Apple's market cap tops $300 billion - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/03/apples-market-cap-tops-300-billion/

<comment><USER2> Irrelevant, but do you think Facebook is worth 1/6 of Apple?

<comment><USER3> Paraphrasing Joel Spolsky, every time Facebook figures out a way to make 10 additional pennies from each of its users, it adds a recurring $50MM income to its cash flow. These are apples/oranges comparisons, but Facebook is worth a lot.

<comment><USER4> Let's do some math based on numbers usually reported:

total users 600,000,000

daily visitors 300,000,000

annual revenue $2,000,000,000

average daily revenue $5,479,452

average daily revenue per visitor $0.02

So, unless I've made some serious order of magnitude error, on average they make 2 cents per visitor everyday. Maybe they can make a lot more than 10 additional cents per user per year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do Apple still have the problem of not knowing what to do with all their money? I recall they had an absurd amount of money lying around that they needed to invest to get some decent returns on.

<comment><USER6> They have $25B in cash or short term investments sitting around ($11B in cash or equivalents): [http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL&fstype=ii)

They have invested pretty heavily in facilities/equipment, growing from $2.8B to $7.2B over the past four years. I'd imagine that's stuff like their giant new data center and partnership agreements in their Asian operations. Where they really bulked up is "Long Term Investments". None four years ago, $25B today (and just $10B last year). Unsure what that would entail...

<comment><USER7> I think they have closer to 50B in the bank. They were definitely north of 40 all of last year.

<comment><USER6> Unless Apple lied in their SEC filings and in doing so risked jail time for high level executives, I think you're mistaken. There are different designations for assets, but the "Cash and Short Term Investments" portion is $25B. Cash makes up $11.2B of that total. They have a little over $75B in total assets, which counts some less liquid assets like property and long term investments.

<comment><USER8> Most of their "long term securities" are actually short term by any reasonable meaning of the word. It's just a technical terminology thing for filings that doesn't mean what you assume it means. They have been north of 40 billion for a while.

The relevant thing is how much is liquid fast enough to use it for what they want to use it for. For that we should listen to Apple telling us directly (which they have repeatedly done), not just check some field on their govt filings.

<comment><USER6> > For that we should listen to Apple telling us directly (which they have > repeatedly done), not just check some field on their govt filings.

Between trusting a company on what they claim and what they actually report, I'd go with what they report. That's what's legally binding. Not that the final result is much different, cash isn't an obstacle in whatever Apple wants to do (and hasn't been in quite some time).

<comment><USER8> You aren't listening. You're taking a field on a report which means X rather than Apple's statement about their Y. They are NOT THE SAME THING. You're simply looking up the WRONG STATISTIC from an official source and saying it trumps A DIFFERENT STATISTIC from another source.

Financial reports use phrases that sound like common sense things but actually have precisely defined meanings that are not equivalent to what they sound like they mean. Basically it's excluding a great deal of Apple's liquid assets because they don't fall under a specific definition.

<comment><USER9> No sense in arguing over something that is easily accessible (see Note 2 to the financial statements): [http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/00011931251023...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000119312510238044/d10k.htm#tx37397_5)

Total cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities as of 9/25/2010 = $51.011 billion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Probably just a fad. ;)</comment>


Show HN: A Javascript library to overcomplicate Five - <AUTHOR> http://jackdcrawford.github.io/five/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing, but in my app I really need five to be six. If you could address this one small issue I'm sure your lib would see much more use.

<comment><USER3> var six = five() + five() / five();

<comment><USER4> var six = function() { return five() + five() / five(); }

Some people may rely on that functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
        five.tooSlow = function() {
            var returnIn = new Date(new Date().valueOf() + 555);

            do {} while(new Date() < returnIn);

            return five();
        };

Finally a way to escape callback hell. I think somebody should write a jQuery.ajax plugin that calls the function repeatedly until a request is finished.

<comment><USER6> That actually wouldn't work, as the response from the request would never be processed while you were looping.

You can make synchronous requests already though:

        req = new XMLHttpRequest
        req.open("some/url", "GET", false);
        req.send()

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I poked around at the source code and this really doesn't seem to be web scale _at all_. Please look into mongodb to store the five, maybe throw in Redis to cache five in memory, and consider using a real-time processing framework like Storm to implement mapping and reducing five.

Until then I'm afraid this is just far too slow to consider using seriously in my web-scale project. This probably cant even handle 100M+ requests/second. Right now, its just me and grandma so I need 2 requests/sec, but this really doesn't seem scalable.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm a little disappointed the test doesn't verify correctness addition, subtraction, multiplication or division.

Sigh. I suppose I'll have to submit an issue and pull request.

</comment><comment><USER9> This can't be right, nowhere near enough dependencies

</comment><comment><USER10> Can't wait until it reach version... 5

</comment><comment> andrey-p Whoah. The Mongolian word for "five" means "ceiling" in Bulgarian.

<comment><USER11> Wake up sheeple!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Really makes me wish you could invoke instance methods on numbers (ala 5.amIFive())

<comment><USER13> You can :)

Number.prototype.amIFive = function(){ return this.valueOf() == 5; }

5..amIFive();

<comment><USER12> Ah, so you have to have two dots... I suppose the first one denotes the floating point value, and the second denotes the prototype accessor. Very clever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> AHA! I knew it! ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES. What _can 't_ you accomplish with this library?

[http://principiadiscordia.com/book/23.php](http://principiadiscordia.com/book/23.php)

</comment><comment><USER15> finally. shame it's not written in the much more scalable coffeescript.

<comment><USER16> Give it a day and someone will have ported it ;-)

<comment><USER17> Done. [https://github.com/barretron/five](https://github.com/barretron/five)

<comment><USER18> But but but I did it first! And you didn't even publish it to npm. :C

[https://github.com/vladh/five-coffee](https://github.com/vladh/five-coffee)

<comment><USER17> Mine's class-based and compiles to javascript on install. HOLD DAT! ;)

<comment><USER18> oh snap

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Who's gonna write Flappy Five in JS?

</comment><comment><USER20> But what good is a five overcomplication library without overly complicated documentation?

</comment><comment><USER21> This will be ported to GWT 5.5.0 in a FiveLabel. It would fit nicely.</comment>


Is GitHub down? - <AUTHOR> I'm getting intermittent 500 errors, and GH Actions aren't running - they've been on queue for over 2 hours. <comment><USER2> [https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/j51fr4jn24f7](https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/j51fr4jn24f7)

> We are investigating reports of degraded performance for Issues, Pull > Requests, Projects.

> Posted 28 minutes ago. Aug 05, 2020 - 06:49 UTC

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.githubstatus.com/](https://www.githubstatus.com/) May come handy

<comment><AUTHOR> They weren't reporting any issues at the time this post was submitted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> no</comment>


Ask HN: How do you work with the fear of your own incompetence? - <AUTHOR> If I make a mistake at work and people are aware of it I am afraid that it reflects negatively on me more than the good things I do reflect positively.
That fear of making mistakes makes it difficult to appreciate constructive criticism. I do appreciate it on an intellectual level but on an emotional level I feel more fear than appreciation. That the risk is that making any mistake could cost me my livelihood.
I don't mean like imposter syndrome where someone doesn't believe they are capable at something they can do. I mean when someone makes a mistake that needs correcting and it could reflect poorly on their performance. <comment><USER2> Here is a secret: people are self-absorbed creatures that cannot pay attention to somebody else for more than a couple of minutes. There is a non-zero probability that you are the only one that cares deeply about this - and the reason you care deeply is that you want to be better at your job.

Nobody gets fired over the mistakes they make unless (1) they make the same mistake over and over again (2) they have an attitude when people try to help them and/or give them feedback.

If you're in an environment where mistakes immediately lead everyone to think on how this reflects on their performance (without factoring in what the mistake was, what happened, how can you learn from it) an interesting thing will happen: people will get better at covering their mistakes. New people will struggle to adapt and old people will burn out. Guess what happens in the long run? The whole operation will collapse. If you are in one of these toxic places GTFO - no amount of money is worth your mental/physical health.

<comment><USER3> This is very insightful.

To solve problem (1), companies put process in place to capture patterns of the mistakes and prevent it for happening in future.

(2) is totally based on individual personality. (2) is an indicator of person having an ego and any amount of process cannot help.

<comment><USER2> IMHO (1) is also an indication of maturity and discipline. To give an example: a place where I worked 20 years ago had a team of 40-ish people contributing to the same codebase in a monorepo (perforce anyone?). The build would happen every night or you could perform it yourself on your own machine. The same 2-3 people were responsible for 95% of the build breaks. When this happens no amount of process is going to save you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > If I make a mistake at work and people are aware of it I am afraid that it > reflects negatively on me more than the good things I do reflect positively.

I think this is just how you think about yourself, because everyone is their own worst critic (myself included). The things you do right last a lot longer I'm sure than your mistakes. Unless you like, killed someone, or broke some incredibly expensive thing, etc. But then you'd probably be fired already.

Mistakes happen when you try something new. I think the most important thing is to manage your risk - what happens when you screw up? Hopefully the impact of mistakes is small.

As anecdata, I always really admire people who can say "look, I screwed up, and this is how I screwed up. Now you can learn from my mistake and maybe not screw up." Owning it I think is key. I'm not saying it's easy though.

