Online IDE - C/C++, Java, PHP, Python, Perl and 40+ compilers and intepreters - <AUTHOR> http://www.ideone.com/ <comment><USER3> Competition is good and all that, but from my vantage point it seems like a slow-loading and ad-ridden version of codepad.org: <http://codepad.org/>

Edit: That said, ideone does have an API.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the ad-ridden part bothers me the most. I immediately closed the window once I saw the page plastered with ads without even trying it out to see if it was any good. That's just not something I'd ever want to use.

<comment><USER5> Adblock does a good job of removing ads here:

<http://i.imgur.com/YO7bt.png>

A tool like this isn't the place for an ad-supported model. This is a place to work with text, and the colorful, animated, image-based ads are simply too distracting to do any real work for more than a minute or two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I tried to run this:

public class Foo { public static void main(String[] args) { System.out.println("foo"); } }

And got an error "class Foo should be in a file named Foo.java". Sweet!

Syntax highlighting doesn't seem to do anything. Isn't it a little grand to be calling this an IDE?

<comment><USER7> Don't specify the class as public. Then you can name it whatever you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is pretty cool.

It's always good to try out new languages but it can be time consuming getting things up & running before you can make your "hello world".

I wrote my first Go program just now, might try Prolog next :)

</comment><comment><USER9> It has a bash interpreter. My first thought was "I wonder if anyone's tried fork bombing it" (no, I have not and will not try, that would be rude).

<comment><USER10> I assumed they'd handle this and tried it. From the FAQ: up to 16 processes can be created, maximum execution time is 5 seconds.

<http://ideone.com/F3GBH> shows the output from a fork bomb. Basically nothing goes wrong, as I'd expect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> After reading about a bug where, in C, a comment line ended with a backslash leading next line to be commented to, I tried it in your ide and the syntax highlighting does not reflect this. (details of the bug here : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2919511>)

</comment><comment><USER12> The output page does look pretty interesting, specially for debugging code collaboratively as one can share the output URL. The page contains execution time, errors and the code, very well arranged.

That said, 'print 5' in python took 11 seconds.

<comment><USER13> Yes, collaborative debugging might be the case to use ideone. You might for example want to provide the input data to someones code to show up bugs in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How does this differ from Codepad, which has been around a while? <http://codepad.org/>

Edit: The ability to use the tab key is pretty awesome.

<comment><USER15> Codepad doesn't have Java.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One advantage of this is that you can pipe in input. I don't think codepad allows that.

</comment><comment><USER17> Slow, doesn't compile, syntax highlighting doesn't work. Better luck next time!

</comment><comment><USER18> I chose C# and it doesn't compile this:

var s = "Hello World!";

<comment> captain-asshat Perhaps because it compiles programs and not expressions? Try wrapping it in a Main method and see.

<comment><USER13> Please use "insert template" and "insert sample" to start with working code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> couldn't get a Scala hello world running, was exasperated by the slow response, ran away

</comment><comment><USER20> Sad to see the "recent code" mostly shows a bunch of "Hello, world!" and no one trying to push the limits.

<comment><USER21> You can adapt some of the benchmark programs from <http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/> I can not see it being used for much except trying a new language or a benchmark.

The compilation performance reminds me of the 'beloved' time sharing systems of the eighties and earlier. Had to go to work in the middle of the night, so compilations didn't take an unpredictably long time. With PC's (CP/M-80, XENIX) came more predictable performance. Feels like a history repeat - <USER2> back to the terminal age with HTML forms somewhat like 3270 submit and AJAX more like DEC VT-100. Not exactly of course, but like a pendulum swinging from server-side to client-side and now back to server-side.</comment></comment>


The High Cost of a Home Is Turning American Millennials into the New Serfs - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/04/the-high-cost-of-a-home-is-turning-american-millennials-into-the-new-serfs.html <comment><USER2> Millennials want to live in cities.

Specifically, millennials want to live _near city centers_ , where they can commute to work by foot, bike, train, bus, or Segway. Basic laws of supply and demand dictate that the value of property, and the rents, must go up, since as society urbanizes there are an increasing number of people vying for a fixed amount of real estate.

Part of the American dream of owning a home was predicated on the fact that land would be developed outside the major cities, and homeowners would use newly affordable automobiles to get to their workplace and anywhere else they might want to go. Which led to drab, soulless, lifesucking suburbs and an obsession with gas-guzzling, air-polluting, global-temperature-raising motor vehicles. Ewwwwwwwwwww. How bourgeois, how planet-unconscious, how typically _American_.

So while millennials may not particularly dislike owning homes, they have made lifestyle choices that tend to make home ownership more difficult. Unfortunately, those are the constraints of modern capitalism. Personally, I think we need to rethink our whole economic system. It'd be great if someone came up with an alternative economic system in which one can have one's cake and eat it too, but until that happens we're stuck with the situation we're in.

Meanwhile, houses in the boonies are cheap. If you can remote-work your way into a boonie lifestyle, you can own a home on a rather modest income indeed.

<comment><USER3> As long as we're using capitalism to explain what is happening, then by all means let's use more capitalism in the US housing market.

1\. Remove all government sponsorship of mortgages, gradually spool off all existing GSE mortgages into private markets. Possible exception: owner- occupied homes, limit one per

2\. Remove all implicit government backing of insurers and re-insurers of anything having to do with mortgages.

3\. Remove mortgage interest deduction.

4\. Valuations reported to IRS, property insurers, permitting offices and bank loans link back to publicly-available property tax records.

5\. Property developers, not taxpayers, pay for initial costs to extend infrastructure, foot the bill for floating the bonds to maintain the extensions, and residents moving in must pay into the bond fund over time, gradually paying off the initial buyers of the bond; bonds are reissued as old bonds mature.

6\. Bill back costs of developing (up to inner core density, with adjustments to purchase fast public transport into inner core) further out from urban core back to inner core residents as increased property taxes spread over 7 years, if inner core residents vote down densification, and rebate some of the collected funds to developers of outer core.

7\. Standardize all government building codes to a single set, specifying function/intent/goal and not form, thereby allowing offshore for example factory-built modules to access a contiguous national market, or alternative construction techniques without lengthy permitting.

These and other measures that open up competition for real estate development would be wildly politically unpopular in most areas and constituencies of the US. The US real estate market is superficially capitalist for a number of very interconnected reasons, and I've observed similar dynamics in other nations I've enquired about property within. Property is an extremely special-case asset, with privileged market protections/distortions few other asset categories enjoy.

<comment><USER4> While the rest are generally sound, Number 6 abandons the market and capitalism in favor of government intervention again, which is unfortunate and invites the system to be abused and gamed by the usual set of cronies. I'm against it.

Number 1 should avoid use of the proposed exception for the same reason that mortgage interest shouldn't be deductible: it's a subsidy that distorts the market and is unfair to the good people who are still renting (who are, broadly speaking, probably not as well off in general, so it's a regressive subsidy where we pay the rich).

You should add a #8 to remove all government subsidies of flood insurance and similar vehicles, especially along rivers and coasts, as they're basically paying people money to build homes (often luxury or vacation homes) in dangerous places.

<comment><USER5> I don't have data to back this up but in regards to #1, wouldn't most people who are paying mortgage interest be middle class? Wealthy enough to own a house but not to buy it outright? I also believe that if you own multiple homes, you can only deduct this on your primary residence. I've always felt this is a small tax break for middle class.

<comment><USER6> Then lower the middle class taxes so people can choose how to keep the savings, instead of being forced to buy a house to take advantage of a specific tax break. (I'm being the devil's advocate here, I realize some taxes (or breaks) exist to incentivize behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Trumps proposed economic plan is going to _blast_ so many of the benefits to owning a home since the standard deduction will be doubled[1]. It will be cheaper to rent and it will really help maximize space. Say what we will about the president but this will be a massive boon to renting nomads.

Coupled with the fact that soon state tax might not be deductible, and there may be an entire class of people who find it better to sell their home and live elsewhere.

1\. [https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/tax- plan](https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/tax-plan)

<comment><USER8> 1) Any hopeful homebuying millennials would also have not have the benefit of the deductions. 2) Wouldn't this just pass the cost onto renters?

This seems more like a way to shift the tax burden to the middle class.

<comment><USER7> The beauty of the standard deduction is that it goes unqualified to everyone. The rich itemize their taxes almost without exception.

IANAA, but interest on a rental is a business expense, therefore will be be unaffected by this change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm never home. Between work and social life, I'm literally only home to sleep. I have minimal amounts of stuff too. How come there's no just, beds for rent, for like 200 bucks a month?

<comment><USER10> You want [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel)

Not very popular in the states yet, but we'll see.

<comment><USER11> Those are pretty expensive though aren't they? Comparatively $50 a night.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I have a friend who just moved to Japan (and he's lived there before) who told me the same thing.

Some friends and I ate lunch with him the day before he left, and he mentioned that living in Japan isn't too expensive if you know where to live, and he knows how to only pay $300/month in rent. So I asked him if he meant capsule hotels. He told me what you said, and then he said that he meant hostels. Hostels are dirt cheap, even if you pay extra for a private room. You can probably live in Japan for _less_ than $300/month rent if you're willing to sleep in the hostel's common area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Millennial here.

