Show HN: Plottico Tracker extension – plot numbers from any site in real-time - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/plottico-tracker-pro/hjfkpgknlchgabgfhknaedgodmnhieep <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys! Some weeks ago I announced the plotti.co microservice - the easiest way to embed web live plots with the simplest API, here comes the second part of the service and the full story behind it.

I am announcing the Plottico Tracker Pro chrome extension - its purpose is to track values on websites or SaaS services and send the updates to plotti.co. Think of it as a specialized web scraping product - built for monitoring and controlling processes only. You can directly track data from like google analytics, cloudflare stats, your hosting provider, or almost any other public or password-protected web application. Finally, no code at all is required to plot my server CPU load and data caps as my VPS provider admin panel shows it.

So what is plottico? Plottico is the way we win the fight against machines.

Guys, we are facing the potential existential risk from artificial intelligence, no joke! Last year we saw a growing serious concern about safety of intelligent systems with some great names like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk joining the efforts to draw attention to the problem. A few months ago I watched a Davos'16 conference panel on the state of Artificial Intelligence. Man, they had it almost the top topic for the whole panel!

So, I came up with this idea last summer but it crystallized only a few weeks ago: no matter how much everything is intelligent and automated - the final decision is still made by humans. It is us, who benefit from all the systems and machines and I want to make sure I have control over it. And how do you control something if a single person can no longer understand how the whole system works? How do you make sure everything is going right?

That is why NASA has its famous control room with all the key telemetry in one place, so do the nuclear plants, large factories, even subways and VISA has its control room. This is the idea behind plottico: to provide an easy way to monitor activities all over the scattered systems and subsystems, either for science, business, hobby or personal life.

And I take a strict approach: when everything is going in the direction of making the APIs and software more complex, plottico's mission is to continuously make a simpler, cleaner product, with interfaces and code that are more comprehensible by humans having either technical or non-technical background.

So here is the tool that helps to monitor data from any source accessible from the web.

To make tracking more robust, I've implemented what I called the "entropy window selector" - it is a selector based on sift4 string-difference algorithm and aims to detect the correct textnode with tracked number even if it changes its position, IDs or CSS path.

And of course the extension is GPL, and as usual is an early beta - so feel free to throw tomatoes at me, I am prepared with a bug tracker :)

Currently I am looking for an investor and a team of civilian volunteers who are not afraid to take this fight with machines face-to-face. Human intelligence strikes back!</comment>


Autossh – Automatically restart SSH sessions and tunnels - <AUTHOR> http://www.harding.motd.ca/autossh/ <comment><USER2> If you are interested in this you may like the Mosh project.

[https://mosh.org/](https://mosh.org/)</comment>


Would you use C for a software project nowadays? - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/26301

<comment><USER2> Most definitely. The vendors for the platforms I target only support C and C++ so and the software I write has fairly strict cycle budgets, often measured in microseconds and sometimes in nanoseconds, so regardless of what language I would like to use and am able to use, I end up finding myself neck deep in pointers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Even in 2010 I still find that many problems can be factored enough that small, focused _programs_ can be used. Now I could bundle that functionality into a larger application, making a nifty class/module and all that, but sometimes it's nice to just write a C program to take care of it. I will always want something like that in my toolbox, and C is a proven tool that works well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Absolutely.</comment>


Should you be trying to pick stocks? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/05/12/should-you-be-trying-to-pick-stocks/

<comment><USER2> Apart from the reasons in the article, I'm going to go ahead and say that, if you're on Hacker News, you should be learning how to if you don't know already. If it gets you rooting around the balance sheets of publicly-traded companies, that has got to be a good thing for understanding how a company like Apple or Yahoo runs. You should at least get a sense of why someone would pick a stock. It's a great way to turn analytical interest into business knowledge.

And beating the averages picking stocks is not that different than doing so with a startup. Startup founders, in aggregate, never outperform their opportunity cost. Is that going to discourage you? I really hope not.

Besides, when you learn about this kind of stuff, sometimes you happen upon gems like this: <http://paste.lisp.org/display/14576>

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the source of "investors as an aggregate never beat the market"? I used to believe this, but as I've learned about options and futures, I don't buy it anymore. (If we weren't beating the market, what would be paying my salary at an investment bank?)

Even the simplest options strategies can give you a fair return on your money in a very short time, certainly better than a 5% APY savings account or a 10% annual return on your index funds. (And, you can use options as security on your stock positions, and you can use them to make money on your safe stock positions.)

Anyway, not buying it. You can beat the market.

<comment><USER4> I generally enjoy your posts, but a couple points:

1\. As another commenter wrote, investors as an aggregate _are_ the market (hedgers, as another listed, are also considered, or could be considered investors who are investing for reasons other than direct belief in the individual companies/stocks).

2\. Investment banks don't _need_ to be investing. It's not their business, which is underwriting securities or acting as broker-dealers for M&A work. What we've seen in recent years are investment banks with trading divisions, but the act of investment banking is a separate business, and it's the performance of the investment banking team that should be compensating them.

3\. You talk about option strategies, but for every move you make, say buying a call, another party had to have written the option. For individual investors, your point could still be very accurate. However, at some scale (though ridiculously large these days), this will break down.

That said, I do agree with your final point. An individual can beat the market.

<comment><USER3> _1\. As another commenter wrote, investors as an aggregate are the market (hedgers, as another listed, are also considered, or could be considered investors who are investing for reasons other than direct belief in the individual companies/stocks)._

Fair enough, I set myself up for that. It sort of like, "if a million people join this group, this group will have a million members", though.