One thing to be mindful of is a toxic, petty workplace. Even some large FANG companies are like this, where everyone is looking for reasons to try to hold you back even though they don't mean anything, it's just to make them look good. I got tired of that shit, and so I'm done with cultures like that. People end up spending so much time stabbing each other in the back they rarely get work done. When in a situation like that, make nice with the decision makers, and just remember the best revenge is success (and best served cold to your enemies). Don't even bother trying to woo jerks with your success.

</comment><comment><USER5> The most dangerous person in the world is someone who never makes a mistake - because you know they are somewhere, you just have no idea where.

Making mistakes isn't the problem. hiding them, or not being open to the possibility you are making them is far, far worse.

Someone who makes a mistake, catches it and fixes it - expert. Should be kept at all costs unless making the same mistakes over and over.

Someone who makes a mistake and then hides it or spends more time arguing why they were right in some non-existent edge case world - dangerous, get rid of immediately.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. In my previous job I was one of the most trustworthy support engineers not just because I was knowledgeable and competent, but because I was totally honest about my mistakes, and owned them. And yes, mistakes being plural, you will make them, just accept it. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful, just know you're not perfect.

Integrity is important, and trust in some people had been eroded forever after some high profile outages were caused and made worse when they lied and covered up their mistakes. In one sad case, the covering up of a mistake had a human cost, as it affected the ambulance emergency service dispatch system. It was compounded by not being reported or fixed until more senior staff arrived in the morning.

Moral of the story: your ego is not the most important thing. Think of the consequences of your actions and inactions. Do the right thing, and be transparent about it. People will trust and respect you, and if your employer can't handle a couple of honest mistakes, you can find a better employer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 30+ years experience here.

 _If you are any good, you will be working at the edge of your competence all the time._ Sure you will have some processes in place but the real work is going to be new - full of ways to screw up. I thought "Someday I'll be good at this development stuff." Thing is, you won't really. Accept it!

 _Drop any pretense of ego._ You can't be hurt if there is no "target". Do your research of course and then ask the "stupid"/embarrassing question. The guys who _don 't_ ask the question will remain ignorant. You will feel a little silly but that will pass and now you will know.

<comment><USER8> Except in quite a few workplaces _never making mistakes_ is all, even more important than creating value, especially in industries that don't have to worry about making money.

<comment><USER7> Could you clarify a little? Not being critical, just wondering are you talking medical or ?

thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's hard to overcome a fear, if one is surrounded by people triggering fear or handling their own fears in unproductive ways. Many do this unconsciously so don't judge.

Lot of folk take advantage of other's insecurities because it works. And because it works, they train others to follow their methods. And that leads to a culture of fear.

So be conscious of who you are dealing with. Otherwise it can get very confusing.

Trust and respect are key. Find people you trust and respect based on their behavior towards others. They will be your sources of confidence and reduce your sensitivity to different types of triggers.

<comment><USER10> This is a good answer, but I feel like it will go over most people's heads. Knowing who to ignore and who to value in the workplace is a very valuable tool. Not sure if this type of insight comes from instinct or experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ask your manager what they think of your performance, where you could grow, how you're doing compared to what they expected.

You'll likely be pleasantly surprised. Just like people with general insecurities frequently underestimate their likable attributes, it seems you're doing the same, but with your level of competence.

<comment><USER8> That's provided your manager is available for anything save criticism when things go wrong. Generally in my experience, personal growth is the sole responsibility of the employee. The manager is purely an executioner to find and fire the bottom 5-10 percent of people, depending on how the company's doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're _honestly trying to solve a problem_ , you should assume positive intent from the criticizers- they're on your side and just want the project as good as possible. Everyone makes mistakes, and it's great there are people there to catch them and glean experience from. Is it so critical that you're actually walking on the edge of a knife to keep your job? (If so, I'd probably look for something else- that's no way to live!)

</comment><comment><USER13> Some vague advice from a non-expert:

It may well be a fact, for you and everyone else, that if you make a mistake at work and people are aware of it, it reflects negatively on you more than the good things you do reflect positively. It's human nature, to pay attention when things go wrong. And why shouldn't it? – hopefully, you do many more good things every day than bad things. This may just be a matter of facing reality. Do others similarly fear making mistakes? You could ask them about that.

 _What 's the worst that could happen?_ Often it's good to imagine that, in detail, when you are just "fearing the worst" in some situation in life, without really facing it. Living with that fear every day, as you are, may itself be much worse than that supposed "worst thing". Losing that job may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you–who knows. Also, strong enough fear of mistakes will actually cause you to make mistakes. Find self-help books on the subject or get some psychological counselling if it's a serious problem for you. Good luck!

<comment><USER14> "It's the fear, they're gonna take my job away,

it's the fear, I'll be working here the rest of my days . . ."

D.Fahl

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRk3dJ0fGKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRk3dJ0fGKE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did you have the information necessary to make the correct decision? Most problems or failures I've encountered in software come to missing information much more often than any other reason. Having justifications for the decisions you reach given the information you had available should lead you to feeling confident in the actions you take. No one has all the pertinent information available at all times, and anyone who acts that way is disingenuous.

I believe it is human nature to put more emphasis on failure than success, but I also believe that people set themselves up for failure by assuming that their decisions are somehow flawed compared to others. Most decisions we make are based on incomplete information, so the only recourse is to build stating your justifications with your decisions so that others's may review them in the light of the information you had available.

</comment><comment><USER16> > If I make a mistake at work and people are aware of it I am afraid that it > reflects negatively on me more than the good things I do reflect positively.

This happens all the time. Though making mistakes are parts of getting experience.

> That fear of making mistakes makes it difficult to appreciate constructive > criticism. I do appreciate it on an intellectual level but on an emotional > level I feel more fear than appreciation. That the risk is that making any > mistake could cost me my livelihood

Past experiences might drive you to feel this. Take a step back. See things objectively. Stop being paranoid.

I felt this way months ago. Then I looked around, things will be more fragile if I'm not there to support it, therefore I'm important.

I continued moving, making calculated mistakes, so are those who work with me. I progress, perfect myself, and so can you.

</comment><comment><USER17> In teams that I've lead and the work I do, I've tried to really make sure that 1 person is not solely responsible for anything. We are a team, at least 2 people are involved between dev/review/testing/deployment, and we own success & failure together.

You want constructive criticism in a safe space, which is before the accident. So work with your fellow devs before you release code to minimize prod mistakes. If you're not in a workplace where that's possible then more mistakes will happen, and that's okay too. If you're getting blamed for more mistakes happening in an environment that has been set up for more mistakes to happen? Idk, get out or ignore it because collective insanity has taken over.

<comment><USER18> Yes if you're the single point of failure - then it's the companies fault and not you when things go wrong. Most places try to save money and take shortcuts. Just accept they took the risk and they get what they pay for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This works for me (it's not original, but I don't remember the source): I suck at what I do, but I suck less than pretty much everyone else.

In our modern lives, what we do require one thousand skills. We are good at some, sometimes extraordinary at others, but invariably we suck at some. I personally suck at lots of things, but I'm decent at many things as well, and there are a few things (not many) where I'm world class. It took me many years to get to being this content (and resigned) with myself, but I got here, and now I'm ok.

</comment><comment><USER20> 1\. Do you know your worth in the labor market? Believe it or, there's high demand for mediocre developers and they make a good living. Go on some interviews. Knowing you can get another job gives you a ton of confidence.

2\. This podcast episode can help you figure out what you're really afraid of:

[https://feelinggood.com/2017/05/29/039-uncovering- techniques...](https://feelinggood.com/2017/05/29/039-uncovering-techniques/)

</comment><comment><USER21> For me the first situation like this were my studies. I wasn't sure if I might be too stupid for this. But after I passed one of the important and difficult exams, I had a reference that I could build on.

Same for new jobs, once I've mastered one difficult piece of work, I know I have passed this milestone and afterwards I stop worrying about that.

So yeah, humans make errors including you and me :) If the company culture gives you really bad feedback on this, it's their problem, not yours. I think it is common knowledge that overly bad feedback makes things worse not better. Everybody thinks that criticism should always be constructive. I don't think so, there is a place also for destructive criticism. Not always when we see an error or problem, we must have a solution. Otherwise it would mean we only work on solutions we already know which is paradox. And if most feedback is any form of criticism, I think that's also a sign for a problematic culture and possibly that people make up questionable tasks.

In any case, I think it should be balanced, most criticism must be constructive. I find the framework of non-violent communication very useful for discussing uncomfortable things.

</comment><comment><USER22> People are motivated in different ways. From this question, I'd characterize a key motive for you is to be competent. Embrace it and get really good at your job. Try to find ways to remind yourself of your fears when you have free time, so that you can devote the time required to practice your craft. Enjoy your progress.

</comment><comment><USER23> You have to believe in yourself, beyond any personal conception of career advancement or professionalism.

Unless you work in a hellish organization, most people appreciate a person who can own a mistake and then take the required action to correct it.

It's when people are completely blind sided by the consequence of a mistake that you knew about, but kept to yourself that things start to get dicey.

In the end, everyone makes mistakes. If you work on the most critical of systems where mistakes are life and death, then I pity you, but if you fall outside of the realm, just be honest about what happened with whoever it matters to.

As others have pointed out, you can help yourself by practicing risk management. If you're taking a risk, try to hedge it.

