Humble Indie Bundle 8 - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com

<comment><USER2> Here are the games in this bundle I have played, and what I thought about them:

Hotline Miami, in my opinion, is the centerpiece of this bundle. It's about storming a building and killing all of the occupants in interesting ways. It channels this weird 80s rave aesthetic and feels like something between an arcade game, a puzzler, and an action movie. The art uses low-res 2D graphics in a way that's distinct from the usual "8-bit emulation" style, focusing instead on small details. The gameplay complements the art/sound/story elements, and somehow manages to convey more violence than I felt playing Gears of War. I mentioned a story -- it's pretty good, I think, although it's not really the main attraction of the game. Hotline Miami is a game that works very hard to make you feel like you're part of the universe, and, for me, that definitely paid off.

Little Inferno is lots of fun, and casual enough that you can play it in little bites sometimes. If you're going to play it (and you should!), I would not recommend reading past this point. I really like Kyle Gabler's description that "Little Inferno is a quiet introverted art project masquerading as a loud extroverted shopping game." It's fun (although not really challenging or game-y, not that it's designed to be) at first, and then pulls you into its story very effectively. The result is that I didn't notice that my little casual play session had turned into a kind of desperate dash to unlock the next tidbit of story until the game commented on it. It plays on your feelings very well, and the ending is up there with Portal as far as innovation and poignancy are concerned. Both Little Inferno and Hotline Miami gave me trouble sleeping the days after I finished the game, and that's a good thing.

Awesomenauts is like DotA, but 2D and simpler. The graphics look a little childish, but that belies the tightness with which everything handles. It's well made, and fun for the occasional bout of competitive play, especially if you don't have the time/nerves to get good at DotA/LoL like me. That said, I don't find myself playing it very often, although that's probably more because of me than because of the game. Oh -- and it has microtransactions, but they're well-managed and totally optional.

<comment><USER3> I paid a tenner for Miami Hotlines soundtrack.

[https://soundcloud.com/devolverdigital/sets/hotline-miami- of...](https://soundcloud.com/devolverdigital/sets/hotline-miami-official)

EDIT: Looks like the soundtrack is not included.

<comment><USER4> Its extractable though I don't understand if that is legal:"<http://blog.hartwork.org/?p=1964>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have absolutely no willpower to resist buying these, even though I never have time to play them. I buy them for the fantasy that some day I'll have free time for games again and can spend it all playing good games.

It's the same reason I've bought 50 games on GOG.com so far, and actually only found time to play 2-3 for short periods. The price per purchase (even when purchasing multiple on a weekend deal) is low enough to not make me feel guilty, and I get something to look forward to.

<comment><USER6> I buy pretty much every Humble Indie Bundle, even though I'm really not a gamer, and have played I think about six games to completion in my life. I do it to support the indie game phenomenon more than anything else. The $10-15 it takes to beat the average a handful of times a year is worth it to me on that basis alone.

Well, that and the fact that I have several dozen games I could futz around with should I find myself suddenly possessed of the "free time" to do so.

<comment><USER7> Exactly the same as myself, I haven't played any of them (well maybe one of the android games).. but I have purchased every single bundle to date. I usually buy a few codes for myself / brothers always at over the average...

For the $30 (or whatever it is) / year I can feel good about contributing to indie devs + charity, and that's worth it for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This would be worth it for the soundtrack of Hotline Miami alone. This is probably a butchered description, but the game reminds me of the most intense scenes from _Scarface_ with the aesthetics and music of _Drive_. If you're not convinced, listen to some it: <http://youtu.be/oKD-MVfC9Ag>

Also, the developer deserves some success; he has released 50+ free games over the years: <http://indiestatik.com/2013/04/25/who-is-the-next-cactus/>

<comment><USER9> The soundtrack is incredible, but sadly it looks as though it's not included.

<comment><USER8> Argh. I thought the way this work is you got soundtracks for all the games. Anyway, it's worth it just to play the game and hear the damn music. I linked the full soundtrack, though not in the best format.

<comment><USER9> Absolutely, the soundtrack alone is worth the playthrough. Here's a link to the studio's soundcloud which has the soundtrack up at what I think is a better quality than youtube is offering. [https://soundcloud.com/devolverdigital/sets/hotline-miami- of...](https://soundcloud.com/devolverdigital/sets/hotline-miami-official) (be warned it autoplays at quite a high volume)

<comment><USER3> It's definitely better quality than the youtube link. The volume is the same as the youtube clip if anyone is switching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you use eight different email addresses to buy each bundle, then you get a glimpse of their A/B test for newsletter subjects: Got lots of "Introducing Humble Indie Bundle 8" and one "Introducing Humble Indie Bundle 8: Name your price for seven amazing games!" and one "Lock, stock, and 7 smoking games: Humble Indie Bundle 8 is here!"

</comment><comment><USER11> I played Hotline Miami at the Eurogamer expo last year, it was total chaos, you die every 5 seconds, it pumps horrendous techno at you.... and it was great fun! grabbed my attention way more than the trippleAs

</comment><comment><USER12> Steam won't install Linux versions of Dear Esther and Capsized. (The Steam keys imported okay, and those games now show up in my Steam library, just not as Linux games.)

Maybe they're just being slow getting them uploaded, but it's a disturbing trend. I think there are now 23 games in my Steam library that claim not to be available for Linux, even though Linux ports exist. Writing games is very hard. Porting games is hard. Uploading games is easy.

<comment><USER13> Is there a reason you care about Steam (social? something else?)? I mean in the spirit of free software, why do you want middleware to play your games through that just gets in your way and at times, could potentially _prevent_ you from playing your games?

You don't need Steam to play these games.

<comment><USER14> Ease of use. The downloads from Humble Bundle come with all kinds of random installers that work in different ways, and by default install your games into different places. Additionally there's no notification of updates being available, let alone downloading + installing the updates automatically or with a single click.

It's like the difference between distro packages and stuff you've compiled from release tarballs.

<comment><USER13> Ok, thanks. I get that it is more convenient, but be careful with this:

 _It's like the difference between distro packages and stuff you've compiled from release tarballs._

Steam collects information about you, and when Steam is down, there's a possibility that you won't be able to play your game. If you bypass steam you don't get these issues. Given this, that simile isn't apt.

<comment><USER15> Using the Steam DRM is optional for developers. There are DRM free games on Steam, which means that even if Steam is down, they will still work. That said, I've never had problems with DRMed Steam games not working if the internet is down (you just need to make sure you check the "remember my login" thing when authenticating).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> All games in the Bundle grant separate Steam keys.

<comment><USER16> This allows you to give the game away if you own it already.

<comment><USER17> This does not seem to be encouraged behaviour.

via [http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/243...](http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/243192-if- i-already-have-a-game-s-in-the-bundle-do-i-have-the-ability-to-gift-the-extra- copy-in-the-bundle-)

            If I already have a game(s) in the bundle do I have the ability to
        gift the extra copy in the bundle?

        Unfortunately, if you already have a game in the bundle you will
        not be able to gift the extra games to a friend.

        Please consider your bundle a "unit", and not to share copies of the
        games or Steam keys from it.

        If you'd like to give a copy of the games away, we have a system in
        place that allows you to buy a gift key from www.humblebundle.com so
        your friends can have access to direct downloads as well as any Steam
        or other keys we have included.

<comment><USER16> Then how come they are separate? If they want to discourage people from giving away the games as a non-unit, shouldn't they make it one code like they used to?

<comment><USER18> It's probably harder to create a "unit bundle" key with Valve for Steam if you're only going to sell this bundle once and never in the future. You don't need any coordination with Valve to give away Steam keys. You only need coordination with the game developer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've never heard of humblebundle and I never play video games but the production quality of those games and the pay what you want model has me sold.

</comment><comment><USER20> Bought it just to play Little Inferno, the soundtrack of which is incredible:

SoundCloud: [https://soundcloud.com/kylefromthefuture/sets/little- inferno...](https://soundcloud.com/kylefromthefuture/sets/little-inferno- soundtrack)

YouTube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1HfqnBfYcg>

<comment><USER21> Thanks for pointing this out, I'm a big fan of Kyle Gabler's work on the soundtrack for World of Goo.

He makes them both available for free download here:

<http://kylegabler.com/WorldOfGooSoundtrack/> <http://tomorrowcorporation.com/little-inferno-soundtrack>

<comment><USER2> I just want to point out: Gabler writes about what he was trying to accomplish with the soundtrack as a whole and on a song-by-song basis on both of those soundtrack pages. Readers skimming this section who are interested in music, game design, or both would do well to give those summaries a read, as it gives some neat insights into why he made the game sound the way it does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've played 5 of these:

Dear Esther is a first person explorer that plays with narrative in an interesting way.

Thomas Was Alone is a platformer about a rectangle named Thomas and his quadrilateral friends. They become self aware. Story narrated in a great British accent. Lovely short-form game.

Proteus is a first person explorer where the soundtrack mirrors the landscape. It has a lo fi beauty.

Hotline Miami is a very violent, very tightly designed kill em up. It is the meatiest of the five I've played.

Little Inferno is a graphically beautiful comment on skinner boxes and recent trends in game design.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've wanted to play Dear Esther for so long. I have NO idea what it's about other than you're alone in an island with no soundtrack or guns, etc. Just you and the open field. Love the idea!

<comment><USER24> There is a soundtrack, actually. It was even nominated for Excellence in Audio at the 2012 IGF awards. <http://jessicacurry.bandcamp.com/album/dear-esther>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Too much awesome not to buy. Really like Thomas Was Alone.

</comment><comment><USER26> FYI, the lead programmer for Awesomenauts has a fantastic dev blog that delves into the inner workings of the game: <http://joostdevblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Awesomenauts>

(And it's a really fun game too! Easily worth the price of the bundle by itself.)

</comment><comment><USER27> For anyone who's played 'Thomas Was Alone',

On my system (running Linux) whenever the game starts playing a new song it keeps playing the previous song too. The longer I play the louder it gets - eventually it's impossible to hear the narrator.

