rather counter intuitive since many people share a given name.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a neat concept. I think the experience would be way better if the the animation after submitting answer would be made way faster.

I checked the network tab in firefox 75 on fedora and the post was instantaneous, about 40 ms to reply (120 if included TLS negotiation). However there is after that an animation that takes a long time and plays a sound.

</comment><comment><USER12> Perhaps I'm missing something but I can't seem to find what I get for my money, what concepts and commands are covered? How many "cases" are there?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently the first rank is 11 cases, and the second rank is 20 additional cases. The second rank covers WHERE with numbers, strings, dates and timestamps, IN, BETWEEN, AND and OR. Check out the guide tab in the game - <USER3> covers everything supported so far. Once you finish that, you go into practice mode where you're randomly asked the same kind of cases like the previous ones. I plan on adding support for GROUP BY, aggregate functions, HAVING, aliases, JOINING multiple tables, and some more stuff with more complex cases to match.

And the 6 months countdown doesn't begin until the game development ends so you're enjoying longer access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a cool idea but if you accidentally hit the back button or refresh it loses all your progress with no obvious way to skip ahead. Frustrating.

<comment><AUTHOR> It can be solved with saving stuff to local storage, but I tried to not use it to be more GDPR compliant...

<comment><USER14> Isn't local storage pretty good for compliance? It doesn't automatically send the data to your server like a cookie would, so as long as you don't send it, you haven't collected it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd love to see fun stuff like this for all kinds of technical skills. Even pytorch for example.

Actually why couldn't an entire online class be working towards solving some kind of mystery. You wouldn't even notice you're building skills.

</comment><comment><USER16> This looks great! It was difficult to find out that you had to click the Play button for me "▷". Since this is a primary action you might want to consider adding a stronger Call to Action there?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I was wondering the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This seems like a neat idea. Not sure about paid, though, in its current incarnation. There's a ton of similar things unpaid. Why would I pay for this over Khan Academy's excellent SQL course, for example?

It seems like a piece of a business, not a business in itself. To be successful as a product or solution, there needs to be more around it -- some way to integrate it into contexts, have it used in schools, or in afterschool, or something.

Another key component would be user studies -- develop PCK about what supports and help students need.

</comment><comment><USER7>
      SELECT Email
      FROM mailing_list
      ORDER BY JoinDate

      SQL Error: There is no field named JoinDate in the resulting FROM table.

Ok? What engine is this using? That's valid SQL in my universe.

In PostgreSQL 12:

      mulmen@shell> psql
      psql (12.1)
      Type "help" for help.

      mulmen=# CREATE TABLE foo ( bar INT, baz INT );
      CREATE TABLE
      mulmen=# INSERT INTO foo VALUES (1, 10), (2, 20);
      INSERT 0 2
      mulmen=# SELECT bar FROM foo ORDER BY baz;
       bar
      -----
         1
         2
      (2 rows)

      mulmen=#

<comment><USER18> Syntax is fine, it's complaining because you didn't include `JoinDate` column in your query.

<comment><USER7> This appears to be a syntax error. I get a different error if I add JoinDate to the SELECT clause without adding the other columns it wants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's great! I would buy a licence but I don't know how many cases do you have altogether?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently the first rank is 11 cases, and the second rank is 20 additional cases. The second rank covers WHERE with numbers, strings, dates and timestamps, IN, BETWEEN, AND and OR. Check out the guide tab in the game - <USER3> covers everything supported so far. Once you finish that, you go into practice mode where you're randomly asked the same kind of cases like the previous ones.

I plan on adding support for GROUP BY, aggregate functions, HAVING, aliases, JOINING multiple tables, and some more stuff with more complex cases to match.

And the 6 months countdown doesn't begin until the game development ends so you're enjoying longer access.

<comment><USER20> I think it would be more compelling to see how much more material there is, or at least how much is planned, like a timeline or map. I'm a little hesitant to purchase it blind.

<comment><USER21> That would convince me to pay for this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this for total beginners or does it also cover advanced features like window functions as well? If not, is there a similar tool for learning advanced SQL features?

<comment><USER23> I personally enjoyed [https://pgexercises.com/](https://pgexercises.com/) a lot. As much as I'm not an SQL expert by any means, I learned things most of my peers would find "too complex" while doing those exercises.

The site is interactive, but you can also download the dataset and do the exercises on your own database, if you so desire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I like the interface, but why throw an error when a user has their mobile device in horizontal orientation?

</comment><comment><USER25> Some of the instructions are worded weirdly, almost like they were auto- generated or mostly copy-pasted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the instructions as well as the levels and the data are auto generated. If something sounds off, please email me and I'll fix it.

<comment><USER26> Minor, and doesn't seem worth emailing about. I got to the 4th one and 'seized' is spelled 'siezed'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really nice work. I had a lot of fun in that. Others have already mentioned the Backspace = page back issue where you could easily lose progress, but I played all the way through :) No need to purchase however as I already know SQL quite well. But really well done.

</comment><comment><USER27> Cool concept but the license seems kind of weird to me. 20 bucks for six months? Will anything change in that time? You might want to add a bit of info on what the license gets you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The game is still in development. It covers SELECT, DISTINCT, FROM (with one table), ORDER BY, LIMIT in the free part. After buying a license, WHERE, IN, BETWEEN, AND and OR are also covered. Check out the guide tab in the game - it covers everything supported so far. I plan on adding support for GROUP BY, aggregate functions, HAVING, aliases, JOINING multiple tables, and some more stuff with more complex cases to match.

The 6 months countdown doesn't begin until the game development ends so you're enjoying longer access.

<comment><USER28> Cool game, but I think pricing maybe a value issue. Might make more $$ if you just had a donation button, and some ads and maybe an option to upgrade to remove ads/donation nags. Plus you'd get a lot more word of mouth, and maybe add some social sharing of 'accomplishments' etc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >"A mailing list of an illegal online service was sent to the SQLPD hot-line. Please submit all records email addresses' details. Please make sure there are no duplicates."

typo

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm missing it. Where's the typo?

<comment><USER30> records is possessive and should have the apostrophe, addresses is not possessive and should not. This class of typo is pretty common throughout the briefs I have looked at.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Are the names and email addresses in the sample data real? They seem auto generated but the domains are real providers like Hotmail, Gmail, and Outlook.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everything is randomised, nothing is based real data. It's auto generated from popular first names, last names, changing patterns and random years or numbers attached at the end. Domains are real, but randomised as well.

<comment><USER32> It's kinda risky in my opinion. I just checked a few of the addresses (mostly the one's without any numbers at the end), some of them do actually belong to real people.

<comment><USER33> What's the risk? Your email address isn't exactly a secret...

<comment><USER32> Well it's not exactly a risk, but people might get miffed their email is part of some website without their permission.

Also, in a rather grim coincidence, one of the emails I googled belonged to a person who had died in a car crash few years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I can only solve the first one. I click submit, get a "Solved" stamp, and it prompts me with the same problem again.

<comment><AUTHOR> The first two are cases of selecting the whole table. Since it's (completely) randomised, there is a chance of getting the same table twice. I didn't account for that :-P If you solve it again, you'll get a new case following that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The question where it asks for the list of unique download counts makes no sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> The cases are randomly generated; It asks for unique values of a random column in a random table. Sometimes it asks for unique password hashes... It's an edge case I didn't account for.

<comment><USER35> Interesting, why not hand pick the questions?

<comment><AUTHOR> For replay-ability. Each time you need to understand the problem and construct a query instead of remembering that the answer was X (when I prototyped this in some of the cases you needed to pick the right answer from a cell in the table, not submit the whole thing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I literally can't get past the first level and I have no idea why.

<comment><USER37> click on GUI.

click SELECT

click *

click FROM

click mailing_list

click run

<comment><USER36> I had one before that, asking about all member data from a darknet list. It seemed logical that select * from members would be the answer based, but I couldn't get it to accept no matter how many times I tried. Kept saying failed to fetch after run. I closed and reopened the browser, tried again, and it worked on the first attempt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Good idea. It could be replicated for languages as well.

</comment><comment><USER39> (in Space Quest narrator voice) Oh, no! Sequel Police!

</comment><comment><USER40> I love it that was a fun past time ;)

</comment><comment><USER41> Fun idea :)

</comment><comment><USER42> If only this was real life.

</comment><comment><USER43> Excellent. Great fun.

</comment><comment><USER44> LOVED THIS! (newbie sql learner from datacamp)

</comment><comment><USER45> Amazing

</comment><comment><USER46> Very cool @doronlinder

</comment><comment><USER47> Wow. I lolled.

</comment><comment><USER48> Here are some other SQL Learning resources I have collected in my note taking TiddlyWiki (mostly from HN itself).