 _3\. You talk about option strategies, but for every move you make, say buying a call, another party had to have written the option. For individual investors, your point could still be very accurate. However, at some scale (though ridiculously large these days), this will break down._

But both parties theoretically benefit. Imagine you want to sell some stock, but you don't care that it happens today. Just write a call for it, collect your premium, and if the stock hits the strike price, it will probably be called away. But if not, you got some free money.

On the other side, the call buyer is protected against a severe market fall. If he bought the stock and it pulls an Enron, he would have lost a significant amount of money. But if he has the call option, it just expires, and he is out a few bucks per share.

So as with anything, spending money isn't necessarily taking a loss, but getting the money _is_ taking a gain. (Consider homeowner's insurance -- even though your house is probably not going to burn down, few people consider the insurance a waste of money. You win peace of mind, and the insurance company gets some chump change.)

But I guess we mostly agree. I spent a long time thinking there was nothing interesting about the stock market and that everyone should just buy index funds, but now I am not so sure. A slightly more aggressive trading strategy could slightly increase your returns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of my biggest regrets was giving into fear when the market tipped down in 08 / 09 and not scooping up equities that would likely return to paying out dividends (I wrote my senior thesis on this investment concept, after all).

I heard it a hundred times on the trading floor but it now very much rings true: "Buy into Fear and Sell into Greed"

<comment><USER5> Dividends, sure. But also: AAPL at 83! Barely 17 months ago!

<comment><USER6> To be fair, just about any tech stock you bought at that time period would have had similar returns. (Even MSFT doubled from it's low of 15)</comment></comment></comment>


Top Apps missing on my HP TouchPad - <AUTHOR> http://mdshannan1.blogspot.com/2011/08/10-apps-missing-in-my-hp-touchpad-1.html

<comment><USER2> If you'll look into WebOS and the app catalog a bit more you'll find answers to several of those:

1\. Youtube: Try out Leanback, the TV interface: <http://www.youtube.com/leanback>

3\. Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4620273157>

4\. Skype: Native support in synergy (system accounts) and messaging app. Review: [http://www.webosroundup.com/2011/06/hp-touchpad-video- callin...](http://www.webosroundup.com/2011/06/hp-touchpad-video-calling- skype/)

6\. Yahoo Messenger: Native support in synergy (system accounts) and messaging app.

8\. DropBox - native support in synergy (system accounts) also: [https://developer.palm.com/appredirect/?packageid=com.dogood...](https://developer.palm.com/appredirect/?packageid=com.dogood.dropbox)

<comment><USER3> Just to add, it appears there is Google Talk support available in synergy by extension. [1]

Hulu did work via support Flash on webOS. Although it was just recently blocked, there are apparently ways to unblock it. [2]

And I'm sure we're all aware that Yelp can just be bookmarked and used as a website. HTML5 is the future and all that.

[1] [http://www.precentral.net/synergy-messaging- plugins-3-0-brin...](http://www.precentral.net/synergy-messaging- plugins-3-0-brings-facebook-chat-ocs-and-google-talk-support-webos-2-0)

[2] <http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Hulu_Fix></comment></comment>


Share data (encrypt/decrypt) securely taking advantage of ssh and GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://ssh-vault.com <comment><USER2> Love it! pgp keys are easy to forget about and the tool and protocol seem to complex for today's simple needs and lazy people like me. On the other hand as a dev, Github and knowing about ssh keys is an everyday thing so this comes super handy if I want to share secrets in a simpler way.</comment>


Dabbleboard Pro now available - <AUTHOR>

http://www.dabbleboard.com/pro
We'll be sending the mass email soon, but I wanted to tell you all first. (Dabbleboard had also launched on HN first.) We'd appreciate any feedback about free versus Pro differentiation, pricing, promotion, or anything else.
Happy new year! <comment><USER2> Congratulations, zhyder!

I know that this has been a work in progress for a while. It's good to see you roll out the premium version. I hope it takes off.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm getting leery of this pricing scheme, and wish there was an pay-as-you-go option; what keeps happening to us with ASP products like this is:

* it sounds great in week 1,

* so we shell out (say) $30/mo for it,

* life intervenes in week 2,

* we've totally lost our groove with the product,

* we forget about it for 2-3 months,

* and the next time we notice it is when we notice the invoices ---

* --- which don't look so cheap anymore, since we haven't been using the product.

Private shared whiteboards, an awesome idea; I wish I could just pay per whiteboard or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> A price per drawing (or even a price per minute, since we encourage unlimited drawings) might make things more complicated for people too tho. As a user, I think I'd go mad constantly doing the math for how many cents the next few minutes are costing me.

Dabbleboard is not really meant to be something you'd use just once. If it's not something people would use regularly, then we probably just need to improve it further.

<comment><USER3> A lot of things that are great ideas that deserve continuous use are not instantaneously adopted by your customers; until they're adopted fully, the sponsor at those customers has to deal with the risk that they're requesting budget for something nobody's going to use.

But, not criticizing; just giving a data point.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know you're not criticizing, and I appreciate the feedback :). I'm hoping these would help with reducing the risk: 1\. (Uncrippled) Free version 2\. Ease of upgrade/downgrade/cancellation 3\. 30-day-free-trial (not yet available) on the Pro versions

The above is pretty standard faire among freemium apps. What makes Dabbleboard different from Basecamp et al (apart from 37s's incredible brand)?