I think most importantly, don't be scared of your job.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER24> fear of rejection - your manager hasnt made your workplace feel like a safe environment for you, or you havent expressed that you would like more validation. you'll need to talk with your manager for this.

overly critical and ego driven perspective - how angry do you get at yourself for making mistakes outside of work? meditation and building a softer/less judgemental mind can work through this

lack of confidence in your ability to find another job - study up on interviewing, apply for some companies. create backup options for yourself.

fear of financial stability - like a previous poster said, it helps to have enough savings to weather any financial blips

fear of the unknown - improv classes are great at building confidence in yourself when dealing with unknown unknowns

just some ideas to work with

</comment><comment><USER25> Never really crosses my mind. Everyone messes up.

Incompetence is when you don't follow process or review your own work before pushing. Simple.

</comment><comment><USER26> You need to see a psychiatrist and a counselor. You need medication to calm the anxiety while the counselor helps you figure out how and where these issues are coming from.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's not an "impostor syndrome", it's an "excellent student syndrome". Cognitive behavioral therapy may help you with that.

</comment><comment><USER28> Talk with the manager, discussion how to improve it. Collect feedbacks about 1~2 month latter, Don't fear it, but solve it.

</comment><comment><USER29> Save money and realize that if my incompetence bothers anyone so much they'll just stop employing me

</comment><comment><USER30> read or listen to the audio of Extreme Ownership. It will reframe your perspective on failure.

<comment><USER31> So, I've listened to that and I'm not sure what lesson that OP should take from it to apply to the situation at hand. It seems to me that OP is taking ownership of mistakes, but doesn't know where to go in preventing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Aha, fear of mistake. Fear of others thinking I'm not good enough. Fear of loosing my job/status/life.

Fear rules life. Not even just humans but all animals and living creatures. You are not alone. It rules my life too. Now what is this fear? Why should I have it? Can I have no fear?

Trying to eliminate one fear is not enough, soon you'll be filled with another. In fact, fear fears itself.

I think fear is what conditions me into being who I am. The I, is built using different fears -- borders that should not be crossed. The fear of society, bad grade, loosing good status... oh, everything!

Now I ask myself, what is the point of maintaining this "I" if death is going to eliminate it. Because after all, it is too much work, constantly thinking/working to maintain a life that is marked as "APPROVED" by society, enforced by fear. Then once you get that "APPROVED" mark you fear loosing it... right?

Think about it. It is crazy. I'm full of fear of crossing rules at this very moment of writing... what if people don't like my answer, what if that is grammatically incorrect. What is the point of this constant fear?

It is simple, we have all these fears in the hope of preventing the experience of pain. It is ultimately the fear of experiencing pain, discomfort and ultimately death.

Now I have some suggesting... things that I do myself and have seen great improvement in my life having a lot less fear.

A) Study all your actions and see the trace of fear in all of them -- this opens up a world of understanding... soon you get it, it is all out of fear. Even love is mostly based on fear (but it does not have to be)

B) Eliminate the fear by thinking of death. Yes the most feared of all fears. We reject death and try to avoid it like any other fear, but with death it is even worse because it is the most feared, we go as far as subconsciously deny it. But if death does not work for you, face the experience that the fear is trying to prevent, face it, like a warrior (don't fight) but face it, and look at its eyes, is this the actual monster that you think it is? or is fear, the real monster?

C) Soon, a life that is driven by less fear, teaches you great important lessons, beautiful experiences that we miss because of these stupid fears. These experiences are already happening but we cannot see because of fear.

Now let me talk about the experiences... eating is 100x more enjoyable, loosing weight is 100x easier, heck even waiting in traffic light is enjoyable (when there is no fear you enjoy your own being). Also one's reaction to difficult situations is going to be 100x better when fear does not rule it all.

Enjoy a life with no fear, like a warrior, go to work, own the moment. If you get fired, just or unjust, face it, do the next thing. Speak up and listen with no fear. Also realize that others, your boss and co-workers are also driven by fear. Soon you feel not only your own action but other people actions, when I say feel, I mean you can actually feel their action with empathy and love -- after all they are suffering from the same monster: fear.

Also, most people that I talk to about this, think that once you eliminate all these fears and tendencies, you become a man of no action. That is not true, fear is defining the reaction, not actions. Once you are free of reacting to situations then you free to act instead of react -- this is very important to understand.

Also some people at first, once they look, they become afraid of having all these fears (again, another fear). Don't be afraid of having fears, own it, face this person full of fears, face the "I", then ask, who is the one looking at this, with no fear? and then remain in that state, all the time.

Wish you the best!

<comment><USER33> The more and more I progress in my personal philosophy, I see just completely dissolving the idea of this fear as essential to a live well lived.

It's crazy though, because sometimes I have streaks of over a week in a "fearless" mindset and then I can regress overnight and have a week living in fear. I wonder if it's physiological or something else? The same arguments that seemed so clear are now opaque and make no sense in the "fear mode".

<comment><USER34> Fear seems to be a complex autonomically mediated phenomenon elicited by both instinctually determined and learned responses to some stimuli. It's adaptive and critical to the survival of any organism. No one can completely eliminate fear from their biological repertoire anymore than they can stop recoiling from a loud noise. At best, all that can be done is tame the behavioral response to a probable stimulus. This review offers some definitions which may be useful: [https://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(12)...](https://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822\(12\)01435-2?script=true)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Imposter syndrome. It's a thing.

</comment><comment><USER36> work isnt a place for learning so to say - your reputation and advancement suffer greatly if you make mistakes so its best to stick to small repeatable tasks. for larger projects you should have junior analysts perform the work while you provide guidance and monitor progress</comment>


Daddy Issues: Renoir Père and Fils - <AUTHOR> https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/01/10/daddy-issues-renoir-pere-and-fils/ <comment><USER2> This helps explain why Renoir (the elder) is one of my least favorite of the Impressionists, while I love the films of Renoir (the younger).

</comment><comment><USER3> Pierre Roland Renoir [1], a Canadian painter and also a great-grandson of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, painted my portrait more than a decade ago.

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

<comment><USER3> why the down vote? honestly, why?</comment></comment>


Study Blames YouTube for Rise in Number of Flat Earthers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/17/study-blames-youtube-for-rise-in-number-of-flat-earthers <comment><USER2> Also here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19197668](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19197668)</comment>


Firebase bandwidth usage growing rapidly even when the database is not in use - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38959321/firebase-database-bandwidth-usage-growing-rapidly-even-when-when-the-database-is <comment><USER2> Is it the same issue [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14356409](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14356409)?

<comment><USER3> Looks like it. But this one is a year old, without any apparent resolution.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the point. I know the guy who posted this question on stackoverflow, a case was opened with Firebase support on August 15, 2016. They're STILL exchanging emails with no resolution as far as I know.

<comment><USER3> Well...that's the flip side of serverless. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Awesome To-do app in CSS and JavaScipt - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/d3v3r0/pen/yLiCg

<comment><USER2> Looks great, but it could be more intuitive how to close the settings menu. Right now it seems that the only way is by using the navigation menu?</comment>


"Best" Books on City-Making Ever Written - <AUTHOR> https://www.planetizen.com/node/66462 <comment><USER2> This is only interesting for US city planners. Europeans or Asians do have much better resources (and of course cities).

</comment><comment><USER3> (2013)

It's a collection of Amazon affiliate links with almost no first-hand detail on any of the books.</comment>


'Small' cut to cholesterol can reduce heart attack and stroke risk by 80pc - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/02/small-cut-cholesterol-can-reduce-risk-heart-attack-stroke-80/ <comment><USER2> The title is misleading. The study didn't seek to answer that question.

It was specifically designed to answer:

"What is the association between GENETIC VARIANTS related to lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels and lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) with lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease?" [emphasis mine]

The abstract says specifically that it didn't find the relationship suggested by the article title: "The relationship between exposure to lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) with the risk of cardiovascular disease has not been reliably quantified."

The published study is here: [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2749533](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2749533)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Scientists looked at people with genes that are linked to lower blood pressure and cholesterol.

They then compared them to other healthy adults to calculate the benefit."

Going from a study like this to implying that taking drugs to lower cholesterol and blood pressure is just as good for health is just incorrect and is what gives all these health suggestions such a bad reputation.</comment>


It'd have the fifth largest population in the world (infographic) - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/19/runescape-hits-200-million-accounts/

<comment><USER3> Let's draw a distinction between registered users and active users. Browser games have notoriously high inactivity rates. Many - perhaps most - <USER2> accounts, play once and never return. This doesn't include the number of users who have multiple accounts, macro miners etc.</comment>


Building A Remote Call Center With JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://blog.phono.com/2011/03/22/building-a-remote-call-center-with-javascript/

<comment><USER2> 1\. dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1798036>

2\. it's using Flash for the actual voice stuff

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. The item you link to is not a dupe - it's the _launch_ of the Phono SDK. The link here is for a blog post that explains how to build a call center using the Phono SDK.

2\. Flash is currently used for a small part of the interaction to deal with the actual microphone and speakers. The Phono architecture is explained here:

<http://blog.phono.com/2010/10/25/behind-the-phone/>

I know that the Voxeo Labs guys are working on other ways to control the microphone and speakers without using Flash. (I work for Voxeo, but not in the Voxeo Labs team.)