I actively _don 't want to own_. I don't want to have to worry about paying for my own maintenance or landscaping. I rent a townhouse in the suburbs, and I'm perfectly happy with it. I guess I kinda split the difference between the "stereotypical Millennial" and the reality the article points out: I prefer living in the burbs, but I don't want to own.

Here's something that happened to me last month: something in my downstairs toilet broke, and it caused the toilet to repeatedly fill up its tank and dump it on the floor. Imagine my shock when I came downstairs to find that the carpet on a third of my first floor was soaked through, with the bathroom having a few inches of standing water. What did I do? I pulled out my phone and called the leasing office, telling them I had a plumbing emergency. Within an hour, the maintenance guy was here, and he fixed my toilet at ho cost to me. He also told me he was sending for a guy with a wetvac. An hour later, the carpet cleaner showed up to wetvac the carpet and replace the padding, again at no cost to me.

Also, in the past I've had several problems with my air conditioner. I've had the fan die, I've had the AC unit die, I've had the internal AC unit start dripping water on the carpet. All of those times, I just called the leasing office, and they sent someone out to fix it at no cost to me. Meanwhile, one of my friends who owns his own house has ranted on Facebook several times about how his AC problems are bankrupting him, and he's already sunk five figures into replacing stuff.

Why would I _ever_ want to own when I get free maintenance and don't have to worry about a down payment?

<comment><USER13> > Why would I ever want to own when I get free maintenance and don't have to > worry about a down payment?

Because in fifteen years, you'll be paying 2x to 3x your current rent, but your neighbor who owns his/her place will still be paying the 1x rate you pay today.

That's why common advice is "rent for short term, buy for long term" (for various definitions of "short" and "long").

\---

If maintenance is your sore spot, you can hire maintenance and insurance services for your own property. Unless your landlord is personally fixing your problems, that's likely exactly what he/she is doing too.

<comment><USER14> Do you seriously expect your life to have changed so little over the course of the next fifteen years that you'll still want to have exactly the same living arrangement? That sounds like a serious constraint. Being that locked in makes me feel really nervous. Life just isn't that predictable.

<comment><USER13> > Do you seriously expect your life to have changed so little over the course > of the next fifteen years that you'll still want to have exactly the same > living arrangement?

No, of course not. If life changes, you sell it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> American greatness was long premised on the common assumption was that each generation would do better than previous one.

Why is editing so poor these days?

<comment><USER16> Because nobody wants to pay for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Scarcity leads to higher prices and in the case of the high cost of housing in NYC, DC, Boston, London, SF, LA (and perhaps much of CA) is political use of zoning density restrictions to create artificial scarcity which benefits land owners at the expense of renters or those who wish to buy a house. This is a form of "rent seeking" which creates a market failure or market inefficiency. Because of these regulations Donald Trump is far wealthier than he would be in an efficient market and is a major, major source of inequality.

I recently read that in London which has a green belt used to create land scarcity, the cost of land as a proportion of housing has risen from about 2 percent to 75 percent of housing costs.

In NYC, taxi medallions were valued at $1.2 million because government created artificial scarcity limiting medallions to 13,000 for a population of 8.5 million. Taxi drivers who leased cabs paid high costs because of the medallion scarcity and passengers would pay much higher fares. Then Uber/Lyft/Gett/Via came along and relieved the politically induced scarcity. Now, not only are bailable cabs much, much more available, but prices have come down, sometimes substantially. The price of the taxi medallions decreased from $1.2 million to $500,000 to $700,000.

Happily, the fix to high housing costs does not cost any money. It simply needs laws reversed that created artificial scarcity of land. This would require millennials (and others) to get an education that teaches them at least the most basic of economics and then to vote out of office politicians who are for the zoning density restrictions and the high cost of housing.

David Ricardo in reference to combatting the "Corn Laws" of Britain first discussed "rent seeking" \-- the use of politics to create market inefficiencies and scarcity benefiting special interests. In that context, there was an import tax on any grain including wheat to make bread. This lead to a higher cost of food. British farmers would receive more money for their grain which enabled the landowners of the farms to charge a higher lease for their land. So, workers were forced to subsidize landholders because of the politically induced scarcity "rent seeking" of grain. David Ricardo, a wealthy broker, joined Parliament to reverse the Corn Laws.

</comment><comment><USER18> >By the 2030s, large swaths of the state—particularly along the coast—could become geriatric belts, with an affluent older boomer population served by a largely minority servant class. How feudal!

The irony of California having anything in common with Florida would drive some people insane. Those are exactly the kind of people I want to see driven insane.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is it really, though? How much more efficient is owning than renting in most markets? My sense was that, given the rate at which people typically move, it's normally a wash.

<comment><USER20> "My sense was that, given the rate at which people typically move, it's normally a wash."

The difference between renting and buying isn't just the monthly payment. It's also the range of outcomes. If you buy a place with 20% down, and the property price goes up by 20% whilst you're living there, you've doubled your net worth.

In some US states (e.g. California) mortgages are nonrecourse[0], so it's a bit with unlimited upside, but capped downside. If the property price crashes to 50% of the purchase price, you can walk away, losing only your initial deposit.

[0] [http://www.financialsamurai.com/non-recourse-states-walk- awa...](http://www.financialsamurai.com/non-recourse-states-walk-away-from- mortgage/)

<comment><USER21> The caveat is that for that $200k+ deposit on a 1-bedroom in SF, you could go travel the world for 4 or 5 years.

Or have 4.7 years of rent for the same place. After which you're likely to get tired of SF anyway and move somewhere else. Oh and in the 4.7 years you've been paying rent out of savings, you've saved up enough for the next 4.7 years of rent in NYC ... or many many years of rent anywhere else.

So yeah, I for one am def not ever buying unless I can cash it out in one go.

Then again, there are many things you could do for a million dollars in cash. Like retire for 10 years and do cool shit.

<comment><USER22> If the real estate market is so out of whack that you can rent a $1MM property for $3500/month of course I would rent. You aren't going to find that in a healthy market, though.

<comment><USER20> 3500/month is 42000/year. So that a gross rental yield of 4.2%, which is in line with home loan interest rates. So it doesn't seem out of whack at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> USA basically has the cheapest housing in the world [https://www.numbeo.com/property- investment/rankings_by_count...](https://www.numbeo.com/property- investment/rankings_by_country.jsp)

<comment><USER24> Interesting. But what if you factor commute time? It may be cheap to live 50 highway exits away from your job but it comes with its own costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> s/home/college tuition and student loan debt/g

</comment><comment><USER26> People are always being turned into serfs somehow. It never quite succeeds.

<comment><USER27> "It never quite succeeds."

Until, you know, it does - and it does occasionally. That's why we talk about them in history classes.

NO one wants to be labeled a serf, though, so modern folks are rarely actually given that formal title. It'd be bad for other people's business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The argument that people today live worse than people in the 80s is insane.

Yes, it seems so in the real GDP numbers, but it defies the rising standards of living that surround us, showing up everywhere but the numbers. Would anyone here want to live like the average Joe of the eighties, using only goods and services available then?

Traditional GDP and inflation figures seem to be losing usefulness

They clearly don't capture most of the tech gains (which have been huge).

And I suspect they don't adequately capture quality improvements.

<comment> norea-armozel The tech gains are mostly in areas which don't benefit consumers beyond fancier phones and bigger TV screens. Where it counts such as lower cost of living, better healthcare, and the like it's hasn't materialized for those in the lower economic segments. They're still coasting by on the Great Society programs despite their repeated gutting. If the current POTUS can't replace it with livable wages and jobs I suspect we'll see something akin to a Jacobin uprising (blood, heads, and all).

<comment><USER28> > The tech gains are mostly in areas which don't benefit consumers beyond > fancier phones and bigger TV screens.

Mobile payments, video calls, mp3s, social networks, wikipedia, google, driving directions with live traffic updates, Coursera, YouTube, Uber, Upwork.

These are not trivial changes. Coursera, for example, was a life-changer for me as it allowed me to switch careers long after college.

Inequality and inefficient healthcare are big issues, sure, but I wouldn't trivialize the benefits of technology because of that.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft's 'Child Of The 90s' Internet Explorer Ad Nostalgic Trip Back In Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/24/microsofts-child-of-the-90s-advert_n_2540199.html

<comment><USER2> "You might not remember us" - as a matter of fact, I do, and it's not a very happy bunch of memories. It's the horror of the times when pages proudly proclaimed "Designed for IE 4; ActiveX required." Is that somehow supposed to be a Good Thing, nowadays? Or is that "sorry, I the browser have grown up, and won't beat you again (too much). Oh, except you need Win8, and it's two almost-identical browsers now, and one of them can't play Flash (just like the 90s, yaaay)"?

IMNSHO, someone at MS has just read "induce nostalgia in your target audience, never mind your barely tolerable product" from a DYI Marketing 101 handbook. I remember all that crap they've pushed at me in the 90s, are they sure they _want_ me to recall all those memories?

