CEBIT Hanover to be cancelled - <AUTHOR> https://www.cebit.de/en/press/press-releases/deutsche-messe-restructures-event-portfo <comment><USER2> I'm a resident of Hanover and have been to every Cebit in the last ten years.

The fall was inevitable. You could feel that Cebit was struggling to attract visitors and wasn't sure what it's identity was. I feel like they should have focused more on the Global Conference Series where they always had very interesting talks lined up but the entry fee for that (You had to buy a separate ticket for that) was far to high imo.

It was customary to get some friends and stroll along the massive fair grounds when it was still focused more towards consumers and we always had a great time. I could split off to check out actual booths that interested me and most even had competent people who actually knew their product and could talk about it. I feel like that changed right around the time Cebit decided to only cater towards businesses. Instead of knowledgeable people you now had to deal with pretty ladies who knew nothing and PR folks who wouldn't tell you anything else than how great their product/service is. Before you could get answers to technical questions that could not get answered by visiting their website and have a discussion with people who actually worked on the product.

Last year was especially dull; nearly every booth I visited was just handing out flyers with links to their websites. I tried to have some discussion to get to know whatever they were promoting but it was near impossible. I had the all-day event ticket but after the first day of scouting booths quickly decided that it wasn't worth my time and only attended three talks from the Global Conferences after that. I was planning on only visiting the latter this year and don't waste my time on the actual fair. I'm not to sad to see it come to an end but have kind memories of what it once was.

</comment><comment><USER3> End of an era, but not all that surprising in the end. For years they experimented with different audiences, but didn't really find a profile that was relevant anymore.

Finding out about new products or companies doesn't require a trade show anymore. They went to focus on the business side anyways so no private visitors anymore (until the turn-around attempt this year) and other places took up that market. But the business market also has its own events now, both smaller, more specialized ones and ones run by the large companies. Way fewer small (or even large) companies where you can talk to people actually involved with the product developments, which was something you could do in the beginning. Again, no need to travel to CEBIT to talk to marketing.

It's fulfilled its purpose when it was needed, now it has been replaced.

<comment><USER4> It's a pretty common pattern for a lot of big tradeshows that aren't controlled by a single vendor to become about everything to the point that they're about nothing at some point, especially as the motivations for creating the show in the first place become less relevant.

Comdex, Linux World, and lots more I can't list off the top of my head. I'm a bit surprised that CES has been able to hang in there but I guess the market for electronic gadgets is so huge that there's still a place for it.

There are still huge vendor shows out there which seem to still make sense-- though tradeshows can be a bit of a racket for everyone involved--but I mostly prefer smaller and less commercial venues.

I've been to a lot of the big shows though never CEBIT. Almost went at the last minute to appear on a panel a few years ago but it was too logistically challenging.

<comment><USER3> I think Cebit in a way started as "being about everything IT", but back then that was fine, since the field was way smaller and everything overlapped more, and the sub-sections wouldn't sustain their own events. (It started as a side- event to Hannover Messe that at some point got large enough to stand on its own)

Now "everything IT" is way to broad, and the discovery aspect has moved online.

<comment><USER4> I think that's right. At the time, Cebit was a pretty logical outgrowth of the Hannover Fair at a time when IT was just the latest round of industrial technology. Need a combine, need a mainframe, they're all there.

Comdex came more out of the PC revolution and was originally more oriented to PC-related distribution and vendor networks but it suffered similar problems over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For us oldschoolers, Cebit 1990 demoscene afterparty democompetetion winner, Red Sector Inc. with the demo named "Cebit 90" [1]. Waz not there, but those were the days...

[1] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdldXaWdo](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdldXaWdo)

<comment><USER6> holy cow i thought the scrolling text would end at some point.....

<comment><USER7> Technically, it does...after ~14.5 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Completely unsurprised, but still a bit sad. My husband insisted I go up to CeBIT in 2011, when I was struggling to get interviews for IT jobs in Germany. Apparently, the people at the DIS AG booth were impressed enough to recommend me to their Nuremberg office, who put me out on a placement that was with the company I've now been with for 7 years.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow, really the end of an era. Sometimes shows fail due to the end of a technology (steam engines?) and some due to its success (e.g. NCC, West Coast Computer Faire, and now CeBIT).

