Is kickstarter the new process for product? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bp-3.com/blogs/2011/12/a-new-process-for-products/

<comment><USER3> Editorializing in the title is frowned upon. There is a gulf of difference between:

"A New Process for Products?"

and

"Is kickstarter the new process for product?"

Use of the article (part of speech) "the" implies exclusivity. As if the question being posed is whether or not Kickstarter will become the exclusive, or at least dominant, "process for product." The original title uses the article "a", asking whether Kickstarter is a real, viable "process for products."

These are two very different questions. One is hyperbole, the other far more sensible.

<comment><AUTHOR> And, to be clear, did not mean to imply exclusivity or dominance - <USER2> whether it is a real, viable process, enabling perhaps more creatives to bring product to market (where previously you just can't get the funding to move forward, without risking too much personal wealth, which you may or may not possess).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If by the "kickstarter" model, you refer to the same process advocated by Steve Blank and others, I'd say yes - It's customer validation, essentially.

[http://steveblank.com/2010/02/25/customer-development-for- we...](http://steveblank.com/2010/02/25/customer-development-for-web- startups/)

If you're interested, watch this slide deck which presents the idea:

[http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/successful- entrep...](http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/successful- entrepreneurship-5747012)

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, i think kickstarter, though it came at this from a funding approach, enables a "lean" process a la Steve Blank and others. It _feels_ like a side- effect of kickstarter but it is pretty powerful.</comment></comment>


Protest Google's NSA Collaboration: Switch to Firefox  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rsbrown.net/post/54520204262/protest-googles-nsa-collaboration-switch-to-firefox

<comment><USER2> As a counterpoint, Chrome has support for certificate pinning on certain major sites as a way to prevent MITM attacks using certificates from rogue/compromised CAs. I don't believe Firefox does.</comment>


Circle Navigation Effect - Bubble-like thumbnail preview using CSS3 - <AUTHOR> http://tympanus.net/Tutorials/CircleNavigationEffect/

<comment><USER2> Nice.

A possible extension:

Say the user hovers over the right arrow. Show the bubble, but also in the available space to the right of it show other bubbles, showing 2nd next image, the 3rd next image, and so on. That could let you see what's coming up and choose the particular one you want to see.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is nice, except the grey navigation box obscures part of the image (Is that a komodo dragon?)

</comment><comment><USER4> This's pretty good if it's just CSS

<comment><USER5> Only the animation that shows the image on the background. Basically it is one "transition" directive from the background of a button into a pre-processed thumbnail.

I would be more impressed if the css was also responsible for cropping the larger image and creating a sprite for the button.

<comment><USER6> You can, it wouldn't be too hard - just use the full-size image for the thumbnail and set the background-size and background-position properties to "crop" it. This would have the bonus effect of pre-loading the next image, and would let you let you change the cropping of the image on the fly without re- processing thumbnails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone have a screen shot for those of us without the ability to hover?

<comment><USER8> Click "Back to the article" in the upper right, there's a screenshot on that page.</comment></comment>


New extension to Haskell -- data types and polymorphism at the type level - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/dimitris/fc-kind-poly.pdf

<comment><USER2> This extension (together with the type-level built-in literals, described in section 8.3 of the paper) looks like it will address the major remaining wart I've observed in Haskell: the widespread use of complex type-level programming to make up for deficiencies in the type system. Many packages on Hackage have deep type-level hackery under the surface, and that hackery often creates subtle differences and incompatibilities.

<comment><USER3> Could you give a specific example?

<comment><USER2> Sure.

The paper mentions HList, the "heterogeneous list" package, which often gets used for extensible records and static duck typing; HList uses type-level numbers and lists, and extensive type-level computation. I've wanted to use HList in the past, but the sheer pain of the types involved made it not worth the trouble. It also includes several (incompatible) variations of internal implementations with different tradeoffs.

Several packages exist for "session typing", which allows specification of a communication protocol between functions by using complementary types. Those involve heavy type-level computation on families of related types; this extension would help greatly.

I've personally encountered multiple cases where I'd like to operate on an arbitrary function or type regardless of its arity (how many arguments it takes), but doing so typically requires writing a family of handlers for various argument lengths. This extension would allow handling all of the cases generically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So if we have polymorphic types, and now polymorphic kinds, if we call those first- and second-order polymorphism, why can't we extend this to higher orders? For instance, third-order would be when our kinds' types are also polymorphic.

<comment><USER5> Type inference for higher-order dependent types is undecidable[1]. Going higher up the ladder of "polymorphism orders" one would eventually have to sacrifice Haskell's type inference -- which, I'm sure, few want to: otherwise, a lot more people would have programmed in Coq already.

[1] J. B. Wells. "Typability and type checking in the second-order lambda- calculus are equivalent and undecidable." In Proceedings of the 9th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS), pages 176–185, 1994. (Shamelessly copied from Wikipedia)

<comment><USER6> I think that "second-order lambda-calculus" usually refers to system F, which doesn't even have dependent types.

What I'm getting at is that there are plenty of parts of GHC's flavor of Haskell that you can't depend on type inference for. You have to give type signatures for polymorphic recursion, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. The extensions to the type system remind me of Ωmega (<http://code.google.com/p/omega/>), though without higher-order kinds.

EDIT: Turns out "Programming in Omega" is cited by the section on related work. No wonder the mention of proving red-black trees using type-level computation seemed familiar...

<comment><USER8> Omega became what called now "type families".

Types at the kind level and kind polymorphism is much more close to dependent type system.

Honestly, I cannot wait. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It sounds pretty neat, but how could all this intimidating-looking type theory this be made useful for ordinary programmers who don't know what a monad is?

<comment><USER10> I'm also not sure what these type extensions have to do with monads, monads just describe side effects as a type.

Read about the async keyword in C# if you want to know why monads are useful. I'm not sure why MSFT decided to take a great thing like monads and only allow one type of monad instead of building in support for the general case, it seems so typical in imperative languages that the forest is missed for the trees. They'll take a great thing like generics and then screw it up by only allowing methods on classes which ruins type inference.

      for example:
      var a = new Array<int>(1,2,3,4);
      instead of
      var a = Array.new(1,2,3,4);

I'm not sure why ordinary programmers shouldn't know what a monad is, it's an extremely useful pattern that makes code much easier to read. It's like not knowing what an array is.

<comment><USER9> I'd say it's more like struggling to understand pointers: there's plenty of evidence that beginners struggle with it (e.g. all the monad tutorials), and if you're surprised by that then I'd guess you haven't done much teaching or interviewing. (One of my favorite interview questions requires people to understand escape sequences in a slightly more abstract way than usual, and you'd be surprised.)

In general I find that people do better with concrete examples and struggle with abstract rules. It's not at all obvious to a JavaScript programmer (for example) that asynchronous calls have anything to do with monads, and the designers of mainstream languages have to be very aware of their audience.

So, my question is how extending the type system might be turned into a concrete feature in a "mainstream" language. It's not too often that we need to prove things about red-black trees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You dawg!, I hear you like type systems ...</comment>


Man faces 3 years in prison for tweeting about finance minister in India - <AUTHOR> http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/iac-volunteer-tweets-himself-into-trouble-faces-three-years-in-jail/article4051769.ece <comment><USER2> Everybody on this thread is focusing (possibly rightly) on the issue of how badly drafted the law is and how broad it is. What people in the forum might not appreciate is how completely the Police in India is under the thumb of of the politically connected and the Rich. Having stayed in India for the last 5 years, the modern version of the Police force is a very scary to behold.

Imagine that this is the result of an EMAIL from the son of the Union minister. In India even in very serious cases involving common people such as Murder, Arson, Rape etc the police always make a show of waiting for a WRITTEN compliant before they can even start investigation. The politicians cynically abuse the Police force to openly stifle dissent and hassle the common man - India is descending into a Banana republic at an alarming speed - very sad.

<comment><USER3> I for one think that if the law was drafted "properly", there is very little police can do about it even if the ministers (who supposedly use them) are pissed off and want the police to do something about it.

Such cases happen even in USA, where certain people are charged for misdemeanor's which are not uniformly enforced across the population. An example I can think of is the Eliot Spitzer-Call Girl in DC scandal.