Interactive SQL Tutorials :

▪ Chartio Interactive PostgreSQL SQL Tutorial - [https://chartio.com/learn/sql/](https://chartio.com/learn/sql/)

▪ Select STAR SQL - [https://selectstarsql.com/](https://selectstarsql.com/)

▪ SQL Bolt - Learn SQL with simple, interactive exercises - [https://sqlbolt.com/](https://sqlbolt.com/)

▪ SQL Window functions - [https://www.windowfunctions.com/](https://www.windowfunctions.com/)

▪ PostgreSQL Exercises - [https://pgexercises.com/](https://pgexercises.com/)

▪ SQL Zoo - [http://sqlzoo.net/](http://sqlzoo.net/)

▪ SQL Teaching - [https://www.sqlteaching.com/](https://www.sqlteaching.com/)

▪ ByteScout SQL Trainer - Use live data to train - [https://app.bytescout.com/sql- trainer/index.html](https://app.bytescout.com/sql-trainer/index.html)

▪ Schemaverse - A space-based strategy game implemented entirely within a PostgreSQL database - [https://schemaverse.com/](https://schemaverse.com/)

▪ Oracle Live SQL - Lerarn and share SQL - [https://livesql.oracle.com/](https://livesql.oracle.com/)

▪ GalaXQL 3.0 - an intractive tutorial with exploring the galaxy - [http://sol.gfxile.net/g3/](http://sol.gfxile.net/g3/)

▪ SQL Exercises - [http://sql-ex.ru/index.php](http://sql-ex.ru/index.php)

<comment><USER49> Great collection thanks! Has anyone used them or have any comment on the difficulty of the sources above?

<comment><USER50> I've used sqlbolt.com! It's great. Very easy to follow and it's interactive. They have a resource for regex: [https://regexone.com/](https://regexone.com/), which I've gone through as well!</comment></comment></comment>


Reading privileged memory with a side-channel - <AUTHOR> https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2018/01/reading-privileged-memory-with-side.html <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16065845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16065845).</comment>


Er...Dropbox only uses one encryption key...for everybody? - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/security/229500683

<comment><USER2> I realize that a lot of people feel deceived, and they should have been much clearer, but isn't this kind of expected? TomasSedovic and I have commented on this before, but I still think there are so many features that suggest that this is exactly how they protected files. Some examples:

1\. While the various clients (desktop, iPhone, etc) could probably do per- user encryption, the web interface doesn't spend a lot of time decrypting files in JavaScript (or Java or Flash or some other way of doing it).

2\. Even large files can be instantly moved to "Public".

3\. The fact that it's possible to instantly share an entire folder with someone else.

There's probably some way to do each of these with proper encryption. For point 3, maybe having a separate key for each folder, then giving others access to that key when you share. And with some creativity there are probably ways to implement every Dropbox feature in a fully secure way.

But to someone who is somewhat familiar with security issues, all of Dropbox just "feels" like a service where they have access to everything (with proper access controls of course). Thoughts?

I've certainly been a lot more careful about what I put in my Dropbox, unlike Backblaze where I trust the encryption more (but not fully).

<comment><USER3> I'm using Backblaze but I want to move exactly because I don't trust them. And the reason is the stupid way the restore is done. You have to __give them the password __and they decrypt it for you. You can't get encrypted files and decrypt yourself. Stupid. FAIL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In response to this summary of FTC complaint, I'm just not sure how Dropbox have violated their agreement with the customer.

One of the strongly emphasised features of Dropbox is deduplication (i.e. so you won't need to re-upload massive files if someone else already has), and if you are particularly security conscious, presumably you would have made the effort to read about how Dropbox stores their files and considered whether this method was adequately secure for you prior to use.

I'm assuming the single key is related to deduplication, and although I don't understand why you couldn't simply store a key per user, I'm not even sure whether that would be more or less secure given that insiders with access to the encrypted files can probably also get access to the database of encryption keys.

As far as some select employees having access to your files, surely this is to be expected - the alternative is they get sued/charged by the authorities and are forced to implement an even more compromising solution than a couple of Dropbox employees having access (e.g. a backdoor for the RIAA).

<comment><USER5> I agree that it's hard to argue that people were deceived, especially considering that I've chosen not to use Dropbox from the start _beacause_ they only used one key for everyone, because employees could access my files, and so on.

If I (with no degree, no formal training in information security, just my wits) knew, why didn't everyone? I'm tempted to assume "because they didn't care to read anything more than the Dropbox marketing blurbs that say 'secure'".

That said, select employees having access to your files may be expected (as it's the most common practice in consumer backup and file hosting solutions), but it's not necessary.

I use rsync.net for my backups because I can generate a key and use it to encrypt my data _without sharing that key with anyone else_. Even rsync.net's employees can't read my stuff. (Please note that this is a different type of service than Dropbox: because all my data is encrypted I can't just click to share it with others.)

 _(I don't have any affiliation with Dropbox or rsync.net. I'm just a consumer who chose one over the other.)_

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't try to get technical info from InformationWeek; link to the primary source (FTC complaint) or nothing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> They did say in certain terms, on their site, that their employees could not access the files. Maybe I should have known better, but I took them at their word. Based on that, my assumption was that the key to everything other than my public folder was unique, and was itself encrypted with my password.

Obviously that was a dumb assumption. I'm not a security specialist, but I'm not exactly a lay person either, and in coding sites that have had to be secure I would never have considered writing something this way. Let alone marketing it to general consumers and intentionally misleading them about how secure it was.

The most important question to me now, actually, is _how do I know they're telling the truth about having proper access controls, if they've already shown a willingness to lie about this?_ WHO are these employees with access to my data, and under what circumstances can they get at it? Can they just browse through it whenever they want? What's the process? What records are kept? To whom do you appeal? How do you know if your data's been copied?

And YES, I feel using them was a stupid decision. I uploaded my stuff without knowing for a fact that it was safe. I only knew what they'd written and that they had a solid reputation and that they came from here. But I absolutely do feel violated by it. And I'd like to see some records showing that my data was never accessed, never copied, and that it's now deleted.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I choked on a sandwich when I read that part</comment>


Google to launch Amazon, Microsoft cloud competitor at Google I/O 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/google-to-launch-amazon-microsoft-cloud-competitor-at-google-io-2012/ <comment><USER2> Makes me wonder.. if an internet shop can build a cloud platform, what does Google come up with? They must have sooo much experience, own tools, people, knowledge in that area, it's hard to imagine how far this can go.

Hopefully it will not be just a half-assed experiment again.

<comment><USER3> > if an internet shop can build a cloud platform,

That's like saying that the Wii was produced by a card-game company, or that a wood pulp paper making company makes the Lumia 900.

Companies evolve; Amazon were experienced in managing a lot of servers, and where looking for ways to make money on that expertise (and on the less than 100% used server capacity, although I remember hearing somewhere that within 3 months of introduction, AWS required more server capacity than Amazon-the- store had at the time)

<comment><USER4> Amazon's experience was a natural fit for PaaS systems. Amazon moved to a service oriented architecture years ago. And that meant that individual teams were responsible for the deployment of their services on hardware. That led to the creation of automation that made that sort of thing easy. Being able to add or remove servers from a deployment group, being able to press a button and push out a build to an entire cluster of machines simultaneously, that sort of thing. Amazon took their experience building those internal tools and built a similar set of systems and tools (AWS) that would be suitable for both internal use and for selling as a service to the public. And it's done well on both of those fronts, AWS has been successful and amazon internally has migrated a significant amount of their back-end services and website front-end hosting to AWS.

<comment><USER5> Steve Yegge's rant on Google's and Amazon's platforms comes to mind: [https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesv...](https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX)

I couldn't find the original, so this is a copy on Google+. It discusses the difference in how Google and Amazon approach platforms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who has dealt with customer service from the companies Google is competing with in this arena, Google is either going to have to come in at about 25% of the price or seriously up its game in the customer service department.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. I've been using App Engine for a while and bad customer service is my main issue with it. I can tolerate poor support for free products, but not for business products that I pay a lot for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Google for support and services ... Right, don't waste your time.

<comment><USER9> That was my first thought. What kind of customer service experience are they willing or able to provide?

<comment><USER10> Google offers Apps customers 24/7 phone and email support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone else think that they missed the boat? 3-4 years ago there was little competition. Now basically EC2 has most of the market. If they want to be successful they have to be not just cool but noticeably better than EC2 and it doesn't seem like google wins that way.

<comment><USER4> When Gates and Allen launched Microsoft they thought they were too late, that there were too many other established companies in the market to be able to find a niche for themselves. When google launched web search was half a decade old and dozens of companies were in the market. When apple launched the ipod mp3 players had already been around for years and gone through many generations.

An absence of competition is a near certain way to gain market share, but the easy way is not the only way. If you have a good enough product you can steal business from the competion and even grow the size of the total market (as was the case with the ipod and iphone).

<comment><USER12> Gates and Allen thought there were too many other established companies in the _microcomputer software_ market?