I'm assuming that isn't supposed to happen. Is anyone else seeing similar behavior? Also, is there a bug list (or some other method of reporting issues) anywhere? Looking around, I don't see anything - and I'd like to keep abreast of what's going on with the port.

It's a wonderful game otherwise - reason enough to buy the bundle all by itself, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER28> There's a secret ending to Hotline Miami that made it one of the most thought provoking games I've ever played.

Rarely am I moved by a game nowadays. It's heavy. Hotline Miami alone is worth it.

</comment><comment><USER29> Awesomenauts is fantastic; I have over 100 hours played on that game alone. After 80 hours or so, I made the jump to Dota 2, where I have 300+ hours played in a much shorter timespan. In my opinion, Awesomenauts should be a mandatory 20+ hour tutorial before anyone is allowed to play Dota, Dota 2, League of Legends, etc. Think of Awesomenauts as the helpful Sherpa/Mountain Guide to the Everest-like skill cliff that is Dota 2.

Hotline Miami is great as well!

</comment><comment><USER30> And Notch just paid 5000$ for the bundle.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is something I can never resist buying. DRM-free cross-platform games where you can decide what portion of what you decide on spending gets sent to who.

Its a brilliant business model and it proves it can be profitable.

</comment><comment><USER32> There goes my productivity for the next 3 days.</comment>


Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenation.com/article/universities-are-becoming-billion-dollar-hedge-funds-with-schools-attached/ <comment><USER2> > "the latest wisecrack about Harvard"

"Latest" in this case means "over 5 years old, but the author recently heard about it." Eg, the following 2010 comment at [http://matt- welsh.blogspot.com/2010/05/secret-lives-of-profe...](http://matt- welsh.blogspot.com/2010/05/secret-lives-of-professors.html) uses the exact same phrase:

"It is complicated, but one way to look at it is that Harvard is a very large hedge fund with a university attached to it (which gets a tiny fraction of the fund's payout each year)."

And earlier 2007 piece titled "Goodbye, Princeton University" uses a similar construction, at [http://www.nassauweekly.com/goodbye_princeton_university/](http://www.nassauweekly.com/goodbye_princeton_university/) :

"Princeton University has ceased being primarily an institution of higher learning and is, like Goldman, a huge hedge-fund with a university that it runs as a side project."

We also see it in several previous HN threads (see [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=harvard%20hedge%20fund&sort=by...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=harvard%20hedge%20fund&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story) ). The oldest is from 8 years ago, referencing a 2008 article titled "Is Harvard Just a Tax-Free Hedge Fund?" at [http://theamericanscene.com/2008/05/12/is-harvard-just-a- tax...](http://theamericanscene.com/2008/05/12/is-harvard-just-a-tax-free- hedge-fund)

> Viewed purely in terms of economics, Harvard is really a $40 billion tax- > free hedge fund with a very large marketing and PR arm called Harvard > University that has the job of raising the investment capital and protecting > the fund's preferential tax treatment.</comment>


Ask HN: What is everyone currently working on? - <AUTHOR> I am fairly new to HN and honestly it is a bit overwhelming initially. In a good way of course! What brought me here was to follow more software developers turned entrepreneurs. I find reading about others successes and failures to be incredibly valuable. Therefore, I am curious what others on HN are currently working on. It could be a side project, side hustle, new business idea, or just a new open source project you are starting.
For me, I have been working on a short book about learning AWS by using it to solve real problems. There is a sea of information out there about Amazon Web Services which makes it hard to know where to get started. My approach with the book is to learn services as you are solving a problem. Instead of reading doc after doc and article after article, you jump into a problem and learn as you go.
What is everyone else working on? <comment><USER2> I left my day job at the end of July to finally start working my way through a laundry list of ideas I've accumulated over the years. I had often toyed with the idea of side projects, but finding and sustaining the motivation to complete one just wasn't happening after a full day at the office. My current "self-employed" life may turn out to be unsustainable due to lack of income, but the jury's still out.

My current project is Move by Numbers [0], a sort of "Twitch plays chess" type of game with a comfortable pace, points, and levels. The idea of cooperative gaming has intrigued me recently, and this is my first foray into the space. Building it has been entertaining, but finding users and gathering feedback has been a struggle. I'm learning first-hand how difficult marketing is.

I also just published an article on tracing 2D metaball outlines [1], so if you enjoy visual explanations of algorithms, check it out.

Up next on my list is either a declarative charting language and cross- language interpreters for said language (data visualization is something I worked with a lot in my previous job), or a Japanese grammar textbook I've been dreaming about writing for several years now.

[0] [https://movebynumbers.com](https://movebynumbers.com)

[1] [https://eightsquaredsoftware.com/articles/metaball.html](https://eightsquaredsoftware.com/articles/metaball.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm working on [https://discoverdev.io](https://discoverdev.io)

A daily list of curated blog posts for developers. Focus is on minimal design and top content. Just ten interesting links for the day!

<comment><USER4> Thanks for this resource, looks promising. Are all stories picked by hand? It would be useful if you could paginate instead of only being able to see the archive for one day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am working on building my own on-demand video delivery (hosting/transcoding/streaming) platform. I looked for an existing open source alternative but couldn't find any. Either there are proprietary options (wowza etc.) or you go with providers such as Wistia, Vimeo etc. that are great but limited when it comes to fully customizing what you want.

If I am happy enough, I will open source it :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Just finishing up my first VR game, Left-Hand Path, ready for its exit from Steam Early Access.

It's a Dark Souls-inspired full-length game (15 hours of VR gameplay) where you cast spells by drawing glyphs in the air. People seem to like it, at 85% positive reviews.

Currently I'm on the non-coding part of work mostly: I still have some bugs to clear, but after that it's beta feedback (and then more bug fixing), press relations, trailer, and similar launch prep.

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760/LeftHand_Path/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760/LeftHand_Path/)

I'm also working on a side project using Google Cardboard, and I'm starting testing game mechanics for my next full VR game which will probably involve melee combat.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am currently working on an opensource analytics and reporting dashboard for Mailgun:

[https://suet.co](https://suet.co) [https://github.com/kehers/suet](https://github.com/kehers/suet)

<comment><USER8> Good idea and good luck. The reporting from Mailgun leaves much to be desired.

<comment><USER7> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm currently working on a new open source project: [https://github.com/clintonwoo/hackernews-react- graphql](https://github.com/clintonwoo/hackernews-react-graphql)

I moved to the US recently so using it to show my skills to employers seeing as I've been working on entrepreneurial things while traveling. I actually found your post while browsing through my clone of Hacker News! I also have a business Shave Like A Boss which sells traditional shaving equipment: [https://www.shavelikeaboss.com.au/](https://www.shavelikeaboss.com.au/)

I definitely recommend working on a real idea for a project as you will be able to use it for something in the future.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am working on learnmapp[1].

What? Inspired by Kamran Ahmed's roadmap to becoming a web developer[2], learnmapp lets anyone create and share roadmaps for learning any topic/subject.

Why? Everytime I want to learn something new, the biggest hurdle I face is to find where & how to start and what to learn next. So with this tool, I want to make it easier for beginners to find and follow a roadmap to learn better.

When? Will launch, optimistically, by this weekend.

Also, it'll be free and the code will be available on github.

[1] [https://learnmapp.com](https://learnmapp.com) (not live yet) [2] [https://goo.gl/6fHbVH](https://goo.gl/6fHbVH)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have just completed my website [https://www.camerasforpros.com](https://www.camerasforpros.com) which collects mentions & reviews of Photo Gear from Reddit and StackExchange in one place. More than cameras and lenses, I am surprised by the number of unexpected accessories I discovered through this experiment.

Before this I did a word exploration site [https://www.niftyword.com](https://www.niftyword.com) . It has been steadily growing helping quite an handful of people, but is not a revenue pulling niche. Currently makes enough for server costs and a monthly dinner.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm studying CRDTs so that I can finally add sync and real-time collaboration to my apps without having to run my own servers. If all goes well, I'll be able to simply push my files to any old database (e.g. CloudKit) and have the merge conflicts always resolve deterministically for any arbitrary number of users. Proof-of-concept using Victor Grishchenko's Causal Trees algorithm is already working — just need to add a few refinements and write up a nice blog post!

[https://github.com/archagon/crdt- playground](https://github.com/archagon/crdt-playground)

<comment> UK-AL What materials are you using to study?

<comment><USER12> Mostly the original papers on Logoot[1]/LSEQ[2], RGA[3], and Causal Trees[4], as well as some source code analysis (Swarm, Y.js), some tangential papers concerning comparative algorithm performance, and as many blog posts, articles, and lectures as I could get my hands on. For reasons of efficiency, most CRDT research is focused on operation-based CRDTs (i.e. CmRDTs) which tend to rely on a central server, whereas I'm more interested in state-based CRDTs (CvRDTs) that can be freely used in a P2P environment, so I'm a little on my own when it comes to the implementation.

[1]: [https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/inria-00432368/document](https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/inria-00432368/document)

[2]: [https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-00921633/document](https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-00921633/document)

[3]: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8470/ae40470235604f40382aea...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8470/ae40470235604f40382aea4747275a6f6eef.pdf)

[4]: [https://ai2-s2-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/6534/c371ef78979d7ed84b...](https://ai2-s2-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/6534/c371ef78979d7ed84b6dc19f4fd529caab43.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been learning as much as I can about blockchain, crypto, etc... I've recently written sha256 and keccak in Javascript ( so as to learn how they work at a detailed level ). [https://github.com/jeffallen6767/sha-256-js](https://github.com/jeffallen6767/sha-256-js) and [https://github.com/jeffallen6767/keccak-p- js](https://github.com/jeffallen6767/keccak-p-js)

</comment><comment><USER14> a curated, weekly newsletter for people following (or wanting to follow) a keto/low carb lifestyle.