<comment><USER4> Just to clarify, Spitzer escaped prosecution for hiring prostitutes. However, he personally prosecuted many people for prostitution.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/nyregion/10cnd- spitzer.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/nyregion/10cnd- spitzer.html?hp=&pagewanted=all)

(I read your wording as implying Spitzer was subjected to harsher treatment than normal, so thought the clarification was helpful.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a European, it can sometimes be hard to appreciate America's guarantees of free speech, especially as you only really ever hear about the "negative" aspects of it - Citizens United, for example.

But more and more it seems that countries that have nominally vibrant democracies are making certain types of speech criminal - I wonder if there'll be a groundswell of activism to get free speech retroactively enshrined as a right in countries where such a thing never really seemed needed before.

<comment><USER6> Citizens United often gets brought up when people over here talk about limiting political speech, but one thing I like to remind people is that: 1) Citizens United was about a movie criticizing a Presidential candidate--the exact kind of political speech that should be most protected; 2) the Soliciter General put his foot in his mouth in the most terrible way when he basically admitted that the law would allow book banning.

I also like to point out that in the very next term the Supreme Court struck down California's violent video game law, which was widely lauded by liberals even though had Citizens United gone the other way, Rockstar Games would have no free speech rights to raise in that case.

Free speech really is the real deal here, and I find it upsetting how much flak the Supreme Court has gotten for staying true to their line of decisions. This is a Supreme Court that in the midst of Vietnam protected a protestor who said that if the government ever made him carry a rifle (to go to war), the first person in his sights would be President Johnson.

<comment><USER7> The movie was paid speech - it was a commercial.

<comment><USER6> A commercial or advertisement is defined as something that "poses nothing more than a commercial transaction." E.g. "Buy this iPad it's great!"

There is no way to shoe-horn "Hilary: The Movie" into the "just a commercial" mold. Here are a list of other movies produced by Citizens United: "ACLU: At War with America" (this one is ironic); "Broken Promises: The UN at 60"; "Rediscovering God in America." Now, you might not like the organization's political message, but I don't see a principled way to distinguish them from some of my Sierra Club favorites like "Coal Country" and "Oil on Ice."

What is "paid speech" even supposed to mean? What movies don't cost money to make? Or for that matter books or pamphlets or newspapers? Both Citizens United and the Sierra Club are not-for-profit corporations. They are created for the express purpose of getting out a particular message, and that costs money. Their message should not be taken out of the protection of the First Amendment just because of that fact.

It should be noted that Grand Theft Auto not only cost money, but it was a for-profit product...

<comment><USER8> It's not about money, it's about the paper trail. Who's responsible? Who is spending the money? Who is donating the money?

These are basic things that need to be made obvious.

Buy all the ads you want, it's fine with me. As long as I know you are the one buying the ads.

<comment><USER9> Who cares who bought the ads? Do you use that as a basis for evaluating their truth?

<comment><USER10> In the case of corporate sponsored speech? You bet I do. And "truth" isn't the problem so much as bias. You can state the exact same true fact 50 different ways and spin it to mean almost anything you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What an arcane law!

 _Section 66-A deals with messages sent via computer or communication devices which may be "grossly offensive," have "menacing character," or even cause "annoyance or inconvenience." For offences under the section, a person can be fined and jailed up to three years._

If you cause "annoyance" or "inconvenience" to someone, you can be fined or jailed up to three years!

Edit - He has also clarified that he has just cited media reports and not made any new revelation. He just has 16 followers on Twitter. His arrest has got more to do with his involvement with IAC(India against Corruption) than anything else.

<comment><USER12> >>If you cause "annoyance" or "inconvenience" to someone, you can be fined or jailed up to three years!

This doesn't even begin to describe ridiculous. Ever heard of IPC 498a?

For those who don't what it is- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry_law_in_India>

The law is such, you might even repent being a born a boy in India.

<comment><USER13>
      (a) Any willful conduct which is of such a nature as is likely to drive
      the woman to commit suicide or to cause grave injury or danger to life,
      limb or health whether mental or physical) of the woman; or

      (b) Harassment of the woman where such harassment is with a view to coercing
      her or any person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any
      property or valuable security or is on account of failure by her or any
      person related to her meet such demand.[8]

Could you elaborate on your objections to the above? I am not familiar with its use or misuse.

<comment><USER12> If they apply it as is, I don't have a issue. The law is misused heavily. According to the law you can be incarcerated for at least 60 days, just on a complain. In other words you can be arrested just because a women complains, even if no evidence is found, or they don't even have to ask for evidence. The presumption of guilt prevails. You are presumed to be a offender. This law has been often used for near extortion scenarios. It works like this, since it covers the women of the husbands family. Often younger sister of the husband is arrested or his mother is arrested. He will be called to police station to part away his with his property, and generally the arrests are made on Friday's so that these people can stay in jail over the weekend until a bail application can be filed on Monday.

Women are heavily abusing this law for money. Its like marry a guy, slap a 498a case. Get his family members behind bars(Often happens after bribing the policemen). In India its highly devastating to a persons morale, self respect and social status for him to go to jail or see female members of the family go to jail. Then what follows is a black mail and guy is forced to pay up.

The law has been abused by the police and some women so much. From what I've heard, the judges look at every case like it might be fake. Read the Wikipedia link for details.

Some more links on this.

        http://www.498a.org/
        http://www.indianexpress.com/news/women-are-misusing-dowry-act-rules-court/574907
        http://www.firstpost.com/fwire/law-commission-recommends-dilution-of-anti-dowry-law-188059.html

Given the abuse the supreme court of India itself has recommend dilution of this law.

<comment><USER14> To be fair, the majority of men are pretty barbaric and do physically abuse women after marriage. They totally deserve a law like that. I have heard so many stories of brides getting physically and emotionally abused by their in- laws and husband that I pretty much consider it a part of our culture.

<comment><USER12> We are not debating about offenders here. We are debating about the abuse of law used to extort money from innocent people.

<comment><USER14> Yes and I am putting forward a use of the law to deter offenders who happen to exist in large numbers. Domestic Violence is a serious problem in India and a law like this does help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _Section 66-A deals with messages sent via computer or communication devices which may be "grossly offensive," have "menacing character," or even cause "annoyance or inconvenience."_

Sounds similar to the laws we have here in the UK. Section 127(2) of the Communications Act 2003 [1] states:

 _(2)A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he— (a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false, (b)causes such a message to be sent; or (c)persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network._

The act allows for imprisonment for up to six months, or a fine. It was the legal basis for the "Twitter Joke" trial [2]. In my opinion it is worryingly broad in its scope.

[1] <http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial>

<comment><USER16> Great speech from Rowan Atkinson about this.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gciegyiLYtY)

<comment><USER17> Thanks for posting this. <http://reformsection5.org.uk/> Looks interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sad, and typical.

I have lived in India for the last 3 years and at first I was angry, then disgusted, but now it's just sadness.

To see a country with so much potential throw themselves into such a quagmire of ridiculousness stirs my soul to mutiny!

There is a culture of corruption, and this article just highlights one of thousands of daily acts of corruption that happen on macro and micro scales.

India needs a cultural revolution, someone to suck the apathy out of the people and make them demand responsibility from their leaders.

<comment><USER19> > India needs a cultural revolution, someone to suck the apathy out of the > people and make them demand responsibility from their leaders.

The problem is that it's difficult to have a good democracy when you have low levels of human development. When 25% of the population is illiterate, a good number more lack a basic education, and half the children are malnourished, it's very difficult to get your average person on the street to care enough to make the right decision when election time rolls around.

<comment><USER20> It's like the difference between a group of college students electing their teacher and a kindergarten electing their teacher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is going to be interesting actually. Article 19 of the Indian constitution grants right to freedom of speech.

        *All citizens shall have the right* —
        to freedom of speech and expression;
        to assemble peaceably and without arms;
        to form associations or unions;
        to move freely throughout the territory of India;
        to reside and settle in any part of the territory of      India; and
        to practise any profession, or to carry on any    occupation, trade or business.

        *These rights are limited so as not to effect*:
        The integrity of India
        The security of the State
        Friendly relations with foreign States
        Public order
        Decency or morality
        Contempt of court
        Defamation or incitement to an offence

<http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/Art1-242%20(1-88).doc>

<comment><USER12> Their aim is not to send him to prison, but to trouble him and give him so many hassles with police and courts that he finally gives up.