<comment><USER3> Was this really that different from all the badges telling people their site was best viewed in Netscape Navigator 2.0--a commercial browser with over 70% market-share largely caused by exclusive bundling agreements with Internet Service Providers--as they relied on Netscape-specific extensions like framesets or required installing Java applets that were accessed using the Netscape-specific JavaScript/Java bridge?

<comment><USER2> You are quite correct - that wasn't too different; and I like the current situation of "just use any current browser," thankyouverymuch.

But I don't see any descendants of Netscape claiming that I should be nostalgic for these times; or saying "oh, we are rooted in Netscape's legacy, and that's why you should use our browser". That doesn't make any sense beyond "we don't suck any more, really, take our word for it" - and, honestly, that's not a very encouraging motto, when you stop to think about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> yeah yeah yeah _NEW_... will stay on Chrome, sorry M$. BTW, I'm using your Office!</comment>


Ask HN: If security is so important, why do we make it so hard? - <AUTHOR> I think we can all agree that server security is important, and general security like protection from man in the middle attacks.<p>So why do we make it so hard? Why hasn't anyone taken up the mantel to automate even the basics like securing common server setups? Like letsencrypt did for ssl certificates. <comment><USER2> There are so many vectors that it's hard to get customers excited about significantly paying more to close just one security door (such as sloppy or uninformed server setup.) Which doesn't mean this won't happen necessarily, just that I'm not counting on it happening soon.</comment>


The Media Has Neglected Puerto Rico - <AUTHOR> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-media-really-has-neglected-puerto-rico/ <comment><USER2> I think the quality and quantity of reporting coming out of Puerto Rico has suffered from both its political status and the fact that it is an island at a considerable distance from the mainland U.S.

However, I think the situation has been compounded by both the degree of damage caused by the hurricane and by the kind of damage. Something like 90% of the cell towers are offline and the landlines have been heavily damaged as well. So you have this problem where you can't get reporters in and you also can't get firsthand reports from locals out, either.

It seems like a clear case of no news is bad news, but how is the news media supposed to report "no news"?

<comment><USER3> They managed to keep up 24 hours rolling coverage of a missing plane for what seemed like weeks. Cable news is really good at filling time with speculation, talking heads, Wolf Blitzer, and CGI reenactments.

<comment><USER2> Well, yeah. But Maria was the third hurricane in a row. Maybe the news was suffering from hurricane fatigue combined with a lack of information coming out of Puerto Rico at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Puerto Rican here!

In my opinion, these are two very good pieces to learn about Puerto Rico [1] [https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE](https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE) [2] [https://youtu.be/Tt-mpuR_QHQ](https://youtu.be/Tt-mpuR_QHQ)

</comment><comment><USER5> While there may be a legit point to this article, let's also keep things in perspective. In the past few weeks we've had....... 3 major hurricanes resulting in enormous damage. The NFL anthem/knee controversy. Escalating tensions with North Korea. The Catalan vote turned into military police violence yesterday. The largest mass murder in recent American history today. OJ was released from prison. More Manafort investigations. The protests/riots in St. Louis over officer Jason Stockley being cleared in the shooting. The other riots at Georgia tech where a cop car was set on fire of a different shooting. The discovery that Jared Kushner has used private email for government business. Developments in the Russia hacking scandal which may prove involvement in the election. The deadly riots in India after a religious leader was convicted of rape. A terrorist knife attacker in France yesterday. Suicide bombers in Syria today. The alleged murderers of Kim Jong-Un's half brother began their trial.

And that's just the shit I can remember! I'm afraid to think about what I have already forgotten - and that's really the point. There's really only so much any one person can focus on to any meaningful degree. I'm not a fan of the media, but I don't blame them for this one. People were sick of hurricane coverage and with all that other stuff going on, they curtailed coverage a bit to focus on some other hot button issues.

<comment><USER6> The London Tube bombing. I think that was just a couple of weeks ago.

As you say, there is only so much one can focus on. I don't even try to really retain or keep up with it all. I can't and I don't care if I'm expected to.

I'd say that I also have a finite amount of empathy. It sounds bad but it gets used up quickly and I have more local things on which to spend my empathy. I know it is selfish, but that's just how it is.

<comment><USER5> Yep, forgot about that one.

I totally understand your point. And it is, in my opinion, a very reasonable position to take. I believe I'm the same way, for better or worse. I can't recall with certainty but I believe there is a psychological term for what you describe. Basically, it boils down to your brain compartmentalizing what you can and cannot have an effect on. That which you cannot affect you tend to care far less about and reduce/eliminate empathy and other emotional connection because it can be draining and isn't productive in any positive way (usually). That which you can affect or which has a significant impact on you personally is a totally different story. Wish I could remember the term for it.

<comment><USER6> As I was typing it, I was thinking there would be a psychological name for it. It seems like something they've likely classified and tried to measure.

If you'll permit me a vulgarity, my give a damn button is broken. For PR, I sent off two donations. It's the same as I did for both Florida and Texas. I don't view it as buying karma, or anything. I view it as being more that I'm actually obligated to do.

We don't care need to to overly care, do anything, or devote energy. Being obligated to outrage is a silly social trend. It's unfortunate and it's surely painful for those most closely impacted, but we are continually bombarded with news of tragedy.

Selfish or not, I'm pretty sure it's more healthy to just accept it and acknowledge it. I'm absolutely not saying it wasn't tragic, I'm just saying I am unwilling to get emotionally invested in it.

I suspect that makes sense, I'm mostly just trying to explain it in more detail because I don't know of a more precise term for it. If this happened in my area, I'd be much more emotionally invested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe it has something to do with the word Territory as in a U.S. Territory. I still don't know what it is, but it implies that it is not a state, not a city. If Hawaii can be half way around the world and be called a state, why can't we do the same for Puerto Rico?

<comment><USER8> What surprised me was that almost every news report/pleas on tv shows to help seemed to mention and emphasize that these people are American citizens. I didn't see the same thing happen with the other hurricane coverage. Is awareness about this really an issue?

<comment><USER9> yes. a lot of people are unaware of puerto rico's status and its peoples citizenship.

<comment><USER9> one citation, but i'm sure there are more: "Nearly Half of Americans Don't Know Puerto Ricans Are Fellow Citizens" \- [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of- ame...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of-americans- dont-know-people-in-puerto-ricoans-are-fellow-citizens.html)

<comment><USER10> I wonder if these polls are as accurate as election polls.

<comment><USER11> The polls were very accurate at the national level and within a few points at the state level.

<comment><USER10> The same polls that predicted Hillary would win?

<comment><USER12> Most national polls reflected a preference for her of a few percent. Her popular vote victory was well within that margin of error.

But you already knew about the statistical peculiarity that was the 2016 Electoral College result, so I'm guessing you're repeating this hoping for some alt-right points on HN? Or just to demonstrate that public policy polling and statistics are somehow a big snake oil discipline that you're too intelligent to fall for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hurricane Maria and its fallout weren't heavily covered. From what I hear from friends down there, power and water are still hard to come by, and the utilities are not providing things like bagged water, which is mandated in WA State after a few hours without water pressure.

If what happened in Puerto Rico happened on the West Coast, but from an earthquake, we would have seen a much larger response and better media coverage. Partly due to utilities here planning, training and funding resources for such an event (with water distribution warehouses sprinkled through Seattle), basics like clean, potable water would be in much better supply.

<comment><USER14> It wouldn't hurt that the west coast is connected to the mainland and its far easier to transport supplies to without major coordination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not that I think the central conclusion is wrong, but after skimming the article it's very odd that relative number of affected people is not brought up ('population' isn't even mentioned in the piece). The Houston metro has twice the population of Puerto Rico. I don't know an easy way to estimate those effected in Florida, and probably the sum total of human suffering is greater in Puerto Rico thanks to the island's vulnerability, the state of infrastructure, and the strength of the storm. Obviously there's no real way to measure these up but it seems an obvious line of questioning in trying to explain the disparity.

<comment><USER16> The Media is very lazy, they'll cover anything they can drive to. Houston and Florida got tons of coverage because they were already there. Covering PR would mean significant personal discomfort for the reporters and crews, with no guarantee of being able to leave on their own schedule. There just don't seem to be many reporters of that ilk anymore.

<comment><USER17> Don't major news channels such as ABC, NBC, Fox already have affiliates or branches in Puerto Rico? It's certainly a large enough market to deserve a local news channel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was impressed how fast France and the UK sent help to their territories. France and the UK are about 2,000 miles away from their Caribbean territories the US is about 970 miles away from Puerto Rico.

</comment><comment><USER19> It is not the media that has neglected Puerto Rico

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpwYHAN28As](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpwYHAN28As)

</comment><comment><USER20> fivethirtyeight.com clearly doesn't include themselves as a member of the media.

<comment><USER21> Did you bother to even open the article? Literally the first sentence is "While Puerto Rico suffers after Hurricane Maria, much of the U.S. media (FiveThirtyEight not excepted) has been occupied with other things..."

<comment><USER22> > Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even > read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article > mentions that."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER23> What an absolutely petty and useless rule/standard.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How An Introvert Learned To Be A Leader - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tutorspree.com/post/52801371505/how-an-introvert-learned-to-be-a-leader <comment><USER2> I would prefer articles like this were titled 'How Timid People Can Learn to be Leaders'.