<comment><USER3> I have _exactly_ the same problem with Basecamp, which you can take in one of two ways:

(1) "having the same issues as 37signals is one of those good problems to have"

(2) "if this causes problems even for Basecamp prospects, maybe there's an issue with the model"

We bought Basecamp a while ago, and while we haven't chucked it yet, we're not happy with the purchase, and knowing that we're dropping money on it every month doesn't make us more forgiving.

Maybe you could do risk-free one month trial thing?

<comment><USER3> ON THE OTHER HAND

Maybe (in all seriousness) people like us are just the wrong customers for you at this moment, and there's 5,000 companies who will be less high-maintenance, and you should just write us off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I don't expect you (and other HNers) to be the right customers, but you're the best feedback-ers!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I signed up. My use case is probably different from your larger corporate or workgroup users since I want to use it with clients and prospects so pay per whiteboard or some other scheme that doesn't have me buying the 100 user model would be worth a discusion. But it's handy and it feels like a white board (once I get used to drawing with a mouse). Happy to see you turn pro.

<comment><AUTHOR> I should definitely clear this up on the webpage (and I'll be putting a video up as well), but you could certainly manage with even an Individual Pro account.

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: I've clarified this (together with redesigning the page). Let me know if it's clear now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congrats, zhyder!

A few quibbles from someone who likes free things :~):

SVG download & more document formats: make these available for the free accounts. All the other bullet points are things a cheapskate like me isn't concerned about not being available in the free version.

<comment><AUTHOR> SVG download is important as a Pro feature coz it enables data portability, which I expect businesses to care a lot about. The document-format limitation you can work-around by printing to PDF first.

But hey, you've been a supporter from the start. I'll send you a promo code for a free account (once I can do that).

<comment><USER5> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You might want to swap the "Not a registered user? Sign Up" with "Already a registered user? Login". Depending on how people get in there. Or maybe there's an even better solution that handles both scenarios better...not sure.

I think the /pro page is overly verbose. But you could probably keep all the same info if you organized it better. You almost can't spend too much time on this page because any improvement is going to result in significantly increased revenue over time. [http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1496-design- decisions-the...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1496-design-decisions- the-new-highrise-signup-chart)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, agreed on both points, will improve it. (It's currently sufficient just for the existing users we'll be emailing now.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: just redesigned the page as you suggested. Also changed the flow so that it goes to "Sign Up" rather than "Log in" after you pick a plan.

<comment><USER6> I think it's still a bit too verbose and long (off the fold at 1024x768 I think). But huge improvement. Nice work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congrats on the progress so far. However, I think you really need to focus on making the purchase page more structured towards helping the buyer make a proper decision. Right now it's a sea of text and a row of prices. I'm inclined to ignore the text and choose the lowest price, even if it's not in my best interest.

This post at 37 Signals is a great reference for you: [http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1496-design-decisions- the...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1496-design-decisions-the-new- highrise-signup-chart)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just updated the webpage ( <http://www.dabbleboard.com/pro> ). Looks better than before, but will refine it further. If you still get to read this, do let me know what you think of it now. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We don't have the payment system setup for discount codes yet, but send me an email if you're interested, and I'll send you an HN-only promo code when the system can accept it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, I guess I completely missed Dabbleboard to begin with, but it looks pretty sweet! Kudos on creating a product -- and actually having a way to monetize it ;)

</comment><comment><USER9> Kudos on the cool project and +1 for the New Years launch time.

</comment><comment><USER10> Congrats! I continue to be impressed with this product...</comment>


Young Chinese couple sells 2 newborns to buy in-game items - <AUTHOR> http://www.techienews.co.uk/9714963/young-chinese-couple-sells-2-newborns-buy-game-items/

<comment><USER2> And here I'm still at $0 spent on in-app purchases.

<comment><USER3> NH last place to brag you dont support developers.</comment></comment>


Rust: rename 'unsafe' to 'trusted.' (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/117 <comment><AUTHOR> A very old discussion where Rust's syntax was heavily in flux, so that ship has probably sailed ...

In my opinion the author has a point: some libraries (e.g. stdlib) _need_ to use 'unsafe' to implement certain concepts, but its usage in general is heavily discouraged - similar to the situation in Haskell-land where they have unsafePerformIO.

Obviously you are expected to "know what you are doing", when using 'unsafe', and you really should only use it if there is no better alternative.

However it might also lead to cases, where the language gets (unjustly) ruled out for certain projects, as people don't _want_ to write something that's _unsafe_ , so maybe 'trusted' or something similar (without a negating prefix) might have been a better choice. In the end this is obviously just cosmetics and the compiler and the machine won't care, but I am not sure if it is the same for _people_.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER2> I agree :p

I don't think it's _that_ big of a deal, though people do sometimes still misunderstand. Every language has warts. This isn't a huge one.

<comment><USER3> I like the use of "unsafe" for something that you don't want to reach for first. Those who are new get a very clear warning and those who aren't have had the opportunity to understand the nuances.

React uses the term "danger" to express a similar concept. You are trusting this value to already have been sanitized / escaped.

[https://reactjs.org/docs/dom- elements.html#dangerouslysetinn...](https://reactjs.org/docs/dom- elements.html#dangerouslysetinnerhtml)

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't actually feel that strongly about a keyword that is used sparingly.

Aside: Thanks for everything you do for Rust and the community!