<comment><USER4> Not necessarily established companies, but people working on things that would become companies. They thought they were too late and they were pretty close to just going off and doing something else instead.

People still think the same sorts of thoughts today, as we've seen, and they are no more correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The hosting wars are just starting. There are so many features no one is offering right now. E.g. I want to host my app and data in my own data center, but have an automatic fail over to a cloud provider.

<comment><USER14> With round-robin DNS you have that now. It is fairly easy to setup. The data may be a bit more challenging, but certainly not impossible.

<comment><USER15> Round robin DNS wouldn't solve that. Your DNS servers will happily keep serving out the defunct IPs of your failed datacenter.

<comment><USER16> Yeah.

I really hate how confident tech people about shit they've never done and/or just read about on blogs. I understand that apparent confidence is a currency but it's not the only one.

<comment><USER17> I don't think you need to be 100% precise on every hn comment.

You can do DNS based failover (short TTL), manually or automatically, and it's the easiest to set up using entirely your own infrastructure. This works great if you can tolerate a variable length outage for customers, or where you're not using it to deal with outage, but rather just migrating load -- say provider A suddenly gets expensive, you can migrate away, but don't need to hard kill provider A, at least until any DNS cache has expired.

You can do IP based failover (various techniques -- anycast, which doesn't really work for most apps, making your own announcements of the same netblock, IP address failover below the BGP level/internal to a network, arp stealing on a subnet (not useful across providers but good for HA), etc.

You can use a smart proxy in front of your app (an F5 "Global Load Balancer", something you've developed yourself, nginx with minimal state, or an inexpensive service like Cloudflare or their 1000x more expensive Prolexic competition).

You can do the best thing for non-web apps, a smart client, which knows to go down a list of servers (randomly?) and find the closest or best one. More intelligence in the client = more better.

I've set up all of these except Anycast (which I'd actually love to do sometime, but RIPE jacked my /24) and Prolexic (because I don't want to spend $30-100k/mo). Which is the best really expends, but IMO at least having a plan (even if it takes a week) to switch hosting providers is worthwhile for everyone.

<comment><USER16> None of those are "round robin DNS" as mentioned. None of them are "fairly easy."

And yes, being more precise is necessary when you are critiquing someone.

<comment><USER14> His first example is round robin DNS. Sorry, but the terms DNS failover and round robin are often used interchangeably when you're dealing with business continuity.

Yes, certainly there are other options that increase the complexity, but why not start there? While the impact to users on shitty ISPs or behind proxies is unfortunate, it is relatively easy to implement and low-cost.

Going beyond that increases the complexity and cost exponentially and is certainly not easy.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, RR is strictly returning a response of a set (>1 records, ideally) to select from each time. Being able to remove those entries based on outages (which really needs a short TTL) is an optimization.

Unfortunately some stupid resolvers cache a single answer set for a long time, but for some applications, you're willing to accept 1/x of attempts fail during an outage (just hit reload, or come back in a bit), since this costs ~nothing to implement.

The basic concept works great for NS, MX, and other protocols where they're designed to retry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If Google can deliver a semi-decent IaaS offering that works well with App Engine IMO they will have a uniquely powerful platform.

App Engine is often criticized for being expensive compared to AWS, but putting together a _production ready_ setup (i.e., automatic failover in the case of data center failure) on AWS isn't cheap since you need at least two of everything: multiple EC2 instances sitting behind a load balancer (ELB) and redundant databases (i.e., RDS Multi-AZ). I know because I'm setting up exactly this configuration right now for my DNS hosting service (<http://slickdns.com>).

But if Google's IaaS offering could fix all the fiddly bits that App Engine currently doesn't do (e.g., custom SSL, native binaries) it would surpass AWS in terms of functionality.

Selling bandwidth and white-label servers is easy. Building a production ready arbitrarily scalable web platform is much harder.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have an extremely, extremely, extremely healthy level of skepticism. We do substantial business with AWS. When they went down and came back up, some of our data was damaged. I called my Amazon rep, who put me in contact with Amazon engineers, who helped us recover. Amazon can do that -- they're a service organization, and they're used to working with customers and making them happy.

Google's customer service, in contrast, has a raison d'etre of avoiding customers. As a customer, the feeling you get is mild disdain. This is necessary -- one support call for Google.com can wipe out the profits from thousands of people. This translate into how they handle the enterprise market. I use Google Apps for my organization. I needed to enable Google+ for a social presence. This required applying into a black hole which, for a long time, did nothing. Support e-mails went to someone who clearly was in the business of neither having nor giving out information.

Here's an experiment for you: Pretend you want to try Google App Engine, but your cell is not on one of the providers Google supports (I've been there). You just a credit card, and a willingness to spend a bit of cash. Try to buy some service. See how far you get.

I use Google internal to my organization for things like Google Apps; if it has issues, employees will deal, and it saves a big chunk of work and cash. For anything customer-facing, I really do want a partner whom I can talk to if there are issues, not a black box designed to reject support requests.

</comment><comment><USER20> >Not to be outdone, other sources have confirmed Microsoft is also building an Infrastructure as a Service platform

Do they mean azure? That's IaaS, right?

<comment><USER13> Azure started and still is mostly used as PaaS for .NET apps.

<comment><USER21> Not any more, they are now a full IaaS provider, complete with multiple fully- supported Linux flavors

<comment><USER13> Yeah, that's why I wrote "mostly" ...

<https://twitter.com/devops_borat/status/207600109469437952>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This really makes me wonder what took Google so long. Google practically defined large scale commodity cluster computing with mapreduce (2004). Amazon EC2 was launched in 2006. The closest thing Google has done was app engine, and my understanding is that was not a tremendous success. Does anyone have any explanations why Google didn't move into this space earlier?

<comment><USER23> Google doesn't use VMs internally and they probably don't have a scalable SAN (EBS competitor) either, so they don't have as much of an advantage as you might think. Google bet big on a "legacy-free" stack (GFS, MapReduce, BigTable, etc.) and that has worked out great for their internal services but external customers just aren't willing to adopt it (see App Engine).

<comment><USER24> They've got Ganeti, but I don't know exactly what they use it for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how App Engine fits into this? Maybe it will be an extension of the Backend instances you can use now.

<comment><USER26> I've always though App Engine is kind of a half-assed version of AWS, so maybe this time they're announcing something worthy of Google's brand. With all all the infrastructure knowledge they have I always felt App Engine was way too poor a service.

<comment><USER27> Would you mind elaborating on why GAE isn't very good relative to AWS?

<comment><USER28> GAE sandboxes you with their proprietary libraries, whereas AWS lets you write for unix/windows platform with minimal sandboxing. If you want to write a LAMP stack, you can just write a regular old LAMP stack with AWS. With GAE, you have to learn their java/python server libraries, then their blobstore/google cloud storage/googleQL, and so on.

<comment><USER29> Sure, but GAE has zero setup and administration and infinite scaling.

Myself, I prefer something like gondor.io, that looks very much like a dedicated server but also has zero setup/administration.

If price is an issue, you can't beat an actual dedicated server, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> for more about the subject here is an interesting read from a google insider talking about their lack of understanding platforms and service oriented architecture. <http://steverant.pen.io/>

</comment><comment><USER31> Been told at a Google meeting recently that there will be a new GDrive SDK introduced during the Google I/O

If they are expanding their offerings it might go more towards Box(.net) than vs Amazon

By that also the App Engine etc fit into the picture - we'll know next week

</comment><comment><USER32> It will be free, but it will have targeted ads in your source code :)

<comment><USER13> Hah put ads on 404, 500 and other errors pages :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If this includes some sort of public access to borg it could be extremely interesting. No more borg is one of the top 3 things I miss from my days at Google.

<comment><USER23> Those of us who didn't work at Google have no idea what you're talking about.

<comment><USER34> <http://www.quora.com/What-is-Borg-at-Google>

"It's the system that manages machines. If you want to run a program that uses x CPU and y memory on 100 machines, you don't specify which machines to run it on. Instead, you request 100 machines using a Borg library."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Am I the only one who read this headline thinking Google is going to launch a cloud rival to Microsoft called Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER36> Competition is always healthy, but its going to be pretty tough for Google to launch something that makes our startup move away from AWS or Rackspace. EBS would be the main service to attack of Amazons.

<comment><USER37> How about cost? If Google was 20% cheaper, would you switch?

<comment><USER38> I strongly prefer not to deal with Google in a business context. It's great when everything is running smoothly. But if things break down, there's usually not a damn thing you can do about it besides post to your blog and pray.

<comment><USER20> this is only true with google's free services. as far as i know, any paid service google offers includes phone and email support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Isn't this all about who can get cheaper electricity?

</comment><comment><USER40> This is good news. We'll have cheaper prices all around! And with that article on Google having their own hardware manufactured, it may end up better than we think.