I think the author means well, and perhaps this is valid for a certain type of introvert, but these types of articles bother me. I'm an introvert and I have no problem with public speaking, I run my own company and I've been a manager over various teams and project, both large and small.

There is more than one definition of introvert - for me it's the one "A person predominantly concerned with their own thoughts and feelings rather than with external things." If anything, I'm self-centered and self-absorbed, but I am certainly not bashful. I've had it described to me as this: extroverts work out solutions by talking, introverts work out solutions thinking.

Meaning, I think internally, I mull over things in order to get them straight in my head, and I can work for days without speaking to a soul. But I am not shy, bashful or even remotely timid. I think people who use the 'I can't engage because I'm an introvert' would be better served by admitting they are shy and work on that. There is nothing wrong with having an introvert or extrovert mindset, and we need both in the world, but always equating introversion with bashfulness is a mistake in my eyes.

<comment><USER3> Aren't those some of the exact same points that the author was making?

"People think that being an extrovert means that you like being around people, and therefore an introvert " doesn't like people," but that's not true. There's just no way I would have chosen to spend my life working with college students if I didn't like people!

People also tend to think that introverts have a fear of public speaking, but that's also a fallacy."

<comment><USER4> > "People also tend to think that introverts have a fear of public speaking, > but that's also a fallacy."

I just what no. "Fallacy" is not a fancy word for "wrong".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As an introvert I really enjoy articles like this. This world really considers us inferior in many ways, and it's easy to let that get to you. Seeing other introverts speaking out and thinking to myself "yeah! that's me!" is very refreshing.

<comment><USER6> Quiet: The Power of Introverts really opened my eyes to the fact that other people feel the way I do and that it's alright to be "introverted". I highly recommend it if you haven't read it and this type of subject matter is enjoyable for you.

(non-affil link) [http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World- Talking/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World- Talking/dp/0307352153)

<comment><USER7> I came here to recommend the same book, so I'll just second your recommendation. The writing is sometimes a little too cute for its own good, but it's an excellent read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very good points. Listening is a HUGE part of leadership. It's very easy to fall into the charisma trap, but speaking is just a small part of the overall leadership puzzle. It's much easier to learn, think, and get the pulse of an organization when you're not the one doing the talking.

<comment><USER9> I came here to comment on the listening part, so I'll comment to you since you mentioned it.

The article says that being a good listener is an innate trait of being introvert. I must disagree. Something that is often considered innate in introverts is being self absorbed and self centered.

Introverts can stay quiet, that does not mean they're listening or that they care about what you're saying.

A good exercise imo to become a better listener is to repeat key things the person is saying, to really focus on their words. What comes naturally as an introvert is rather waiting your turn before you speak. Which is also an important component.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not a fan of the introvert-worship on HN and related sites- I see it used as a crutch, an excuse, a softer form of the typical claim to having Asperger's to explain how you can't talk to people. Not saying Asperger's or introversion aren't real problems, just that you can make yourself feel OK sitting inside all night by putting a label on it and talking about it on the internet.

I'm not quiet because I'm an introvert, I'm quiet because of past personal failures wherein I didn't learn social skills because I was dicking around with books and computers all day. So now I'm a loser, but at least I can admit the truth rather than wrapping it in pop-science.

(Btw, clearly the OP is not a case of this - just a related observation)

<comment><USER11> Don't confuse your own failings with introversion. Many people are happier sitting inside all night. It sounds like you're either an unpopular extrovert, or you've been so conditioned by what society expects us to be that you feel shame for doing what you want to be doing. Either way address your own issues as opposed to bashing others for some perceived notion of faking happiness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Instead of using the very board labels of extrovert and introvert we should break down the components so we can mix and match and come up with something the describes a person's personality more accurately.

<comment><USER13> Prepare yourself for an onslaught of comments about Myers-Briggs/eColors/etc.

Personality-type classifications have their uses, but they're wildly over-used in the corporate world (or that's been my experience, anyway).

Just wait until you've worked in an environment where you're required to wear a two-color label based on your personality type (I'm not exaggerating, unfortunately... At least blue and green are my two favorite colors?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just want to point out that the title difference on this HN post vs the actual blog is offensive to me as an introvert.

"How An Introvert Learned To Be A Leader" as it's written on the blog title is very different than "How Introverts Can Learn to Become Leaders". One makes presumption about the capabilities of introverts in a much stronger and general fashion. The other is a single person's experience.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sounds good. Warm fuzzy feeling. I'm an introvert too. BUT. Lets be real, how many Fortune 500 CEOs are true introverts. How many entrepreneurs are introverts.

I want to see examples of the introvert leadership style in large/innovative companies. Anyone have any examples?

<comment><USER16> Old article but still relevant. Cites Gates, Buffett, Schwab, etc.

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/20...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2006-06-06-shy- ceo-usat_x.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The summer before I entered seventh grade, I went to student council camp, which was at the time, and is to this very day, the nerdiest-sounding summer camp I have ever heard of.

Even science-oriented camps like space camp sounded way cooler in comparison.

Yet, that week at The Association of Catholic Student Council's Summer Leadership Conference at Villanova University was a pretty pivotal moment in my adolescence.

However, when I first arrived there, I was overcome by the feeling that I was living a lie and didn't deserve to be at the camp.

The counselors kept talking about how we, as elected student council members, were leaders — and I thought to myself, "If they only knew! I'm no leader. Not only am I not one of the popular kids at my school, I'm probably one of the least popular kids. My election was a total fluke. Nobody in my class expected me to win. I'm no leader. Leaders are popular. Leaders are extroverted and cheery and the life of the party. And that's totally not me."

All through the week, though, the counselors insisted we were leaders, and toward the end of the week, I almost started to buy into it.

And then school started, and I remained one of the least popular kids in my class (or so I thought), and that was the end of that.

But it wasn't, really.

I never became one of the popular kids ... but I did contribute to student council. I did recognize ways to make the school a better place, and I tried to live out one of TACSC's slogans and "Make It Happen."

It wasn't until I hit college that I really started to recognize and appreciate that quiet leadership could be a legitimate form of leadership, and that it could often be much more powerful than loud leadership.

Quiet leadership doesn't draw attention to itself. It is not the type of leadership that uses rallying cries or bullhorns. There's a place for that ... but it's not the only form of leadership out there.

Quiet leadership might involve a person working behind the scenes to get a project done. He may not be the official leader, but he's the one who manages to make things happen.

Quiet leadership is often instructional. When I worked at the campus newspaper in college, I tried to make it a point to give each of the editors who worked below me an opportunity to learn what I did and actually get their hands dirty doing it, since I knew that they would eventually be the ones who would replace me.

Those tutorial sessions didn't involve bombastic speeches — they just involved a guy who wanted to help out.

And that can be leadership.

Simply doing little things that make a difference, even if you're not popular, even if you don't get the credit, even if there's a figurehead involved who takes on the more traditional leadership role, even if it seems like nobody's following you ... that can be leadership.

After all, not ever leader attracts a group of followers from day one. Often, it's not until he's well into his journey that anyone decides to tag along.

And I think it's important to affirm quiet leadership as a legitimate type of leadership, lest anyone like seventh-grader Shaun get discouraged and think that because he doesn't fit the Big Man on Campus mold, he isn't (or couldn't be) a leader.

I do consider myself a leader today, and I encourage any of you who may doubt your leadership abilities to consider that you may not be the type of person we commonly think of as a leader ... but your actions and your aspirations may point to your being much more of a leader than you might think.

<comment><USER18> People often conflate "leadership" and "management". Leadership isn't about telling, it's about doing, usually doing without having been told. It's about coming to the meeting with what you've implemented, rather than with suggestions. I had more typed up, but really, that's the core point: Leadership and management are two very different things.

<comment><USER19> > People often conflate "leadership" and "management".

One of the hallmarks of a flopping company is when they start calling the managers "leaders", as though the label would create credibility or legitimacy beyond their managerial authority.

<comment><USER20> I've found that's true for almost all naming and branding. If you have to try to improve the name of a company/product/job, it probably wasn't a very good company/product/job to begin with OR the name is overly aspirational and the reality is the opposite of what you're trying to name it.

secretary --> executive Assistant

waiter --> server

garbage man --> sanitation engineer

janitor --> custodian

Any company/product that has the word "best" or "fast" \--> Not the best or fastest at all

strip club --> gentlemen's club

Etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Introversion doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with shy. I just don't want to deal 25 assholes at the same time. I don't get a charge out of that. Once conversations involve more than three it's like the gonads start swinging or something and I lose interest. A confident introvert is a natural leader. I don't even get why this is some sort of revelation.

</comment><comment><USER22> Introvert or not, what does it say about me that I have absolutely no desire to be a "leader"?

At least not in the 9-5 rat-race definition of such, which basically translates to _manager_...