<comment><USER3> Voxeo is a cool product, I used you all ten years ago for a coupon redemption app using CallXML I believe.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ludum Dare 45 gamejam starting soon - <AUTHOR> http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/ <comment><USER2> ...and the theme is "Start With Nothing"

<comment><USER3> Kind of seems like most games have this theme, really. A lot of games are about starting with nothing and then building up to something crazy. Everything from Civilization to Final Fantasy to Katamari Damacy to Tetris does this.

But hey, a constraint is a constraint. I'm sure some really clever games will appear from this.

<comment><USER4> Civilization, you start with a settler and some warriors. Final Fantasy starts with a character or two. Tetris has a game board.

I mean, there's lots of places to play around with starting from an even more primordial slate.

<comment><USER5> > ... Tetris has a game board.

> I mean, there's lots of places to play around with starting from an even > more primordial slate.

I am struggling to see how you can start with a more primordial state than Tetris. If there is no game world, you cannot possibly progress into there being something you can interact with other than perhaps the game world unfolding after some amount of predetermined time.

<comment><USER4> I could imagine a universal paperclips style game where the initial interface was literally just a solid color. That resolved over time as you moved your mouse or typed, slowly gaining fidelity and using the randomness of your movements to dynamically fill in some color scheme. (So it would eventually resolve to a game space, but one that was uniquely colored by your actions.)

Conway's game of life often starts with nothing. You could pretty easily start with literally just a white screen.

I could imagine some stuff that's probably closer to generative art starting from nothing.

You could have a sea of noise that you sort of collect into a shape, which eventually becomes your avatar. I think about a game like Warning Forever played pretty well with the concept of starting with (almost) nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish I knew about this sooner. Hopefully I can do the next one.

<comment><USER7> me too. I'd love to be able to participate in one.

<comment><USER8> Advance notice of some other game jams coming up:

› GitHub Game Off (Nov 1) [https://gameoff.github.com](https://gameoff.github.com)

› Global Game Jam (Jan 31) [https://globalgamejam.org](https://globalgamejam.org)

[https://itch.io/jams](https://itch.io/jams) is a great resource for other fun, niche jams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Who's in? 15 more minutes! Drop your LD username below and I'll play your game

<comment><USER10> Me! Have no idea what the heck I'm doing but hoping for the "unconventional travel" theme!

<comment><USER9> That one would fit the game idea I had yesterday perfectly, in fact I could bend quite a few of these themes to it, so fingers crossed! What's your LD username so I can check your game out when it's finished?

edit: Start with nothing

<comment><USER10> This is me: [https://ldjam.com/users/andi/](https://ldjam.com/users/andi/)

I don't know if I'm going to submit at all, but you can follow if you'd like. Still racking my head for ideas to fit with this theme.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Never participated in LD myself but I always try to follow up and check some projects and read their code.

Ludum Dare is an unusual combination of talent, efficiency and humbleness. In some sense the direct opposite of a typical IT workplace :)</comment>


BT strikes deal to legally separate Openreach division - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39228115 <comment><AUTHOR> BT will still own 100% of Openreach. Also, the article mentions when the separation process will _start_ , but not when it will be completed.</comment>


The Problem with 'Cool Pavements': They Make People Hot - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/10/cool-pavement-materials-coating-urban-heat-island-research/599221/ <comment><USER2> Was there no real world testing before release? I feel like this is the same situation with permeable pavers companies sell to cities to reduce water runoff. Those are difficult to test (it's hard to measure runoff; me and me team wrote 3 papers on it), but this seems like it would be a lot simpler .. unless human beings walking on it all day have that much an affect on temperatures.</comment>


Show HN: Remotework.com – not JUST another remote jobs site - <AUTHOR> Hello Hacker News! This is James from RemoteWork.com (https://remotework.com/)
I am building a marketplace for the remote worker community, and to connect remote jobs to remote workers. I hope for this not to become just another jobs board. I am much more interested in helping remote workers solve for loneliness and build community, shift skilled work away from the coastal cities and other "soft" benefits of remote work.
Like many other readers here on Hacker News I am following the Shelter-in-Place order in the bay area due to COVID-19. I have been sitting on RemoteWork.com as a concept since before 2017. I was originally inspired by Greg Caplan and his Remote Year (RemoteYear.com) project, I looked up LeapYear.com and stumbled upon Venture.com, they happened to have RemoteWork.com available & I have always had it on my shortlist of domains to use for a future concept. Then around NYE of 2020, as everyone was making predictions about what the next decade held, a consistent theme was that a shift towards remote work would become one of the big shifts of the 2020s. Who could have guessed it would happen so fast? I secured a lease with Venture.com shortly after Jan 1st. I setup a no-code MVP using Sharetribe Go.
I have been working remotely or part of a remote team for the past 5 years & am familiar with the challenges it presents to the individual and to the organization. Personally, I really wanted to solve for the community and educational side of people beginning to work remotely. Working remotely may not be for everyone, but I think it could be a benefit for most people who are able to perform their jobs without being in an office, if given the right tools and guidelines outlining best practices.
This is just the beginning. I hope we can start a movement that benefits both workers and employers. A movement that can reduce traffic congestion and improve overall job satisfaction thru work/life balance.
Join us. Join the movement. Join RemoteWork.com <comment><USER2> Congrats on the initial launch of your project!

You might want to consider seeding the website with some sample events, workspaces, etc.

It's a little hard to get a sense of what the functionality you've built is and its benefits without seeing some examples.

Best of luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Matt. I just launched and am building the marketplace. I am generally against astroturfing but I understand what you mean. I will likely ask my network to create profiles and jobs there so at least then the few I have will be legit.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://remotework.com](https://remotework.com)</comment>


Ask YC: Who is Nickb and what is his start-up? - <AUTHOR>

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99923<p>Just curious, really. Not really a part of the YC crowd so I haven't the slightest clue. <comment><USER2> Hi, thanks for asking!

I'll start blogging fairly soon and all your questions will be answered. I need to start blogging because I promised a bunch of posts on Arc (including many modifications that I've made to it), Lisp, business of startups etc. To tell you the truth, I just didn't want to start a blog because blogging eats up a lot of time and time is something that I don't have in abundance right now. If the curiosity is eating you, you can always email me and I'll provide you with more info.

</comment><comment><USER3> his life story

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99923>

<comment><USER4> Nickb - when is your startup launching?

<comment><USER2> Well, we're working on a video demo and technical information and this stage. The backend of what we're working on proved to be very challenging indeed and was a lot of work. It also ended up being a lot more complicated than we thought due to the volume of data that we'll have to support.

So we're very close indeed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe hes just the MrBabyMan of HN — just like everyone else here, except he really likes submitting ALL the cool stuff he finds on a daily basis?

Though I am interested what his startup is. :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> I believe NickB is one of the FriendFeed guys, though I could be wrong. I remember a FriendFeed staff member going by FirstnameL, anyway.

<comment><USER7> Don't think he's FriendFeed, the whole FriendFeed team is listed on their website and there's no Nick:

<http://friendfeed.com/about/team>

NickB also said his startup uses a lot of Ruby on Rails, and Friendfeed's a mostly-Python shop.

<comment><USER6> PaulB, then? Hmm.

<comment><USER8> He's just "paul" on HN

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> see here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152500>

</comment><comment><USER10> viaweb?

</kidding>

</comment><comment><USER11> Wasn't it stated somewhere that pg == nickb ?

<comment><USER12> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152428>

<comment><USER11> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152559>

20 points by pg 211 days ago | link

Damn. Forgot that. Yes, sorry, it's not an April Fools' joke. I am actually nickb.</comment></comment></comment>


Near.ly - <AUTHOR> http://near.ly/ <comment><USER2> \+ like the design \+ LOVE the domain & name \+ clear and simple sign ups \- Twitter only \- USA only \- nearlies != near.ly

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks cool but why does it have to use twitter? Why can't I just get an RSS feed, or emails?

<comment><USER4> I was thinking about that too. It seems that in some ways, Twitter has already become what RSS has been trying to become for years. It's much easier for people to understand "following someone on twitter" than it is for them to understand "subscribing to an RSS feed in an aggregator."

Obviously there are some pretty big differences in the purpose and functionality of the two technologies, but maybe there's something to learn regarding the terminology used to describe RSS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> pet peeve of mine: when you click on one of the form fields the "title" disappears and when you blur that field (after not typing in it at all and or deleting the content) it remains blank, surely it should put the title back on if blank?

<comment><USER6> This is fixed, by the way

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You know, it isn't bad for something that these guys built in 48 hours :)

[http://blog.outside.in/2008/11/11/announcing-the-new- outside...](http://blog.outside.in/2008/11/11/announcing-the-new-outsidein- api-plug-in-to-the-news-around-you/)

PS. I work at outside.in so I'm probably biased.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's tough that I have to give you my email address, real world address, twitter account name and twitter password (!!) before I can even see how good your service is. How about letting me type in an address and see what you would have sent me had I been signed up.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ooo, .ly domains!

</comment><comment><USER10> What technology do you think they are using to aggregate that data?

<comment><USER7> it's the brand new outside.in API: <http://api.outside.in>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ah, they just use outside.in .. still cool but not as amazed. Someone needs to make the same thing for Canada. A very cool idea :)

</comment><comment><USER12> .ly? Libya?

<comment><USER13> O RLY? <http://or.ly>

<comment><USER9> I actually checked yesterday if that was still available.