<comment><USER4> I think "unsafe" was a good name. Rails ERB templates use the `html_safe` name for something that the author knows to be HTML-safe, which is confusingly- named, implying that using `html_safe` makes something HTML-safe.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New motion control gaming device (Darwin by Motus) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamespot.com/hardware/blogs/hardware-insider/909185655/26562803/motus-ceo-talks-darwin-motion-control.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=picks&tag=picks;title;3 Looks like you will soon be able to play motion based games on more than just the wii. <comment><USER2> While I'm all for Motus and all these other companies piggybacking off of Nintendo and exploring this technology, it should still be said that these aren't REALLY revolutionary: you're still moving your hands to control an avatar. In fact, I think the Wii-mote is much LESS efficient than traditional analog controls, because (a) there's a lag time - "latency" - and (b) it requires more motion than an analog stick.

Nintendo's always been at the tip of the tech spear in gaming, particularly with controllers (first D-pad, analog stick, and now the Wii-mote), but, when push comes to shove, this is an incremental advancement, not a revolution.

I think the next MAJOR controller revolution will be when we control game data via neurological sensors.</comment>


Continous Integration with Drone - <AUTHOR> https://www.madewithtea.com/continous-integration-with-drone.html <comment><USER2> Hello! Interesting thing, but did you have production experience with it?</comment>


Show HN: Termpage – Build a webpage that behaves like a terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tautvilas/termpage/ <comment><USER2> This looks useful.

FWIW, you can build a curses-style terminal GUI with Urwid (in Python) and use that through the web. AFAIU, it requires Apache; but it's built on Tornado (which is now built on Asyncio) so something more lightweight than Apache on a Pi should definitely be doable. Termpage with like a Go or Rust REST API may still be more lightweight, but more work.</comment>


Why (almost) everything reported about Cambridge Analytica is wrong - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@CKava/why-almost-everything-reported-about-the-cambridge-analytica-facebook-hacking-controversy-is-db7f8af2d042 <comment><USER2> Cambridge Analytica CEO is filmed saying they would send "Ukrainian girls" around a political candidate's house to get them embroiled in a sex scandal - or set up a bribery situation to publish it on the internet. How they generate creative that they feed to third parties. How they use proton mail with a 2 hour self destruct read after-timer so nothing can be traced back to them.

[https://businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-secretly- fil...](https://businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-secretly-filmed-by- channel-4-saying-it-can-entrap-politicians-2018-3)

And this guy is sitting around defending them?

Is that it or is he just one of those people who have op-eds delivered to them so they "feed the bloodstream of the internet?"

What about the fact that UK citizens were working on American campaigns in violation of US federal law? What about the Canadian company doing the same?

I'm sorry, but no.

You don't get to wave your hands and say "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" after all this shit.

<comment><USER3> It's all claims by CA. Trump claimed to make America great again. Do you believe this? The guy is not defending CA. He ends with

> I'm not arguing that Cambridge Analytica and Kogan were innocent.

But he rightly points out how the media is spinning the story into something most likely not true.

<comment><USER2> He starts off with a straw man. The argument "It isn't a hack" requires people arguing that it _was_ a hack. But actually the reporting is fairly clear that they didn't hack the data.

The whole thing reeks of obfuscation and deliberate misinterpretation. Capped off with "sure it's bad but..." just isn't worthwhile if the arguments above were fallacious to begin with.

<comment><USER3> You are right, nobody calls it hack. They call it data breach. Which it was, because the data was supposed to be bound by contract.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Death of Moore's Law: Design Matters More Than Technology - (John Maeda) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/video/design-matters-more-than-technology-maeda-EJ97cS1~QjGv~SLaKRv74A.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Basic point made is that a user cares more about the design of a product that matches our desires, that is more human, more elegant over whether it simply goes faster.

"We no longer want a faster computer, but one we like more."</comment>


Messaging Service Slack Braces for Competition - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/messaging-service-slack-braces-for-competition-1479079544 <comment><USER2> "Mr. Butterfield said the market is large enough for more than one provider, and that there are plenty of companies that don't use Office 365."

This admission of a fragmented future is surprising from a product that's valued on the premise of becoming a monopoly.

Fragmentation at a glance: [https://cdn.sameroom.io/chat- timeline.pdf](https://cdn.sameroom.io/chat-timeline.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Probably better to admit it now than later when sales numbers show it.</comment></comment>


Did Some Insider Just Spill The Beans On New Apple Laptop? - <AUTHOR> http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/10/did-some-insider-just-spill-beans-on.html <comment><USER2> Accurate or not, that's a pretty good idea. Being able to detach the screen and plug the computer into a bigger monitor would suit perfectly the way I use my laptop at the moment.

Plus, with the screen removed the "brick" is presumably a computer in a keyboard form factor, just like in the good old days.

<comment><USER3> I don't get it. I plug a bigger monitor to my laptop when I'm at my desk. Why the need to detach the laptop screen?

<comment><USER4> The main limiting thing there for me that's annoying is that Mac OS seems to require me to use my laptop's screen as the main one putting the menubar there instead of on my larger external monitor.

<comment><USER5> You know abhout this "drag and drop" thing? Open up the Displays preference pane. You see the two (or more) screens and you can drag them around to decicde how to arrange your virtual desktop.

Now drag the menu bar to whichever screen you like. And remember, Google is your friend.

<comment><USER4> Ah, didn't realize that you could drag the menubar separately.

<comment><USER5> In your defense, a lot of "elegant" GUI designs are like this: they lack affordances, so you have no idea that they can be manipulated. But once you learn them, they seem to make sense.