[https://keto.fm](https://keto.fm)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm working on [https://pupkeep.com/](https://pupkeep.com/), it is cloud based kennel software. For places that do pet boarding and grooming.

The market has a lot of competition, but it seems most solutions are just too bulky and slow. We recently went on a trip to various boarding places around us and received good feedback about our product. I'm very excited to see what happens next.

<comment><USER8> Wow. Had no idea that there would be that much competition in this space. I'd love to learn more about your overall solution - is it essentially an "e-commerce" site for pet boarders so pet owners can book their appointments and pay online?

<comment><USER15> Yeah I was surprised, though most other solutions are very old and slow so I really only consider us having one or two other real competitors.

The booking and paying online is actually just a small portion of the needs most of these businesses have. In addition to appointment management we also handle keeping track of customers, customer's pets(vaccination requirements, dietary needs, etc), inventory management, employee scheduling and role management, and analytics for it all.

Our competitors seem to handle parts of these but we are looking to be an all encompassing solution while simplifying the UX. We are also targeting multiple location support for enterprise customers, with our competitors multiple locations seem to be an afterthought. On top of that our app is faster and cheaper per month, offering discounts for multiple locations and no setup costs (other than buying optional hardware).

<comment><USER8> Very nice. How do you handle so much development work while balancing scope creep given that you're an all encompassing solution as opposed to handling different parts of it? I've been looking at extending my app to include many other components without overstretching myself.

<comment><USER15> Really just prioritization. We prioritize everything based on its usefulness/need. We are also in "MVP mode" right now so anything that isn't a part of those core features mentioned or isn't essential is put on the back burner.

<comment><USER8> I would still imagine that an inventory system or analytics would take several months unless you are also stripping those away to the bare essentials?

<comment><USER15> You would be correct. Our current implementation of those are fairly bare bones, but still encompass the main needs of the businesses we are targeting.

<comment><USER8> That's a great approach. I'll be "stealing" some of this great insight if you don't mind.

<comment><USER15> Haha not a problem at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> git-pull Just for show and tell purposes:

[https://devel.tech](https://devel.tech), tech tutorial website - webpack, bulma, django, docutils + sphinx (heavily customized)

Here are some examples:

\- Powered by pure docutils: [https://devel.tech/tips/n/sNZwQvNh/django- compressor-vs-djan...](https://devel.tech/tips/n/sNZwQvNh/django-compressor- vs-django-webpack-loader/)

\- Powered by sphinx: [https://devel.tech/features/django-vs- flask/](https://devel.tech/features/django-vs-flask/)

[https://www.hskflashcards.com](https://www.hskflashcards.com) \- recently converted to bulma, webpack + django-webpack-loader (from BS4 + django- compressor). Powered by Django + Postgres with the unaccent extension ([https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/unaccent.html](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/unaccent.html)). Example usage: [https://www.hskflashcards.com/search?omni=hao](https://www.hskflashcards.com/search?omni=hao)

Some comments on the stack: webpack has really grown on me, particularly [https://github.com/ezhome/django-webpack- loader](https://github.com/ezhome/django-webpack-loader). I've been avoiding trying to integrate node for a long time, and found webpack to have a bit of a learning curve, but after getting through the quirks it's great.

Another thing, looking into seeing more stuff with yarn workspaces ([https://yarnpkg.com/blog/2017/08/02/introducing- workspaces/](https://yarnpkg.com/blog/2017/08/02/introducing-workspaces/)), lerna, etc. Trying to make the UX customizations more modular, and I think it's becoming more practical to separate out stuff into node packages more often.

As for other stuff I've been liking, SASS has been good as always, as has the bulma framework ([https://bulma.io](https://bulma.io)).

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm working on a tool you can add to any website that makes the content editable for non-developers. [https://component.io](https://component.io)

So now you don't have to do the back and forth "hey can you make a few quick edits" routine, and you can use whatever technology you want to build the site.

We've been working on it a little under a year and have a couple thousand users.

</comment><comment><USER17> Working on my own website.

I've come to realize that I do want to share pictures, funny videos and all the internet has to offer, but I want to do it on my own terms and actually own what I put up until I decide to take it down.

It'll be the single place to go to find out what's going on with me. If I'm connected with you on social media that I have, you can see more details compared to random visitor.

Not super complex, just me a WordPress install and an idea.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been making some adjustments to my personal HN and Reddit aggregator - [http://stories.rpeden.com](http://stories.rpeden.com)

It mostly works the way I want it to - I've just been tweaking the number of stories it shows, and which subreddits it displays. It's not really meant to be useful to anyone other than myself, but it's been fun to work on.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm rebuilding the API and admin section for CronAlarm - [https://www.cronalarm.com](https://www.cronalarm.com) \- a cron job / scheduled task monitoring platform. The purpose of the rewrite is for paving the way for a native mobile app. Also working on adding Slack integrations as well.

</comment><comment><USER20> Right now I'm trying to get webRTC to run without ever having to use a server - or any way of communicating between browsers without the use of a server - for a game I'm making.

Nothing special, but good to get familiar with the tech. And definitely not yet ready to be shown (also, currently just a ripoff of an older nintendo game)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm working on [https://www.sanitycheck.io](https://www.sanitycheck.io) \- a tool to help make sense of all the data available in Google Search Console. It archives the data too - so you aren't just limited to the 90 days that GSC has.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Forgot to mention that you can check out the landing of my book and stay updated here: [https://www.kylegalbraith.com/learn- aws/](https://www.kylegalbraith.com/learn-aws/)

</comment><comment><USER22> "Smart", programmable, connected LED grow lights, sensors, and control systems for horticulture: [https://www.natecontrols.com](https://www.natecontrols.com).

I do all of the software work for the on-device controllers, cloud backend, and UI.

</comment><comment><USER23> Working every minute right now on my second online course for learning ReactJs. Hopefully I can release it next week without any quirks :)

\- [https://roadtoreact.com/](https://roadtoreact.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm building a flexible CRM system for startups: [http://orchestrahq.com](http://orchestrahq.com).

Been using other CRM systems but found them to be too restrictive. Salesforce provides endless customization but costs a bomb.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm currently working on a weekly curated newsletter of Florida Man content, [http://floridamannewsletter.com](http://floridamannewsletter.com) as well as a personal blog about my projects and devops.

</comment><comment><USER25> A book for Windows 10 development with C# (and UWP). As well as refocusing on re-writing my Windows installer (MSI) creation software. The first version makes executables (based on NSIS) but am moving to a WiX backend with a much better UI.

</comment><comment><USER26> Work on a websocket mud engine continues in my off hours: [https://rockmud.herokuapp.com/](https://rockmud.herokuapp.com/)

I'm also working on a SaaS for anonymous reviews and correspondence.

</comment><comment><USER27> Still working on [https://iheartreading.co](https://iheartreading.co). Trying to onboard schools to use it but so far cold emailing is not working. Thinking about other way to market it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Building a multitasking webvr environment at niftykick.com

Demo video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3xZ1G291Ks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3xZ1G291Ks)

Starting to see some developer and beta user interest :)

</comment><comment><USER29> Working on Micro [https://micro.mu](https://micro.mu). Basically microservices toolkit and framework. It's pure OSS and sponsored by a big enterprise company.

</comment><comment><USER30> Buying index funds - will allow me to retire by 2022.

Angel investing - invested in over 100 companies since 2013.

Digital Currencies - Investments in companies: Filecoin, Shapeshift, and Balance

Oh yeah I have a full time day job as a cloud computing architect

<comment><USER31> "Buying index funds - will allow me to retire by 2022."

I understand that the returns of index funds are very low and generally recommended as long-term investments (alternative to saving in the bank).

How much are you investing into index funds to allow you to confidently retire in 5 years time?

Thanks!

<comment><USER30> [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I am working on [https://bestfoodnearme.com](https://bestfoodnearme.com) a better way to decide what eat. Its an idea that is scratching my own itch

</comment><comment><USER33> [https://talky.cards](https://talky.cards), a web interface for [https://api.ai](https://api.ai).

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm working on [https://oppslist.com](https://oppslist.com), It's an archive of people describing software they want.

Making about $60 MRR.

<comment><USER8> Looks like an interesting website. How do you source these people and do you connect them to developers for a fee?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I am working on [readup.tips][1]: a service for sharing reading list, and learning Vue.

[1]:[http://readup.tips](http://readup.tips)

</comment><comment><USER36> I am working on a Lead generation product

[https://www.leadmine.net](https://www.leadmine.net)

</comment><comment><USER37> Learning and certifying in SugarCRM

<comment><USER8> Would love to get your thoughts on SugarCRM as I'm building a CRM system on my own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Sales</comment>


Shutting down Uber in India was unwise - <AUTHOR> http://ajayshahblog.blogspot.ca/2014/08/shutting-down-uber-in-india-was-unwise.html <comment><USER2> The title of this post is clickbait. Uber is not being shut down in India.

The RBI rule requiring a one time pin for all online transactions is unwise, a huge barrier to good UX, and should be removed.

Having said that, Uber is not being shutdown in India. Even if no changes are made to this rule by the Oct 31 deadline, which of the following is more likely: Uber leaving a country with several hundred million potential users, or Uber (and every other company who does online transactions) changing their UI flow to accommodate the RBI requirement?

Disclaimer: My company Summon competes directly with Uber.

<comment><USER3> "The RBI rule requiring a one time pin for all online transactions is unwise, a huge barrier to good UX, and should be removed" \- That rule is only in place because India does not have enough consumer protection laws. In case of credit card fraud, the consumer is screwed. Neither the bank nor Uber will own the responsibility for the fraud. Yes,the chances of such a fraud are low but the risk of losing a ton of money is very high. Also the interest rate on credit careds in India is massive - 36% p.a. So a potential loss to a consumer because of a fraudulent transaction is immensely high.

So yes, this two factor authentication is a royal pain in the ass but it's very much required in a country in which the consumer is not the king.