I need to go outside more :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think it would be cool if I could use it as a search engine for local news.</comment>


Jobs in tech paying at least $250K/year - <AUTHOR> http://www.250ksalary.com/?referrer=yc

<comment><USER2> Just in case there's a dev around: Text does not appear (but is there) when I type in any of the boxes and submitting the form gave me an error. When I refreshed without the referral query string, a blank modal dialogue appeared that did not load any content within it. When I followed the link from this post again and resubmitted my email address it told me that I had already signed up. I'm using FF 33.1.1 on Windows 8.1

<comment><USER3> Sorry for those issues and thanks for letting us know. Your signup worked the first time however you received an error during confirmation.

We are aware of the modal issue.

"Text does not appear (but is there) when I type in any of the boxes and submitting the form gave me an error." => In case you remember, can you tell us more. Which page the text does not appear on ? . What error did you get from the form.

We will also dig up the logs for server side issues.</comment></comment>


MySQL 5.6 looks great but what about 5.7? (MySQL at Facebook) - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10151545213155933

<comment><AUTHOR> _> > SELECT COUNT(_ _)_ _for InnoDB was changed to not pass rows back to the SQL layer to be counted._

My gosh this cannot come soon enough. I hope Percona backports it into their 5.6 build.</comment>


Ask HN: I made a list of Ruby / Rails learning resources, should I open it up? - <AUTHOR>

I made a list of Ruby and Rails resources - http://www.learnrubyandrails.com and it has gotten good traction.
I am thinking to open up the repo and accept contribution by pull requests, or I should keep it as very moderated as it is now - I am the only one adding resources. My concern is that if I totally open it up there may be too much spam or people promoting their own mini-tutorial or ebooks, and it could out of control.
I also thought about putting up / down votes like HN does, but again there is concern of spamming.
what do you think? <comment><USER2> To combat people promoting their own tutorials and stuff, just have them include a short snippet as to what that resource concerns that others don't - what makes that resource worth visiting/reading?

<comment><USER3> I think that is valuable for sure, but I'd add that I would not have contributions via pull requests in this case. The reason is that there is some expectation when you go through the trouble of forking, cloning, editing, pushing back to the fork, and doing a pull request that your contribution will be accepted, and it very likely may not, which will result in anger, which is not a good thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly the sort of thing I am concerned about. Definitely don't want it to be a place to piss people off.

Thanks for the reply

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Closed. I'd take one well-moderated list over 20 open lists.</comment>


What is Success? - <AUTHOR> http://4mojo.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/wtf-is-success/

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately according to my American friends' colloquial definition of "success" it is simply $$$.

Yup money. "She became very successful" = "She made lots of money". Sometimes I am a jackass and ask stupid questions, "well what if she is unhappy, is she still successful?". And people look at me like I am from Mars ;-)

<comment><USER3> Do you agree or disagree with them? Is "well what if she is unhappy, is she still successful?" really a stupid question?

<comment><USER2> I just kind of struck me as strange. I grew up with it meaning something like "lucky", "fortunate", could be things like kid is doing well in school, found the person of their dreams to marry, it wasn't a direct euphemism for got a pile of money. But now it kind of is.

Do I personally agree or disagree? Well don't certainly use the word that way, and unless I am felling snarky I won't bother dissecting its meaning or messing with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What I found most interesting about this was the the concept of success changed over time. Success seems to be deeply personal and is perhaps a reflection of a deeply personal fear.

In our society the fear of not having enough money seems to be very prevalent thus often success is tied directly to the concept of having enough money because it is a fear a lot of people share.

In this light perhaps the path to success is just a way of working through our fears.

The interesting question then becomes what does success look like to the person who no longer has any fears. Perhaps then success is motivated by compassion?

</comment><comment><USER5> True wealth is confidence..

Quote from George Foreman about longshoremen:

Mr. Foreman, who stared down financial collapse as an adult despite a troubled, impoverished childhood, said he knew real wealth when he saw it. "If you're confident, you're wealthy," he says. "I've seen guys who work on a ship channel and they get to a certain point and they're confident. You can look in their faces, they're longshoremen, and they have this confidence about them...I've seen a lot of guys with millions and they don't have any confidence," he says. "So they're not wealthy."

</comment><comment><USER6> On skim, I do not see any hard definition of the "outstanding success" you envisioned for Nickler. If you never defined it, you cannot achieve it or know if you have. What gets measured gets done but, also, you need a measurable goal to know when you are done.

So I think what you had in your van were easily achieved and easily measured or recognized goals. Things get harder to see when the goal is larger and seems nebulous. You need to make it tangible somehow.

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well put. Over the last few months we've come to a conclusion that we'll measure the product's success through the ability to earn a customer referral (stolen from Ecquire's Paul DeJoe). Prviously, it's been 'get fucking launched', and 'build a UI that doesn't make me want to punch my screen'.

Baby steps...

<comment><USER6> Well, it does not sound like a very big picture goal, unless you are leaving something out. Without a big picture goal, "outstanding" success seems very unlikely.

Take care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Success is not about finding what you think you want to have but realizing of how much you already have.

</comment><comment><USER8> I reckon it's probably happiness.

<comment><USER9> Thus, if it's happiness, success has no root at all in the objective reality, but is completely subjective _... What is quite a hard thing to say, but sounds completely logical.

_ And yeah, I'm removing the subject's brain from my definition of "objective reality". If I don't do that, "subjective" would be meaningless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Tell me what an idiot I am on Hacker News_

You brag too much in that post and come off as somewhat douchey, but reflective and intelligent. Also, you're one of the better writers that I've read (and I've written professionally) and that's not an easy skill for most to master, so kudos on that.

Also, it looks like Nickler is solving a real (and unsexy) problem. So, respect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, the douchey isn't intended, but it's helpful feedback on a writing style I'm trying to pin down.

Thanks for the honesty and 'chin up', it's appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why can't it be subjective?

<comment><USER12> It probably is for individuals. Some measure success with lots of money, whilst others measure it with possessions (boats, cars, house etc).

For example as long as I can have support my wife and kids without them going hungry I believe I'm successful in what I do.</comment></comment>


WordPress to get secure, cryptographicly signed auto-updates - <AUTHOR> https://ma.ttias.be/wordpress-get-secure-cryptographic-updates/?hn <comment><USER2> so right now it's still vulnerable :/

<comment><USER3> Yes, and they have been for the past 3.5 years. And by the time hits gets _implemented_, we're looking at another year.

Here's hoping their update/API servers are well protected ...

<comment><USER4> About that. [https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2016/11/hacking-27-web-via- wo...](https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2016/11/hacking-27-web-via-wordpress- auto-update/)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Proxlet: Control Twitter w/ API Proxy - <AUTHOR> http://proxlet.com We were tired of the noise on Twitter (noisy apps, lame content, erratic but otherwise valuable tweeters), so we decided to fix it. Proxlet is a Twitter API Proxy that runs scripts to modify the Twitter experience. Works with Twitter for iPhone, TweetDeck, and any other client that supports custom API URLs, including a 1-click install Chrome Extension for Twitter.com<p>What do you think? Right approach? <comment><USER2> Twitter.com + Proxlet Chrome Extension = No more foursquare updates. No more annoying conference live-tweets. No more Brett Favre speculation.

It's so great. I want to give it a hug.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We were tired of the noise on Twitter (noisy apps, lame content, erratic but otherwise valuable tweeters), so we decided to fix it. Proxlet is a Twitter API Proxy that runs scripts to modify the Twitter experience. Works with Twitter for iPhone, TweetDeck, and any other client that supports custom API URLs, including a 1-click install Chrome Extension for Twitter.com

What do you think? Right approach? (@aaronwhite & @ChrisRicca)

<comment><USER3> Nice job! A couple questions... Is there a way to manage mutes (so you can unmute something that's been muted forever, for example)? Also, if I do mutes, etc., on one computer's Proxlet will they also take effect on another computer I use the Proxlet extension on?

<comment><AUTHOR> Proxlet manages all your settings at Proxlet.com, so if you use multiple Proxlet enabled clients, all your settings will be shared. In terms of unmuting, you can go to Proxlet.com and mute someone for "1 minute" and that will effectively un-mute them. We'll be adding a far more obvious method both on the website and in the extension soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty cool.

I'd love to see a list of the most hated twitter users as a measure of who is muted the most using your service. You could also do this with the hash tags to see what the most annoying trends are.

</comment><comment><USER5> Finally a great way to customize Twitter and make it useful, while diving into some granular control. Awesome technology on the back end as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, works great. Now I can follow people without having to actually listen to them.

<comment><USER7> best. use-case. ever.

<comment><USER8> Really? I hope that's not true. Friend != follow. :-(

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a really common use case actually. Let's say you're a friend IRL, but on Twitter you just talk about sports. I still want you to be able to Direct Message me, but I don't care about sports (I'm myopic and only care about tech ;-)) Proxlet helps you achieve this type of relationship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've actually started using Twitter much more entirely due to this plugin. There was way too much garbage before. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER10> This has transformed my experience with Twitter. I'm using it in Chrome just with the regular Twitter web client and it ROCKS! Nice work guys, definitely going to tell friends and coworkers.

</comment><comment><USER11> Are you planning to expand this to other browsers?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Once we've nailed what people want w/ Chrome, we'll pick the next browser to tackle. Would love to hear people's thoughts on that

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Proxlet brings Twitter back to the usefulness I came to it for.