By that way, they get to 'teach him the lesson' and 'make him example' to deter others from doing it.

<comment><USER11> > _By that way, they get to 'teach him the lesson' and 'make him example' to > deter others from doing it._

I think it's going to back fire as it has done in the recent past.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me heavily of our Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera (Bolivia) going on record saying:

"I'm reading every negative post on Facebook that speaks ill of the government and writing down names. Names are being written down."

What horseshit! Scary thought; North Americans seem to take their free-speech for granted, as an inalienable right when in fact many countries in the world don't have such a thing. Enjoy it while you can.

<comment><USER22> Your should be thankful to God that you live in America.

<comment><USER9> God had nothing to do with anything. We only have our First Amendment protections because some Americans believed in them strongly enough to die and/or kill for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sad and proves once again that India has no freedom of speech.

Great article on the topic by Amit Varma.

Don't Insult Pasta: <http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/dont-insult-pasta/>

One of the most impressing thing about USA is that they have true freedom of speech and majority of people defend it furiously. I can't help but think but this is one of the major factor America is one of the leading nations in the world.

</comment><comment><USER22> India is not a country, where constitution works for Common man You have to have money power, muscle power and much more to use the rights give by constitution of India.

Most of the peoples always try to not to go to judiciary in whole life, because it will take your whole life time to get the results and you have to pour all your income, time in visiting dates of trial. No one -common people- believe the law and are realized it and get used to it. There are millions of cased pending in courts which are more than 70 60 yrs old and I feel the British rule was much better than this.

may i get punished to say all this, though this is the case with everyone and anything can happen with anyone.

</comment><comment><USER24> India also has a law against "deliberately hurting religious feelings," which was exploited recently[1] by the Catholic Church.

[1] <http://lee-phillips.org/IndiaNoDemocracy/>

</comment><comment><USER11> There is now a "Campaign Against Arrest of Ravi Srinivasan for a Tweet" [0]. This issue is getting a lot of attention in the international media too [1].

[0] <http://getup4change.org/rti/support-free-speech/> [1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/10/31...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/10/31/in- india-a-tweet-can-land-you-in-jail/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Here's an article in NYT that gives you insight into the Indian Justice System:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/01/world/in-india-the- wheels-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/01/world/in-india-the-wheels-of- justice-hardly-move.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)

And here's an example of an organization fighting for justice against state crimes:

<http://www.ensaaf.org>

</comment><comment><USER26> The tweet was not even about the finance minister (Mr. Chidambaram) but about the finance minister's son (Karthi Chidambaram)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I got confused by the article because it mentioned something about the tweets being about P Chidambaram.

 _Other such tweets reportedly made references to Mr. P. Chidambaram._

The fact that the tweet is about an even more low profile guy (although he IS the son of said finance minister) makes this even worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "If you write a book that annoys or inconveniences me, even deliberately, I have no civil or criminal recourse. But if you send an e-mail message, or post a tweet, you could face three years in jail," says Mr. Prakash. "That's higher than the two-year imprisonment for causing death by negligence."

<comment><USER28> That's when you start looking for tweets that promote the book...

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> <https://twitter.com/ravi_the_indian>

According to the article, he had 16 followers as of Wednesday evening. Now he has 869 and growing.

Great work, Mr. Politico, you would get along fabulously with Barbra Streisand.

</comment><comment><USER30> "Diverse society is bound to fail" --Robert Putnam. [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Campaign Against Arrest of Ravi Srinivasan for a Tweet <http://getup4change.org/rti/support-free-speech/>

</comment><comment><USER30> Caste = Corrupt by birth. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India>

</comment><comment><USER31> does anyone have any ideas on what we could do to help this person?

<comment><USER32> Follow him on Twitter, use a hash tag (#SupportRaviSrinivasan or whatever), if you are outside India, tweet to your local/national news papers. Or just bomb @KartiPC with your complaints.</comment></comment>


Which programming languages use indentation? - <AUTHOR> http://codelani.com/posts/which-programming-languages-use-indentation.html <comment><USER2> It's odd to omit COBOL as an indented language. It is traditionally not only indented, but fixed-position indented.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. The columns indeed are meaningful. But AFAIK (and after running a few simple scripts), it seems the indentation doesn't matter so much when you are in the program area. I just ran an "Until" statement and altered the indentation without changing the result. Perhaps this is just because I am tryin a newer version of COBOL ([https://tio.run/#cobol- gnu](https://tio.run/#cobol-gnu))?

I'll update the post mentioning COBOL (and likely Fortran too), as at least "column-oriented".</comment></comment>


My Personal Hero: Robert Sapolsky on Rudolf Virchow - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/my-personal-hero-robert-sapolsky-on-rudolf-virchow <comment><USER2> It is worth noting that Professor Sapolsky has many informative lectures from his popular Stanford courses and various public appearances on YouTube mostly on the Stanford channel.

</comment><comment><USER3> Robert Sapolsky is a fantastic human being and a great lecturer.</comment>


CEO Says Sony Pictures 'Did Not Capitulate,' Is Exploring Options - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/12/19/371966188/ceo-says-sony-pictures-did-not-capitulate-is-exploring-options

<comment><USER2> This interview really annoyed me. They gave him a chance to take some ownership over the lax security and he completely side stepped the intent of the question and took blame for being adamant that SPE were going to release the movie and if that has spurred the evil North Korean hackers on then that was his fault.

When he was ranting about no-one stepping up to help distribute the film all I could think was "haven't you ever heard of bittorrent?"

If this guy doesn't lose his job over the whole incident I'll just be stunned.</comment>


A Distributed Real-Time Data Store with Flexible Deduplication - <AUTHOR> https://amplitude.com/blog/2017/01/18/nova-distributed-real-time-data-store/?a=b <comment><USER2> There are other reasons for duplicates in event streams - not just the dupes introduced by at-least once processing in Kinesis or Kafka workers. We've done a lot of thinking about this (all open-source) at Snowplow, this is a good starting point:

[http://snowplowanalytics.com/blog/2015/08/19/dealing-with- du...](http://snowplowanalytics.com/blog/2015/08/19/dealing-with-duplicate- event-ids/)

Our last release started to tackle dupes caused by bots, spiders and dodgy UUID algos:

[http://snowplowanalytics.com/blog/2016/12/20/snowplow-r86-pe...](http://snowplowanalytics.com/blog/2016/12/20/snowplow-r86-petra- released/#synthetic-dedupe)

<comment><USER3> Hi, Jin here from Amplitude. You are absolutely right that there are other sources of duplicates. Our real-time data store sits behind an event processor (not covered in this blog) that handles all major event duplication scenarios. This is why the real-time store focuses on duplications introduced by the message bus replays, something that systems such as Druid do not address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would be curious to know if they evaluated any cloud-based data stores or streaming services from AWS or GCP before deciding to building this from scratch. It seems like a common set of requirements for event analytics pipelines.

<comment><USER3> Hi, Jin here from Amplitude. The real-time data store is part of a bigger columnar store we built last year called Nova ([https://amplitude.com/blog/2016/05/25/nova-architecture- unde...](https://amplitude.com/blog/2016/05/25/nova-architecture- understanding-user-behavior/)). In designing Nova, we've looked at many existent solutions including Amazon Redshift and Google BigQuery, but none of them sufficiently supports all our use cases. You can read more in the linked blog.

<comment><USER5> I read that and your motivations for building nova align very well with bigquery. E.g. immutabled (big query was append only), felaxability (break out of SQL with dataflow).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It reminds me exactly of the common architecture pattern of KDB/Q. Still at this point, it's a marvel of tech.</comment>


Introducing the Amazon Simple Email Service - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/01/introducing-the-amazon-simple-email-service.html

<comment><USER2> Neat: "PS - There's a secret message embedded within the SES "hero graphic" on the AWS home page! Can you figure out what it says?"