I only attended once. It was by _far_ the largest show I'd attended, bigger even than (by far) shows like CES or the Frankfurt Auto Messe. It was so big that the daily fliers of stuff vendors needed to know were distributed by _postmen /postwomen_. Yes every booth had its own postal address!

<comment><USER10> Don't forget about Comdex! I have never been to any of these trade shows but it was always cool to read about the new stuff that's coming out during Comdex/CeBIT on Anandtech.

End of an era indeed!

<comment><USER11> You can always experience them in video form. Computer Chronicles covered few Comdex shows [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evMilwVBHAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evMilwVBHAQ) Comdex Fall 1992

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5OmtYRRMOw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5OmtYRRMOw) Best of Comdex 1999

There is also 1983 one recorded by Dan Bricklin [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNS8TE4XhU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNS8TE4XhU) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrgwliaIYTQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrgwliaIYTQ) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnDRw8-caxU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnDRw8-caxU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Hannover Messe was typically more interesting, to me anyway, than the Cebit ("was" as in "I wasn't there in a few years" not "It doesn't exist"). In the Hannover Messe there was always all kinds of absolutely fascinating industrial machinery and robotics, and many of those booths had at least one actual engineer you could talk to.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have so many great memories of Cebit. My dad used to get tickets for me and friends from work and we would go every year as teenagers to see cool tech across the board (yes, of course we also checked out all the games related stuff).

I am glad that a decade later I had my own booth there with my startup at the time...it felt a major milestone!

Going to cebit was very formative and has lead to an amazing career in tech that I will be forever grateful for!

I worry that younger generations in the region will lack that sort of inspiration in the future.

I get it though, the world has changed. You can get better information on most type of products online and talk to experts too...no need to travel to Hannover once a year and be ripped off on booth fee's and local businesses (hotels, restaurants, bars, etc)

</comment><comment><USER14> I was there in 2009 and 2014 or so and I found it extremely boring. It was meant only for business people, not the general public.

<comment><USER15> Yes, they focussed on business later on. In the years before it was also very much a consumer show.

But since consumers started to buy their PC stuff online, at even better prices, the consumer part died little by little.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> ATi had some Star Trek:TNG LCARS panels installed in 2000 and Klingons in Worf uniforms walk around IIRC. And there was Lara Croft throwing 3dfx t-shirts one of which my dad caught. Those were the days...

</comment><comment><USER17> I was there several times and it was just not interesting, like at all. Even from a business perspective there was nothing to do. When they changed some things to make it more attractive in 2018 they simply made it even worse.

Not surprised that they are shutting it down.

</comment><comment><USER18> I was there as kid with my dads electronics firm. It was the coolest thing ever.

</comment><comment><USER19> I went there some time in the 90's, I think 1994. My friend and classmate was the son of our local Apple dealer, who got some free tickets. My friend and I skipped school and went there with his dad. While the dad was busy with grown- up stuff, we played Mac games like Spaceship Warlock and F/A-18 Hornet. Afterwards, we got into real trouble with our chemistry teacher for this. Good times.

However, by and large the show did seem kind of boring even then, so I never went again.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was there prob around 2009 - 2010.

A lot of halls, but the only thing that I found interesting was a hall dedicated to gaming. With gaming machines, and some tournament-style thing going on.

Occasionally walking around there there was some cool tech, but it's not something I ever went since that day. Not worth the travel.

[I went as student at the time. But I can't imagine I'd find it more interesting now]

</comment><comment><USER21> Wonder if anyone of you who visited can compare it to Systems in Munich, preferably ~2000 - 2010?

I've never been to Cebit because I had the Systems right at my doorstep and it was awesome in the beginning and a bit meh in the end, so I stopped going.

</comment><comment><USER22> Was there in 2016 as an exhibitor (for free). It was a pretty average event and the target audience was pretty limited.

Even though the jobs/startups that I worked in heavily utilise trade shows, I can't wait for all this BS to go extinct. Go online, choose your SaaS/HW solution, done.

</comment><comment><USER23> CEBIT is too generic and consumer oriented.