<comment><USER23> "Manager" and "leader" are distinct concepts, and they require distinct skillsets and personality characteristics. Probably the most concise distinction I can make is that a _leader_ is the CEO (they set the vision for the organization), while a _manager_ is the COO (they make the trains run on time). A leader is a change agent: their goal is to envision a better possible future and get people to buy into that future. A manager is a problem-solver: given a vision for the future, their job is to make that vision come true with a minimum of fuss and hiccups. Leaders need creativity, confidence, vision, persistence, and either really good technical skills (to build a demo and _show_ people what's possible) or really good interpersonal & communication skills (to convince other people to build that demo). Managers need organizational skills, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, confidence, and really strong listening & communication skills.

It's fairly rare to find both skillsets combined into the same person. Steve Jobs was a great leader but a terrible manager; Tim Cook is a great manager but a terrible leader. Mark Zuckerburg is a leader; Sheryl Sandberg is a manager. Larry Page is a leader; Eric Schmidt is a manager. Steve Wozniak was a leader who had no pretenses for ever being a manager: one of the conditions for founding Apple was that he'd always stay at the bottom of the org chart. Jeff Dean is a leader; Sanjay Ghemawat is a manager (in a metaphorical sense, for both of them; they're both individual contributors).

Leadership often arises out of unexpected quarters: very often, it's strong- willed individuals at the _bottom_ of the org chart who turn out to be the strongest leaders in times of crisis (and then they often rapidly rise through the org chart, at least as long as they find a good manager to partner with to make the trains run on time).

<comment><USER22> I appreciate the detailed response, I guess I've just been conditioned to equate "leader = manager" on account of their liberal and seemingly interchangeable use in job descriptions and roles (or perhaps that's my own misinterpretation). I do see the difference though, and think that I wouldn't mind being a leader as you describe it, and I believe I have most of the qualities you describe for it. I have thought of myself more as a silent leader (e.g. _by example_ ), or through peer coaching, but I am just wary of taking on a managerial role, and it sounds like for good reason: some of those qualities are my weaker points, and I plainly do not enjoy many of those things. Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4)

</comment><comment><USER25> Hitler was probably the most famous of all introverts who became a leader....</comment>


Show HN: Scrawl - <AUTHOR> https://demos.samgentle.com/scrawl/ <comment><USER2> This is excellent. I spend a lot of time doodling procedurally - coming up with unexpected patterns by following strict rules as to how lines can be drawn in relation to a previous line. This automates the tedious part of that and makes it easier to be creative.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am a little lost, I am able to add things to the bar by clicking, and I can change the node growth rules by selecting the menu of shapes on the side, but what is the use case? What am supposed to be able to do with this project? Even a one sentence modal would be greatly appreciated, or a help div, or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't say it has a use case per se, it's more of a toy. I hear you, though - I've added an info link down the bottom right that leads to [https://github.com/sgentle/scrawl](https://github.com/sgentle/scrawl), where there is some more information.

<comment><USER4> I can think of a bunch, mostly all revolving around replacing Visio and OmniGraffle. Exposing an API service shouldn't be too difficult considering the fluent style you modeled your own internal API. Make that and/or allowing people to upload their own stylesheets a premium feature. Having two panes like this[1] where I can declaratively chart things out, and have you take care of the styling and I'd be a paying customer. and/or having some aesthetically pleasing UI right out of the box would make this my go-to tool.

Use cases - \--this could be a fantastic tool for diagramming components, whether you want to Mindmap something to make concrete what only a concept in your mind. \--Modelling out infrastructure (maybe dynamically querying whatever status service you have to generate a dashboard ...again a premium feature) \--Modelling out entities \--Integrate it with Jupyter (formerly Python Notebook) as a premium feature. \--(This is admittedly a wanky feature that someone in marketing would come up with, but if you want user adoption what I'd do is leverage the existing 'standard env' and build around it) i.e. Have it hook into Github or Slack and on a build failure (likely in your AWS Docker instance!) ping the person who broke the build and have a bot that announces in the startup's Slack-room to shame him/her along with some wanky dependency graph (just diff the last known build and walk up the prototype chain).

I'm speaking maybe 20% in jest, 80% in 'you can really cobble together a product like that and tie Stripe into it'. Visio needs to die. I was working on something similar myself (a little more limited in scope) but got distracted.

Just a feature suggestion - localize the hot-keys for shapes into something one can reach with solely their left hand, so as to free up their right hand for mouse actions. Between use the keys 'asdfgwerv' as main menu items (e.g. triangles, squares, etc), then associate each of those components with one of those keys, which when pressed will open up a sub-menu (regular triangles, isosceles, etc) accessible by the same keys.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/TBUycHc.png](https://i.imgur.com/TBUycHc.png) Something like that, where onKeypressUp pane_2 renders the contents of pane_1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is neat. I wish there was a way to zoom in/out of the canvas area, so I could go deeper with my fractals.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, I've added mousewheel zooming now. I'd been putting off adding zooming but it really does make it nicer. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sadly this is what I see when I visit your site: [https://anonm.gr/up/d654.png](https://anonm.gr/up/d654.png)

I tried to solve the captcha several times, before giving up. This will happen to all users that try to visit your site using Tor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, how frustrating. I've seen that issue before on my own VPN and I think it's something to do with the interaction between Cloudflare's security cookie and my site, but it's tricky to reproduce. I'm trying it using the Tor Browser now and it seems to be working.

If all else fails you can try [https://sgentle.github.io/scrawl/](https://sgentle.github.io/scrawl/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> EDIT: (controls were unintuitive on tablet/mobile) It seems like you need to select the shape then tap on the line you want to apply it to. One tap previews the change, a second tap on the same line applies the change; tapping elsewhere cancels applying it.

For those who want to read up on it: [https://github.com/sgentle/scrawl/](https://github.com/sgentle/scrawl/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The keyboard doesn't work for me on Debian/Iceweasel.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops. I have no idea how I missed that. I even tested it on Firefox. Fixed now, thanks.</comment></comment>


Tim Skelly Passes Away - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/SeamusBlackley/status/1234661993740525581 <comment><USER2> Rip Tim Skelly

"Tim Skelly Before becoming a researcher with Microsoft Advanced Technology Research group, Tim Skelly spent fifteen years in the video game business. After graduating from Northwestern University in 1973, he filled the time preceding the invention of the personal computer by producing and directing for film and television. Skelly's career shifted directions when in 1977 he opened what was probably the world's first computer gaming center. Using the experience he had gained programming and designing games for personal computers, he went on to create a series of more than a dozen successful arcade video games for Cinematronics, Sega, and Mylstar Electronics. These included Armor Attack, Star Castle, Reactor, and the very first cooperative two-player video game, Rip-Off.

Later, after the crash of the video arcade market in 1983, Skelly branched off into screenwriting and the design of interactive laser disc programs. He returned to the game business in 1985, when he cofounded Incredible Technologies (IT), a company that designed, developed, built, and sold a broad range of interactive software. Besides IT's high output of computer- and cartridge-based games, projects included interfaces for medical equipment, animatronic devices for a Japanese location-based entertainment center, and all software and hardware for the original BattleTech (now Virtual Worlds) Centers. Clients included Williams Electronics/Bally Midway and CAPCOM. During this time, Skelly conducted a personal study of the appeal of video games. This later became the basis for his successful series of "Seductive Interfaces" tutorials given at several ACM SIGCHI conferences -- tutorials designed to enable UI designers to apply the engaging aspects of video games to nonentertainment products.

Recognized for his extensive video game experience, Skelly was recruited by the Sega Technical Institute, where he advised on game design and served as Art Director for Sonic the Hedgehog 2. A short time after the completion of Sonic 2, he was asked to join the newly formed Research Division at Microsoft Corporation. He is currently exploring future computer-human and computer- mediated human-human interfaces and strategies." [0]

[0]:[http://www.wtec.org/loyola/hci/aa_bios.htm](http://www.wtec.org/loyola/hci/aa_bios.htm)</comment>


IMSAI – The Computer Film Star of War Games - <AUTHOR> http://www.imsai.net/movies/wargames.htm?r=2

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised that the IMSAI from Wargames would be valued at only $25,000 but at that price it's far from the most valuable personal computer ever, for a start there's the Appls I sold for roughly $400k at auction:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30447563](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30447563)

Another sold for nearly $1M:

[http://www.newsweek.com/1976-apple-1-computer-sells- auction-...](http://www.newsweek.com/1976-apple-1-computer-sells-auction- record-905000-279230)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple has more current street cred i guess. The IMSAI is only valuable to people who grew up on the film.

<comment><USER3> Or like the machine; I knew about them well before Wargames.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I had money to throw away, I would gladly buy this computer. War Games is by far the best "hacking" movie I remember from my childhood.