</comment><comment><USER13> clickable: <http://proxlet.com/>

</comment><comment><USER14> WHOOO!</comment>


Ohio State develops clean coal technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.osu.edu/features/2013/ohio-state-develops-clean-coal-technology.html <comment><USER2> As a person whose roots in Appalachia (West Virginia/southwest Virginia border) go back a long ways, I'd love to see someone talk about the other dirty aspect of coal: the way its mined. I get the feeling that a very large percentage of the population has no idea that they are literally blowing the tops off of mountains throughout Appalachia to get this stuff. Anyone who thinks this is acceptable has proably never been to a site where it has been done(it looks like the surface of the moon), or lived near a creek which gets filled in with the massive amounts of runoff from it.

I wish they would go after coal the old fashioned way, but it is more expensive and more dangerous that way.

<comment><USER3> Ditto for nuclear.

Had my fair share of discussion with neckbeards on the Internet touting how incredibly clean nuclear energy is. You know, as long as you leave out the mining (radon emissions being one of the commonly known issues, the chemicals involved in mining not as well known; furthermore, many mines don't get any cleanup after decommission) and the storage of the nuclear waste (which is simply an _unsolved_ problem). But hey, less CO2, right?

<comment><USER4> Storing nuclear waste is a very technically solvable problem. Politically, it is difficult to solve because most people are terrified of it and have "not in my backyard" syndrome.

The dangerous radiation is simply not going to be around for 25,000 years. We need to be really really sure that the harmful stuff is safe for 100-200 years. That doesn't seem hard to me considering a couple million people a day are driving over bridges into NYC that are 100+ years old. Steel and concrete last a pretty long time. Water absorbs radiation pretty well. Combine it all with a hole deep into a dry dessert, and you are fine.

<comment><USER5> _Water absorbs radiation pretty well._

Water absorbs radiation _incredibly_ well. You can _swim_ in a spent-fuel pool, so long as you don't go too deep.

<comment><USER6> <http://what-if.xkcd.com/29/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whenever you seed the phrase 'clean coal' check for you wallet. There are many irreducible problems with coal.

First, you've got to get it out of the ground. The most common ways of doing that are strip mining and mountain top removal mining. Both not only destroy the area actually minded but produce enormous amounts of liquid and solid waste (coal slurry and fly ash are the worst) that destroy whatever environment they are deposited into.

Second, however you cut it, the fundamental chemical reaction is going to be CxHxOx + O2 => CO2. There is no way to avoid producing carbon dioxide if you want and exothermic reaction. So you get carbon dioxide capture schemes. The problem is once you capture the carbon dioxide no one has any idea what to do with. There are vague notions that we can pump it underground, but pilot projects in this area have been dismal failures both because of a lack of confidence that the CO2 will remain buried and because of the high energy costs in burying the CO2.

Third, aside from CO2, coal has a variety of other nasty constituents: mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic among others.

<comment><USER8> > Third, aside from CO2, coal has a variety of other nasty constituents: > mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic among others.

How high is the radiological pollution from coal I wonder? All that stuff gets turned to ash and spread around by wind and now it will be some kind of slurry I guess. Still have to do something with it.

<comment><USER9> "Coal power stations, for example, expose the public to nuclear radiation, because coal ash typically contains uranium. Indeed, according to a paper published in the journal Science, people in America living near coal-fired power stations are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants."

"–People in America living near coal-fired power stations are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants. Source: McBride et al. (1978). Uranium and thorium have concentrations of roughly 1 ppm and 2 ppm respectively in coal. Further reading: gabe.web.psi.ch/research/ra/ra res.html, www.physics.ohio- state.edu/~wilkins/energy/Companion/E20.12.pdf.xpdf."

[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_16...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_168.shtml)

[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_17...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_175.shtml)

<comment><USER10> When I hear a comparison made in that manner my fraud antenna goes up. 'Higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants!' Is the sort of breathless thing you can say without considering that people living near nuclear power plants might not have much of a radiation dose to begin with?

Clean energy begins with honest conversations about the cost/benefit of each type of energy.

<comment><USER7> The extra dosage for living near a coal power plant is really low - about 2% of a chest x-ray per year. The extra dosage for living near a nuclear power plant is nearly non-existent at a third of that.

The chemical effects of the pollutants in fly ash are a far bigger concern than the radiological effects.

Edit: Neat chart (<http://xkcd.com/radiation/>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's sad, to me, that so much research continues to go into fossil fuels. We are _so close_ to cost parity from renewable sources of energy; and, in some cases, it's already cheaper to use solar or wind energy, if you amortize over a long enough period (solar panels can last up to 50 years, with very little maintenance). Why do we have to dig up and burn every ounce of coal and oil and natural gas? Why not divert all of that effort, money, and time, into something that will last until the death of our sun? In a few years time, we'll all have cheaper power, and far fewer concerns about the destructive means by which the fuel is obtained.

Even with zero emission (though not zero waste) coal power generation, there's still tremendous environmental and human life impact from its mining. There are 30 coal mining deaths per year in the US alone (which has more stringent safety standards and more modern equipment than almost anywhere else in the world that mines coal).

I mean, this is cool and all. But, it doesn't solve the problem of coal being a limited resource that is dangerous and ecologically destructive to obtain.

</comment><comment><USER12> This sounds downright revolutionary. Could someone with domain knowledge comment if this is really such a new thing?

The press release says,

>In chemical looping, the coal isn't burned with fire, but instead chemically combusted in a sealed chamber so that it doesn't pollute the air. A second combustion unit in the lab does the same thing with coal-derived syngas, and both produce 25 thermal kilowatts of energy.

How much coal does it take to produce those 25 kW? You'd think efficiency is what most readers would want to hear about at this point because everything else sounds pretty great.

A page linked [1] from the press release states that

>New technologies that use fossil fuels should not raise the cost of electricity more than 35 percent, while still capturing more than 90 percent of the resulting carbon dioxide.

but it is unclear if this is mostly due to the price of extra coal or the equipment itself.

[1] <http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/looping203.htm>

<comment><USER13> _coal isn't burned with fire, but instead chemically combusted_

I'd like some clarification on the difference between "fire" and "chemical combustion"

<comment><USER14> One definition of "fire" demands "oxygen from the air":

[https://www.google.com/search?q=define+fire&oq=define+fi...](https://www.google.com/search?q=define+fire&oq=define+fire&ie=UTF-8&hl=en)

The fuel here doesn't react with air, but with a solid oxidiser (Fe2O3). It's a solid-solid reaction, whose products are gases (CO2 and H2O). Just like a solid-fuel rocket.

<comment><USER15> And how is CO2 form Fe2O3 different than CO2 from the air? Is it just that it is easy to capture? Then what?

<comment><USER16> It's not different, but it's a pure gas and not mixed with a ton of nitrogen that air combustion exhaust would be. That makes it trivial to capture (literally just pump it through a compressor into a tank).

One important point, though, is that the sequestration problem is not actually addressed here. This just gets you conveniently-produced tanks of CO2 (or crates of dry ice, whatever). What you do with that to keep it out of the atmosphere is still an open problem.

<comment><USER17> Thank you, now it makes some sense. These press releases are next to useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It unclear where all of the carbon dioxide goes after they capture it. Does the process actually use the carbon dioxide for a second reaction? Or do they just put it in a tank somewhere? If it's the later, this would be difficult to do at scale.

<comment><USER19> There's very little you can do with the captured CO2. It's a pretty inert gas that can only be broken up and reused for a second reaction if you add energy which is contrary to the goal of creating electricity. So the only option is storage, which is a bit of a problem at scale. There are some test power plants in germany that try this, but the basic idea is to collect the CO2 and push it into old, used natural gas fields. However, obviously nobody really feels safe sitting on a giant bubble of CO2...

<comment><USER20> I generally store captured CO2 in homebrew. Clean. Cheap. Delicious.

<comment><USER21> Uh, temporary?

<comment><USER20> Well, some of these tripels only seem to get better with age, so extrapolating from that, we can assume that storing it forever will produce an infinitely tasty beverage. Drinking it will, of course, truncate the 'forever' timeline, thus making it less than 'infinitely tasty', so the only way to preserve the extreme flavor is to never open it, thus: sequestered.

 _waves hands_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sounds like a variation on coal gasification: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gasification>

The article is a bit scant on details like by-products or the emissions from the combustion of the syngas in the secondary combustion process.

And, whenever I hear "Clean Coal" I feel like someone is trying too hard to sell me on something. This whole article reads like it was written by the coal industry.

<comment><USER2> You better believe this research was funded by the coal industry. And my god, the way it is written, I would be embarrassed to be an OSU alumni. I realize that all public research universities do this crap, including my alma mater Virginia Tech, but I hate it when they do.

Seriously, the tone of the article reeks of political campaigning. With Virginia and Ohio, two coal producing states that are now both swing states, you can bet that coal will continue to get tons of attention from the Federal government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Clean coal is a lie. The byproducts of coal usage are stored in gigantic ash ponds. In 2008, one such pond ruptured and spread 5.4 million cubic yards of waste containing mercury, arsenic, lead, and thallium (amongst other things) all over eastern Tennessee.