<comment><USER4> "That rule is only in place because India does not have enough consumer protection laws. In case of credit card fraud, the consumer is screwed. Neither the bank nor Uber will own the responsibility for the fraud.".

So what should we do? Instead of ensuring that consumer protection laws are improved and banks+law enforcement agencies and made answerable; let us make the consumer's life tougher. I am sure that it is always easy to make laws that can control sections/units than to control masses.

Now let us see if it a slight inconvenience to the consumer of there is a bigger picture behind. All these security measures (such as two factor authentication, chip based cards etc etc) involve costs. So who is going to pay for the costs? Would RBI pay for it? Would the banks pay for it? I do not think so. It is going to be the end consumer who is going to pay for all this.

If you do not believe me, read this article on timesofindia (titled: Banks seek to cap free ATM use at 5 times per month), you would realize that you would need to pay in case you took out money from your account (from your very own bank's ATM) from an ATM more than 5 times a month. What does this mean? I need to pay for taking out MY OWN MONEY!

So let us get real! Look for solutions for betterment of people in reality and not just in a phony manner!

<comment><USER3> Well, improving consumer protection laws is not that straightforward. It involves government and their shitty decision making abilities. You have to pass a bill blah blah.

RBI cannot wait for these laws to be enacted. In the interim they've taken these steps and this is not done in a phony manner.

Regarding costs - ultimately the consumer will pay for added security - be it the two factor authentication or the chip cards or any other security or protection measure. There's no debate about that. However, in case of a disputed transaction the cards company/Uber will need to own up responsibility which they won't.

Well, this authentication is RBI's solution for betterment of people, comes at a convenience cost though. If you think there are better alternatives, it wouldn't hurt to shoot an email to the RBI team. Actually let me see if that's even possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "between two to ten minutes are wasted in dealing with the payment" \- how on earth is this possible? I can imagine two minutes if the driver has to dig around in a big pouch of mixed up change, but _ten_?

edit: I realise this is slightly off-topic and doesn't change the central premise of the article, which is that the legislation that forced Uber to employ a loophole is a bad thing. But what the hell, I'd go out of my mind if a paying for a taxi took 10 minutes.

<comment><USER6> this just happened to me in southern california. i spent at least 10 minutes with the driver at the end of a ride trying to pay him because i had no cash, and his credit card terminal had no reception because we were up in the hills (he tried several times, fiddled with settings, etc). he then called dispatch to ask some questions, and finally just wrote down my info and let me go without paying. and now i have no idea if he's going to charge me or not.

you won't go "out of your mind" if this happens because when it's happening it seems totally normal and you will take it completely in stride unless you are late for a flight or are just a complete asshole. i was going back to a wedding and was kind of drunk and didn't really care. it's only when you analyze this on a macro level as a business practice that it seems insane.

<comment> k-mcgrady Why didn't he just drive you to the nearest ATM so you could get out cash? Surely there would be one within a 1 or 2 mins driving distance. I have a different perspective on this as I'm pretty certain cab drivers here don't accept card. Everybody pays in cash. It's easier and faster and if you don't have any on you you ask the drive to stop at an ATM on the way to your destination.

<comment><USER7> _Why didn 't he just drive you to the nearest ATM so you could get out cash? Surely there would be one within a 1 or 2 mins driving distance._

Really? Up in the hills in a place with no cellphone connection?

I don't know California, but here you could be driving for hours without finding an ATM if you're far enough in the mountains.

<comment> k-mcgrady No idea exactly what is meant by up in the hills as I'm not from CA either. If you're taking a cab somewhere in the mountains though maybe you should be prepared for situation and have some cash on you. TO be honest the driver also should have made the passenger aware that up in the hills his credit card machine likely won't work so if they need to stop at an ATM they can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, it was a bad move in the first place to play around with loopholes on part of Uber. Though its services are a win-win for Indian Customers,.. Uber started on a wrong note in the first place.

There are hundreds of MNC operating in India, including global giants like Pepsi, MS, etc. Though they are not entirely clean themselves especially when it comes to factors such as environmental clearances, at least on paper none of them messes with RBI's financial guidelines. It is the RBI's job, to check anyone who is playing with the financial rules in place in India. Had Uber tried to negotiate, and negotiate hard.. it wouldn't have ended up shutting down.

Uber had a good chance to learn from Paypal, and what led to its demise was exactly the same thing .. avoiding the extra precautionary measures in place in India. Instead of giving in to RBI, taking a stubborn stand. The CEO was supposed to innovate the strategy at this point.

Amazon had previously kept itself away from the same tangle, and for years Indian e-commerce was dominated by ebay, until recently. Amazon re-entered the Indian market, albeit on attempt 3 or 4 now as Amazon.in

Now that is done and over, Uber's re-entry would become much harder, cause as they say "first impression is the last impression"

</comment><comment><USER9> I think Uber got hurt in India because they used a foreign exchange transaction for moving money between a buyer and seller present in India.

Money was being moved through USA, to avoid adhering to India's jurisdiction on Credit Card charge rules.

RBI is fairly paranoid about forex (like cofeposa).

But I think Uber was schooling the taxis in B'lore on how to deal with customers. Would be a shame if they cancelled out that part for the payment convenience.

Ignore the payment details, the pickup service itself was bloody convenient when I visited Bangalore last month, because I didn't need to have two phone conversations on a pick up about "where are you saar?" and "I see a building called Shiv Sagar on my left".

I'd rather buy "Uber credits" or something, just to avoid that.

</comment><comment><USER10> A possible solution is prepaid, which is followed in a lot of industries (ex: telecom)

With Uber, you can prepay per month a certain amount with all the two factor authentication and just use it. I understand the complications like how can we authenticate the user when he/she boards and make sure the account has (enough) credit, etc. But I think they should be workable.

</comment><comment><USER11> Up to ten minutes to pay? Does anyone actually put up with this?

In India autorickshaws are ubiquitous, extremely cheap, and I never had any problems paying. I was never tempted to try to find a taxi instead, although if I was there for more than a couple of weeks the pollution (autorickshaws are open at the sides) would get old fast.

<comment><USER12> I have used autorickshaws in Bangalore and its a big pain to have exact amount. Some drivers dont have change and we have to negotaite or sometimes find a nearby store where we have to buy something to get change :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "When you finish a taxi ride, between two to ten minutes are wasted in dealing with the payment."

How? On what planet? This takes about 30 seconds, tops. Why is the driver digging around for change? Are you too cheap to round the tip to the next bill?

To solve the problem Uber solves please read the following handy tips:

1\. Carry cash, in your wallet, if you're unfamiliar with it, you may obtain it at an ATM.

2\. As you're approaching your destination look at the meter, this will be roughly the amount of cash you'll need. Move the decimal to the right one digit and multiply by 2, this is the tip. Add it to the amount on the meter.

3\. Select the closest amount of bills to this amount eg. 20.57 means a $20 bill.

4\. Hand this to the driver, say 'keep the change' and get out of the car.

<comment><USER14> "On what planet?"

Followed by what I'm taking to be a very American centric idea of how a taxi ride is completed.....

<comment><USER13> Ok, how is it done in India that could possibly take longer than 30 seconds...

<comment><USER15> It doesn't. It takes about 30 seconds. A minute max if both sides are fumbling for change etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> common, all RBI wants is the service provider to settle money in India if paid by Indian customer to an Indian Customer. What uber is doing is using a different gateway to take money and different country bank to settle the same.

Also the requirement of 2 factor authentication is there for all CNP (Card not present) transaction, you need to understand that the number of fraud which is detected due to international transaction is rising and it becomes very difficult for individuals to process the chargeback. I was victim of card theft used to do international transaction on some random site.

I like this decision, and Uber can use a card reader on the device like Square in India or Pre paid wallet.

<comment><USER17> >> all RBI wants is the service provider to settle money in India if paid by Indian customer to an Indian Customer

And it should be that way.Why should a local payment be routed outside and after an Ed'Snowden episode , i would rather feel more secure with things kept simple.

India like most countries has its own homegrown payment networks and i don't think it would be very difficult to run such businesses in India.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The numbers here are highly questionable:

1\. 3-wheeler "autos" are ubiquitous. Wait times are essentially zero, they are cheaper than taxis, and payment takes maybe a minute at most because the driver is willing to negotiate.

2\. Most people still book cars by phone because the vast majority of Indians don't have access to smartphones or internet all the time.

3\. Credit Card penetration is tiny (I believe ~5-10%, but might be wrong). Cash is, and will be, the dominant form of payment processing for a long time.

I'm not commenting on whether or not Uber should be in India. Just their departure isn't as detrimental to the GDP as this post claims.

<comment><USER19> Chennaiite here - finding autos is very tough. They ask for exorbitant fares, and don't ply to any route that you want. I have literally spent 20 mins on road trying to find an auto to travel to my destination 3kms away

Uber is not targeted at "most" people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> One can argue for payment reforms in India. But Uber, by knowingly ignoring the norms, had gained an unfair advantage over local services (Olacabs, Taxiforsure, Meru, etc). This levels the playing field.

</comment><comment><USER21> Well, the news that Uber is shutting down in India made my day even though I expect them to be back. I have read multiple comments here in Hacker News that what Uber does is either illegal, or borderline legal, and what I have read about the company suggests they are unethical too. Here in India, we believe in the power of the government and strong government regulation. Putting locals out of business using investor money and then becoming an effective monopoly will not work here - thank you RBI.

(I am going to lose a lot of karma for this post, but sometimes the right thing needs to be said)

<comment><USER22> What is completely illegal in many parts of the world, is 'disruptive' in Silicon Valley. See the recent discussion on BackPack, an international smuggling ring backed by YC. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8199286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8199286)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why not support a common online/mobile billing system for regular cabs?

<comment><USER13> Hmm... interesting idea, I have a feeling this startup may have the technology you're looking for.