</comment><comment><USER41> Shouldn't Google have done this before everyone started migrating off of GAE due to the price hikes, and before AWS pretty much cornered the cloud platform market, and before Dropbox cornered the cloud data storage/sync market, and before Heroku cornered the auto-scaling web services market?

<comment><USER42> I don't see that AWS has really "cornered" the market. They're leading because they're better, which is a different thing entirely.

Cloud services like EC2/EBS and (to a lesser extent) S3 are really fungible. It's comparatively easy to move between providers, or even to your own hardware if you want. If someone were to come along and offer a comparably performant and reliable service to AWS at half the price, Amazon's customers would flee like rats. Obviously the devil is in the details, but it seems to me like Google is better positioned to offer that kind of value proposition (c.f. Google Drive, whose retail price is already cheaper than S3) than Microsoft or Rackspace.

Basically: linux boxes are a commodity. You can't compete in this market on features. That makes Amazon's (admittedly) dominant position more precarious than it looks.

<comment><USER43> I think you may be under the misunderstanding that AWS = EC2/S3. It isn't.

AWS also includes SQS, IAM, SWF, SimpleDB, DynamoDB etc all of which are proprietary with very Amazon specific APIs. As each new developer starts to use these it "locks" them into the platform as a whole. And since many of these are core services I just don't see customers moving to a competitor unless there is a massive difference in price/features.

Also don't forget: NOBODY offers the complete range of unified services that AWS does right now AFAIK.

<comment><USER42> No, AWS == EC2/EBS/S3. Period.

That's where the money is. Yes, Amazon offers that other stuff. I'm sure someone buys it. I refuse to believe it's a significant fraction of AWS revenue without evidence. Huge numbers of successful sites are built on the core stuff. Are any large sites using the Amazon lock-in features? I'm certainly not aware of any.

<comment><USER43> I agree that EC2/S3 is where Amazon makes its money and I doubt any large site is using the other features. The services are new and are specialized in nature.

But people ARE starting to look at them and it is an area (PaaS) that is going to become more and more compelling for businesses in the future. And Amazon is right now is the only player I know of in that space. And every new user they attract could well be locked in for life.

<comment><USER42> But I think you're missing the point. Google App Engine (and Heroku for that matter) _is_ a PaaS product. They were there first, and they lost to the commodity metaphor. You can argue that Amazon will succeed based on the quality of their offering, I guess, but not simply because it's "PaaS". The market has spoken, they don't like that.

<comment><USER44> PaaS hasn't lost - it's just a smaller market than IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), and it will take longer to become mature.

IaaS is immediately useful to anyone who needs a Linux box. PaaS needs longer lead times for people to adapt to a new platform.

Amazon's approach to the PaaS market is probably a lot better than Google's.

Google went: here's a new set of APIs, write custom apps to use them.

Amazon let you host standard LAMP apps, and then slowly started offering parts of the stack as a service (oh, you need a database? Here, use our managed one. You need search? We have that. Load balancing? Just use ours, it's easier than doing it yourself.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Manufacturing is returning to America - <AUTHOR> http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/manufacturing-is-returning-to-america-648616/ <comment><USER2> Manufacturing never left. The US outputs a greater total value of manufactured goods today than at any point in history.

China's manufacturing sector is only 3% bigger than the US.

What disappeared were the unskilled jobs, and they are never coming back, because they are rapidly becoming obsolete.

Once upon a time almost everyone worked in agriculture. Now it's about 3%, and that 3% produces more food than ever. Expect the same thing to happen to manufacturing.

<comment><USER3> The implication here is that the kind of manufacturing work that helped lift China out of poverty may never migrate to the rest of the world's developing nations.

It may turn out that the time window in which a developing country could ride the outsourcing train to prosperity was actually only a few decades wide.

<comment><USER4> Manufacturing isn't the only outsourcable work, though. Customer service, programming, and other things less easily replicated by 3D printing and robots will still be outsourced for a while yet.

<comment><USER5> Both of those are much more skilled jobs, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Manufacturing output in the United States generally increases over time, but output is generated through gains in productivity from automation (e.g. robots). Therefore, the absolute number of jobs in the manufacturing sector has been steadily declining as well and will continue to do so both here and in China.

[http://mercatus.org/publication/us-manufacturing-output- vs-j...](http://mercatus.org/publication/us-manufacturing-output-vs-jobs-1975)

In fact, Foxconn itself is rapidly increasing its robot workforce from 10,000 robots to a goal of 1 million robots by 2014.

[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-07/30/c_131...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-07/30/c_131018764.htm)

<comment><USER7> Manufacturing capacity is a matter of national security imo and it's important for the country to maintain and increase it. However I'm wondering about the very basic manufacturing / raw material production capacity within the United States. Yes, there is Alcoa, the largest Aluminum producer in the world, but does the country actually have the ability to produce basic building blocks like nuts, bolts, sheet metal, steel beams, wiring, etc from the ground up if such a need came up in the future? (though one would hope that such a need would never arise in the future)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So this article suggests we're bringing manufacturing back to America, but it's pretty light on pointing out that none of these methods will create any of the types of jobs that the departure of manufacturing took away - which I suspect is one of the root causes of a lot of the issues with things made in China.

</comment><comment><USER9> I get the sense with Vivek Wadhwa articles that he takes a few anecdotes and generalizes them into a larger trend. He's an imaginative guy, but many of his theories are wildly speculative and lack data.

<comment><USER10> Well done for commenting though (I mean it, no snark coming). A lot of the current crop of singularity-ey, TED-ey, 'digital revolutionary'-ey mouths seem to get away with all sorts of logical crimes and unimpeachabley general proclamations. A lot of them are basically posers and pseuds. As the excitement and breathlessness and novelty start to wear off, we should be applying a little more intellectual rigour to the output of these people.

There was an amusing frontpage HN story a couple of weeks ago which was a refreshing voice to see in a forum like this:

[http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and- arts/magazine/105703/th...](http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and- arts/magazine/105703/the-naked-and-the-ted-khanna)

Note: I'm not saying it's all guff, just saying we should apply the same critical process to this material as with anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Google just announced that it will produce its highly-acclaimed Nexus 7 tablet in the United States. " wow! I didn't know Google was doing this. The fact that they can sell that tablet at such a competitive price and make it in the USA is saying a lot.

<comment><USER12> I could not find any references about Google's announcement to produce Nexus 7 in US. On the other hand, Nexus Q is indeed manufactured in the US. Is it possible that this is a typo on the part of the author?

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/technology/google-and- othe...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/technology/google-and-others-give- manufacturing-in-the-us-a-try.html?pagewanted=all)

<comment><USER13> Another Times article has some more info on the Q (it is being made somewhere in San Jose), but the exact location is being kept secret. Would it be surprising if they outsourced the 7 to the same manufacturer?

"Google uses a contract manufacturer to make the Q. Last week it was being assembled in a large factory 15 minutes from Google headquarters. The company declined to say how many people were employed at the plant, which can run as many as three shifts each day. However, during a brief tour, made with the understanding that the exact location would not be disclosed, it was clear that hundreds of workers were involved in making the Q."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/technology/google-and- othe...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/technology/google-and-others-give- manufacturing-in-the-us-a-try.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A more detailed set of articles about this are in a large spread from The Economist a little while back:

<http://www.economist.com/node/21552901>

Considering the boldness of the economic claims, it fills in a little more background and necessary information to make this claim believable.

</comment><comment><USER15> Who would 3d print uniforms?

<comment><USER16> Lego minifigs?

<comment><USER15> Chinese Olympic Lego minifigs!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> where are the charts? i'm not buying an article without numbers</comment>


The Amazon Fire Stick Juggernaut - <AUTHOR> https://priceonomics.com/the-amazon-fire-stick-juggernaut/ <comment><USER2> you guys know that this is shill journalism right? this is content marketing for datafiniti. how do i know? i quit a job about 3 weeks ago that had hired literally one of these writers (priceonomics) to do content marketing for them. why is this getting upvoted?

<comment><USER3> Upvoted? As of this comment, this submission has only 1 vote, which every submission receives by default.

<comment><USER2> yea i got confused and thought i was browsing top instead of new</comment></comment></comment>


CVSS Calculator - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/cvss-calculator/id648977169?mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> CVSS is always a headache. But as our tax agency says: we can't make it more pleasurable, but we can make it easier.

</comment><comment><USER2> Very nice application. Easy calculating CVSS scores. Yippie

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice application. Really useful

</comment><comment><USER3> Great application, looks good.