Link to the image: <http://awsmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/ses_hero_lg.png>

<comment><USER3> Spoilers, rot13'd: Gur fgnzc va gur hccre yrsg unf ovanel pbqr. Qrpbqrq gb nfpvv, gura ebg13'q naq erirefrq, gur zrffntr ernqf "onpba vf orggre guna fcnz."</comment></comment>


Why Not to Make an iPhone App - <AUTHOR> http://www.engineeringadventure.com/2011/11/why-not-to-make-iphone-app.html

<comment><USER2> Interestingly, if you replace "app" with "custom software application", it still reads quite accurately. Except for the Apple app store reference, of course.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is exactly why I stopped consulting three years ago and worked only on my own stuff. Too many poorly thought out ideas with no budget or business justification.

<comment><USER4> Sadly, I still see the same mentality in websites. I feel if there is no online strategy, then the website might as well be a business card.

Apps are "in fashion" a the moment, businesses think they need one just for presence, developers think they need one for their resume. I've fielded too many requests from companies that are seeking "an app". Naturally I'd quiz them on what they'd like the app to do, and quite often the answer is that they don't know and thought that is what I'd be bringing to the table.

I'm happy that there is a good history of the apple app store rejecting these kinds of trivial, next-to-no function apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe you should make an app that your potential clients can use, to determine if they need an iPhone app :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Also there's additional cost in buying Mac workstations for development and submission of your app to the app store. Its ridiculously closed minded of them to require this and its a huge barrier to projects because of the much higher cost in buying Mac Hardware...

<comment><USER7> I don't see .NET for the OSX either for windows mobile dev. You can do Android apps, yes, but look at how many ugly and useless apps there is on Android Market.

For me it has nothing to do with closed minded. It's Apple's mantra, they rather have a small group of developers so they can select quality apps, than to have crappy apps.

Yes, you will need to have a Apple computer, but come on, it's not that expensive, besides if you want to make money you have to invest.

<comment><USER8> I agree wholeheartedly.

You develop iOS apps with Xcode. To support Windows, they need to then develop a whole Windows IDE, support it, etc. There isn't a significant reason to, there is no business sense in it.

Microsoft doesn't have an IDE for Mac to write Windows Phone 7 apps, and I don't see anyone crying about it.

<comment><USER9> That's because Windows Phone 7 is for all purposes non existent.

Nobody is crying about it because there's nobody available to actually cry, as only Windows devs that already have Windows machines have been targeting it and in the larger picture all these WinMo devs put together are a tiny minority.

That Android's SDK is multi-platform, that's one of the best features of Android. Do you know why? Because it slowly grows in the minds of developers that try it out and if you want to just try it out, there's no barrier to entry. All you have to do is to download it.

<comment><USER8> It is true about WP7, however it doesn't refute my argument.

I have only limited use of the iOS and Android dev tools, however overall found the iOS ones simpler to setup (ie, they're already there) and Android document somewhat weak for starting out.

Xcode is the full experience, while Java is always "use your favorite IDE". However that goes down a different wormhole, and personally, I don't care for Java.

The multi-platform may be a factor for a hobbyist, but not someone looking to actually make money. If they are serious, they shouldn't see a problem spending $500 on a Mac mini, even less on a used system, or renting one in the cloud. We aren't talking major expenses.

<comment><USER9> Oh right, so you're a real professional, not a pesky hobbyist. Well if you say so.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Predators work at night" job ad - <AUTHOR> http://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-binary-options-firm-advertises-for-predators/ <comment><AUTHOR> The Predators' Ball: [1]

Twitter is involved in this fraud.

 _" And what of the large tech corporations who gave presentations at the expo: Google, Facebook and Twitter? All three companies delivered keynote addresses offering tips on how to use their platforms to acquire more customers and make more money._

 _"We've worked very closely with the forex and binary industry over the last, I would say, six months," said Liset van Oosterhout, an account executive for Twitter's Israeli market, to a rapt audience. "We saw great results with a few of the advertisers, and it's really a growing industry for us."_

[1] [http://www.timesofisrael.com/as-victims-pile-up-the- binary-o...](http://www.timesofisrael.com/as-victims-pile-up-the-binary- options-industry-parties-in-cyprus/)</comment>


Jet.com's Valuation Nears $600M Before Launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-40418

<comment><AUTHOR> What are people's thoughts? Legit or another case of investors being sheep and simply following the lead?

I mean I get it.. the CEO is very qualified and sold a company in the same space. But just the money he has raised already exceeds the last sale. It is hard to believe that they have any ONE competitive advantage over Amazon considering the amount of years amazon has been around and just how advanced their logistics are.

Any validity here or are things like this bad signs of a potential bubble...?

<comment><USER2> We don't know if those investors received common stock or preferred stock laden with things like liquidation preferences, hidden dividends and board seats.</comment></comment>


The Water That The Coast Guard Won't Save You From - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/but-not-simpler/2014/05/16/water-coast-guard-wont-save/#.U3ed4i_c0wU <comment><USER2> > "It seemingly goes against all a rescuer's training"

Perhaps, but only if you don't have any training as a rescuer... Rescuer safety is always the first priority. A rescuer becoming another victim is just about the worst case scenario in any operation. It dramatically increases the resources needed, and does nothing to benefit the original victim.

My safety (and my crew's safety) first, _then_ the victim. We don't do them any good if we're dead or injured.

That's not to say you don't take calculated risks to effect rescues... That's the nature of the game. It's all about risk vs. reward. Entering electrified water to recover someone who is very likely already dead is an extremely high risk for a very low reward.

Source: Firefighter/Paramedic

<comment><USER3>
      > Source: Firefighter/Paramedic

Ugh, HN can we please resist adopting "the reddit meme of providing a snippet of biographical information which (supposedly) establishes your authority to speak on the subject."[^1]

For a long time the unofficial motto of the CG was "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back."[^2] Does your local firefighting department use USCG Green Amber Red risk management/assessment procedures?

[^1]: [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/21qxao/brief_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/21qxao/brief_reminder_you_are_not_a_source/)

[^2]: [http://www.uscg.mil/history/faqs/LSSmotto.asp](http://www.uscg.mil/history/faqs/LSSmotto.asp)

<comment><USER4> Personally, I find it very helpful to know if someone has experience with what they are saying versus repeating something they read on a blog once. (Obviously the former could be wrong and the latter could be right.) And if I'm posting something, I try to make it clear if it's something I know or something I'm just guessing at.

<comment><USER3> I also find it helpful "to know if someone has experience with what they are saying." Where we disagree is whether "Source: XYZ" is allegation or fact.

<comment><USER4> dfc, I read the "AskHistorians" link you posted above and I think I understand better where you're coming from. It seems like /r/AskHistorians requires statements to be sourced to standards (probably higher than Wikipedia's) with reliable primary or secondary sources. If that's what you're looking for, then obviously "Source: I'm an XYZ" will seem worthless.

My theory of internet discussions is there are three styles: "scientific conference", where participants try to say accurate things to reach factual conclusions; "debate team", where participants are trying to win for their side; and "cocktail party", where participants are having an interesting conversation. The problem is that you're trying to apply "scientific conference" rules to a HN "cocktail party" conversation, and it's not a good fit. (I'm sympathetic to the "scientific conference" viewpoint, by the way.)

To answer your question above, I don't view "Source: XYZ" as a fact, but I consider it as helpful information. (i.e. they probably aren't lying about being XYZ, and probably know what they are talking about, so I'll take what they say as having a good chance of being true.)

<comment><USER3> I appreciate the manner and content of your response. I agree that conversations on HN, for the majority of the time, are cocktail party conversations, ie. good faith collegial conversations. However I think that the "Source: XYZ" is also inappropriate for discussions among friends. Elsewhere in this discussion people were discussing lethality and volts/amps. If you, a friendly well intentioned internet stranger, make some reasonable comment that "volts blah blah, and amps blah" I am going to take you at your word and carry on our discussion. If it sounds like bullshit I am going to call you out on it and ask for proof just like I would to a friend at a cocktail party. It seems that if I am going to accept your allegation that you are an XYZ simply because you, a friendly well intentioned internet stranger, said that you are an XYZ I should just accept your original comment.

Adding the "Source: XYZ" is troubling for me because it seems to evoke some magical air of authority from thin air. Summoning this cloak of superiority/authority is out of place among friends, just as out of place as someone showing up to a cocktail party in a lab coat. Good faith comments made among colleagues should not require sources, but if sources are required, legitimate verifiable sources should be used.