[http://www.moneyfactory.gov/](http://www.moneyfactory.gov/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> India having bad writers is even more unwise IMO

</comment><comment><USER25> Is there a local competitor in India?

<comment><USER26> Not a direct competitor, but Ola Cabs comes close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Url changed from [http://qz.com/254495/why-shutting-uber-down-is-poor- regulati...](http://qz.com/254495/why-shutting-uber-down-is-poor-regulation- by-indias-central-bank/), which points to this.

<comment><USER28> It looks like it should actually point to [http://ajayshahblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/shutting-down- uber-...](http://ajayshahblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/shutting-down-uber-in- india-was-unwise.html)

<comment><USER27> Thanks. Fixed.</comment></comment></comment>


PhoneGuard blocks texting when a phone is traveling faster than 10mph - <AUTHOR> http://www.slashgear.com/phoneguard-blocks-texting-when-a-phone-is-traveling-faster-than-10mph-28121509/ <comment><USER2> The assumptions of this piece of software are ridiculous. What if you are in a train, or bus, taxi or in a car but someone else is driving? If you are moving faster than 10mph doesn't mean that you are driving...

<comment><USER3> It's meant for the type of parent or boss who wants to have more control over what the person with the phone does. In some cases, like "17 year old pizza delivery driver" then a parent might require the teenager to have that installed and enabled on the phone before leaving for work. It's not meant for purchase by the actual user of the phone.

That's going to appeal to only a small number of people, but the company must certainly hope there are enough to be profitable.</comment></comment>


Quicker and Cleaner Method for Extracting Lithium with Solar Powered Energy - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencecanchangetheworld.org/en_US/buzz/blog-winner-bright-minds-challenge.html <comment><USER2> I found a similar story with MOND, it was here on hn but i don't remember the title.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics)</comment>


Enterprise class Java code - <AUTHOR> http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2012/06/enterprise-class-java-code.html

<comment><USER2> The way I would test the parser would be to input a string representing a representative line of CSV and then assert on the object that was output. Then you just do the simplest implementation that could work (which would probably look similar to your last code snippet), and only refactor that into multiple classes if you have a good reason.

I don't think the "right" way you describe is somehow not following the principles of clean/GOOS/test driven code. They are still good principles to follow, but I think you've demonstrated that you can't follow them without weighing many different concerns at once - and that it's really hard to tell which ones should be more important than others until you've had some hard- earned experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> I suspect the author hasn't read [http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom...](http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-nouns.html)</comment>


Visualizing CitiBike Share Station Data - <AUTHOR> http://fredbenenson.com/blog/2013/05/28/citibike-share-data-hacking/

<comment><USER2> We built a visualization for Tel Aviv's municipal bike service (django, d3, tempodb, mapbox, tilemill, tilestache, etc.): <http://telostats.com> (warning: hebrew).

Sadly we don't have anonymized ride data, but we do have bike station info for each station over time. Lots of good use we can make out of that.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://bikes.oobrien.com/newyork/> is a bit more comprehensive.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if anonymized ride data will ever be available for consumption. It would be interesting to see an animation of bike movement throughout the day.

<comment><USER5> Boston's Hubway: <http://hubwaydatachallenge.org/>

London's Cycle Hire: [http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/syndication/16493....](http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/syndication/16493.aspx)

Also check out <http://vimeo.com/33712288>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sweet! I wasn't sure if this data was going to be public or not. It's a little odd that some stations are abbreviated "st." while some spell out "street"

</comment><comment><USER7> God that chart is terrible.

<comment><USER8> The regular map isn't too great either:

<http://citibikenyc.com/stations>

That's right. Light blue for spaces available, dark blue for bikes available. This is what happens when you let your branding trump your user experience design. :P

(I mean, aside from color selection, the thermometer-style idea is neat, but I'd prefer a system that highlights the absolute failure conditions because it's kind of hard to tell the difference between 1 bike and 0 bikes...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Check out Toronto's system. It's fully mapped & bike availability can be viewed based on location: <https://toronto.bixi.com/>

</comment><comment><USER10> available bikes [https://twitter.com/paulusTheTwit/status/339502438946066432/...](https://twitter.com/paulusTheTwit/status/339502438946066432/photo/1)

available docks [https://twitter.com/paulusTheTwit/status/339502783352934400/...](https://twitter.com/paulusTheTwit/status/339502783352934400/photo/1)</comment>


Say Goodbye to CoreOS - <AUTHOR> https://thenewstack.io/say-goodbye-to-coreos/ <comment><USER2> While I never used CoreOS, the team certainly played a big part in the new wave of devops. The team also brought us etcd and a lot of the niceties of the devX in kubernetes et al these days. The article doesn't mention him, but shoutout to Brandon Phillips (technical lead) and his team for so much innovation in the space!

<comment><USER3> Here's a nice article on CoreOS from 2013, just as they graduated from YC: [https://www.wired.com/2013/08/coreos-the-new- linux/](https://www.wired.com/2013/08/coreos-the-new-linux/) ... and the show- hn thread referenced by tfa: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6128700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6128700)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Red Hat, which purchased the company behind CoreOS in 2018, will, as of > Sept.1, 2020, delete all CoreOS images. That means even if you wanted to > download CoreOS (without supported updates), you won't be able to.

> Although Fedora CoreOS is the official replacement for CoreOS, there are a > few use cases it cannot replace, such as:

> No native support for Azure, Digital Ocean, GCE, Vagrant, or Container Linux > community-supported platforms. The rkt container runtime, originally > developed by CoreOS, is missing.

Have these images of CoreOS (that RedHat will delete) not been added to the Wayback Machine yet? Or not backed up anywhere else?

> For those looking for a non-Red Hat alternative should check out the Flatcar > Linux project, [1] a fork of CoreOS Container Linux.

So there is an (almost) equivalent alternative for those who use the images that are going to be deleted (and one that doesn't have the limitations of Fedora CoreOS)?

[1]: [https://www.flatcar-linux.org/releases/](https://www.flatcar- linux.org/releases/)

<comment><USER5> Is this an issue of RedHat just buying and killing a competitor?

<comment><USER6> At least in the open source world, other people can continue maintaining the project under a new name (dependent on the specific license). I wonder how Flatcar and Fedora CoreOS will converge/diverge.

Also, was rkt not open source? Or was it just depreciated?

<comment><USER7> rkt was always open source. It was donated to the CNCF and eventually "retired" by them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Too soon, I know, but can we soon start talking about abandoning all corporate-managed open source projects?

I wouldn't be surprised at this move if I were a CoreOS user, but I would be pretty pissed off that the next 6 months of my work would be migrating to a new platform for production work, all because the Linux distro I used got bought for its IP and customer list.

Or, say when HashiCorp is eventually bought, and suddenly its parent company decides, no more free tools for you, kids! Buy our other, more crappy products instead, but here's some free samples you can use at small scale. Also you need to rewrite all your code.

This extends to virtually every important project in the cloud computing ecosystem. They're all just run by companies, not a distributed decentralized community of users and developers (cat-herded by a BDFL) like every successful multi-generational open source project. There's also only one widely-supported Linux distribution in the world which isn't run by a corporation, meaning if that distribution ever goes down, everyone who uses Linux for more than its kernel is at the mercy of that given corporation, and we'll probably see massive fragmentation.

Open Source and GNU basically got its start to prevent corporations from preventing you from doing what you wanted with software, but it had a nasty side-effect: they can now make whatever you do with it obsolete and unsupportable. A bit like a car manufacturer no longer shipping replacement parts, forcing you to find some machinists to support an aging fleet of obsolete vehicles. And sure, if the impact is _only_ to corporate engineers, who cares, but as one of those engineers, it is very annoying that we literally are letting them do this to us.

<comment><USER9> This isn't a corporate-managed open source problem, it's a single developer managed open source problem, with the corporate entity functioning like a single entity. Tons of great open source project exist as updating projects through the force of will of a single passionate developer. When that developer moves on, the project dies. The open source license grants others the ability to continue, but without that singular developer and their passion the reality is in most cases no one will pick up the project and carry it forward. Sure there are examples where projects do survive the death or disappearance of a maintainer, but there are far more projects out there in need of a new maintainer than find one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the idea behind it was definitely sound and pretty cool. I used CoreOS a couple of times for internal projects, using Docker (not rkt) but I think as Kubernetes became ubiquitously available on managed services, the need for me to attempt to build my own docker infrastructure started to wane.

Goodbye CoreOS.

</comment><comment><USER11> I really enjoyed managing a CoreOS cluster in the past. It was one of those project where every product developed was great, like etcd, Ignition, CoreDNS and even Fleet, at the time.

I wonder how far they'd have gotten if they'd refused to sell.

<comment><USER12> Maybe not far if their revenue stream was not large enough.

<comment><USER11> I have no idea what's their case in this regard. Would love some input from someone who knows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > will, as of Sept.1, 2020, delete all CoreOS images

I get moving on / cutting product lines but I don't see the need to delete all the images.

<comment><USER10> I initially had that internal reaction too, but then realized that the value in CoreOS was the updates. If they're specifically going to stop that, at this point it's like any other never gets updates OS (sure the readonly file system still helps tremendously) - so yes, people should get off ASAP. But the September date ensures that anyone that wants to fork and provide updates some other way, can definitely find the time to do that.

</comment></comment><comment> foreign-inc Finally a non-sponsored article on the newstack.

</comment><comment><USER14> CoreOS, docker, and mesos was an alternative to kubernetes. I'd say while using flatcar is viable, it looks like kubernetes is what the people have chosen.

<comment><USER15> CoreOS and Kube are not mutually exclusive. The first k8s cluster I ever ran was on CoreOS.

<comment><USER16> Me, too! I got started with both CoreOS and kubernetes using their kubernetes- in-vagrant repo (before it went to the abysmal rkt runtime: [https://github.com/coreos/coreos- kubernetes/blob/v0.4.0/mult...](https://github.com/coreos/coreos- kubernetes/blob/v0.4.0/multi-node/generic/controller-install.sh) ) and I shepherded that v1.0.6 cluster all the way up to v1.10 when I left. It was a highly educational process

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Isn't GKE runs on CoreOS?