</comment><comment><USER4> meh FUCKING GREAT calculator.. saved my ass a couple of times</comment>


Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise - <AUTHOR> http://www.coffitivity.com <comment><USER9> If I'm correct, this is a type of Binaural recording, where they use a stereo microphone combination separated approximately at the distance of our ears while recording. I used to be a Binaural hobbyist sometime back and I recorded some (unprofessional) stuff along the way. I'd be glad to share it with the community:

1) 3d Sea - <https://www.box.com/s/krtxx1tejeftffaegh4v>

2) 3d Rain - <https://www.box.com/s/feoczntidb4rkppz1fa7>

3) 3d forest - <https://www.box.com/s/35p4vpn4t6rdc2p8ok39> (This is a Binaural music track composed by me :D)

Please use headphones to listen to these tracks (and not your speakers, because binaural stuff sounds good only on headphones)

EDIT:

Here are two more professional recordings (not by me) that will (possibly) blow you away! :D

1) Amazing 3d Matchbox - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYdIidUIbAs>

2) Virtual 3d Haircut - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnNEJfokpWU>

<comment><USER10> I think there is a lot of space for improvement left in binaural recordings and presentation. For me the suspention of disbelief required to hear a sound from my headphones as actually being remote is really hard. I still mainly hear it as being right at my ears, or maybe somewhere _between_ my ears. Does anyone feel the same?

<comment><USER11> For a headphone with a particularly "live" sound that's not too awfully expensive, let me recommend the German Maestro GMP 8.300 D ([http://www.amazon.com/German-Maestro- GMP-8-300-Professional/...](http://www.amazon.com/German-Maestro- GMP-8-300-Professional/dp/B002LVUKFG/)) or 8.35 D ([http://www.amazon.com/German-Maestro- GMP-8-35-Headphone/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/German-Maestro- GMP-8-35-Headphone/dp/B002LVUKFQ)). The 8.35 is a 35Ω model but otherwise identical -- it will play louder and is intended for use with portable players (but I just tried my 300Ω unit with an iPod and it gets pretty loud, just not into ear-damage territory).

When listening to well-recorded jazz with these 'phones, I find it easy to close my eyes and imagine I'm in the room with the musicians -- more so than with anything else I've found in the price range.

<comment><USER9> Beware of heavily marketed expensive headphones! I'm not saying the one you suggested is bad, but you gotta make sure you don't fall for the Psychological marketing that is heavily abused in the world of headphones, where you end up paying more for the brand than the headphone components themselves. For example, when they say "You will hear sounds you've never heard before" you will suddenly almost always feel that way, because of how psychology works. I can suggest you two excellent, professional, accurate, inexpensive, comfortable headphones that are better than even the most popular Sennhs:

1)[http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-RPHTF600S-RP- HTF600-S-Stereo...](http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-RPHTF600S-RP- HTF600-S-Stereo-Headphones/dp/B004MMEI8W)

2)[http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-V6-Monitor-Series- Headphones/...](http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-V6-Monitor-Series- Headphones/dp/B00001WRSJ)

Cheers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very interesting, but I find I get much the same effect with the right types of music (which are also more aesthetically pleasing, to me).

Also, recorded environmental sounds always have a certain degree of annoyance for me. There's nothing on earth I love more than the sound of rain or a crackling fire, but recorded versions just don't cut it (for me). This seems to fall into the same category.

<comment><USER13> Any recommendations on specific music that helps you (artist/album)? I find that Radiohead/In Rainbows is good for me

<comment><USER14> It depends on my mood. I find productive music to almost always lack vocals. I will list some artists and their respective albums, of the top of my head. (subgenres) Many of these artists have great discographies.

Electronic

1\. Glenn Underground - Atmosfear (house)

2\. Aphex Twin - Ambient Works 85-92

3\. Moby - <USER2>

4\. Space Dimension Controller - The Pathway To Tiraquon6 (soul-house)

5\. Boards of Canada - Music has the right to Children

6\. Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By

Post-Classical

1\. Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians

2\. Ólafur Arnalds - ...And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness

3\. Max Richter - <USER3>

4\. Nico Muhly - Speaks Volumes

Pop/Indie/Jazz

1\. Royksopp - Melody AM

2\. The Album Leaf - In a Safe Place

3\. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun

4\. Miles Davis - In a Silent Way

5\. Benoit Pioulard - <USER4>

<comment><USER15> "I find productive music to almost always lack vocals."

Languages you don't speak also work.

<comment><USER16> I'll echo this sentiment. Been listening to a lot of music from Mali and being really productive with it on. Highly recommend Khaira Arby, Ali Farka Touré and Amadou & Mariam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just so every one knows, the guy that made this started learning to code from nothing about a month ago. Great job, man. I'm impressed that you conceived of, built, and then launched something in your first month.

<comment><USER18> ... Seriously? Link to bio? I'm really impressed. This is why I love coding. Someone can dive in, create something out of nothing, in virtually no time.

I personally can't work with that kind of noise. I prefer classical music or something like that. But, I know people do thrive in this kind of environment. Really neat idea. Surely the creator had a background in UI/UX design??

<comment><USER17> well the UI/UX was done by another friend of mine who has a background in interior design. This is also HER first project.

i think they'll be ok with me posting their twitters..

@nicoleehorton - design @jkauszler - <USER5>

<comment><USER18> I dig. Congrats to them both. Excellent small project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Research shows it's pretty hard to be creative in a quiet space."

I'm sure that research is accurate for some people, but it's definitely not accurate for me. Quiet, aside from any noise I make myself, is the only way I can be truly productive.

<comment><USER20> Ditto, although it depends entirely on my mood, environment and what I'm trying to do.

But for working in an open office that fluctuates from high activity to periods where you can hear a pin drop, I'm finding this type of thing to be incredibly focussing when trying to code. For actually planning that code (the creative part), I tend to find as quiet an environment as possible - <USER6> are disruptive to intense thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's alright but there's way too much dish hitting. The talking is good but the kitchen cleaning staff is not only distracting but angering.

<comment><USER22> Perhaps a better version would have independent sound tracks of each ambient noise, so that you could adjust each individual part.

<comment><USER23> Or, at least different "flavors". I'd like to try "Busy Airport Terminal" and "Mall Scene".

For working parents, maybe a recording of your kids playing/fighting in the background. :)

<comment><USER14> Busy Airports reminds me of Brian Eno's Music for Airports.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfKcu_ze-60>

<comment><USER24> Brian Eno + "3d Rain" link above = Blade Runner. Now I want to nap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My brain must be wired differently. I listened to that for about three minutes before I wanted to pull my hair out. The only ambient sound I've ever been productive listening to is rain.

I've tried to work in coffee shops before. Every few minutes I realize I've been listening to my neighbor's conversation and not doing work. I really dislike working in noisy places.

<comment><USER26> Not just you, this made me want to scream and throw something after a few minutes too. I program best listening to music I've heard a million times before, preferably something a little bit technical, like progressive rock or metal. It has to be familiar enough that my brain can anticipate every sound that's coming and not be surprised by anything, yet complex enough to give the idle parts of my brain that are prone to distraction something to 'chew' on, so I'm not off to HN every time the actual problem solving part of my brain gets stuck for 30 seconds. I tend to listen to the same album or two on repeat for a few weeks until I get sick of it, then switch to a different album or two.

<comment><USER25> Music is even worse for me than chatter. I think it's because I'm a musician, I can't help but concentrate on it.

One other thing I've noticed about myself in this regard is that annoying noise irrationally enrages me when I'm trying to concentrate. For example when I'm working in my cube and a manager or maintenance guy walks by whistling, I really want to scream at them. Even if it's only for a few seconds. I ignore the feeling because I know it's totally irrational, it goes away and I don't actually feel any ill will towards people.

I've heard others talking about this kind of thing before so I'm pretty sure it's not just me. It's annoying because I'd like to be able to work around noise better, and I don't like being angry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> <http://somafm.com/> Old site, still amazing broadcasts direct to VLC.

Real people , not an algorithm "learning" what you like. Don't forget to donate:)

<comment><USER28> They have some great stations.

I would recommend <http://www.zenradio.fm> too. It features a mix of light instrumentals and ambient music.

MP3 : <http://flux1.zenradio.fr:8800>

OGG: <http://flux2.zenradio.fr:8000>

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interesting. I honestly would never have thought this type of erratic ambient noise would be a productivity boon.

I like to get in the zone, which is trickier when having to worry about the world around me. I don't consider myself paranoid, but I guess I subconsciously maintain spatial awareness when out in public.

Maybe I'm just not well acclimated to working in public spaces, but I find a lot of the background activity distracting (like the dishes, for instance).

</comment><comment><USER30> Silly idea, backed by "research" from the world of business-studies pseudo- academia. Do you trust the results of a paper that starts with the sentence "Creativity is ubiquitous in the realm of consumption"?

[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/665048?uid=3739560&...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/665048?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101773001311)

<comment><USER31> It's not a silly idea as it actually works, and works quite well, for some people.

I'm one of those people. While this particular site's ambient noise doesn't suit me (too many sharp, distracting sounds) there are many sounds that do help. I typically find I get far more done and am able to focus better when i have my headphones on playing music that has few words.

Many others are the same way. While the paper you link to might not be 'research' (don't know, not paying the $14 to read it) it's not a silly idea by any means.