<comment><USER5> > _" Good faith comments made among colleagues should not require sources"_

I think you misunderstand the purpose of the "source: XYZ" comment in this and many other HN discussions. It's not meant to create an undeserved air of authority. It's meant to help contextualize the information being given.

When I talk about math curriculum, I usually tell people I teach fourth grade math in an inner-city school. That helps people understand that I'm talking from that perspective, rather than the perspective of a parent or an administrator. It also helps people understand how closely my experience matches the specific situation being spoken of (same grade level? Same demographics?) and it suggests which lines of inquiry I'd be most helpful in addressing (ie, "what does it cost to purchase district-wide curriculum" is beyond my expertise, but "how do your students handle such-and-such concept" is a great question.) It doesn't prove I'm a world-class expert or that nobody can argue with me or otherwise unfairly imbue my comment with false authority.

I think this is actually normal in cocktail party type conversations. "I heard this thing about [topic]." "Oh, I'm actually a [job] and here's some additional detail about [thing and topic] based on my experience."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Linkbait title. "Chicago's Electric Dispersal Barrier and Water Safety" would be much more informative. Or something similar.

</comment><comment><USER7>
      At the river bottom there are multiple 160-foot wide grids
      of electrodes issuing 2.3 volts per inch every 2.5
      milliseconds.

      According to safety reports, if you swim at almost any
      point within the range of the electric barriers that span
      the channel, you risk either involuntary muscle
      contractions or ventricular fibrillation.

I wish the article provided better information about the electrical hazard. A mere 2.3 volts (per inch) doesn't sound hazardous at all, so I'm wondering if immersion in water (distribution over surface area), significantly changes the effects of the electrical field, or is it induced with very high amperage, or is the frequency (2.5 kHz) disruptive?

If the surface area of an average human body is ~2 square yards, then the total delivered electrical shock sounds like it's in the 10,000 volt range, which is more readily understandable.

<comment><USER4> I don't know any more about this than the article, but 2.3 volts per inch works out to 165 volts across your body if you are 6 feet tall, which I would expect to be deadly.

<comment><USER8> Voltage across your body is not likely to be deadly.

MILLIamps (~50 or so) can be enough to electrically disrupt your heart and put you in a dysrhythmia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh electricity, such a wild beast. If we only could find a way to turn it off again after we've let it go.

<comment><USER10> Of course they could turn it off, but then the army of carp just waiting outside the parasitic barrier would take its chance and colonise the lake. Hence, no turn-off, at least not for both barriers at the same time.

<comment><USER11> They just have multiple barriers with sufficient separation for rescue operations... this would allow them to turn up to n-1 barriers off.

<comment><USER12> Then it would function like an [air]lock :-(

Open the outer door, enter the middle area, wait for the inner door. (lather, rinse, repeat for n > 2)

<comment><USER13> If the electrodes were controllable at a sufficiently fine granularity, they could be activated in a sort of creeping barrage:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_%28artillery%29#Moving_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_%28artillery%29#Moving_barrage)

So there would be a number of active zones at a time, each one slowly moving downriver, pushing back any invading carp in front of them.

You could switch off the electrodes in any section of the river, and then when you switch them back on again later, the pattern sweeps any occupying invaders back out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a photo of the construction process used to build the barriers.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/usacechicago/6482344737/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/usacechicago/6482344737/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Great innovation. That invasive carp is crap for ecosystems.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why not have a net of some form on the surface of the water?

<comment><USER17> The wording of the citation makes it seem like there are vessels traveling along this canal.

<comment><USER16> Ha yes, upon closer reading of the article, makes sense.</comment></comment></comment>


15 Sorting Algorithms in 6 Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPRA0W1kECg

<comment><USER2> I don't know what happened, but I got to level 21 somehow. :)

This is cool and handy for lecturers explaining sorting/searching.

In practice: merge, insertion and dual pivot [1] /single pivot quick(er)sort [2] are the usual tools in the toolbox, that like everything, depend on the specific use. Oh, and radix sort for rainbow tables.

On DPQS, there's apparently a method for 1.8n ln n + O(n) [3]

References:

      1. http://www.iaroslavski.narod.ru/quicksort/DualPivotQuicksort.pdf

      2. The FlashSort Algorithm
         http://www.neubert.net/FSOIntro.html

      3. Optimal Partitioning for Dual Pivot Quicksort
         http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.5217

      4. Algorithm 271: quickersort (1965)
         http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/showciting?cid=846385

      5. (and, of course) https://www.amazon.com/Art-Computer-Programming-Volume-Searching/dp/0201896850

         (same shrtnd) http://amzn.to/134daLz

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great context. Thank you.</comment></comment>


Does Google Inbox Use Polymer or Something Else? - <AUTHOR>

Does Google Inbox use Polymer's paper elements or something else? Is that "something else" open source?<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> It's developed in GWT afaik

<comment><AUTHOR> So not available for "us"?

<comment><USER3> [http://www.gwtproject.org](http://www.gwtproject.org)</comment></comment></comment>


Why Bitcoin will never be a real currency - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chron.com/lorensteffy/2013/04/why-bitcoin-will-never-be-a-real-currency/ <comment><USER2> I see this as an article written at the command of some interested parties to limit Bitcoin's adoption. I don't fancy these kind of attacks, but in the current context I think it may be in the Bitcoin's benefit - the steep growth is not good.

<comment><USER3> "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you." Nicholas Klein, Proceedings of the Third Biennial Convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (1918), p. 53, ([http://books.google.com/books?id=QrcpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA53...](http://books.google.com/books?id=QrcpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA53&dq=%22First+they+ignore+you%22#v=onepage&q=%22First%20they%20ignore%20you%22&f=false))

This article appears to be somewhere between the "ridicule" and "attack" stages.

<comment><USER4> That quote lost a lot of its punch after it was used over and over by parapsychologists, perpetual motion device "inventors" and other groups that went on to deserve ridicule. I'm not saying that Bitcoin isn't going to do interesting things, but being used as the rallying cry of clowns seems to have given it a stigma. There are plenty of ways to promote BTC without claiming that ridicule means that history will absolve you and give a stunning legitimacy to whatever concept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are 3 major flaws in his criticism of Bitcoin.

1\. "Why would I buy pizza with it when it's far more profitable to hold onto the money and let the value appreciate."

Because you _need_ to eat. Now. Not in 5 days. In other words, nobody sits on "paper" money forever and ever. Eventually everybody spends it, reinvests it, etc. Do you think Bitcoin holders are going to sit on their stash, never spending it, and watch the economy and value dies as nobody spends it? Of course not!

By the way, the market has already proven you wrong: all indicators show that Bitcoin spending is increasing, despite everybody knowing about Bitcoin deflation: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5296889>

2\. "Bitcoin is backed by, well, the faith of those who are willing to put money into it."

Nothing backs gold either. By your logic, gold is a dangerous investment. We all know this is not true. Bitcoin, like gold, does not need to be backed by anything to succeed. Both assets are valued because people value their properties. That is all. (For the record, industrial demand for gold is negligible compared to demand from the speculation or jewelry markets, so saying gold has value because it is useful is not enough to justify most of its market value.)

3\. "After all, if someone steals your bitcoins — hacks your account, let's say — is it really a crime? And if it isn't, then what incentive does anyone have to actually honor them?"

If you had done some research, you would be aware that the US FBI and SEC are investigating and have investigated numerous Bitcoin thefts. They do consider it a crime.

</comment><comment><USER6> By "real currency" I assume the author means a viable long term currency substitute -- he can't mean a medium of monetary exchange, as Bitcoin is already being used in that manner.

While there are some points worth a look in this article, he is sadly ignorant or misinformed about Bitcoin on a variety of points:

\- refers to Bitcoin as a "Internet play money fad" when the monetary base for Bitcoin is now over $1 billion dollars and has been running for over 4 years

\- claims its "origins don't inspire a lot of confidence" because it was invented by a "pseudononymous hacker", ignoring the fact that the client is open source and can be (and has been) read by anyone

\- asserts that "Bitcoin is backed by, well, the faith of those who are willing to put money into it", ignoring the cryptographic foundation of the protocol which is slightly more important than the faith of the users

\- confusingly states that Bitcoin could be a "glorified Ponzi scheme" because it might not be "really a crime" if someone steals Bitcoins from you (how would that be a Ponzi scheme?), ignoring that Bitcoins can't be stolen without stealing the Bitcoin wallet.dat, much like cash

All in all it's a pretty shallow commentary with very little basis in fact by a business columnist with an obvious axe to grind.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why would anyone build a content based site with content not showing up in the first 3 seconds? The site loads fine but the text is so delayed. Tried in latest firefox and chrome.