</comment><comment><USER18> I read this as 'Say Goodbye to ChromeOS' and though 'well, Android finally won inside Google'.</comment>


Apple II Library: The 4am Collection - never-the-bride https://archive.org/details/apple_ii_library_4am <comment><AUTHOR> The work this group is doing is breathtaking. I read a post a while back on how they approached reversing a game. It was almost like black magic. If you guys are reading this, keep up the awesome restoration work!

<comment> slipstream- I believe 4am is a single person, not a group.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> No number munchers :(

I got so fast with that game - the straight line arrow keys are SO much faster than the inverted T used today. I miss them.

They should make gamers keyboards with straight line arrow keys.</comment>


Ask HN: Insert USB drive, image entire HD to USB so USB is bootable clone? - <AUTHOR> Do you know of any tool that could enable this use case?<p>Essentially you insert a sufficiently high capacity USB stick into your laptop, entirely clone the drive encryption & all as appropriate so that the USB stick becomes a full clone of your system, bootable from any other PC. <comment><USER2> Any disc mirroring software should work. I would probably try using dd and fdisk, but if you want a graphical option clonezilla[0] might be what you want.

[0]: [https://clonezilla.org/](https://clonezilla.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Posted this thread specifically to help out for such usecase couple of days earlier - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24220628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24220628)

</comment><comment><USER4> dd?</comment>


Show HN: Growgram - <AUTHOR> http://growgram.co <comment><AUTHOR> At Growgram, we're building interesting web platforms and applications to help local businesses drive growth online, interact with their customers, sell and maintain a solid web presence.

Our first product, The Restaurant Management Platform helps restaurants with: a) Beautiful, easy to customise responsive restaurant websites b) Visual menu display c) Online ordering and order processing system d) Table reservation e) Customer database f) One click promotions to their customers about offers, discounts, events etc.

Upcoming features: a) Social media integration b) Ability to send sms promotions to the customer base through our platform c) Integration with aggregator services

</comment><comment><USER2> Lots of restaurants have used MULTIPLE products like this before, but they suck. So, they're a bit snakebitten and less likely to trust services like this.

So, make sure you do a good job of explaining how things will be different this time around. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you integrating with common sales and labor tracking systems for restaurants/bars?</comment>


Coffee: A Journey - <AUTHOR> http://www.stevestreeting.com/2016/01/17/coffee-a-journey/ <comment><USER2> A Coffee Genesis is also a good read about the history of coffee in America since WWII

[http://kindadifferent.net/wp/index.php/2016/01/15/coffee- gen...](http://kindadifferent.net/wp/index.php/2016/01/15/coffee-genesis/)</comment>


A Twenty-First-Century Shipwreck - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/twenty-first-century-shipwreck

<comment><USER2> For a different perspective, have a look at this post. A statement posted by Team Vestas navigator Wouter Verbraak once they got back to civilization:

[http://sailinganarchy.com/2014/12/04/walking- tall/](http://sailinganarchy.com/2014/12/04/walking-tall/)

Wouters statement was since removed from his facebook-page

</comment><comment><USER3> Shipwrecks are all too common even in the 21st century, even without the stress of competition. I saw a very recent one in Namibia a few years ago: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/tatyana-k/4691269078/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/tatyana-k/4691269078/) That's Zeila, a ship which was being towed for breaking apart as scrap before it got free and went aground on the Skeleton Coast (a place as formidable as it sounds).

Or how about this? [https://www.flickr.com/photos/tatyana-k/12695050615/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/tatyana-k/12695050615/) \- a crash at full speed between two boats last year in Singapore which I also saw first hand.

Life at sea is dangerous, but irresistible for many people, both sailors and spectators.

<comment><USER4> New Zealand's worst maritime disaster[1] was caused by a container ship that hit a reef just off the coast - because the captain / navigator were stressed for getting to port on time and therefore took a different route (a more direct one) which made them collide with the reef.

The container ship was carrying oil which spilled into the water causing a lot of distress. Very small "disaster" compared to others in the world like it, but nevertheless, a really stupid human error which led to the shipwrecking.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rena_oil_spill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rena_oil_spill)

<comment><USER3> Wikipedia says Rena was New Zealand's worst maritime _environmental_ disaster. Its overall worst maritime disaster was of course the 2013 America's Cup: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_America%27s_Cup](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_America%27s_Cup)

<comment><USER5> Still too soon, too raw! :) Hopefully the Brits get a team in next time around so I have 2 teams in the running.

The Wahine, while not the _worst_ maritime disaster NZ has ever had is one of the more recent [0].

This video [1] showing a ferry bouncing along gives you a good idea of how rough it can get on the route between Wellington and Picton. I had friends on there one day when several people were hospitalised with broken bones!

[0] [http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/wahine- disaster](http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/wahine-disaster) [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUWascqCBe0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUWascqCBe0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's two types of electronic nautical maps: raster and vector. Raster maps are basically scanned paper maps, and contain all the data. When you zoom in, you are basically enlarging the map, it will not show more detail. Vector maps are contructed by a database. When you zoom in, more detail emerges that was not visible previously. Like buoys or reefs...

There is no software method to "find obstructions on my route". If you want to be sure, you need to zoom in at maximum level and follow the route you are going to sail, otherwise there is a possibility of missing out on information.

<comment><USER7> Seriously? Why not? If you've got vector data and can accurately plot your location and heading, it would seem to be pretty trivial to find and display all potential risks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There was also the sinking of the bounty during sandy in 2012. Impressive story, long-read. [http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2013/reports/bounty/](http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2013/reports/bounty/)

</comment><comment><USER9> In the first paragraph, this clumsiness:

> " Sailors must endure ... unbearable temperatures"

Urgh.

</comment><comment><USER10> and THAT is the spirit of adventure!</comment>


Why VCs Are Pouring a Record $1B into Coffee Startups This Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/emily-canal/national-coffee-day-startup-funding.html <comment><USER2> >Blue Bottle sells Port of Mokha coffee from Yemen, and charges $16 per cup.

The book about how a guy from San Francisco went to Yemen to source that coffee bean is worth a read: The Monk of Mokha</comment>


TruffleRuby Status - <AUTHOR> http://lists.ruby-lang.org/pipermail/jruby/2017-January/000511.html <comment><USER3> What is TruffleRuby?

"JRuby+Truffle started as my internship project at Oracle Labs in early 2013. It is an implementation of the Ruby programming language on the JVM, using the Graal dynamic compiler and the Truffle AST interpreter framework. JRuby+Truffle can achieve peak performance well beyond that possible in JRuby at the same time as being a significantly simpler system. In early 2014 it was open sourced and integrated into JRuby."

via [http://chrisseaton.com/rubytruffle/](http://chrisseaton.com/rubytruffle/)

I've used JRuby for a while, but I hadn't heard of Truffle

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm super excited that they are going to be releasing substrate VM. Substrate, graal and truffle are all independently awesome technologies.

The JVM is an exciting place to be right now.

<comment><USER5> But at the same time it's interesting to note that RubyTruffle will not even rely on the JVM to run!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "optcarrot benchmark [https://github.com/mame/optcarrot](https://github.com/mame/optcarrot) runs around 9x faster on JRuby+Truffle than it does on MRI"

That's blazingly fast! The missing part now is C extension support and they seem confident to be able to deliver this.

Color me impressed.

<comment><USER7> > The missing part now is C extension support

Wasn't part of truffle's point and advantage that it would interpret and JIT C code alongside Ruby code and optimise across the boundary? Is the missing part just the declaration of the MRI API on the C-side, or is it pre-compiled (and thus not interpretable) C extensions?

<comment><USER8> We wrote a first paper about it back in 2015. We've spent 2016 going back and doing a better implementation of the idea. We hope to make it useful for real C extensions in 2017. So it's still 'missing' in that it isn't integrated and in use yet.

We work on the C source code (actually the LLVM bitcode) rather than compiled C extensions, yes.

<comment><USER9> Actually, I would deprioritize c extension support.

The jruby ecosystem is extremely mature and production ready. For example, database connectors exist which are pure java rather than based on c extensions. They may be better as well. Same goes for ssl ([https://github.com/jruby/jruby- openssl/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/jruby/jruby- openssl/blob/master/README.md)) and xml parsing ([https://github.com/YorickPeterse/oga/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/YorickPeterse/oga/blob/master/README.md))

Also goes for all the json parsing, etc stuff which seems to need c extensions. Lots of systems stuff is perfectly workable using jruby ([https://github.com/minimagick/minimagick/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/minimagick/minimagick/blob/master/README.md))

This would be a different story if you were doing jython fof example - <USER2> does not have a viable java based ecosystem.

If I were you, i would NOT focus on c extensions and instead work on other stuff (like startup speed)

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately running JRuby's Java extensions doesn't look any easier than C extensions, so we've gone with C extensions to begin with.

Both types of extensions are hard because they're written against an API which is just the entire internals of their implementations. If you don't use the same internals it's very hard to meet that API.

This explains in depth [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLtjkP9bD_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLtjkP9bD_U)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great stuff!

The Graal/Truffle/Sulong stack is pretty amazing, being able optimize through the ruby/C boundary is crazy. Really looking forward to see what comes out of that work this year and beyond.

</comment><comment><USER11> If it runs Rails and it goes through a test suite at least as quickly as MRI then I'm definitely going to use it. JRuby is just too slow to start.

<comment><USER12> It doesn't support nokogiri yet -- a letdown for me

<comment><USER11> Yes, big problem

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm pumped for startup improvements, it's about the only downside to JRuby.

Does the ability to use Java libraries with TruffleRuby go away with SubstrateVM though?

<comment><USER8> You have to compile the Java libraries that you want to use into your binary, or we're looking at doing a Java bytecode interpreter in the same manner as our Ruby interpreter.