<comment><USER30> Didn't mean that noise/music doesn't help some people work. But I do contend that creating a web page with the sole purpose of playing noises that sound like a cafe, is silly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> <http://www.rainymood.com> is my background noise of choice.

<comment><USER33> Uh, didnt that site have a volume slider at one point? And shouldn't OP's have one in Firefox?

This is getting quite annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Goes very nicely with the fragrance of dark coffee [1]

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMnrl0tmd3k>

<comment><USER14> Nice track. I do enjoy some jazz/chillout stuff while working. I really like Ryo Fukui's Early Summer [1]. But, one can never go wrong with Miles Davis' In Silent Way [2]. I am also a big fan of electronic ambient stuff like Liumin [3].

[1] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaVVdkVbYfA> [2] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUOGehr-4CA> [3] [https://soundcloud.com/modernlove/sets/deepchord-presents- ec...](https://soundcloud.com/modernlove/sets/deepchord-presents-echospace- liumin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I like "Star Trek TNG Ambient Engine Noise (Idling for 24 hrs)" for drowning out everything else: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA>

<comment><USER36> I'm currently running coffitivity and the idling engine noise at the same time. Feels like I'm in the cafeteria aboard the enterprise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm trying this out now and am really enjoying it. I work at home and usually just have my noise canceling headphones on with no music playing, so having the ambient coffee shop sounds plus music is a nice change. So far, I'm still able to concentrate on my work. Not sure if I'm being more productive or not, but it is a nice change. I just need a coffee to complete the illusion.

The loud dish clanks don't really bother me yet. (I am using my beloved Bose Q15 headphones, listening to KCRW Eclectic 24 + the ambient soundtrack both volume levels are very low).

</comment><comment><USER38> Man, this reminds me of a relatively unknown movie 'pushpak' - a silent Indian movie. The lead actor's house would be next to a movie theater but he will be forced to move out. He moves to a quieter place but can't sleep in the quiet zone. So he goes back, records all that movie theater noise and manages to get a good night's sleep listening to that recorded noise :).

</comment><comment><USER39> I've got to say that as skeptical as I was--noisy environments tend to annoy me--coffitivity is working very well for me.

Coffitivity plus Soma.FM's Groove Salad station (Soma.FM is great in general) has made me bang out more work in the last hour or so than in the several hours before it.

It could be the placebo effect, but so far, I'm loving it! Thank you!

<comment><USER40> Soma.fm is my go to for internet radio. I personally find Mission Control the perfect thing to relax my mind and just zone out. For the uninitiated, it's a blend of down tempo atmospheric ambience and real recordings of astronauts talking to mission control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is very similar to <http://raining.fm> which I'm a big fan of. Rainfall seems to be a nice approximation to pure white noise while having enough randomness to not be noisy.

The pomodoro style timer is also very handy.

</comment><comment><USER42> <http://soundtracker.com/> is what I use for this. He makes binaural nature recordings. They are as effective as white noise at blocking out my surroundings, but because of the feeling of space and the variety of sound, I don't get tired of listening to them the way I do listening to noise.

Here's an article on his search for quiet places and the movement to preserve them. <http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3627>

</comment><comment><USER43> from the actual paper (linked at the bottom of the coffitivity post):

"A total of 188 ideas were generated, for an average of 4.48 (SD = 2.09) ideas per person. The noise level did not affect the number of solutions generated"

"ideas generated by participants in the moderate- (vs. low-) noise condition were rated as more original (M = 3.87 vs. 3.66; F(1, 40) = 4.76, p < .05)."

Ratings were on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much)... so ... a difference in originality of (3.87-3.66)/7 = 3% (i.e. not actually particularly significant (in the usual use of the word) even though the 3% difference was statistically reliable)

"... a significant effect of noise on this appropriateness index, such that ideas generated by respondents in the moderate-noise (vs. low-noise) condition were rated as more appropriate (M = 4.48 vs. 4.20; F(1, 40) = 5.34, p < .05)."

again, (4.48-4.20)/7 = 4% difference... not exactly impressive, although apparently it was statistically reliable

It always pains me to see scientific research reported in the media in such a way as to inflate the significance of the work ("significance" used here in the layperson sense of the word, not the statistical sense of the word).

PS the statistical significance was only reported as "p < .05", which means there is a 1 in 20 chance of getting a difference that large or larger due to random sampling alone (i.e. in the absence of an actual effect).

This XKCD cartoon is worth a look: <http://www.xkcd.com/882/>

</comment><comment><USER44> I favour trance (e.g. Armin van Buuren). They usually have dreamy female vocals & the electronic feel makes all the notes sound the same, so it doesn't distract (OCD style). The mixes are often 1hr+ long so need to worry about track selection. I find it offers a good mix between not boring & easy to tune out (flow).

Example:

Ana Criado & Omnia No One Home <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOSgtpbnCeI>

<comment><USER45> These are great. I also like listening to Tiesto's Club Life -- both his and Armin Van Buuren are actually BBC radio shows recorded into podcasts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Anyone ever heard of the Hawthorne Effect? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect>

</comment><comment><USER47> I see lots of people talking about it not working for them. I find the idea Genius! I haven't got anything done today, I'm going to start now with your product + the pomodoro technique and see if I can get things done.

EDIT : Okay I really can't focus while having this on the background. But I'm sure it's because I'm doing math. A task that would require less focus would be better with that kind of background. I need silence right now.

</comment><comment><USER48> For arbitrary ambient sounds, <http://www.ambient-mixer.com/> is great. You can create your own mixes or just listen to premade ones. And you can individually adjust each 'effect' on mix board: <http://weather.ambient- mixer.com/light-thunderstorm>

</comment><comment><USER49> Very nice idea! This is strangely compelling and I almost forgot it to the background despite having radio on... :-)

For those moody evenings and nights a nice choice is "You are listening to" It combines ambient tracks from Soundcloud and police/fire department/etc. radios: <http://youarelistening.to/>

</comment><comment><USER50> Does anyone else's brain get distracted trying to pick out conversation from the ambience? Perhaps it's an ADHD thing.

<comment><USER51> Yeah, I prefer not hear this kind of thing. I'm not that impressed with the linked paper, which is from a consumer research journal and aims to identify environments that are likely to lead to higher purchasing levels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I ran into a similar thing today, focus@will:

<https://www.focusatwill.com/about/>

More than specific patterns they offer, I found interesting that they they claim unfamiliar music is better for productivity:

"And the single most important factor to consider when choosing a genre is what kind of music you usually listen to for fun and entertainment when you are not trying to be productive. And then, counter-intuitively, it's best to select the very opposite kind of music when using focus@will. Why? Because your brain gets pleasure, releasing dopamine when it hears music you like and listen to a lot, and music that is associated with good times or strong memories of any kind will reduce the focus enhancing effects when used as a productivity tool."

Unfortunately, I can't try them out because I'm not in the US.

<comment><USER53> Well, I know it's anecdotal, but this is not how it works for me. Music I enjoy, with lyrics, works pretty well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Some interesting music/audio for coding: 1\. ambient sounds of star trek lcars (<http://www.lcarscom.net/>) and the repetitive beeping noise. 2\. classic video game music on NES, like Super Mario Bros., Zelda 3\. ASMR (search youtube) works wonder for those are affected by it. It puts the listener into a super-relaxed state, which can only be described as tingling or extreme pleasure for the brain. 4\. Office Sound Effects (<http://www.amazon.com/Offices-Sound-Effects/dp/B008HKONNA>)

</comment><comment><USER55> For me, I find long periods of time spent working in front of a screen can lead to anxiety. When I start getting distracted in many directions the feeling starts to come on. Listening to this ambient noise for the past half hour has calmed down that anxious feeling and made me feel more focused.

I am however used to spending lots of time working in public spaces in the past, and have spent the past six months in a more isolated work environment. (On an off the grid property 50m up the side of a volcano that you need to take a boat to access)

Maybe this is just putting me back in my comfort zone.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm using it on soft combined with music, and I'm into it! Helping me out.

</comment><comment><USER57> This doesn't work on me. Even with the volume down low, I couldn't help trying to listen to the coffee shop conversations the instant it started playing. All the voices were somewhere in front of me in space, and after a few seconds I felt pretty overwhelmed. Completely lost my ability to focus on anything else, unfortunately.

This could be due to the fact I get sensory overload easily (and I'm somewhere on the broad autism phenotype). It was a jarring experience.

Plus the coffee shops I frequent are usually quieter than that - that sounded more like a busy canteen than a coffee shop to me! Needed less echo, more muffling, less voices, and some ambient background coffeeshop music, in my humble opinion of small-coffee-shop patron-hipster :)

If I want to focus on stuff, often I have to completely block out people talking and ambient noise and stick music on. The best kind of music is lyricless (or at least, no coherent words - Sigur Røs' english-icelandic gibberish mix is a good example of that), usually long movements, lots of prolonged chords and repetitive segments and a steady rhythm. That stuff helps with my sequencing ability and I find I flit between tasks less.