</comment><comment><USER8> This doesn't seem to actually explain "why", besides mentioning deflation.

Why would I buy a computer now when I know the same computer will cost less in 6 months due to technological advances? Because I _need a computer_.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well if the author says so.

<comment><USER10> Came here to say exactly this. I read the article, but I couldn't see any logic to substantiate the claims of the title.

Also, what is this supposed to mean? "After all, unlike real money, Bitcoin isn't the coin of the realm. It is, at best, currency competition. Since it lacks the social contract of real money, it's likely to last only as long as the U.S. or other governments allow it to last."

How does bitcoin lack a "social contract" and how does this have anything to do with the U.S. government?</comment></comment>


Defective Anti-Piracy 'Kill switch' dropped from Vista  - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7126902.stm

<comment><USER2> This is the first case I've seen where the words "counterfeit" and "genuine" were applied to things that are identical. They seem to have been inspired by the record cos' pioneering use of the word "steal" to describe copying.</comment>


Anthony Tommasini: To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html <comment><USER2> This is where thinking of people as members of groups instead of as individuals gets you. If I am a Korean-American violinist who has worked her butt off to be the best, why is it fair for someone of a different skin color to get the job -- just because his skin is a different color?

</comment><comment><USER3> if you hire someone because they are a specific race (Black, White, Hispanic, etc...) you are racist AF.</comment>


You can run windows on Mac then why can't you run Mac OS-X on PC? Is it the intel chips for PC not designed for Mac OS-X? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The Intel Macs use EFI, not BIOS. They also only have drivers for certain bits of hardware (the hardware that shows up in shipping configurations of Macs). I think there's a few other restrictions as well; google it.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can, via a hacked OSX which emulates EFI. It is against the Apple license agreement to do so however.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> dont you think that if apple allows users to install their OS on PC then it will turn the market/industry up-side-down. There has to be something more than that !?!</comment>


Engineers create a wireless camera that can ride atop an insect - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/15/wireless-camera-can-ride-atop-a-beetle-and-end-images-to-smartphone.html <comment><USER2> Now all that's left is to control the insect (a-la Pickle Rick), and it will give new meaning to the word "bug".</comment>


California governor signs bill to bring Bitcoin and other currency into fold - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/29/us-usa-california-bitcoin-idUSKBN0F402T20140629 <comment><USER2> This bill is largely irrelevant and pro forma. There was no enforcement of the underlying statute it repeals anyway.

The bigger development is what's going on with AB 2209, also sponsored by Dickinson--the only legislator I've ever seen censor public comments by refusing to accept ones he doesn't like. Here's AB 2209:

[http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_2209&...](http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_2209&sess=CUR&house=B)

Rather than repeal the Money Transmission Act (which also governs Bitcoin), they're adding a loophole such that money transmission is exempted from the definition of "money transmission."

Here's some Public Records Act documents from the DBO, which enforces the MTA:

[https://archive.org/details/california-dbo- emails](https://archive.org/details/california-dbo-emails)

They call New York regulators "fools" for "rushing" to regulate Bitcoin.

The upshot is that every Bitcoin startup in California is still and will still be breaking multiple laws, possibly including the MTA (which AB 129 has no effect on) and Y Combinator and other VCs are just as liable legally as any of the founders of those startups via federal law.

<comment><USER3> _> >This bill is largely irrelevant and pro forma. There was no enforcement of the underlying statute it repeals anyway._

This is true until it isn't[1].

1\. [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/560564-the-essence-of- fascis...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/560564-the-essence-of-fascism-is- to-make-laws-forbidding-everything)

 _> >The upshot is that every Bitcoin startup in California is still and will still be breaking multiple laws, possibly including the MTA (which AB 129 has no effect on) and Y Combinator and other VCs are just as liable legally as any of the founders of those startups via federal law._

And this is exactly why I'm glad there are people who use legal reforms to chip away at situations like this. Companies & people that are operating in a form that's technically illegal but nobody enforced the law on them. One day, Coinbase or whatever starts getting really big then some back-room deal(extortion) happens where someone says _" Look, you either play ball with me or I'll start reminding powerful authority figures about Law ABC of section 123, on appendix XYZ passed 7 years ago as an amendment to a completely unrelated bill nobody was paying attention to that would shutdown your whole operation."_

I'd also like to see some kind of reform for the ridiculous situation created by IRS declaring bitcoin as property without any clear process of accounting and reporting it on your taxes. Look at this: [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance) ...what am I suppose to do here? What this really cause is the creation of 2 kinds of people. Those overwhelmed/intimidated by IRS and just quit bitcoin altogether, then those who choose to just ignore it and thus are now breaking a law that definitely won't be uniformly enforced. Forget about the counter- argument _" Well, they choose to break the law so they need to accept the consequences"_. Those who are thinking of this I invite to read the following: [http://www.marco.org/2012/02/25/right-vs- pragmatic](http://www.marco.org/2012/02/25/right-vs-pragmatic) . It's nonsensical to expect everyone involved in buying/selling bitcoin to suddenly be able to handle the tax implications in this fashion. There was a time I was able to just create a bitcoin QRcode coupon and give it to someone without a second thought. Now it's all mixed up with property tax or something; I dunno.... nobody does. At least that Wiki entry isn't 100% sure and nobody wants to be on the receiving end of IRS's wrath.

<comment><USER4> > _Law ABC of section 123, on appendix XYZ passed 7 years ago as an amendment > to a completely unrelated bill nobody was paying attention to_

Surely you've read all 150,000 section of the California statutes, 50,000 sections of the federal statutes, 30,000 sections of the California regulations, and 30,000 of the federal regulations. I mean, its not as if the government is _purposely_ not publishing the law in an _accessible_ manner. The government spends billions of dollars to send frogs into space, so _surely_ the law must be so easy to find and read that you can download it in a standardized, machine-readable format from a multitude of sources, for free (as in freedom and as in beer)..

<comment><USER5> Is it fair to say that the laws are deliberately not published in an accessible manner? It seems more plausible that the sheer volume of the laws and amendments mean that it's hard to publish them in an accessible way.

If only we could adopt a git workflow. ;)

<comment><USER4> Its often available in a standardized, machine-readable format, but inaccessible nonetheless. _E.g._ , California's laws have been available in XML since the 1990s or something, but they weren't accessible until 2009 or so.[1] Inaccessibility is obviously not a technical problem.

[1] [http://maplight.org/pr_lawsuit](http://maplight.org/pr_lawsuit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Bitcoin is folded with other currencies then Bitcoin can have a say in the currency value unlike the govts having a say of their individual currencies.

And that my friends is madness as one institution will have a say over the buying value of all the people in the world.

<comment><USER7> I understand the individual words, but I have no idea what you're trying to say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This isn't a bill about just Bitcoin, why is it singled-out in the title? Oh, because all the Bitcoin maniacs will keep echoing like there's no tomorrow!

<comment><USER9> The only people I see getting violently insane over Bitcoin are people who are afraid of it and unable to resolve their cognitive dissonance over it. I get you don't like it - but that doesn't mean you have a right to make blaming statements over it. I for one, am not a maniac.

BTW, contrary to your statement saying the bill isn't just about Bitcoin, here's the link to the brief: [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab_129_cfa_20140117_114927_asm_comm.html). Bitcoin is mentioned 23 times - a good reason to single it out if there ever was one.