The common alternative, some sort of configuration wizard with 1,000 controls, seems worse. But only just.

<comment><USER4> In some cases it's just a little more thought -- like here if, for instance, the border of the menubar was highlighted as the mouse rolled over it, it would be pretty obvious, in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      * Sounds clunky, and overspecialized.
      * Awkwardly splits the product (display/no display).
      * Competes with the low-end Macbook, while being a lower-margin product.
      * Can't imagine a design for this that isn't ugly.

Very Un-Apple. Jobs isn't going to follow up the iPhone 3G with this, aptly described, 'brick'.

<comment><USER7> The $800 might be wishful thinking. Unless they're planning an all out assault.

<comment><USER8> "Some analysts are expecting the laptops to start at less than $800, compared with $1,099 now" -- WSJ

<comment><USER7> Looking forward to it. I use a mac. But I would like to pay (on sale) windows pc prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Se...](http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080002350%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080002350&RS=DN/20080002350)

</comment><comment><USER9> LOL. Nothing said at BJ's is ever real. Would be more credible if he's having breakfast at Caffe Macs. No one shows off gadgets during lunch.

<comment><USER10> I think he's saying that he IS an Apple employee (that eats at BJ's) not that he overheard it. The the patent link below seems to indicate that he's dead on.</comment></comment>


Was C.T.E. Stealing His Mind? A Gunshot Provided the Answer - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/sports/cte-football-hairston-super-bowl.html <comment><USER2> This was haunting. What a tragedy.

I think these stories are going be the reason for the dimunition of American football and hockey in the coming years.

If I were a franchise owner I would sell.

<comment><AUTHOR> Malcolm Gladwell put out an excellent podcast on the issue that dealt primarily with college football [0].

[0] [http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/22-burden-of- proof](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/22-burden-of-proof)</comment></comment>


Use oathtool Linux command line for 2 step verification (2FA) - <AUTHOR> https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/use-oathtool-linux-command-line-for-2-step-verification-2fa/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've been very resistant to set up two factor authentication since I often don't have my phone with me and dislike having to wait for sms codes.

The other day I was forced to enable 2fa for one of my bank accounts, which led me on a journey to find if I could generate these codes from my computer.

Turns out it's just a standardized algorithm that combines an initial token with the current time. That means you don't need a special app from Google or whoever else.

There is a small utility `oathtool` [1] that you can use from the command line to generate the correct code using the form: `oathtool -b --totp "<secret token>"`

From there, I integrated that into pass [2] using an extension to generate the codes as needed.

There is actually an existing extension [3] for otp codes in pass, but I just wrote a much simpler one line script that just pulls the token out of pass, runs it through oathtool, and copies it to the clipboard.

Anyway, I thought this was really neat and wanted to share.

[1] [https://www.nongnu.org/oath-toolkit/](https://www.nongnu.org/oath- toolkit/)

[2] [https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/)

[3] [https://github.com/tadfisher/pass- otp#readme](https://github.com/tadfisher/pass-otp#readme)</comment>


SimplyNUC Unveils Sequoia: AMD Ryzen V-Series-Based UCFF PC - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/15103/simplynuc-unveils-sequoia-amd-ryzen-vseriesbased-ucff-pc <comment><AUTHOR> It was only 8 days ago that I mentioned what was missing for now with AMD... And why you would still buy Intel.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21471023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21471023)

> I think why you want to buy a Intel now is:

\- Laptop ( battery life is better on Intel CPU's), but AMD has this covered next Q.

\- Intel NUC ( it's very practical )

\- For Single core optimized applications ( eg. Some games) when you don't care about the total price at all. Intel's one core performance was better and support in games is lacking for a lot of cores. I think next Ryzen will handle this.

\---

Note: and Mozilla Rr software

\---

What has changed in those 8 days:

\- Intel is doing security patches. Probably AMD will lead in single core performance.

And there are AMD NUC's now, with up to 64 gb. Memory.

This is absolutely nuts. I have never seen a hardware company execute in such a rapid succession with such great results. And have never seen this bad luck at a competitor.

It's also the first product I can buy, since I'm not looking for a replacement of my laptop/desktop currently. I was searching for a decent NUC for the last 2 months ( as diy docker host).

Well done AMD. Well done.

<comment><USER2> It's a good first effort, but I'd still give Intel the lead for now:

* No Thunderbolt (so forget about extending with eGPU) or even Type C.

* No HDMI.

* I wonder about the cooling. 90W is close to the high end in this form factor. Have had cases where older i7 NUCs shut down when the temp got too high. Did they get it right first time with AMD?

On the plus side, it comes with 2 NICs!

<comment><USER3> What are the use cases for 2 NICs?

<comment><USER4> Using it as a router / NAT / firewall comes to my mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope people realize these are 1st-generation Zen CPUs that are Not Very Fast(tm), not the respectable Zen2 parts you've been reading good things about. AMD's marketing is very confusing right now. There are not any Zen2 APUs.

<comment><USER6> So it looks like the pricing for the higher end version is around $775 USD.

Here's a comparison of a high-end Intel NUC CPU [https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel- Core-i7-8559U-vs-...](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel- Core-i7-8559U-vs-AMD-Ryzen-Embedded-V1605B/3302vs3331)

This might be a better comparison - from a $750 Intel NUC [https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen- Embedded-V160...](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen- Embedded-V1605B-vs-Intel-Core-i5-8265U/3331vs3323)

Would have to look closer at the other attributes of each NUC to make a really good determination, but the Intel chips look to be higher performers, if not by a wide margin.