<comment><AUTHOR> Amen. I owe my career to that film, and I'd love to thank Matthew Broderick in person one day over a raspberry pie or some pints. That movie was like a revelation to me. All that computer stuff! And he got the girl! And he saved the world! Gotta get me some of that sugar.</comment></comment>


IPad will be soon Dominated by Android tablets, Says Dell CEO [WSJ report] - <AUTHOR> http://itechvision.blogspot.com/2011/04/ipad-will-be-soon-dominated-by-android.html

<comment><USER2> Android is 100% controlled by an organization whose _only_ interest is in commoditizing access to its services. Dell has struggled to move away from the low-margin business they once pioneered; are they really so eager to go head- to-head with the Chinese on this?</comment>


Ask HN: How can Facebook go down? - <AUTHOR>

Surely Facebook's server code and databases are replicated around the world, partly for redundancy and partly for faster content delivery. So presumably a datacenter to burn down (or a big storm can hit the US) and Facebook could keep ticking over. What, then, could cause the whole thing to go down? I'd love to hear people's thoughts.<p>Perhaps the fault was with Akamai, but then my question really just changes to 'How can Akamai go down?' <comment><USER2> Akamai is many many caching devices with fancy routing (massive oversimplification). Announcing routes incorrectly, on purpose, or maliciously, can cause entire swaths of the internet or entire countries to go offline. It is sometimes called route poisoning or ip hijacking

A few examples: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_hijacking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_hijacking) [https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/BGP+multiple+banking+addre...](https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/BGP+multiple+banking+addresses+hijacked/16249) [http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/repeated-attacks- hij...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/repeated-attacks-hijack-huge- chunks-of-internet-traffic-researchers-warn/)

etc, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> They blamed a configuration change gone wrong. If that was a change to their core routers, deployed to everything at once (or just to some crucial parts first, even), it's quite believable that they could take (public-facing, at least) network down in one fell swoop.</comment>


The problem with STM: your languages still suck - <AUTHOR> http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/the-problem-with-stm-your-languages-still-suck/

<comment><USER2> _The performance implications of transactional memory. As programmers, we're used to assignments being cheap._

For most business apps, "hundreds of cycles" is still dirt cheap. I should know. I've worked on Smalltalk apps with in-memory transactions. To my knowledge they work very well, and this is _not_ an issue! Matters like this are swamped by generic issues involving network, DB, and disk access.

Another thing he's wrong about: there are frameworks in sufficiently powerful languages that don't necessarily require applications to be rewritten. (Example: properly implemented MVC apps in Smalltalk. Such frameworks could also be implemented in Lisp using macros.)

The reason why this stuff isn't more popular? Business apps could make good use of something like this, but the people who maintain these apps just aren't concerned about the issues STM solves. (Or they aren't aware that they really do have a stake in those issues.)

</comment><comment><USER3> _So this is the true barrier to entry to STM: it requires a radical, deep, fundamental change in how people program, in order to work._

Writing massively-parallel code requires a radical, deep, fundamental change in how most people program. I don't think there's any getting around that. STM seems to work pretty well in Clojure, which uses mutable references to immutable values exactly as the author describes. It does require a different programming style from imperative languages, and doesn't pretend to have a way around that.</comment>


Ask HN: Autoposting script? - <AUTHOR>

So as some of you may have noticed, the last 5 or so xkcd's posted have been by me.  I wrote up a little autoposting script at some ungodly hour and set it up in a cron to post new comics.  I am not doing this for the karma, since anyone looking at my submission history (which I assume YC would do) would notice the source of whatever karma I get.  I post because I figured someone would post the xkcd at some point anyway, and I may as well save people the time.
The issue is, I've seem enough negative reactions to warrant concern.  While nothing is preventing me from posting the latest comic manually each day, and considering xkcd's low volume I feel it's not a problem, I have no desire to piss anyone off.  I'm also curious about how the community feels about this practice.  So tell me HN: is such a practice (in the volume of 3 submissions a week) offensive?  If there are a significant number of upvotes on comments against me, I will stop this practice, but I feel that tasteful bots, when used in moderation, would make things easier and more efficient on HN, though I can definitely see a potential issue with it snowballing (i.e. posting every TechCrunch entry as someone previously suggested).
Also, how do people feel about the idea of having something like an xkcd bot account, that way no one in particular benefits from the karma gain?  While I recognize that most of us have xkcd in our readers, there are some who only want to view the interesting ones, which is what upvoting is meant to do anyway.
If anyone has been bothered by my use of an autoposter I apologize, I never meant to offend :). <comment><USER2> This is a terrible, horrible idea, and I think you should turn off your autosubmitting script.

I think users should only submit things they personally think are awesome and would interest other people.

Autoposting scripts remove the human element of "sharing links" which is what this site was built on.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the point of copying every article of anything which has its own RSS feed to news.yc?

Anyone who wants to see every xkcd will already have the RSS feed in their reader. Posting it here is just noise.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. Those that want to read xkcd or TC or whatever will subscribe to their respective feeds.

I like the diversity of things here on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't do that.

If the community wants everything from a particular site submitted then let's ask PG to scrape their RSS feed.

I'm sometimes tempted to post everything from my blog, but I look at things and decide whether I think the community here will be interested: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150865>

</comment><comment><USER6> Is really every XKCD cartoon appearing on HN? I don't subscribe to xkcd, and I was hoping only a few actually get posted here.

The "problem" of bots and news sites is an interesting one, though. But why not experiment on Reddit, rather than HN?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not experimenting so much as trying to provide a beneficial service (at 6am the differences blur significantly though).

I'd say around 25% of xkcd's are remotely relevant to this site, the question is whether or not an automated source of 1:3 signal/noise ratio is worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's clear now that many people have thought of or implemented autosubmitter bots. This could get ugly.

Maybe there should be a News.YC spinoff exclusively devoted to karma-bot wars so that human users don't have to witness the carnage on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER8> I was planning at some vague point in the future to make bots for Techcrunch, PG, PB and xkcd just to take away that way to game karma. I think it'd be a net positive for the community, personally.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is we don't want to flood HN with stuff like this...someone should look at the HN/Posts % (number of entries posted to HN/total number of entries)...I'd say if it's around a constant 2/3 it's worth doing. If I have the time I'll try to investigate this at some point...pg would be in a much better providing this info.

<http://searchyc.com/top/domains> shows that TechCrunch may be worth doing this for...

<comment><USER8> 100% of PG articles make it here, lots of TC's make it here (although many don't hit the front page), probably half of the xkcd's do, and PB's generally make it here eventually.

Also, I omitted Matt Maroon before, but his articles generally get posted, too, even when they're little comments and not actually essays.

<comment><AUTHOR> Search of SearchYC based on title on 30 TechCrunch articles from March 27-29 found 7/30 articles = ~25%

PG's articles get a huge amount of karma regardless, that should probably be botted but may never make it in time (I don't know how quickly the RSS feed is generated).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok, by overwhelming majority the script is down.

Just don't flame me if I (as a human) post an xkcd that I actually find relevant :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Blind submission removes the implicit "I thought this was valuable" filter and decreases the signal-to-noise ratio.

</comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't bother me, except sometimes xkcd isn't on topic.</comment>


Changing the world via Twitter? Yeah, you should get out more - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/24/the-times-they-arent-a-changin/

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I totally agree with Gladwell on this one. I'll go even one step further and claim that many to most of the people you see joining these Facebook charity groups do so almost involuntarily because their friends do. I was so irritated by this when the Save Darfur groups started gaining traction, that I created my own bogus group with the premise that we should recycle garbage and feed all the rotten thrown-out foods that supermarkets discard to African orphans. Within days I got several thousand members with some commenting about how great the cause was. I even threw in some really bogus stats, like 30 orphans die in the time it takes you to exhale. Morbid prank, I know, but it was an experiment that proved to me that most on Facebook don't give a damn about causes and join these groups for purely narcissistic reasons.

<comment><USER3> I must say, I think this is the first time I've ever agreed with Malcolm Gladwell on, well, anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dixon's claim that he's made strong ties through Twitter is interesting. I haven't heard that before, even from people who use Twitter frequently (I use it quite frequently too). I definitely believe that people can form strong ties electronically, and I've done so on BBSs, IRC, forums, even mailing lists. I've never thought of Twitter as a place for that, though; its conversations are just too short and disjointed for me to feel much in the way of personal connection.

<comment><USER5> I've formed some strong ties through Twitter, but as with Dixon's experience, they only begin on Twitter--they don't evolve there. Conversations quickly move to email, Skype and IRL.

<comment><USER6> Ditto, though I'd say only about half of mine "move" elsewhere and the other half _do_ evolve on Twitter alone. I follow about 900 people and frequently go through this list. At least half are people I now "know" through Twitter and identify with and know a little about. Many of them frequently help me out online, promote my projects, give me feedback, etc. This is very valuable to me.

But I'm a cave dweller who hardly goes out and I've been on Twitter since 2006 and use Twitter _very_ proactively. I certainly sympathize with people who can't make it stick, though, because it almost takes being quite antisocial IRL to make putting the effort in worth it..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, the point is, it's not Twitter that matters, but the connection of the humans behind Twitter? How is this news? Does anyone argue that a telephone is responsible for major social good?

<comment><USER8> Yes, I agree with you. And from now on we're gonna remind ourselves of the very basics of being human, because we forgot how to do it. Now I see tons of books on how to be simple again, and how you should use pen and paper to write your ideas rather than a computer..., oh and how to avoid getting distracted from the info clutter that surrounds us. This is what is happening now, talking about being human again. Maybe i'm going too far but yeah nothing new man

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree. This sterile electronic communication is very fickle - people will be there, then suddenly not. I've found that something like twitter is very poor in building any kind of proper relationship, as mostly it's about people who want something from the other person.