I've also tried white noise / "binaural beats" (those audio signals that use gentle modulation to supposedly alter your brainwaves), but those are pretty overwhelming too.

I do wonder if it would have a better on me had they used binaural recording (two microphones where the ears would be on a fake head, plus some algorithms to create a 3-dimensional sense of space from the signals) - which to me sounds more natural.

I can't read the whole paper on this, but I'm wondering if they took account of the spectrum of different neurotypes when studying this "coffee shop creativity" effect?

Also, since I've seen other people doing it, here's the artists/bands I listen to like 24/7 when in work to help me concentrate: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (favourite <3), Set Fire To Flames, Explosions In The Sky, Lovett's "Ghost of Old Highways" album, Sigur Røs, Ludovico Einaudi, Philip Glass, Massive Attack, Portishead, Liquid Stranger, Radiohead, DJ Shadow, RJD2, Kid Koala, Hybrid, Deadmau5, Hans Zimmer soundtracks, Nine Inch Nails' "Ghosts I-IV", 65daysofstatic (some stuff anyway, some of their stuff is crazy loud and overwhelming)

</comment><comment><USER58> I just work in a public place like a college cafeteria and I fall in love 100 times in a day watching beautiful women. That's even more disturbing than the noise. I still get work done.

</comment><comment><USER59> This was pretty good for getting work done. The real benefit came when my homemade lunch tasted like it was made in a cafe and cost me like $13.27 before tip. I bussed my dishes.

</comment><comment><USER60> (edit: I was confused, it's not restricted. Sorry for the noise)

"not yet available outside the US" .. fair enough, and kudos for saying up front. How about adding a way of telling me when it is available?

Specifically, that is. I'm not going to subscribe to your normal feed because enthusiastic messages about a service which I can't get yet are just irritating. Indeed, the better they sound, the more likely I am to search for alternatives! This goes for anyone else who is rolling a service out slowly..

<comment><USER17> Is this the comment intended to be on this thread? I just talked to the guys that made this and they arent aware of any location restrictions

<comment><USER61> I think they are probably referring to <http://focusatwill.com/beta> mentioned elsewhere in the comments.

<comment><USER60> Yes, that is what I was looking at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I listen to "binaural beats for a more creative mind" or "binaural beats for concentration and alertness" on spotify while working sometimes. I'm not convinced on the actual science behind binaural beats' affect on the brain, but it very much helps my productivity. At the least it drowns out ambient sound and doesn't distract me with familiar music or lyrics.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats>

</comment><comment><USER63> Explosions in the Sky is fantastic for getting things done. I've written some of my best code to their music.

<http://open.spotify.com/track/5uWzSBJKqdSKJ3uMrYYUIT> is one of my favorite songs by them.

The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place is my favorite album from them. <http://open.spotify.com/album/1JU4XTyTzADBQE1KpM0Wtx>

</comment><comment><USER64> The link to the research paper at the bottom is the bomb, because no matter what it says I should get an hour or two of placebo filled awesomeness from this.

<comment><USER65> Did nobody else notice it's a link to JSTOR? Aren't they evil or something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I've always enjoyed the whitenoise of HVAC systems. It was always pleasant in college to find empty classrooms after-hours, with just the whirr of the HVAC.

<comment><USER67> Spice up your noise a bit:

<http://archive.org/details/ApplPi>

<comment><USER68> beautiful! but how does it work? can we look at the source without decompilation?

<comment><USER67> No unfortunately not. Maybe I'll put it on my GitHub soon. I was thinking maybe I'd find some way to make money on this, so I haven't released the source yet.

As to how it works, internally there's a modular data processing pipeline. I wrote a number of modules that serve a specific purpose (sine wave, square, etc, and reverb, gain, etc). They all get connected together in a driver class. Each driver makes heavy use of random numbers. Those in turn decide the notes played and durations. The durations are extremely short, leading to a granular synthesis of sorts. The notes are chosen from classes I structured around standard chord theory and classical modes.

I have an unreleased version that processes mic input, but it's not ready for prime time yet.

Edit: I decided to release it, probably under AGPL license. Keep an eye on this page: <https://github.com/hollingsworthd/ApplPi>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Interesting. I find I get a ton done with ear plugs but it might be due to some traffic noise right outside my window.

I've also tried white noise which works pretty well.

I'll give this a go, but I'm not sure any music will work, the music itself can't be too enjoyable or engaging or it can become a distraction.

Somafm.com is a great station for this kind of music that you can leave running in the background where the music is good, reasonably unfamiliar,etc.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm listening to Souxsie and The Banshees right now while I'm trying to work, I can tell you it is not helping my concentration. Though it is very cool.

</comment><comment><USER71> I created a playlist with soundtracks from indie games. Initially it was created as background music for playing StarCraft II, but I use it as background music when working instead.

It includes soundtracks from Bastion, Machinarum, Braid, Dustforce, Dustforce, Fittest, and Limbo.

[http://open.spotify.com/user/pkhamre/playlist/53KjzBtdxdGmPZ...](http://open.spotify.com/user/pkhamre/playlist/53KjzBtdxdGmPZy0azSlAF)

</comment><comment><USER72> Focus@Will is a startup doing music to boost productivity: <https://www.focusatwill.com/>

Lifehacker did a related post abiut choosing music for focus: [http://lifehacker.com/5987019/choose-unfamiliar-work- music-f...](http://lifehacker.com/5987019/choose-unfamiliar-work-music-for- better-productivity-and-focus)

(The founder's a friend)

</comment><comment><USER73> Have to say I was skeptical, but after about 20 minutes of this, I think I'm sold. I do think this would be nice as a downloadable soundtrack/app though but the concept works very very well in an open plan office.

Not sure where this urge for cake is coming from and I swear if you listen closely enough, once in a while, you can hear a sheep bleating just briefly.

</comment><comment><USER74> I know people want their posts to be on HN front page, but rigging the upvotes is not the right way. (users RamzyIS,acecallwood)

<comment><USER17> acecallwood worked on this with justin, and ramzyIS is their friend. no rigging involved!

<comment><USER74> My bad. Anyway, site has nice UI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I use ambiance (<http://ambianceapp.com/iphone>) a lot when working, you can record your own sounds or download lots of free ones. I find airplane noise quite good, or low frequency humming.

I think half the effect comes from people thinking twice about bothering you if you have earphones in.

</comment><comment><USER76> What I like to listen while coding:

Aes Dana - Memory Shell

Aes Dana - Season 5

Black Sands - <USER7>

Carbon Based Lifeforms - <USER8>

I also find jazz and post-rock pretty good for ambient noise

<comment><USER77> Bonobo is fantastic. Based on what you've listed, I think you'd enjoy Emancipator as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> If I'm having trouble concentrating I listen to some Brandt Brauer Frick.

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

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR8KGam3m9Q> (ignoring the intro)

</comment><comment><USER79> Bugfixing is fun with Mozarts Requiem - Dies Irae :) It feels like saving the world with every commit :D

</comment><comment><USER80> I heard someone I know used white noise, so trying this one I found

[http://cantonbecker.com/music/white-noise-sleep- sounds/mp3s....](http://cantonbecker.com/music/white-noise-sleep- sounds/mp3s.php)

A bit crazy they want to charge nine quid for it, but can just play it in the web player

</comment><comment><USER81> I like this, it would be even cooler if there were a way to scale the density of the conversation/background noise. As it is, for me, this sounds a bit too cluttered and makes me feel a bit anxious, besides that, it's pretty cool, and a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER82> I didn't read the whole research, but a quick glance at it told me that moderate ambient noise boosts creativity. The research doesn't mention productivity, though.

EDIT: And neither does your website, I see now. Why did you use it in the HN title?

</comment><comment><USER83> This is excellent! Well done. :)

I'd consider making it more procedural, to slowly mix and match different sources (akin to ambient-mixer) for a less static experience (that, by side effect, would also happen to be infinitely long).

</comment><comment><USER84> Well, let's give it a try, although I prefer Dave Matthews Band discography (and my wife likes programming with Bach, Beethoven or other soundtracks).

But that's a good idea, this should work better on very almost-dead quiet spaces.

</comment><comment><USER85> (If you use iTunes)

Along the same lines, I'm a fan of this [https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/people-sound- effects-2/id5...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/people-sound- effects-2/id582685672) Track 21.

</comment><comment><USER86> I would rather go to my favorite coffee shop. Comes with great coffee too! Lately, this has been my routine a few times a week in the afternoon. The change of environment has been quite effective.