<comment><USER8> I don't mind the flies... unless they start bugging me with their annoying buzz.</comment></comment></comment>


Opportunity for AI in the Near Future - <AUTHOR> Artificial intelligence programming especially deep learning and machine learning was present everywhere in 2018, so you don't think that this hype will die down over the next coming months or years. Of course, this hype will dry down in two to three years, where artificial intelligence will just become another consistent thread in the tapestry of most people's lives. <comment><AUTHOR> Know more:[https://www.2basetechnologies.com/opportunity-for-ai-in- the-...](https://www.2basetechnologies.com/opportunity-for-ai-in-the-near- future)</comment>


Hello vinyl lovers, we're finally out on the App Store! - <AUTHOR>

Hello everyone,
we've been working to this project since long time and finally today we're online on the app store. I'm very proud, excited and curious right now. Is still a long way but we'll do our best to make it special for all the vinyl lovers and insiders out there.
NEEDLE - Dig, stream and trade vinyl records
https://itunes.apple.com/it/app/needle-vinyl/id777336063?mt=8
Come visit us, we'd love to dig your vinyl record collection!
Best, Filippo <comment><USER2> Send me an email (address in my HN profile)...also working working on something in the vinyl space ([http://waxlimited.com](http://waxlimited.com))

Looking forward to checking out your app!

</comment><comment><USER3> Ex vinyl collector here , great idea !! good luck! there is market for this kind of app

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We hope so!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neat - how do you deal with track/album licensing for streaming music?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, we're connected to iTunes and YouTube, so nothing is stored on our server. Does it might rapresent a problem anyway? We're in Italy so licensing might be different from US

<comment><AUTHOR> Forgot to mention that the service is free, the streaming as well

<comment><USER4> Free for the artists whose music you pay as well?

I don't think you're being honest with us. iTunes doesn't allow 3rd party websites to stream music for free and neither does Youtube.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello Scott, wait there might be a misunderstood. We're not streaming full song in our app, we're connected to the iTunes preview, then from the app a user can chose to buy the song in iTunes. If you got an iPhone I'd be happy if you can give it a try to understand better how our app works and let me know.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I went from being a stranger to having a network in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-i-went-from-being-a-stranger-to-having-a-network-in-silicon-valley-8cf7ac5fed#.8j40kfz2g <comment><USER2> Jordan mentions "What is your goal?" but the friends of mine who connect with people would say - it isn't about your goal, it's about their goal. How can you be useful to the people you meet?</comment>


How Linux Saved A Fast Food Giant. - <AUTHOR> http://therealedwin.com/2010/05/17/how-linux-saved-a-fast-food-giant/ <comment><USER2> The real issue here has nothing to do with Linux or Windows. Rolling out updates to production without testing them first is a fail, not matter what OS you're using.

If they'd tested the McAfee definitions on even one of the POS terminals before rolling them out to all the restaurants everything would have been fine. They could have even automated having one restaurant get the definitions one or two days before all the others so only a single location was affected. Or better, set up staggered updates within each restaurant, so they all stay up and at worst lose a single POS terminal.

<comment><USER3> > _Rolling out updates to production without testing them first is a fail_

Deploying McAfee in the first place to all those terminals is a painful process by itself, yet many people do it because of the "extra" security it provides. When you can't trust something like McAfee for your production, then you're doing something wrong, and that's not the lack of testing upgrades to McAfee ;)

IMHO, the WTF here is that they've used Windows in the first place for what are in essence dumb terminals that help them manage drive-through orders ... for that you can always deploy a highly customized and minimal Linux OS, with most of the ports blocked and with a minimal number of services running, with reduced capabilities and enhanced with Linux SE if you're a security freak ... making the area of attack for any potential threat a lot smaller.

Then you wouldn't need a piece of shit like McAfee to handle your security ... all anti-viruses lately are pieces of shit IMHO.

> _The real issue here has nothing to do with Linux or Windows_

I think it does. On that terminal they could've had a small Linux image providing a ssh server, whose purpose would be to boot into it in cases of emergency. And you can control a Linux instance a lot more efficiently remotely. Try doing that with Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From my time working at McDonalds back in highschool I can tell you they had solved this problem already. The head machine in the back office was running AIX, and all the POS terminals netbooted a linux variant from it. There was also a secondary server which no one touched that did the most critical job of receiving, tracking and reporting orders. Windows on a dumb POS terminal? That just sounds like a straight up bad idea to me.

<comment><USER5> How long ago was that? In 1999/2000 they were running everything off of a MSDOS app on a Win95 desktop PC...

<comment><USER4> 2001-2002. This wasn't a corporate owned store either-just a small franchise operation. I think they had 5 stores.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Grml is another Debian based Linux distro for rescue scenarios like this. The small version weighs in a little more at 100MB versus PLoP's 62MB though.

If your deployment environment doesn't offer NFS/SMB/CIFS you can fetch your images via HTTP from your PXE booted kernel too.

Regarding data centers - it can even boot over serial in connection with HP iLO and IBM RSA/AMM out of the box.

<http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=rescue>

<http://grml.org/changelogs/README-grml-small-2010.04/>

PLoP seems to be a great tool for similar cases, interestingly both are Austrian distributions:

<http://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux.html#pxel>

I've got a grml usb stick with me at all times (now even supports multiboot 32/64bit!). I just recently recovered a relatives' WinXP after a seemingly failed automatic update and did a dll rollback in a couple of minutes.

It's a great tool plus it shows you how to use the mighty zsh properly!

<comment><USER7> Tiny Core Linux is another candidate at only 10MB (or its X-less variant, Micro Core, at 6MB). It includes a capable terminal server for PXE booting with support for loading extensions via NFS/TFTP/HTTP:

<http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/tiki-index.php?page=Netbooting>

It's well documented and easily customized:

<http://www.tinycorelinux.com/>

<comment><USER6> I love busybox really makes sense in regards to size, thanks man!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The most interesting line was this:

> If I had not flirted with Linux during college, where would we be right now?

I wonder how much in support just relies on good luck. Someone happily trying out stuff several years back on his own. Curiosity saved the system.

<comment><USER9> This is HUGE in the IT world.

Corporate support is based on knowledge bases built up by customers "trying stuff out" and reporting in when it doesn't work.

<comment><USER10> Too bad they probably don't hear as often about stuff that does work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > After cleaning up the processes and adding several easter eggs, it was time > to pilot it at 10 local restaurants.

I admire his sense of humour. Easter eggs in the face of calamity indeed.

<comment><USER10> I guess he had a bit of downtime, when he had to work for other people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> At first I wasn't sure if this was a rant against Windows because the author kept using POS. Then I realized that POS also meant point-of-sale.

<comment><USER10> What does POS mean besides point-of-sale?

<comment><USER13> piece of shit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder why these die hard Windows fans stick with it when they realize what kind of things you can do with Linux.

<comment><USER15> I wonder about the mindset that allows one to accept running MacAfee on a freakin' _Point of Sale_ device is something that just has to be done?!

<comment><USER16> If credit card data is going to pass through the device, anti-virus software is mandated by PCI-DSS.

<comment><USER15> Hmmm interestingly, the "unix exemption" seems to have been dropped from 1.1 to 1.2 of DSS document.

Part 5.1 used to include this note:

 _Note: Systems commonly affected by viruses typically do not include UNIX based operating systems or mainframes._

Consumer grade MacAfee that auto updates is still probably a very poor choice for this application as they should have a test bed in the lab that they beta _all_ changes on before they roll out to thousands of machines that likely need a truck roll if something goes wrong.

<comment><USER5> You can run McAfee on linux now as well (mostly for scanning email and CIFS shared files, I assume?). PCI DSS and DoD IA controls require it.

Enterprise grade McAfee still sucks, it's just a more manageable suck. Despite that, it still blew up with the bad DAT file - those are the same between product lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A previous hotel job I had used a touchscreen Windows-based POS. One day, for whatever reason, I accidentally held down the 'submit transaction' button for half a second too long. The terminal went apeshit and crashed.

Several hours later, after hours of phone calls, hundreds of orders written on paper and totted up by calculator, a confused-looking technician managed to get it working properly again.

What a mess that was.

</comment><comment><USER18> PXE is radsauce, it is netboot for the 21st century

<comment><USER9> Booting off iSCSI is all the rage now. Any server with an Intel 1Gbe network port can be made to boot off iSCSI after flashing with special firmware from Intel.

<comment><USER18> Woah, that is cool! I should hang out with more SysAdmins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm guessing POS means Point of Service but every time I read it, I think "Piece of Shit" terminal, which I suppose is applicable as well.