One could say that twitter is good as a way of introducing people, but I most certainly could not identify enough with the people in any twitter or facebook collection to join in a battle with them.

Let's say it were the 40s and we made a facebook group called "resistance against the german occupation forces". Now, we all have the same interest in mind, but if we actually meet together, it's very likely there will be varying levels or intensity, varying agendas, varying personalities. We could not form an effective resistance group.

If, however, I would do this with my existing friends, we would have a cohesive and trustworthy group with which we could organise things and make things happen. Offline inviting of people to the group would go through a kind of vetting process where you actually get to see the whole of the person, and not just a single sterile attribute like "dislikes the occupation."

My experience with twitter and other boards is that the relationship you think you are building is very weak and fleeting. Most of the time, it's based on what one person wants from the other - for example, entertainment, connections, money, information. It's not based on shared interests or the ability to connect on a more fundamental level.

<comment><USER3> Relationships built solely on Twitter, Facebook and the like may well be fleeting, but I have found them to be very effective tools for reinforcing and extending existing, meaningful relationships:

My sister doing public health work in Africa shares her photos on Facebook and Flickr.

My married friends doing research in China: status updates on Facebook.

My scattered high school and college friends: all on Facebook.

My 'In Real Life' software developer friends: all on Twitter. I have too few opportunities to see all of them, so being able to connect on Twitter and share the occasional note is extremely valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know if it's a good example but the mister splashy pants on reddit incident was really cool and funny. Here's a ted talk about it: [http://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash...](http://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash_in_social_media.html)

Most of the people who were part of that probably didn't do anything else but even if 1% bought shirts, that's a net win for Greenpeace. You don't need everyone to make an impact. Same with the facebook groups, even if only 1% are hardcore activists, it's better than 0.

I'm sure there are other cool examples.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think everyone is missing the point here about using Twitter to form strong ties or cause tangible social change.

Are people working for Greenpeace or some other org on the streets of NYC harassing people actually more effective than tweeting or liking a cause? Tweets for causes definitely aren't as annoying, unlike these people who pester you every time you pass them by. If anything they're making you less inclined to support some kind of cause.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think most demonstrations are there to make the demonstrators feel better. So changing your Twitter avatar can make you feel better - it works just like the real demonstration?

Except that if you go to a real demonstration, maybe you can make some real friends. You don't actually meet anybody by changing your Twitter icon. But that is another side effect - the original "I want to do something" works both on Twitter and on the street.

</comment><comment><USER13> The question isn't whether or not social media activism is a powerful replacement for "real life" activism. The question is whether or not the people participating in social media activism would be doing anything at all if it weren't so easy to participate.

Did the activist marching on Washington retreat to his desk, or did the couch potato join the movement? I don't know the answer, but the difference is an important one.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone else have a problem with those numbers at the end?

1282339 * 0.09 + 22073 * 0.35 + 2797 * 0.15 = $123,555.61

That's pretty impressive IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER15> What makes this NSFW?

<comment><USER16> NSFW is the name of Paul Carr's column.

It's meaning is not that the contents are not safe for work - it means that Paul Carr himself is "not safe for work", having been fired from every job he's ever had.

Amazes me that on every single one of his articles, the top-voted comment is always "why is this NSFW????"

By the way, if you haven't read it, Paul Carr's book is really quite excellent, especially for budding entrepreneurs; I highly recommend you check it out.

<comment><USER17> I always open links in background tabs and since the first four letters of the tab were "NSFW" I'm inclined to close it immediately.

So, at least for the folks who don't subscribe to every hip, new, social media blog, these comments are useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What about the scientology protests? I think there was an element of social media fueling that fire.

<comment><USER19> really? 4chan as an example of the positive power of social media? heh.</comment></comment>


To create a robot with common sense, mimic a toddler - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929260.300-to-create-a-robot-with-common-sense-mimic-a-toddler.html#.Ue0Xcu9ASj4 <comment><USER2> I was thinking about how we learn and thought why don't we start robots at the beginning (essentially babies), and give them a basic set of programming rules to search for food, "sleep", and other things, this article seems interesting, a little further along then where I was thinking (3 year old) but I would think it would be a lot of learning.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will eventually blog in detail about this, coming from doing AI work and having a child I think it puts a new perspective into the subject that you would not be able to really understand until you go through the phases of that part of life. You also need the convergence of alot of smaller parts, computation, neuroscience, physics, and some psychology to reach these points. I still think the robotics part is only nearly 25% of the entire puzzle, but what some the pioneers in the field are starting to realize and have the ability to do in the next 10 years will be pretty amazing.</comment></comment>


I have "free electricity" and would like to mine bitcoins. - <AUTHOR>

Hello everyone. I have free electricity in my building, since I work for the electric department of my city and would like to now if its reliable to get into bitcoin mining. I understand that difficulty and hardware improvements makes it very hard to break even because all the "profits" would go to pay electric bill. Do you guys think I would have a reasonable ROI if I'm not paying for the electric bill?. <comment><USER2> Free electricity helps, but you'll still need to invest some serious $$. Go to [http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/](http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/) to calculate your return with various hardware - with a $0 electric cost, with the assumptions made, you'll never turn a profit. (Keeping in mind that most of the hardware there isn't shipping today, and some of the companies have very shoddy reputations for getting products shipped out, your return will go down, as the difficulty rate will likely have increased by the time you start mining)

</comment><comment><USER3> With the proliferation of ASICs over the last 6 months, the mining difficulty rate has shot up exponentially.

[http://bitcoin.sipa.be/](http://bitcoin.sipa.be/)

I picked up a $30 Sapphire miner about a month ago. It's one of the better hashes-per-watt miners available. At this point, breakeven for the hardware cost is about 4 months out. And that's only going to get worse as the difficulty increases, which has been happening every 2 weeks or so.

</comment><comment><USER4> Define "free". I hope you're not doing anything that might be considered illegal or unethical.

Ordinarily, late 2013 would be too late to seriously get into mining, but if you do actually somehow have access to free electricity, that changes the equation a bit.

It's probably worth your time to look into it seriously. There are various bitcoin mining calculators you can look into online that can give you a rough idea of how long it would take to break even.

</comment><comment><USER5> You will not make a profit unless you have an enormous amount of capital, or a new way of mining. Difficulty is growing at too high of a rate.

</comment><comment><USER6> Stolen electricity = stolen BTC

Why not just cut out the middle man and embezzle funds straight out of their bank account?

<comment><USER7> That seems a little dramatic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A fee "anything" makes a lot of things worth your time... Think of recharging Teslas, for example :)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you invest in a good and big mining ring, yes. But after that, all depend of the change rates of bitcoin…</comment>


Tell HN: Algolia HN search seems to be not working on the full data - <AUTHOR> It seems the algolia hn search is not working on the full hn data. For example, the homepage doesn't show the top posts of all time, even when selecting "All Time" as range. Url: https://hn.algolia.com <comment><USER2> The team has been testing a new ranking formula, keeping you posted tomorrow.</comment>


Rebuilding, Testing and Documenting Self-Made Wi-Fi Antennas - <AUTHOR> http://www.notechmagazine.com/2017/01/rebuilding-testing-and-documenting-self-made-wi-fi-antennas.html <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, there's no real testing. Just pictures.

Antenna testing is usually done in a big open flat space, with gear that can measure field strength. Do this some place where you can't pick up any other WiFi signals. Some WiFi gear lets you read signal strength from software, and you need something that can do that. There are some videos online of people measuring antenna patterns at ranges of a few feet, but that gets you strange near-field results. You need distance for this, like a hundred feet or so. The antenna is usually placed on a nonmetallic turntable that can be rotated, and the idea is to generate a chart of signal strength vs. angle.

Here's an test of a "cantenna" in a real antenna testing facility.[1] He also builds one with the same dimensions out of copper sheet, for comparison, and also compares with simulated results. Antenna design used to be a black art, but now there are software tools to help with design and evaluation.

The ARRL Antenna Book has good advice on how to build antennas cheaply.

[1] [http://www.antennamagus.com/blog/593/pringles-cantenna- measu...](http://www.antennamagus.com/blog/593/pringles-cantenna-measured-in- an-anechoic-chamber)

</comment><comment><USER3> hi,

I'm the author of the project. To answer questions about testing and which design is 'the best': The project was produced in a cultural context so I had no access to specialized measuring equipment or techniques. What I've done is to run side by side comparisons, so I only have circumstantial evidence.The method was to compare the antenna or reflector against the stock antenna on the same dongle and seeing which one resulted in most SSIDs showing up in wavemon. That being said, the big difference between most diy antennas vs the stock antenna is that the diy antennas basically work on the principle of directionality, meaning increased gain in a narrow cone. So you have to point your antenna at the signal source for a higher gain.

Which one is the best really depends on the use case, materials available and time you want to invest. I've found the biquad in the sardine tin[1] to be the handiest for all-round situations and use it frequently. It is directional, but has a wider field of view than other directional antennas. Compact design, sturdy build quality. Not too difficult to produce and sardines combine great with pizza or pasta. Here is some more info on that type of design[2]. If you only have access to dongles without a detachable antenna I'd recommend using a wok or some other parabolic reflector.