<https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27sludge.html?_r=0>

</comment><comment><USER24> So just to play devil's advocate: there's already a bunch of mined coal out there, and you'd better believe it's going to get used by someone to create energy. Extracting that energy can either release CO2 into the atmosphere and contribute to total ecosystem collapse, or not. The only other alternative is that, somehow, existing coal doesn't get used at all, and if you could concoct a scenario where that's plausible, I'd be very impressed.

When it comes to climate change we're talking about irreparable harm to the planet, mass extinction, and a serious existential threat to our species. Without minimizing the social and environmental problems created by coal mining, I think it's correct to say they are _lesser_ problems than those posed by climate change.

I absolutely agree that in general, civilization can do better than digging shit out of the ground and burning it, and I think the long term solution is wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and so on. Unfortunately we don't have time to wait for a perfect solution, and we have huge amounts of fossil fuel reserves that, if they're all conventionally burned, will kill us all. So what can we do?

<comment><USER7> The stocks of mined but unused coal are pretty small. It's very bulky and so expensive to store. Even oil doesn't have all that much storage, which is why when the market went into high contango traders had to rent oil tankers to store the oil they were buying on the spot market.

As for CO2, the method the article is talking about makes it convenient to capture CO2 (at an energy cost) but transporting and storing it once captured are far more difficult problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Gee I wonder who funded this research? Hrmm....

Mining coal is hugely destructive, even if we take a logical leap and just believe that this really is "clean coal" for creating power.

It's a waste of time. Solar, Wind, Geothermal and intelligent Hydro are the way forward. Everything else is just a bad compromise.

</comment><comment><USER26> This will probably be a big help for China if it is cheap enough given their use of coal. Coal is what we used to get to our current status and it will be what everyone else uses unless we come up with something cheaper and just as constant.

</comment><comment><USER27> ...but it's still coal and coal is dirty.</comment>


Ask HN: Can anyone recommend a db for managing connected devices in a LAN? - ng-user I'm looking for an intelligent approach to storing multiple MAC addresses (devices), their status in realtime ie. online vs offline, as well as other generic fields (frequency, IPV4, IPV6, etc.) in presumably a database. I've got a node application fetching data from an API about once every minute, I suppose I could populate a mongo collection for simplicity and keep track of online/offline status to create a realtime-ish update of the connected devices. I feel like there's probably a better way that I'm unaware of. Can anyone recommend something for a problem such as this? <comment><AUTHOR> manually: netbox [https://github.com/digitalocean/netbox](https://github.com/digitalocean/netbox)

automatically: netdisco [https://metacpan.org/pod/App::Netdisco](https://metacpan.org/pod/App::Netdisco)</comment>


Making a low level Linux debugger, part 3: our first program - <AUTHOR> https://blog.asrpo.com/making_a_low_level_debugger_part_3 <comment><USER2> I now feel like debuggers are a design smell. I've used them less and less (to the point of not having to use them at all) as I've coded more test-first and designed things to be smaller (lower logic depth, etc.) I mean, all a debugger is, really, is a window into dynamic state, so if you control the, let's just call it what it is, the "rampant dispersion of state" at all times, you end up not needing a debugger (and producing fewer bugs) IMHO.

Now I'm sure that kernel-level stuff wasn't designed like this, and probably won't be for some time (I'm hoping Rust changes that story, but not a low- level coder), so debuggers may still be necessary- just making a point that it seems possible to design in such a way that the need for one is drastically reduced, if not eliminated. Or at least, that's how it seems to me in high- level-language-land (things may differ at the assembly and C levels).

EDIT: I apologize for OT, probably not the ideal place to start a "are debuggers really necessary if you design code correctly?" discussion, after all this is part 3 of a series, my bad

<comment><USER3> It seems you've mastered some dark art unknown to an entire industry, you should totally write a book

Meanwhile I'll rely on the smelly old debugger to dig me out of threading weirdness, memory corruption, resource leakages, other people's bugs, and to provide a window into a combinatorially massive input-dependent state my feeble mind simply can't fathom while writing tests for a tiny corner of a typical system that in aggregate amounts to millions of LOC.

<comment><USER4> Nah, gradparent is not a wizard, just someone who has spent a lot of time in a single relatively simple environment that is mostly under their control. It's a beautiful thing when it happens. Most aren't so lucky.

<comment><USER5> He is taking after Linus Torvalds, who resisted adding a kernel debugger for many years. Linus used console spew, PC speaker beeps, and storing a hash of file/line into the PC's time/date.

<comment><USER6> That's less not needing a debugger by design, more how challenging it is to debug an operating system.

<comment><USER5> Those last two (speaker and clock) yes, but otherwise no. Linus Torvalds really doesn't like using a debugger and he'd rather you didn't use one either. His words:

[https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/debuggers.html](https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/debuggers.html)

<comment><USER7> Wow. Lets add some sleep in the compiler also so people will think harder about their code before compiling?

<comment><USER5> I think that is excessive, but it isn't entirely wrong.

I worked at a place with builds that took over 8 hours. We sure would think hard about our code.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


America's Havana: Thousands Say "Ciao" to San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://www.city-journal.org/thousands-leaving-troubled-san-francisco <comment><USER2> This is a weak rant that has little business being on HN. Just a bunch of random complaints that poorly reflects the totality of SF. Some hits are totally misplaced, like this one:

> But the culmination of local incompetence and misplaced priorities has to be > the blackouts and fires. The monopoly utility, PG&E, began rolling blackouts > this past autumn to prevent sparks in dry and windy weather. Millions went > without power for days.

What on earth does this have to do with SF? PG&E is a state-wide utility over which SF has no particular authority, and SF wasn't even affected by the rolling blackouts.

Certainly SF has problems with property crime, homelessness, housing costs, and NIMBYs. But clearly people still love living here, as evidenced by the continual inflow of people to the city and the region. Articles like that this attempt to paint it as a wasteland feel completely out of touch with the actual reality of living here.

<comment><USER3> > Certainly SF has problems with property crime, homelessness, housing costs, > and NIMBYs. But clearly people still love living here, as evidenced by the > continual inflow of people to the city and the region. Articles like that > this attempt to paint it as a wasteland feel completely out of touch with > the actual reality of living here.

San Francisco, objectively, has a net-outflow. This is not a normative statement.

[https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san- francisco/article/bay-a...](https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san- francisco/article/bay-area-exodus-fleeing-moving-cost-census-13778557.php)

<comment><USER2> That's not what your article says?

> The overall population of San Francisco County increased by 78,121 people > between April 1, 2010 and July 1, 2018. Besides the annual thousands of > deaths and births that occurred within that eight year span, __the county > had a total net migration of 52,066 people __.

They distinguish between domestic and international migration, but that's not relevant to whether SF has net inflow or outflow.

<comment><USER3> If you'd read the immediately following paragraph, you'll note that this distinction between domestic and international migration is extremely relevant to whether SF has net inflow or outflow.

> The discrepancy between international and domestic migration in the Bay Area > can likely be explained by what economists call "gateway cities." These > cities, often planted along the coast, serve as entry points for foreigners > moving to the U.S. The immigrants will register in the gateway city, but > often move to other parts of California or the country within months, > according to Phuong Nguyen, a research specialist at the California > Department of Finance.

Once you control for this variance, San Francisco, objectively, has a net outflow. That's the conclusion of the linked article, as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I spent 15 years in SF. Experience: Paying $4100 for a 2 bedroom, being assaulted on the muni multiple times, trying to explain to my parents why needles litter the sidewalk, going through a detective witness interview (after my neighbor was violently attacked and had her home ransacked). I was willing to stay. I love SF. Once I realized things would only get worse, I left :(

<comment><USER5> How can a city with so much income and smart inhabitants become such a #$*@&? What happened?

<comment><USER6> Existing property owners have too much control to prevent new construction. Consciously and subconsciously they restrict new construction to boost property values. IMO most of SF's problems can be traced back to this. And it's a vicious cycle. Once you're in debt up to your eyeballs for your home, you do not want to see the problem fixed. SF city doesn't want it fixed either because they want more property tax dollars.

Of course there are other problems too but they would be easier to solve with cheaper property prices. California should tax property at their current market values instead of purchase price. This would fix the tax sort fall and put downward pressure on property prices.

<comment><USER7> That's the housing crisis, yes. While related, it is not an excuse for shit in the street and high crime.

They could probably improve tourism by providing mental and homeless help outside downtown. Maybe break even or profit. No political will apparently.

<comment><USER8> Nah.. housing crisis causes the poor to have nowhere to go. It's the root cause.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This piece seems to be a political hit piece on SF. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of critical analyses on the failures of both the city and the citizens of SF, but this is not that.

This appears to be someone who is mostly interested in just complaining. (And with a clickbait headline that isn't backed up in the article.)

<comment><USER7> Yes, you could feel the seething behind the words. Still tended to agree with it.

One nitpick, Chavez is a favorite punching bag for the right. Most don't seem to know Vz was pillaged for decades by corrupt capitalists before that. If you ever wondered why folks choose communism when it's never worked at scale this is why. After the experience you'd probably rather watch the world burn as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> >Oracle, for example, has moved its yearly conference to Las Vegas.

This is kind of a bad example to show that San Francisco is losing its place as the US's premier tech city, as Vegas is a huge conference city and already hosts tech oriented conferences like CES and Defcon.