EDIT: My bad - didn't read the above article closely enough. The Sequoia v8 comes with a Ryzen V1807B (not a V1605B) as found in my comparisons above. See the reply below for better links.

<comment><USER7> Pricing for the v8 is identical to the NUC7i7DN. v6 is identical to NUC7i5DN.

[https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen- Embedded-V180...](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen- Embedded-V1807B-vs-Intel-i7-8650U/3310vs3070)

[https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen- Embedded-V160...](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen- Embedded-V1605B-vs-Intel-i5-7300U/3331vs2955)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How does this compare to things like a DeskMini A300? [https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini%20A300%20Series/](https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini%20A300%20Series/)

<comment><USER9> The DeskMini has a full blown AM4 socket, meaning you can drop in any of their desktop processors (mostly limited to their apu's, though, if you want to use those video outputs). These nucs use low power version of ryzen chips more akin to intels xeon-d lineup. The chip and IO choices make it clear these aren't intended for the desktop market for the most part, but for a small dev/home cluster could be drop in replacement for NUCs, especially given the dual NICs. I'm considering replacing an intel bassed homelab with them currently.

<comment><USER8> OK thanks. But the form factor is close to the NUCs and the price for these systems is only about $425 total so couldn't the DeskMini actually replace the NUCs?

<comment><USER9> Yeah for sure, the size difference is borderline negligible depending on the application, and the Asrock boxes pack a ton more features.

If the intended use is as a low spec desktop/dev machine the DeskMini would fit the bill well. That being said in an application like mine, having three fit into 1U of rack space, not only are the DeskMini's too large, but they also dont have dual NICs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Serial RS-232/Serial RS-485 video outputs,

As a formal columnist, later editor the sloppiness of such writing / editing is downright painful

<comment><USER11> The author of the article is already well known among AnandTech readers for this type of copy/pasta articles with glaring errors and little to no proof reading and fact checking. Take this article for example where a month and a half later the table still states stuff like 3x32GB=128GB, 4x32GB=256GB [0].

[0] [https://www.anandtech.com/show/14964/gskill- launches-32-gb-d...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/14964/gskill- launches-32-gb-ddr4-modules-256-gb-kits-up-to-ddr44000)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tranquil PC make an USFF PC [1][2] with the same AMD Ryzen V1605B CPU as the Sequoia v6. It's a little bit more expensive, but has four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs and is completely fanless.

[1] [https://www.quietpc.com/tranquilpc- mmdpc-001-v1605b](https://www.quietpc.com/tranquilpc-mmdpc-001-v1605b)

[2] [https://tranquilpcshop.co.uk/mini-multi-display- pc-v1605b/](https://tranquilpcshop.co.uk/mini-multi-display-pc-v1605b/)</comment>


We got excellent documentation - <AUTHOR> http://insanecoding.blogspot.com/2009/11/we-got-excellent-documentation.html

<comment><USER2> Yes, the point of using a library is to save time. Spending an hour searching for a particular function reference is certainly a bother. I have seen instances where I discovered that I could have written the raw code myself faster than finding the answer to use the 'easy to use' interface. An example of this was a program library I was using that handled graphics. I wanted to used graphics that were compressed within one file instead of having separate bitmaps for each. I searched for hours for a solution using the library, and I never got it to work. So, instead, I wrote something that would decompress the files into memory and let the library simply pull the images from memory. I then had difficulty with this so I made something that loaded the images from memory instead. I still used the library for its other features, but this part was a complete pain, and I could have saved time simply by writing these parts by myself. Documentation is important! (However, I am guilty of not writing documentation. The fun is always in the process of creating not the process of explaining.)

<comment><USER3> Explaining can be as much or more fun, the problem is that it is much harder work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We just can't find it right now. I know it's here somewhere though!</comment>


Ask HN: Open source possible product? - <AUTHOR>

Currently, I have a product (Mac, stand alone) that is about 75-80% done. I personally lost interest in it. It is not something I want to follow through (after some research, it would probably return about 25k-30k a year) because I have a day job, and if I'm going to work on something at home it may as well be something I love (games).<p>My question to HN is, should I keep it quiet? Try and finish it, even if I'm not really happy doing it? Or just open source it? And if open source it (which is what I'm thinking of doing) what license? I don't want people to just pick the code, add a couple things and sell it, but at the same time I don't want to limit it so much that folks can't really use it (I dislike GPL for this). <comment><USER2> I'd opt for open sourcing it. If you don't want neither GPL, nor a BSD-style license, you might consider a Creative Commons license, something like <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/>.</comment>


Show HN: Spice up Chrome with some llamas - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kpfnmmgndncmjjdakignjjokicckmppo/publish-accepted?authuser=0&hl=en-GB <comment><USER2> Categorized as productivity, huh? Is this intended to increase or decrease my productivity?

<comment><AUTHOR> It will increase. Pirate llama takes care of that. And the break llama reminds you to take breaks and thus you can perform better refreshed :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why is this URL pointing to /publish-accepted? It gave a me a scare!