</comment><comment><USER20> TRWTF is that they didn't prepare for a catastophic failure such as this one. If you have your POS getting auto-updates then why haven't you considered the possibility that it will go wrong with "WILL NOT BOOT" as a consequence.

It should simply be a matter of phoning the manager and tell him :

"Don't worry, just insert the disk that says "RESCUE DISK" on it, reboot and it will roll back the machine to last week".

<comment><USER15> Since we know that the machines could PXE boot, they should have just had a server in the back preloaded with a known good image that would clone onto the POS automatically if started via PXE.

Then the fix would have been a matter of simply swapping the dhcp entry for the pos devices on the server with one that had the pxe directive. The pos would have caught that during its next reboot and restored itself.

<comment><USER5> What happens when that system is Windows and gets dorked up by McAfee too? :)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can a country defend itself from cruise missiles? - <AUTHOR>

How do countries defend against things like cruise missiles?  They seem to be quite a popular offensive weapon, but what kind of defensive mechanisms exist?<p>Can Patriot Missiles shoot down cruise missiles?  What about some kind of electronic or GPS jamming to mess up the missile guidance system?  Or are cities left to fire anti-aircraft weapons and hope they get lucky? <comment><USER2> > How do countries defend against things like cruise missiles?

Cruise missiles are designed to resist efforts to thwart them. If GPS is available and reliable, it's used, but if not, such a missile switches over to inertial guidance and terrain matching. A modern cruise missile is a formidable threat.

> Can Patriot Missiles shoot down cruise missiles?

Not with any reliability. Cruise missiles are too fast and too stealthy.

> Or are cities left to fire anti-aircraft weapons and hope they get lucky?

That's about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> So you are from England. Are you afraid that your country might be attacked? This is not a forum to ask such questions.</comment>


Shims, Jigs and Other Woodworking Concepts to Conquer Technical Debt - <AUTHOR> http://firstround.com/review/shims-jigs-and-other-woodworking-concepts-to-conquer-technical-debt/ <comment><USER2> This is a good article. The title says conquer technical debt, but much of the article is about becoming comfortable with the technical debt. In fact, all code is debt. As systems become larger, they are harder to modify and maintain. All of the supposed engineering techniques that prevent this are pseudo science snake oil. I'm sure many engineers would consider the "shims" described in this article to be further technical debt, but they increase agility and are frequently worth the cost.

I particularly liked the description of automated tests as jigs. Rather than unit testing small components of code, I've always believed that integrated tests that cover as much of the functional surface as possible are better. Tests for regressions of any bugs that were fixed and a performance / integration test suite can go a long way towards increasing comfort in making changes to complicated systems.

<comment><USER3> I've always found unit testing to be the best way to test drive small units of code, and integration tests the best way to find and prevent regressions in the integration of those units.

My workflow over the last few years has been test drive a unit, plug it into the application, write an integration spec.

<comment><USER4> Have you tried writing the integration spec first?

My workflow is to start with the coarsest-granularity, most outside-in test i can. The nice thing about those tests is that you can write them based on the requirements, without thinking about implementation much, and then directly see what implications they have for implementation. Whereas if you start with fine-grained tests, you only discover the constraints that the requirement imposes on the implementation when you bump up against them halfway through development.

<comment><USER3> I was intentionally brief in describing my workflow, obviously different features require different flows. If the integration test can be covered by simple requests specs for the api, then I will write that first. If, however, the feature requires a bunch of pointy-clicky feature tests, then I will write the integration tests afterwards (I do a lot of single page web apps, so pointy-clicky specs can be important, but are too slow to test drive with).

[Edit: of course this is still a gross generalization, none if this is a hard and fast rule]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article reads a bit (if only a little bit) like an attempt to rephrase ancient XP advice (which is itself a selection of truly ancient pre-1997 wisdom) in a refined but folksy way which won't raise hackles.

Mix in master carpenters = Coaching (kind of - this is an interesting blind spot in the classical XP literature)

Measure twice, cut once = Simple Design and Pair Programming

Collect and codify your standards = Coding Standards

Scrap the shortcuts that don't save time = no specific practice, but a foundational idea of XP is that we go faster by maintaining high quality

Build modularly = (one of the goals of) Refactoring

I think it's quite a good attempt! Metaphors can be very powerful when they fit. Or should i say, when you're able to work with their grain, rather than against it.

I'm reminded of an older such effort, ARM/CL, which (jokily) rephrased it in military terms, to make it more palatable to serious grown-up companies who would never contemplate the zany Mountain-Dew-flavoured antics of those 'extreme' weirdos:

[http://c2.com/xp/ArmCl.html](http://c2.com/xp/ArmCl.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> > So, founders, hire beyond your social circle. Look for engineers who have > stayed at companies long enough to experience the long term impact of their > decisions.

This kind of crazy, out-side-of-the-box thinking is exactly why we need more women in computing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Possibly off-topic: in carpentry, typically one uses a pair of shims rather than one by itself. Since a package of shims are all cut at the same acute angle, a stacked, reverse-oriented pair forms a perfectly flat block, the thickness of which can be adjusted.

I'm not sure if that more detailed metaphor means anything about e.g. API versioning. My initial reaction to API versioning is "why do you hate HATEOAS?", but if one were committed to that particular methodology, perhaps it could be made easier by imagining a version shim on both the client and the server side.</comment>


New Relic in 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://newrelic.com/2012 <comment><USER2> Pretty amazing. Excelling in technology and application is not enough to rise up and attract investors. New Relic does a great job deservedly advertising themselves as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Somehow the low information density makes this presentation very difficult to consume. It looks very pretty, but three lines visible at a time on 1440x900 resolution? I just kept scrolling to the end quickly, desperate to get some kind of big picture what this is about.</comment>


"Work from anywhere" in fully distributed companies? e.g. Buffer,GitHub. How? - <AUTHOR> With a number of companies already working fully distributed, and a number of companies recently announcing that they are letting employees work remotely indefinitely, I have a question. Can employees really work from anywhere? Do they not need work visas or permission to work in the countries that they wish to be based? I'm not referring to freelancers, but people at places like Buffer and Github. I know that freelancers sometimes work (illegally) on tourist visas and do border runs. I'm assuming these fully distributed organizations would not allow/encourage this sort of practice, but curious to know. <comment><USER2> I freelance for US companies, worked remotely overseas for six years, multiple countries, different kinds of visas. I never had a work permit. I know and met people who worked as f/t remote employees, they mostly did the same thing — worked on tourist visas or some other kind of visa that did not allow working in the host country. Enforcement is lax.

Some remote employees I met had work permits because their employer had an office in the foreign country. Some got work permits through an outfit like Iglu in Thailand. Mostly no one seems to worry about the work permit. Although generally illegal, most countries don't focus immigration or labor law enforcement on digital nomads and remote workers because they are rarely taking jobs from locals.</comment>


37Signals Quietly Removes Its Famous Basecamp Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://reorg.co/37signals-basecamp-manifesto-2011-07/

<comment><USER2> Internet archive to the rescue.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20081218064511/http://www.basecam...](http://web.archive.org/web/20081218064511/http://www.basecamphq.com/manifesto.php)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Thanks.

<comment><USER3> Downvoters should probably know that she's the one who wrote the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I thought people on here would be able to point me in the right direction. I really wanted to find and read the original manifesto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hanlon's Razor (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor>)

I really doubt 37Signals took their manifesto down for nefarious reasons. Changing architecture, codebase rewrites, SCM tool, etc, all could have caused that page to be removed.

<comment><USER5> It couldn't have anything to do with being a PHP page on a Rails-centric company's site, I'm sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can see that one of the ills of being popular is that there is someone somewhere to write a shitty blog post about every fucking file system operation.

<comment><USER7> That's a bit harsh. It was a popular page that centered around the brand of a popular company and caused their fans to perceive them in a certain light. It is natural to want to know if the removal was deliberate or not.

<comment><USER6> There seems to be a big trend to try to expose 37signals as actually some sort of evil company or to diminish their image. Which makes sense due to their popularity and claims of excellence (which I think are, in this case, valid).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Search any sentence from the linked screenshot, quoted, in Google, for interesting results. For instance: "many of our competitors require a call back".

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd guess they've outgrown the capacity (or desire) to keep answering support emails themselves, for one thing.

</comment><comment><USER10> The emperor has no clothes.</comment>