[1][http://roelof.info/projects/(2014)Pretty_Fly_For_A_Wifi/IMG_...](http://roelof.info/projects/\(2014\)Pretty_Fly_For_A_Wifi/IMG_0963.png)

[2][http://pe2er.nl/biquad/index.htm](http://pe2er.nl/biquad/index.htm)

<comment><USER4> Consider using jpeg instead of png for your images. You'll get a 5x-10x bandwidth reduction, especially for such an image heavy site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The link should change to [https://roelof.info/projects/(2014)Pretty_Fly_For_A_Wifi/Pre...](https://roelof.info/projects/\(2014\)Pretty_Fly_For_A_Wifi/Pretty_Fly_For_A_Wi- Fi_booklet.pdf)

Also a question to the community: which is the most bang-for-the-buck DIY antenna: does not need millimeter accurate measurements, increases signal by ~2x, and ideally small and stow-able.

Most common usecases are extending signal on 3g/4g USB dongles, and extending wifi signals at home (to one side at the expense of the other).

</comment><comment><USER6> Antenna design seems like an obvious target for 4D-printing.</comment>


Pebble app tracks seizures for World Epilepsy Day [that's today] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf-HkMLPYEU

<comment><USER2> Hasn't this been posted to HN several times in the last few days?

<comment><AUTHOR> It was posted once several days ago. We wanted to post for Purple Day because despite support, there is a lack of awareness for the condition. We want to changed that

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting usage of a watch. I hope this takes off.</comment>


What do grad students in math do all day? - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/stoutbeard/4158578 <comment><USER2> :) Brought back memories of thesis writing days.

Just wanted to add that the process described is more or less the same whether you are a musician beginning to compose, a dancer learning to choreograph, a painter creating new style etc.

At the end of the day its all about learning and developing language. The language of thought.

</comment><comment><USER3> The original post is from quora (linked at the bottom): [http://www.quora.com/Mathematics/What-do-grad-students-in- ma...](http://www.quora.com/Mathematics/What-do-grad-students-in-math-do-all- day)

From the guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> _Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on > another site, submit the latter._</comment>


Coronavirus virality coefficient is possibly very bad - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1220919589623803905 <comment><USER2> The author of the paper has lowered the estimate to 2.5:

[https://twitter.com/JonRead15/status/1220749021117140992?s=2...](https://twitter.com/JonRead15/status/1220749021117140992?s=20)</comment>


FCC Tells Court It Has No 'Legal Authority' to Impose Net Neutrality Rules - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/ajit-pais-fcc-tells-court-that-net-neutrality-rules-were-illegal/ <comment><USER2> This has been posted 3 times now</comment>


Introduction to strace - <AUTHOR> https://jorge.fbarr.net/2014/01/19/introduction-to-strace/ <comment><USER2> No mention of overhead, and finishes with an strace -c and "This option is very useful when trying to find out why a program is running slow." Well, it will run slow if you run "strace -c", because you're running "strace -c".

Because of the overheads, I wouldn't trust the high resolution timestamps also included in the blog post.

Also not mentioned: "strace -e" to select a single syscall doesn't reduce overhead -- you pay the tax for tracing all syscalls anyway.

Because of strace's behavior, there's also been situations in past kernels where it can hang processes and need a kill -9. Your application is now paused while you're madly typing at the command line -- if I did that on one of my instances at work (although I believe that bug has been fixed a long time ago), request timeouts may have the instance fail over before I could finish hitting enter. That's not so bad, but in your environment it could be much worse. You may get such timeouts just from the overheads of strace.

It's one thing to write a post that has errors. It's another to write a post that's dangerous.

This is why I wrote [http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-05-11/strace-wow- much-...](http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-05-11/strace-wow-much- syscall.html)

<comment><USER3> > Because of the overheads, I wouldn't trust the high resolution timestamps > also included in the blog post.

Naive question why would the timestamps be inaccurate, surely each step of the program's execution should just be slower? Am I missing something about how the timestamp of a syscall would be off?

<comment><USER4> they're _absolutely_ inaccurate for the reason you mentioned, but they're also _relatively_ inaccurate because not all of the program's execution is syscalls. regular program code runs at the same speed (more or less), but syscalls are made much slower so appear to take more time than they really do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Back in the early aughts I was applying as a junior sysadmin for one of those up-and-coming LAMP web-hosting companies here in Vienna. The interviewer was a great, all-around-nice guy and a very experienced sysadmin. All went rather well until he asked me on how I would go about fixing a specific Apache httpd issue.. suffice to say I was still green behind my ears and didn't know about strace and that was pretty much it.

I'm still very grateful that I funked up that interview as otherwise, down the line I maybe wouldn't have gone into systems programming / unix internals as easily.

Julia Evans has a great strace related zine on her website, check it out as well:

[http://jvns.ca/blog/2015/04/14/strace- zine/](http://jvns.ca/blog/2015/04/14/strace-zine/)

Also - if you are on MacOS/BSD you should check out the somewhat related dtrace/dtruss, very powerful tools.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good brief intro article.

At some point I tried to get deeper and understand ptrace(2) syscall, the technology behind strace command line tool. I wrote this piece:

[https://idea.popcount.org/2012-12-11-linux-process- states/](https://idea.popcount.org/2012-12-11-linux-process-states/)

The ptrace() articles were never finished, but oh well. I guess ptrace() is doomed to be undocumented and barely understood. Recently I found this gem in 1983 4.2BSD operating system man page :

> _Ptrace is unique and arcane; it should be replaced with a special file > which can be opened and read and written. The control functions could then > be implemented with ioctl(2) calls on this file. This would be simpler to > understand and have much higher performance._

[http://www.tuhs.org/cgi- bin/utree.pl?file=4.2BSD/usr/man/man...](http://www.tuhs.org/cgi- bin/utree.pl?file=4.2BSD/usr/man/man2/ptrace.2)

<comment><USER7> ptrace() isn't undocumented, it has a fairly long manpage: [http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man2/ptrace.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/ptrace.2.html)

It's certainly pretty hairy, but on the other hand only a handful of programs (debuggers, strace, similar debug type tools) are ever going to need to use it.

<comment><USER8> Pretty hairy is an understatement. There are so many edge cases with ptrace based on how it works(interactions with signals especially) that make it almost impossible to make a truly robust debugger with it. Solaris did it right with their procfs debugger interface. I really wish Linux would step up the game here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can also use gdb to debug more than just C code.

I used to know a DBA that had symbols installed on the production database server so he could attach a debugger to the running Postgres backend process, and use the backtrace to tell you what the query was doing and why it was running slowly.

Also, note that running strace on a production process can change its observed behavior. [http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man2/ptrace.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/ptrace.2.html)

<comment><USER10> Maybe I'm not following you, but isn't that just attaching gbd to C code?

<comment><USER11> There's often macros you can use to help. In that case, sure, it's C code. Another "it's just C code" is debugging CPython: [https://wiki.python.org/moin/DebuggingWithGdb](https://wiki.python.org/moin/DebuggingWithGdb) These macros let you inspect both the C stack and the Python stack, and some other stuff. Super super handy for rare cases where shit just gets weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tangentially, there's a funny Easter Egg in strace – with some trial and error, you can get it to strace its own pid.

      $ strace -p 957 strace: I'm sorry, I can't let you do that, Dave.

<comment><USER13> let z=$(readlink /proc/self)+1 && strace -p $z

probably a race. i'm not a real programmer.

<comment><USER14>
      sh -c 'exec strace -p $$'

This is race-free and POSIX-compliant I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great introductory article, thanks for writing and sharing this!

I wrote an article explaining the inner workings of strace [1], and a detailed article about Linux system calls [2] which others interested in this article may find relevant.

[1]: [https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/02/29/how-does- strace-...](https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/02/29/how-does-strace-work/)

[2]: [https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/04/05/the- definitive-g...](https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/04/05/the-definitive- guide-to-linux-system-calls/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I much prefer Julia Evan's zine on strace:

[http://jvns.ca/strace-zine-unfolded.pdf](http://jvns.ca/strace-zine- unfolded.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER17> The problem with strace is that it is not reentrant. I.e. you can't run strace through strace.

So don't use it in scripts unless you are debugging.

<comment><USER18> If you're not debugging, why are you using strace?</comment></comment>


Jim Clark launches new company CommandScape - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/22/netscapes-jim-clark-launches-commandscape-a-building-management-system-for-commercial-and-premium-properties/ <comment><AUTHOR> Jim Clark is in pretty rare company having created three unicorns in his career. I wonder if anyone has been the founder of four?

Terrific interview of Clark by Jason Calacanis. To my knowledge it's the first interview he's granted in sixteen years.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rL1LnXo3Gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rL1LnXo3Gs)

If you want a primer on Clark's career Michael Lewis wrote a book about him in 1999 at the height of the bubble:

[https://www.amazon.com/New-Thing-Silicon-Valley- Story/dp/039...](https://www.amazon.com/New-Thing-Silicon-Valley- Story/dp/0393347818)

<comment><USER2> Elon Musk if you count Solar City.</comment></comment>