<comment><AUTHOR> Because I did not pay attention to. Here you go without it: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/llamacation-fun- re...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/llamacation-fun-relax- in/kpfnmmgndncmjjdakignjjokicckmppo?authuser=0&hl=en-GB)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Firefox Port plz

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I will look into that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> llama drama!</comment>


How I Got and Lost a VC Job Offer in 72 Hours - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-got-lost-vc-job-offer-72-hours-omar-hmaissy?trk=hp-feed-article-title-hpm <comment><USER2> This is not an article about VCs. It's an article about rookie mistakes.

1\. Employers expect the first pushback. Afterwards it becomes annoying. Yes companies are cheap and they suck.

2\. Not enough leverage.

3\. I've tried going over the recruiter before. That just annoys the recruiter. It depends on the company.

4\. Can you imagine sending a 4th message to a woman on OkCupid or Match.com. "We are a good fit. You just need to see the bigger picture."

Going to link this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2Hd_xgo9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2Hd_xgo9Q)

The important quote is they should like you more each time.

</comment><comment><USER3> He said it himself - it took years of prep work to get that job offer. Why did it take so long? Because there is a strong desire to get into the industry, lots of potential candidates, and he didn't seem to have any connections that would get him an easy foot in the door. Plus zero experience in that role other than internships.

In his situation, I would have just taken the offer and cranked for a year, then demanded more money. And if they refused, it should be far easier to find a new job with actual experience. A year of being frugal isn't that bad for entry into your dream career.

</comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't sound like a terrible outcome to me.

If you really can't live for whatever amount of money is on offer, there's not much choice but to pass. The negotiation didn't take long either.

It sounds like the company wanted to pick up someone, but they didn't think that it was terribly important to get this particular candidate. And they knew there were a lot of MBAs wanting this kind of role, so they decided to low ball it and someone would come. This is a perennial problem for people coming out of education: there's a lot of people just like you, with the same skills and ambitions.

The problem as a newcomer is you are asked to take a paycut to "prove yourself". By paycut I mean that you can probably come close to the productivity of someone slightly more senior quite fast, but there's the market working against you: there's plenty of people with no experience other than a degree, and some of those are going to turn out to be numpties. So the hiring firm can pay less because there's supply, and they want to pay less, because having the wrong person can be worse than having nobody.

</comment><comment><USER5> In a negotiation like this where you know you're being lowballed, I think it's better to just state your case (including preferred figures) and then walk rather than go back and forth for days on end. If the market rate that people like you and with your level of experience are generally being hired at is higher than the offer, why not walk away and get one of _those_ offers instead?

</comment><comment><USER6> Entitlement, for lack of a better word, can be good. When you don't get your basic needs or rights fulfilled or when you have done a good job, but are undervalued, and say "show me the money". In this case though, I think he got stuck in an academic mindset were success is almost guaranteed based on past achievements and some effort.

All of his lesson seem to be focused on them not understanding his proposal and that he would have gotten what he wanted if he had just presented it differently. In reality they probably just had some standard compensation package that most people accepted so they could get in and pay their dues.

Yes, low initial compensation in certain industries can be bad. But it's mostly bad for the people who can't take the opportunity.

<comment><USER4> Oops. Accidental downvote. Sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The core mistake here is that the applicant thought that he had far more leverage than he had. From the companies point of view they are taking on an entry level employee and they feel he should be grateful for the opportunity they presented. They want an entry level person to be low maintenance.

Instead, by the end of the week, they had the impression he was a major pain in the backside. They are thinking to themselves, this man is going to be high maintenance and constantly thinking about himself and not the team or the long term. I would have rescinded his offer as well and considered myself lucky to had dodged a bullet.

</comment><comment><USER8> The experience gained from a junior position is more important than the money. But Omar signaled strongly that to him, the money was more important.

Given that mismatch of priorities, this was the right outcome for both sides.

</comment><comment><USER9> I appreciate that the OP fesses up to his lesson in humility. Getting into VC is very hard. There are thousands of newly minted MBAs who want to get into the field. If you have an offer that is 15-25% below market, take it. There are thousands who will go cheaper. Then if you perform, you are coming from a position of strength.

</comment><comment><USER10> If he had other offers for more money, it's not clear to me why he didn't seem to leverage that more. And if he did and they didn't budge, that would seem a pretty strong signal that they had reached their max and he should just decide whether that was enough. I didn't take a bschool negotiating class though.

</comment><comment><USER11> He already has a job at a VC firm. If new offer is lower, keep on looking. If the offer is higher, then take the job and grind for a minute until a better offer comes along. It's not like he wasn't doing that before. For someone who is VP at a VC firm, he sounds like he's whining for no apparent reason.

</comment><comment><USER12> The negotiation process worked successfully. OP didn't want to work for less than $X, and he isn't!

</comment><comment><USER13> Ruled by emotions. Great VC in the making.</comment>


Show HN: Kikbak.tv automated top 100 music videos on the web - <AUTHOR> http://kikbak.tv/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi all! My roommate and I are Seniors at Cal Poly SLO and we built this webapp over the past couple of weeks. It is much like the acquired wearehunted, the dead twitter music, and the new wonder.fm except with music videos! Kikbak.tv goes through hundreds of blogs all day looking for new music videos. Once we find them, our server starts to track the social shares and plays associated with it. This gets transformed into a top 100 chart that changes throughout the day as videos get posted to blogs and the videos themselves get more popular. I would love feedback, thanks!</comment>


Ask HN: Why Doesn't Adobe Release CS for Linux? - <AUTHOR> For myself and I would surmise, many others, the remaining killer app with no FOSS equivalent is the Adobe Creative Suite. I know there are very good FOSS equivalents for almost every app Adobe makes, but for most professionals, Adobe CS is the industry standard toolset and cannot be substituted. Additionally, CS doesn't operate reliably under Wine, and is too resource intensive for a virtual machine, in my experience.
I have come to believe that Creative Suite is the one of the last strings keeping many people away from Linux. Am I correct?
Did MS or Apple pay Adobe something to keep them from releasing for Linux?
Wouldn't they be wise to lock up every platform with their apps?
All they are doing is allowing the FOSS clones to get better and better, clone them more closely, and lock in their 100% market share on the #1 growth OS. What am I missing? <comment><USER2> You said it: it is the thing people keep a Windows around for. So they are already buying licenses, so why would Adobe spend money on a Linux port, on extra support, ...?