<comment><USER14> On an unrelated topic, will TruffleRuby have all the OpenJDK's GC algorithms available?

I'm thinking of Shenandoah specifically.

I understand they depend on inserting barriers with JVMCI, so I'm hopeful for compatibility. How is SubstrateVM build? It is made out of using the OpenJDK code base in a specific manner?

<comment><USER8> I don't think we have the barriers for Shenandoah yet. It would be easy enough to add them I believe. SVM is a new VM implemented in Java. It isn't made from the OpenJDK's native implementation in C++.

<comment><USER15> If that's the case surely it doesn't matter if you have the barriers for Shenandoah, as it's written in C++ for HotSpot. Wouldn't you have to rewrite it from scratch in Java for SubstrateVM?

<comment><USER8> Yes for SVM having the barriers won't help. But I read the question as about TruffleRuby in general, which can run on OpenJDK where Shenandoah is available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are there any performance gains on that sample Rails application, however simple?

<comment><USER8> We haven't started to benchmark Rails yet. We're hopeful that we will do well on Rails because actually our most powerful and novel optimisations are for Rails-style code, such as metaprogramming and lots of intermediate arrays and hashes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Re: the C extensions: Since the performance is so much better, would it make sense to replace gems that use c extensions with pure ruby implementations? Would that still yield better performance than MRI?

<comment><USER8> > would it make sense to replace gems that use c extensions with pure ruby > implementations

I think that the best practice for C extensions when used for performance is that Gems have both a pure Ruby reference implementation and a C extension. This means all implementations can run them and more people can read the code. OilyPNG and PSD Native do this and it's been extremely helpful to my research.

C extensions, even when run in our interpreter, tend to run faster than Ruby code because C has simpler semantics and needs fewer guards (checks) when running code.

I haven't done a careful comparison of C extension performance compared to Ruby performance when both are running on Graal. I should do that.

<comment><USER17> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> 217 Points and an 1 day old news and it is Ranked 8xth on HN. While others has less point in similar time frame gets higher. And i only got less then 100 Karma points, which means either some people downvote the story or there are lots of bot.

30 Comments which means HN as a community has lost interest in Ruby.

<comment><USER18> Not just HN. If you look at the last week's "trending" Ruby GitHub repos, they're mostly old projects or even things from other ecosystems: [https://github.com/trending/ruby?since=weekly](https://github.com/trending/ruby?since=weekly) (e.g. fastlane, brew, awesome-react-native).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Sigh.

A signal that Ruby is dying? ( Or in maintenance mode, or not growing, which ever you may prefer to word it ) Only Last week someone replied to me on HN that their areas dont have any Open Jobs for Ruby Devs.</comment></comment></comment>


D.C. Gives Uber and Lyft a Better Spot in Nightlife - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/10/a-dc-neighborhood-rethinks-parking/543870/?utm_source=recode <comment><AUTHOR> D.C taking a chapter from playbook followed by variety of airports like Las Vegas and airport in India where there is an assigned spot for ride-share pickup and dropoffs.</comment>


Ask HN: How can you frequently post to HN and also be a very successful person? - <AUTHOR> I've recently been digging into some of the reasons for my procrastination and inability to consistently do "deep work". My participation in HN conversations intuitively feels like a distraction that's holding me back, but that can't be the whole story. After all, there are plenty of members of this community who engage very frequently, yet are also at the top of their respective fields in the "real world" — e.g. tptacek, patio11, Animats, and grellas.<p>So, how does one both stay engaged in this community and prevent it from distracting and derailing your real work? <comment><USER2> I think you're mixing up real work with fake work :) I've found that working on anything that doesn't distract and derail effectively kills the creative spirit. While I'm not at the top of anything, I'm guessing that the people you mention find their work distracting and derailing enough to stay awake.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use [http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/) when I do not have a lot of time to at least catch the top stories over the day

</comment><comment><USER4> Set some time aside, maybe an hour or two a week, to just go through the posts of HN and get some ideas, information, or respond to posts. That is all.

The rest of the week? Go about your life, your side projects, etc. I find myself procrastinating too when I'm working on something, and there is nothing wrong with it IF you control it and are aware of it.

Imagine all the people using the Internet that aren't developers.. what are they really doing with their time on the Internet? Anything productive? Probably not. Are they scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest all day?

Then again: The Internet has two types of people: Creators and Consumers. Whose making money?

I mean... I admit it: I'm an Internet addict. I am on it until I am exhausted. Don't get me wrong, I do things to exercise and stay healthy, but if I'm not outside, I'm on the Internet. However, I've managed to turn my addiction into something productive: I'm a web designer, web developer, web app creator, whatever name you want to give it. I'm always working on building something, in hopes that it will bring me some recurring revenue or even just some money to help pay the bills.

I have my tendencies: scrolling through Facebook -- which I've now installed an extension to: 1) limit my time and 2) have to click a button to actually see the Feed (which makes me accountable for knowing what I am doing rather than mindlessly typing in Facebook.com and seeing all the technically useless information on my news feed.

As for Hacker News? I do as I told you: 1 - 2 hours a week is usually plenty. Break it down to about 10-20 minutes a day. It can certainly be useful, but you have to pick and choose articles that interest you, choose things that you want to answer. There is a benefit to helping others and answering Ask HNs or even looking at the Show HNs. You can find programs that are helpful to you. You are helping the community out by seeing what they built and even subscribing to the things people do. They aren't building these things just to build them: They are practicing their skills and releasing products for experience or money. I have found that being on Hacker News helps you to brainstorm and get ideas or get you past a rough patch in which you are just struggling with something as well.

If this still doesn't help you, get one of the Chrome or Firefox extensions that allows you an allotted amount of time to spend on websites. For example, I allow myself just 20 minutes on Facebook a day. After that, it won't load anymore. Just think that for every minute you spend on Facebook, they are making a few bucks off you and you are not making anything. I certainly am not knocking Facebook for their cleverness in advertising your account to marketers at your expense, that expense being the time you spend on their website, but they offer the service for free. The price of free always comes with a hidden price, doesn't it?

But 20 minutes is usually more than enough time to procrastinate. The extension lets you put in the websites you want to block and you just set the amount of time you are allowed. 20-30 minutes is usually more than enough time to get your procrastination time in.

Now that you are aware of your problem, do something about it.</comment>


GitHub.com momentarily blacklisted in Russia - <AUTHOR>

http://eais.rkn.gov.ru/en/#form (requires captcha)
The requested address is blacklisted
Blacklisting Authorization Date 24.03.2014	Blacklisting Authorization Number 4138	Blacklisting Decision Maker Роспотребнадзор	Blacklisting Date 02.10.2014 Resource: github.com <comment><USER3> It was removed from blacklist few minutes ago.

<comment><USER4> What's the chance the blacklist administration code is hosted on github?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't panic. It turns out that someone committed a text file with instructions on how to commit suicide and then reported him/herself to the Russian oversight agency. Typical bureaucratic stupidity. This will be unblocked shortly.

<comment><USER6> Don't suppose you have a mirror of what was posted? I'm kinda intrigued...

<comment><USER7> [https://github.com/muromec/blog/blob/d0a4b73064b0d2306a6184b...](https://github.com/muromec/blog/blob/d0a4b73064b0d2306a6184b75c9bbfeb3daa2a00/repost/suicide.rst)

<comment><USER8> Not [https://github.com/l29ah/objidlib/commit/e9c31e97c0ca7863516...](https://github.com/l29ah/objidlib/commit/e9c31e97c0ca7863516fa6e21c9f6441453d9149) ?

<comment><USER9> Either way it's satire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lame that they blocked it, nice that they readily admit blocking it. Wish the UK would do this with their great firewall, they have mistakenly blocked things too may times.

<comment><USER11> Do you have any examples of things mistakenly blocked?

<comment><USER10> Wikipedia, Reddit, Imgur, et al.

They often are only blocked for hours at a time but it is still heavily disruptive.

<comment><USER11> Was the whole domain blocked or the individual resource?

They all seem like examples of things that English law would block - <USER2> images of child sexual abuse or images of human-animal sex.

If someone is blocking all of WP and not the individual problem page then yes, that is stupid and annoying and I agree with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> On a scale of 1-10, this registers a solid 7 on my personal rustle-meter. Especially since I have friends in Russia who do open source work on Github :(

<comment><USER13> Yeah, this is the problem with people centralizing on GitHub.

But anyhow, just set up a mirror at BitBucket or Gitorious, and have them push to one of those for pull requests.

<comment><USER14> Small question, git noob here. The comments that we see on github (outside of the commit messages), are these comments stored on github, or is it something git related.

Logically I would think the comments are just an extra layer added by github, but theoritically git could have comments also decentralized and stored, this is why I'm asking.

<comment><USER8> Unless you [backed up]([https://github.com/joeyh/github- backup](https://github.com/joeyh/github-backup))!

<comment><USER15> Do see the "limitations" section:

github-backup is repository-focused. It does not try to back up other information from GitHub. In particular, social network stuff, like users who are following you, is not backed up.

github-backup does not log into GitHub, so it cannot backup private repositories.

Notes added to commits and lines of code don't get backed up yet. There is only recently API support for this.

The labels that can be added to issues and milestones are not backed up. Neither are the hooks. They could be, but don't seem important enough for the extra work involved. Yell if you need them.

<comment><USER8> So, it backs up most of everything, just a couple of the deeply commented stuff doesn't work. All issues for example get backed up. It feels more like it back "most" things up and leaves out only a couple of things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seems that it was banned because of this commit about suicide [https://github.com/amdf/objidlib/commit/e9c31e97c0ca7863516f...](https://github.com/amdf/objidlib/commit/e9c31e97c0ca7863516fa6e21c9f6441453d9149)

Based on the previous experience if github reacts in any way this will probably get resolved sometime in the future.

<comment><USER17> The suicide methods listed in this commit include "stick pencils in your nose and hit the table". Clearly we as citizens shouldn't know that.