</comment><comment><USER87> most of the time when i'm programming from my home office, i'm not listening to any music.

but since i'm working in an office, with 10 other people most of the time we listen to music over some speakers.

when its rock or metal i'm not very productive - but when listen to some good chillstep tracks with the right volume i notice for my self i get more shit done.

so i totally agree, right sounds/music in the correct volume and everything is fine.

p.s.: people talking around me distrect me totally, because my scumbag brain want to listen all the time...so i do not prefer coffee shops

</comment><comment><USER88> Thanks... its a great pairing with Songza. Particularly, <http://songza.com/listen/jazz-for-reading-songza/>

</comment><comment><USER89> I can't tell, is it the same track over and over again or a new one?

By the way, I absolutely love this. I'm 4x more productive in coffee shops compared to everywhere else and I never knew why.

<comment><USER90> Some days I get more done on the 30 min train ride home and then I do all afternoon at the office I also didn't know why.

Love this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> As getting the precise volume is so critical, it would be nice if the volume- slider on the widget were wider, making it easier to find the right balance.

</comment><comment><USER92> I always listen to this on loop in itunes: <http://www.sonicstudios.com/pptwaves.mp3>

It works for me.

</comment><comment><USER93> Chrome on Windows 7, clicking play button does absolutely nothing.

EDIT: started working after like a minute of sitting. Maybe it had to wait to download the audio file?

</comment><comment><USER94> You right. It works!

</comment><comment><USER95> I mixed it with some Claude Debussy radio on Spotify.

</comment><comment><USER96> I like EDM (Avicii station is a favorite).

I also sometimes like the sound of rain, so picked up a mp3 for a buck off Amazon ('The Sound of Summer Rain').

</comment><comment><USER97> I personally find ambient noise to be distracting, but I have to say I love the simplicity and cleverness of this idea. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER98> I dunno if anyone recommended this or not, but these days i'm into "Two Steps From Hell", especially their album "Invincible"

</comment><comment><USER99> Well, that women at left are so talkative.

</comment><comment><USER100> If this helped me focus then my colleagues talking would also make me focus - that is not the case though..

</comment><comment><USER101> After 3 minutes I had to close it. Maybe if I wasn't aware that this is synthetic I would benefit from it.

</comment><comment><USER102> For the love of coffee.. this is money!

</comment><comment><USER103> Great, but the one sample of the woman going "I shouldn't!" over and over is pretty distracting.

</comment><comment><USER104> I am not seeing a volume slider on Firefox 19 Stable, OS X. Is this something that can be added?

</comment><comment><USER105> Really, really useful. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER106> I like, save for the bits around 4-4:30 where spoken word is too clear and disturbing.

</comment><comment><USER107> Anyone else hear an occasional goat bleating in the background of that cafe?

<comment><USER79> Exactly what I was thinking to :D You can hear it clear on 4:15

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> There are some strange noises in that soundtrack...

</comment><comment><USER109> Doesn't work for me, I find it highly distracting.

</comment><comment><USER110> This works very well for me. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER111> man, are you just kidding? is this a joke project?

this "ambient noise" is the reason why I have open offices.

<comment><USER111> I kill my ears day by day with loud music to stop hearing this shit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> it's down. :( what is it? just drowning out distracting sounds or magic productivity noise?

</comment><comment><USER113> I liked this webservice! :)

</comment><comment><USER114> Clean.

</comment><comment><USER115> * dons evil hat * How much would you charge to insert subliminal adverts?

</comment><comment><USER116> s/Eurika/Eureka/

</comment><comment><USER117> site is slow</comment>


Show HN: Swell – privacy focused, non-tracking, curated filter bursting videos - <AUTHOR> https://surfswell.xyz <comment><AUTHOR> Remember the joy of finding random videos rather than algorithmic clickbait? That's what Swell is aiming to do.

It's all "curated" by humans and aims to have no tracking and let you see things that algorithms wouldn't suggest to you.

Submissions are very much welcome - via email - and will be added asap.</comment>


Cliff Click checking in - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.azulsystems.com/cliff/2009/12/touching-base.html <comment><USER2> It really seems like the Azul boxes are the new Lisp machines. it's inspiring to see solid technical work being done with this amount of integration (hardware to software).

<comment><USER3> Indeed!

[http://blogs.azulsystems.com/cliff/2008/11/a-brief- conversat...](http://blogs.azulsystems.com/cliff/2008/11/a-brief-conversation- with-david-moon.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Who buys these? I presume the microsecond automated trading shops would love them, but the value of processing speed-ups isn't that great in most industries. I've been doing performance work on a bunch of Java apps for a Fortune 500 company, and processor is rarely a bottleneck. I guess the locking speed-ups and transactional memory (in HW?) would help with scaling.</comment>


Developer Uses Twilio to Build Bus Tracker By Phone - <AUTHOR> http://johnkeefe.net/wheres-the-next-bus-ill-tell-you

<comment><USER2> Love it, wish we had Twilo in the UK, or is there something similar that anyone knows of???

Maybe I'll just have to try it out anyway, and deal with the cost - not that much to phone the US these days!</comment>


New Rails PaaS coming. Rails Ready - <AUTHOR> http://railsready.com

<comment><USER2> Raw performance doesn't matter to me much as long as I can handle enough concurrent requests, and serve as few as possible with Rails (and trust me, I've built and maintained a webapp handling 50k+ concurrent connections). A good N-tier architecture goes a long way. You'll want a solid HTTP cache, an easy path towards integrating a CDN (better if you can resell and my IT dept has fewer vendors to worry about), and of course memcached is useful.

Creating an easy deployment process can be difficult but you'll find a good solution. No doubt you'll have a decent web management console as well. Devote some time as early as possible to the non-functional parts of the platform (fault-tolerance, availability, security, customer service and relationships) and you'll be in a good place.

Best of luck!

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the kind words and suggestions!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Heroku deployment shell script is nice. Minus is that workers are too expensive -- you pay a full one even if you only use it rarely. Scaling solutions like SimpleWorker can't access their shared database, so you have to upgrade to a super expensive one or develop work-arounds.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not trying to start a hype machine. Please let us know what you do and do not like about the existing Rails hosting providers out there and the offerings they have. Your input is key :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Performance. Whether that is through a better VM (Rubinious?), faster gear, whatever, your worry not mine.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ruby 1.9.2 has significant speed improvements over the 1.8 vm</comment>


How can we stop the botnets? - <AUTHOR> http://www.emailsecuritymatters.com/site/blog/all-about-spam/how-can-we-stop-the-botnets/

<comment><USER2> Great email security article.</comment>


The browser cache is Vary broken (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://jakearchibald.com/2014/browser-cache-vary-broken/ <comment><USER2> At the rate that browser vendors seem bent on adding niche features, it would seem they could scrape together the resources to work and obscure protocol like HTTP properly.</comment>


Online NATO Training - <AUTHOR> https://jadl.act.nato.int/index.html <comment><USER2> (NATO-Military, Governmental or NATO official e-mail only)</comment>


Full-Text Search with MongoDB — Flowdock Style - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nodeta.com/2011/03/30/full-text-search-with-mongodb-flowdock-style/

<comment><USER2> It's a nice hack, but I'd rather just use Elasticsearch and try out the MongoDB river ([https://github.com/richardwilly98/elasticsearch-river- mongod...](https://github.com/richardwilly98/elasticsearch-river-mongodb)). There is a reason why Lucene exists. You'll gain insertion speed, use less RAM for your active working set with MongoDB, and gain TONS of features.

</comment><comment><USER3> It sure seems like by paying a little more technical due diligence up front and finding a proper search library [1] that could fit in their stack, they could have saved a lot of operational burden here.

Growing their main database indexes for this one feature seems like a loser.

1\. Whoosh, Xapian, Lucene, etc?

</comment><comment><USER4> From what I can glance from the post, this is a "poor man's" full-text search. It can search by keywords, but it does not seem to do stemming, word similarity, document similarity and all the nice things you love about Lucene and others. As far as the post explains, it also does not take term counts into account (which seems okay, as they don't have large documents). Also not sure how well it handles things like german umlauts (does "über" match "ueber"?).

<comment><USER5> There are libraries to handle stemming and Unicode equivalence which are easy to add into this kind of boolean search. If ranking documents would definitely mean that some other approach, e.g. vector space model, should be used.

<https://github.com/aurelian/ruby-stemmer> <http://unicode- utils.rubyforge.org>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apparently HN is injesting a feed of:

select url from all_worldwide_blog_posts where content like '%MongoDB%'</comment>


HTML5 Contre Jour conversion: Behind the Scenes - <AUTHOR> http://www.contrejour.ie/BehindTheScenes.html

<comment><USER2> good write up on the behind the scenes page on how we built it. <http://www.contrejour.ie/BehindTheScenes.html></comment>


Decelerator 4030: The slowest Amiga CPU card since Commodore A3630 - <AUTHOR> http://sakura-it.pl/decelerator.php <comment><USER2> Love stuff like this, very cool, I see their also working on a "external HDMI scandoubler" for amiga. Might as remake a whole amiga and sell it patents probably expired, someone did this for the Amiga500 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimig) although with an FPGA.</comment>