I honestly doubt that the number of Linux users that would buy an Adobe Suite for Linux, but aren't buying it for another OS now is very large, or even close to be enough to justify the expense. Commercial desktop software on Linux doesn't have that many success stories, and right now there isn't much in the way of commercial competition that might capture that market.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't be suprised if sometime in the past Apple and Adobe didn't collude to ensure Apple was the only Unix platform that could be considered a creative-workstation. Adobe and Apple have a long partnered history - don't let the Flash fiasco divert you from their storied history. Purely speculative tinfoil theory though.

However, I wouldn't be suprised if some Adobe dev's had internal Linux ports that they don't share with the public. With the majority of the core app being written in C/C++ and them porting some UI elements to HTML, I can't imagine that much of a barrier to offer a Linux equivalent.

The "market share" argument shouldn't be an accepted reason for them to ignore the platform - although I could see how a tunnel-visioned management team could use it in their narrative. I know too many devs who would gladly ditch their MBP, or instead install a Linux distro on it, if Adobe's product line was available for Linux.

Luckily, there's tools for devs today if you just need to inspect/export design like [http://avocode.com](http://avocode.com).

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, I'd bet they have an internal Linux build for a few years now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Linux represents less than 5% of the desktops and most of its users are not know to pay for software (a bit like Android).

It makes no financial sense, considering you have a zillion distributions to support.

No need of a MS and Apple conspiracy.

<comment><AUTHOR> This has been my line of thought, and makes the most sense, but still feels frustrating.

At this point, I feel like the best way to go about this is some sort of Kickstarter or bounty for the Wine project to provide incentive to get these apps working, for those of us that want it and are willing to pay.

<comment><USER3> The file dialogs and random bugs really deter the experience on WINE. I'd say the best way to go is to get Windows Enterprise/Server edition installed in a qemu virtio box, set up Remote Apps and use rdp. The server you can run headless I believe, the Enterprise will still being running a gui instance though.

[http://www.abstractstudio.co/](http://www.abstractstudio.co/) looked real promising but the project died and they never shared source (atleast the last I checked)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best DB tech to build "Facebook" today? - <AUTHOR> If you were building something like Facebook (or Google+ etc. - something quite isomorphic to a social network), what database technology would you choose?
A classic relational DB like MySQL, an extra-featured-RDBMS like Postgres, a super-scalable one like CockroachDB? Or a column-oriented RDBMS? Or maybe a document DB like Mongo? Or jump in and pick an actual graph database since your data would look like graphs anyway (eg. Neo4j or Arango DB).
Or a 2 tiered system with a "core" relational or column oriented system, and a graph DB for advanced analytics that might require graph traversals? <comment> sahin-boydas MySQL then, MySQL now.

A great read from Pinterest engineering: Learn to stop using shiny new things and love MySQL

[https://medium.com/@Pinterest_Engineering/learn-to-stop- usin...](https://medium.com/@Pinterest_Engineering/learn-to-stop-using-shiny- new-things-and-love-mysql-3e1613c2ce14)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link and input. Any reason a team already more familiar with Postgres than MySQL would go for the latter in this case, is MySQL somehow more suited for such scenario?

Or your just mean _" just pick a RDBMS"_, so choice of MySQL over Postgres over let's say CockroachDB (which should be a drop-in replacement for Postgres if-and-only-if you stay away from fancier Postgres features like array and JSON fields, stored procedures etc...) is not your point?

(As context, I tend too to pick a RDBMS in general, and Postgres in particular, but I saw projects where there was a _huuuge impendance mismatch between the business logic and the relational model_ , data was simply unimaginably awkward to think of it in a relational model and manipulate it as such, it was all trees in trees in trees, mongo/couch model all the way and mongo was boring enough to be a good fit there.)

<comment><USER2> TLDR: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis)

Honest answer, just go with what your team is mostly familiar with. Surely, when you're programming, you will have a relational-mapping layer between your code and database, right? It shouldn't be too difficult to migrate from one DB to another - DBAs are there for a reason, consult your team's experts

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Relational databases have become popular because of their flexibility and that has not changed much through the decades. You can combine, aggregate, filter your data, tell the RDBMS in which shape you want it back, and speed up processing with the right indexes. And if you normalize your data properly, you can be confident that you won't end up with a pile of mud one day. Other databases like column oriented ones, or key-value dbms may be better at niche use cases like analytics, caching or very write heavy applications.

A social network is mainly about simple CRUD and combining data in various ways, so it is primarily a matter of taste which RDBMS you use. So you should probably stick to what you know best.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out Azure Cosmos DB, it's multi-model and multi-API, and gives you the scalability, performance, availability, and consistency guarantees that few others do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does this lock you in to the Azure cloud, or can it actually be run on your own machines too?</comment></comment>