[http://i.imgur.com/OLDgdiX.png](http://i.imgur.com/OLDgdiX.png)

<comment><USER18> Here is an archived copy (full list): [https://archive.today/tLCKI](https://archive.today/tLCKI)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hm, so there is basically easy way to use filters to block any website (at least temporary) for the Russian segment of the Internet? I don't see how it might go wrong.

</comment><comment><USER8> Here's an interesting problem. The person who committed the text file about suicide has a .ua domain in their GitHub Profile; would this be a specific way to troll Russia if you're Ukrainian? Just start finding important sites and post stuff on there that are legal everywhere but Russia? Not that March 23 is that good of turnaround for Russia to get it blocked when they can unblock it in a couple of hours.

</comment><comment><USER20> Nicer formatting:

        The requested address is blacklisted

        Blacklisting Authorization Date    Blacklisting Authorization Number    Blacklisting Decision Maker    Blacklisting Date
        24.03.2014                         4138                                 Роспотребнадзор                   02.10.2014

Is there anything we can do about this?

<comment><USER14> Google Translate says the Decision Maker is CPS (Child Protective Services). So it's most likely just a mistake.

<comment><USER21> Роспотребнадзор actually translates to Consumer Protection Services.

<comment><USER14> ok thank you. I actually mostly know russian, but that word made no sense to me.

<comment><USER21> I know Bulgarian, which is similar. Роспотрепнадзор derives from Russia (Россия) Consumer (Потребител) Supervision (Надзор).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just want to make one thing clear: in this particular case the request was to block a specific URI. It is the (smaller) ISPs that do not have a technology to block an URI and the (bigger) ISPs that do not bother to employ that tech who block entire sites by IP addresses.

<comment><USER23> 1\. was blocked by large countrywide ISPs, like Beeline and Domru 2\. Github uses SSL, and there is no way to block specific URI under [https://](https://)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> official blacklist xml if anyone's interested: [https://paste.ee/r/1IYgN](https://paste.ee/r/1IYgN)

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm not sure, so I ask. Who is blocking those IP Address and from who are they blocked?

</comment><comment><USER26> What does this mean exactly? You can no longer access github.com from within Russian territory?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it means that ISPs are obligated to abide by this ruling and probably have some reasonable amount of time to adjust their filters. It may be accessible now, but won't be in a day or two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't understand why or how the роспотребнадзор is responsible for this.

</comment><comment><USER28> I just tried and got "The requested IP address is not blacklisted".</comment>


Man, weather.com really sucks. I bet I could make a better one in a day. - <AUTHOR> http://forecaster.ws <comment><USER2> Heh. AppJet is perfect for building & hosting things like this. I couldn't resist whipping up an AppJet app for it:

<http://weather.appjet.net/>

You can check out the source at <http://source.weather.appjet.net/>. It's about 75 lines of code. Feel free to clone/modify it.

<comment><USER3> Are there plans to make it easy to label AppJet code as under certain license terms? (Creative Commons, GPL, LGPL, BSD, Microsoft's 'Shared Source' silliness...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Feature request: let me give you my email address and my zip code so you can send me an email in case it's likely to rain in my area that day. I check my email every morning over breakfast so it could work out nicely.

If you want to put some advertisements (that aren't obnoxious) along with the data, I really don't care. I am a moderately affluent college-aged male who enjoys buying electronics, games, and other goods online on a frequent basis.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty nice, these guys: <http://www.simpleweather.com> have done a pretty good job at it too. You should put your minds together.

<comment><USER5> I've always been a fan of wunderground (<http://wund.com>). In addition to the main site, it has similar functionality to what's described in the article with its mobile/iphone subsites.

<comment><USER6> Hmm, wund and wunderground show different temperature data for my city.

I wonder why that is...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A little project I did over the holidays. I got sick of how slow and cluttered weather.com was, so I whipped up this little service. I hope other people can find it useful.

It took me about a day. It is written in Rails. It contains about 100 lines of application code.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nicely done. I'd like it better if the data was centered instead of left justified.

</comment><comment><USER8> Feature requests: ip to location or save zip in a cookie that's easy to change. The most annoying part of weather.com for me, aside from the clutter, is typing in a zip. Having the forecast oriented horizontally like a calendar would be nice. ical integration would be pretty slick.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find the vertical forecast easier to digest. I'll experiment with horizontal layouts.

Doing geolocation would be sweet. I'll try it out.

<comment><USER9> I've always thought it would be cool for there to be a site that just looks at your IP and gives you the local weather and time and links to other relevant info.

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't work for people behind a corporate firewall. My old employer used to route all of its traffic through the head office in the US even though we were in Canada.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Works great if you live in the US. It' s broken for the rest of the world. :)

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been using the forecasts on <http://weather.gov> lately. In fact, using the search field on the left, I entered my zipcode and got taken to a nice forecast page with an obnoxiously long URL that I then bookmarked in Safari and set up as a hotkey in QuickSilver. Now I type Cmd-Space at any time to be taken to a perfect forecast summary with a disgustingly rich set of maps, radar, and satellite images, discussion of the forecast by the forecaster, etc., all a click or two away.

My setup curve was a bit long, but now that it's set up it's unbelievably easy to check the weather. So if you could rig up an app that even approximates that without all the manual setup work that I had to put into it, then I'm sure you'd find hordes of users.

Nice job.

</comment><comment><USER13> Googling "temperature berkeley, CA" works just as well, and it's built into your Firefox search bar.

</comment><comment><USER14> I usually don't plug anything here but this is directly related to my latest weather startup: <http://www.OtherWeather.com>

Better interface and layout than weather.com (less ads), social influence (each forecast is rated and users ranked), Google map mashup, user profile pages and weather widgets/forecast RSS feed.

I just launched, and haven't had the time to promote but check us out.

</comment><comment><USER15> Bug report: It's not -2147483648 degrees here, nor is that even possible in this universe...

Edit: It appears to be fixed now. :-)

<comment><USER16> It is possible! Negative temperatures are perfectly well-defined (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature>). In fact, they are _higher_ than positive temperatures. There is a discontinuity in the traditional temperature system at 0, and the _highest_ possible temperature is 0-, i.e., zero approached from the left. The lowest temperature (the traditional "absolute zero") is 0+.

Perhaps a more sensible system is one that uses \beta = -1/kT to measure temperature, where k is Boltzmann's constant. This temperature scale runs from -infinity to +infinity, with no discontinuities.

-2147483648 is still probably a bug, though. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You're right that weather.com really sucks, but it's much better at finding locations. On forecaster, zip codes seem to work, but trying to type in Monterey, CA results in Monterey, Louisiana. Monterey CA results in Monterey Indiana. If you have multiple results, how about giving me a list?

</comment><comment><USER18> I love it. The app is designed like a perfect iphone app, but when rendered on the iphone, the huge orange text caused it to render everything small. Other than that, it's perfect; easy to use, immediate information that I want!

<comment><AUTHOR> Try it now. It should be much more iPhone-palatable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Weather for: Toronto [Go]

Weather for Toronto, Kansas

Right now it is 45XF.

Hmm.

<comment><USER20> Same thing: I typed Melbourne and ended up on some city in Florida with two old guys, rather than the city with 4 million people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "We're sorry, but something went wrong.

We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly."

Hmm.. I'll bet you cant. /snark

I got this error twice.

entries: "64055" "Kansas City"

system: Firefox 126.96.36.199 Mac OS X 10.4

</comment><comment><USER22> Great!

I hate how on weather.com if I type in Dallas, TX it takes me to another page where it asks me if I meant Dallas, TX, United States. SO ANNOYING

</comment><comment><USER23> Pretty cool.

So, what are your TOS? Can I scrape your data for a home automation/monitoring project I've been working on?

<comment><USER24> "Can I scrape _your_ data"

You might want to just scrape it from wherever he's scraping it from.

.................

Also, I found a bug:

 _Sorry, we couldn't find a result for "new york city"._

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> .... Um, doesn't work?

(Texas) Sorry, we couldn't find a result for "77915".

(New York) Sorry, we couldn't find a result for "12345".

90210 works

<comment><AUTHOR> Are those valid zip codes? Neither 77915 or 12345 are in my database of zip codes.

I have a table that has the lat/long of zip codes so that I can find the closest observation station.

Edit: If I can't find the zip, I'll default to that state's center. So even invalid zip codes like 12345 will "work"- in this case, it'll go to around Schenectady.

<comment><USER26> Having worked there, I can confirm that 12345 is a valid zip code -- it's technically the zip code for the GE plant in Schenectady. It was at one point, large enough to warrant its own zip code...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That's great. If you add hour-by-hour and zip code cookie, it would be perfect. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER6> You should add current conditions, too.

"Right now, it's 39 degrees and Sunny."

<comment><AUTHOR> I kind of figured you could look outside for that. Temperature is a little harder to gauge.

<comment><USER6> Sometimes I like to check other cities...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> yeah, noaa.gov has tons of great stuff to play with. we're going to be using a bunch of it in creating new tools for homeowners.

</comment><comment><USER29> no radar? booo

<comment><USER30> I think there's enough of a need for 'just the forecast' to build this app.

Feature creep is exactly why weather.com sucks (well, that and ads).

That being said -- a replacement feature that's more in line with simplicity and 'just the data' would be an hour by hour forecast. That's what most people use the radar for anyway. Well, except when there's a severe storm. For that, you could add . . . . [hours later] . . . and then you just have to secure the rights to www.weather.com!

<comment><USER29> I was just kidding. I do like the app. You did a good job of keeping it clean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I take it you're ATL-based as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Paul.

(This is Erik Peterson. We met at ATL Startup Weekend. Damned Internet handles. Using your name is a good idea, huh?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> You did a good job.

</comment><comment><USER33> C/F would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER34> That's why you need to use the weather network.

</comment><comment><USER35> you have a long way to go.</comment>