<comment><USER11> I think it actually is a good example, I think your argument would make sense if they were moving to a new growing location, but the fact that they're moving to a place they could have moved all along exactly shows that now there is some incentive that didn't exist before

<comment><USER10> I think that the Schwab example is much better, as they could stay if they wanted (they have the money), but decided to leave anyways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Even the sights and sounds of the city suggest a certain derangement. When > the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system was first built in the 1970s, its > designers failed to understand the acoustics between wheel, track, and > tunnel. Since the nineteenth century, competent railroad engineers have > known that a tapered, flanged wheel will handle turns better and generate > less noise. For some reason, BART designers ignored this design in favor of > a cylindrical wheel with a straight edge.

The "some reason" was to withstand the crosswinds on the Golden Gate Bridge. We only use the top of the bridge's two possible decks, and the bottom deck was slated to carry the BART Marin line: [https://i.imgur.com/hVT6fya.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/hVT6fya.jpg)

<comment><USER13> Isn't BaRT going ahead and tapering the wheels time reduce the noise? I think I heard there was one measure they were taking.

<comment><USER2> They already did, a few years ago. It's much, much better than it used to be—you can now have a conversation in the transbay tube. And the new cars ("Fleet of the Future") are actually quite pleasant, although they've been rolling out very slowly.

<comment><USER13> The worst if it wasn't the tube so much as the MacArthur and the Berkeley interchanges as well as the civic center- 16th street dogleg.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've noticed in Seattle how differently Covid-19 has impacted the city core vs the suburbs.

Suburbs seem almost normal. People are out. They are shopping. There are kids around. People are in parks. The big difference is nobody is drinking at bars or restaurants.

The urban core seems like something out of a zombie movie. It's dead. Everything is closed. There is almost nobody out and about. Few people are on transit. If you do see someone they have a mask on.

If I lived downtown right now I'd really be regretting my choice. Not having a yard, a car, and a home office right now would be awful.

<comment><USER15> Downtown is great for running and biking due to lack of foot traffic and pedestrians. Otherwise downtown is a ghost town as of late and it's eerie at times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It feels a bit misleading to immediately attack Boudin for his work in Venezuela. He was a translator there between undergrad and law school. His leftist background is certainly quite interesting but I felt that the early attempt to attack his character by associating him with Chavez comes across as a bit of a stretch that I think hurts the credibility of the author.

<comment><USER17> Yea that was my hint that this is just an ideological rant.

<comment><USER18> I was curious what the City Journal was, so I looked it and the Manhattan Institute up: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research). Worthwhile reading for anyone wondering where the original piece is coming from.

Personally, looking over their history, I think their interest in publishing a piece like this is likely rooted in ideological issues rather than actually looking at anything meaningful. (I also think they've been wrong about...very nearly everything they've ever offered a position on, so I'm skeptical about this claim that SF is on the brink of tipping over into a Mad Max set.)

<comment><USER19> Care to list everything they take a position on and been wrong about?

That's quite a claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I kind of want to write a dystopian novel where to solve the housing crisis, the state of California contracts private businesses to build out rapid transit underground. But instead of paying them any money, the excess earth is dumped into the Bay and the tunnelers are granted land rights to anything above water. The Bay is only 12 feet deep anyway.

An ecological disaster resulting in the construction of a neo-feudal society in the new county of Rancho Musk. Everything between the Bay bridge and San Jose, suburban sprawl.

 _Hey kid, did ya know Treasure Island used to be an Island?_

<comment><USER21> I have a silly fictional notion that California's way forward will at some time require being annexed by Oregon so that they can wipe away oodles of historical legislative choices in one swoop. Followed quickly by a "civil war" in which "South Oregon" secedes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Most of these complaints aren't really city issues. BART isn't run by the city. PG&E provides power to 1/2 of the state.

The housing issue _is_ one that the Mayor has some control over. But not a lot. There are too many landowning moneyed interests to get anything done with zoning. Even the non-moneyed interests work against themselves by supporting policies that actually hurt the poor.

Right now, it makes sense not to prosecute petty crime. Those folks really have nowhere to go, so they could be arrested, then released back to the streets, and now they can't get a job because they have a record.

SF needs to make major strides in up-zoning the entire city. That alone would solve a lot of the problems. _Then_ they can start worrying about petty crime with all that extra tax money they would have.

SF isn't even the biggest city in the Bay Area (San Jose is) so if anyone is going to push on PG&E it should be a multi-county effort, not just rest on SF.

<comment><USER23> > Right now, it makes sense not to prosecute petty crime

Right now, ok, maybe an argument could be made for it. But petty crime wasn't being prosecuted before CV either. CVS Pharmacy downtown was keeping many products in the back (as opposed to the shelves) because police don't do anything about thieves that were stealing stuff in broad daylight. You literally had to ask the cashier to go and look for some items.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Left SF after 8 years. Many other world cities have what SF offers, including the beauty, restaurants, quirky bars and cafes etc. but the thing that stands out most is the concentration of talented, smart, ambitious people in tech. Tech scenes in other cities don't compare. Something in the air that will push you to be better.

I do hope said concentration diffuses to other cities, because in retrospect it's clear to me SF is a mess... the generally low quality overpriced housing, filth, and general anxiety walking on sidewalks in most parts of the city (not unfounded, been harassed many times). Goes for most neighborhoods. Was still fun experience in my 20s, but I wish I hadn't been so attached to the idea of living in SF.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think it's fair at this point to say that any HN submissions that are critical of SF are going to be immediately flagged. Every single submission I've ever made that talks about these issues has been immediately flagged.

I've often wondered why people are so touchy about SF, but perhaps it's simply because startup people have a lot invested in SF. They live there, and they want to promote a certain fairytale image of the place that doesn't reflect the reality of shit-covered sidewalks, lack of police presence and public safety, crack dealers, discarded needles, and aggressive barking mad homeless people. But the danger is that it makes HN look like a place where vigorous debate and exchange of ideas and criticism is not welcome.

</comment><comment><USER26> Analyzing the demographic flux of a metropolitan area can be really interesting.

That is not what this article is about.

</comment><comment><USER27> The article brings up BART wheel/rail noise, which is an interesting window into SF's unique and some might say self inflicted issues.

It's my understanding BARTs screech comes from statutorily over-powered brakes grinding flats into the wheels.

The power rating didn't take into account the fact that BART is both an all weather outside and an underground (dry) system. On wet outdoor tracks the indoors-only power brakes lock up and wear the wheels flat.

In turn these flats grind periodic indents in the tracks, and the whole thing has a feedback loop which ends up in the entire track being corrugated and no wheel ever being truly circular. Solid axles (no differentials) don't help either.

Screeching and howling ensues to a level that is damaging to the hearing of passengers and staff alike.

<comment><USER28> The flat wheel thing is a mistake that was made what, 60 years ago. Everyone involved is dead. They've been finally working on fixing it. Yeah BART could be a better built systems if only people long dead had made better choices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The property values and city taxes probably keep going up, so the powers that be and the NIMBY donors won't care about any of the little people problems.

So in economic techtopia, will it be decline be a myspace, or a facebook?

</comment><comment><USER30> A milquetoast hit piece of a beautiful city.

We're all aware of SFs problems, not sure why this article is worth even a glance.

<comment><USER13> Because for decades liberalist idealism hasn't effectively addressed the issues and people keep on thinking that the problem is they're not liberal enough and double down on it(DA Budin). Although if ND is any representation some people are experiencing buyers' remorse... We'll see.

<comment><USER19> Reminds me of the US during the Vietnam War. Things weren't going well and when asked why, the answer was always "We need more. More soldiers. More bombs."

Never even entertained the thought the entire approach was wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


A resizable concurrent map - <AUTHOR> http://preshing.com/20160222/a-resizable-concurrent-map/ <comment><USER2> Dr. Cliff Click's Google talk on Lock-Free Hashtable is here: [https://youtu.be/HJ-719EGIts](https://youtu.be/HJ-719EGIts)

Acc to Dr. Click, if you do not have 30+ CPUs in a single machine, ConcurrentHashMap (built-in to the JDK) will do the trick more often than not. The talk is really worth it, if you're curious about the design, esp.

Dr. Click also had memorable debate with Rich Hickey over STMs. He works at h2o.ai and wrote about building a Key-Value store two years ago: [http://blog.h2o.ai/2014/02/kv-store-memory- analytics/](http://blog.h2o.ai/2014/02/kv-store-memory-analytics/)

<comment><USER3> Ok, but this is more about practice then theory. Theory we already have a lot, however for C++ i can't find any usable thread safe map except the intel tbb which i was unable to compile last time in my specific environment (seems to play nice only with visual c++ on windows). This one looks more compact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When this last came up I started looking into Split-Ordered Lists, which are fascinating.

[http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~afek/SplitOrderListHashSS03.pdf](http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~afek/SplitOrderListHashSS03.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Fascinating perhaps, but slow. All that pointer-hopping is _far_ more expensive than open addressed collision resolution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Related thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8362040](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8362040)

The difference appears to be that you can resize concurrently with lookups. From reading this article it seems they are not that happy with this aspect of the implementation:

 _Right now, if a get call encounters a Redirect, it helps complete the migration. Perhaps it would be better for scalability if it immediately read from the new table instead. That's something worth investigating._

</comment><comment><USER3> Good to see this is alive.

Old thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11016350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11016350)</comment>