Electronica Munich 2018 (electronic components, systems and applications, SEMICON) just ended and it was bigger than ever. There was attached events like eMEC (medical electronics conference) that made it worthwhile for many.

</comment><comment><USER24> Ends after 32 Years, good number.

</comment><comment><USER25> hotels and airbnbs in hanover are going to be sad

<comment><USER26> Yes, that's my memory of it in the 199x, you had to sleep with peoples renting a part of their apartments. That was weird to me at that time because it was the only show where that was needed. My only memory of CEBIT, bad hotels :-)

<comment><USER2> Renting out private homes is, or shall I say was still a big part of Cebit in Hanover in 2018. As a resident living in the core of the city you'd always get flyers in the months leading up to it asking you if you'd be interested in renting your home to Cebit visitors. There are some other fairs but none of them needed so much accommodations like Cebit. All Hotels (and we have a lot of them) were booked out months in advance. It was good money to be made even renting out some small <50m2 single room apartment could pay over 100€ per night. You'd just had to stay with some friends a few days and hope that your visitors wouldnt trash your home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Never been there, now never will.

It is that kind of event that was over-hyped.

On my city it was called the "startup-killer" because the costs to have a stand there were high (transport, rent, preparation, living costs) and bring zero return for the most.

</comment><comment> the-dude The internet is slowly killing all trade shows ( cars even ).

<comment><USER4> Is that actually true? I wouldn't know it from my travel schedule :-) I do think there tends to be more focus and certainly more small/casual events these days. There are still huge tech conferences, but they're mostly put on by a single vendor. It's the big relatively generic events that seem to have suffered the most.

<comment><USER28> I don't have numbers but i thought about it a few days ago as well.

E3 and stuff means: "Watching the trailer 'live'" and "waiting for hours for playing one game for 10 minutes. Not even sure why companies like Nintendo, Sony and co spend so much money on it.

That shit is expensive, the journalists don't use the public both and the 'normal people' which are able to consume it, are not that much in comparison to advertising.

<comment><USER4> A lot of the value of big shows is that they're an opportunity for lots of meetings with partners, analysts, press, customers, etc. They keynotes and breakouts can be good, but I'd rather watch them on video. There are times I've gone to big shows and watched the keynotes from a hang space, overflow room, or my hotel room. I'm usually ion too many meetings to have much time to go to sessions anyway.

Increasingly, though, I try to avoid the big events and spend my time at smaller ones where I find it easier to have informal conversations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I never went to Cebit but companies I worked for did attend trade shows in the UK. It was exhausting work, setting the stands up, manning them, evenings out and tearing it all down. It was always lucrative though, we would come away with piles of leads for sales people to follow up.

I do miss it, selling stuff over the internet has less friction but it's so impersonal and even dehumanising in many ways.

</comment><comment><USER30> My father went there sometime around 1990 on a business trip and brougt back a handheld grayscale scanner. The software ran in DOS.

My school nootebooks were packed with pictures printed on a dot-matrix printer.</comment>


B12 Bishkek: How we extended our team in Central Asia - <AUTHOR> https://blog.b12.io/b12-bishkek-how-we-built-a-home-in-central-asia-b482d85cf919 <comment><USER2> Have spent a small amount of time there...Kyrgyzstan is truly beautiful and the people are great!

No mention of the political risks though?

[https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/10/21/kyrgyzstan- holds-a...](https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/10/21/kyrgyzstan-holds-an- election-that-was-not-a-foregone- conclusion?zid=307&ah=5e80419d1bc9821ebe173f4f0f060a07)

Even factoring that risk in, getting great talent so cheap seems like a win.

<comment><USER3> > No mention of the political risks though?

Do they really need to be mentioned? For most people, i.e. those who aren't getting involved with the country's politics and won't be seen by the government/regime as a threat, it's not going to even remotely be an issue.

It's like saying that I, as a non-American citizen, should be concerned if I ever want to start a blogging startup based in New York.

<comment><USER4> >For most people, i.e. those who aren't getting involved with the country's politics

The moment 1/3 of your neighborhood in "downtown" area is heavily looted and internet is turned off completely(2005) or unidentified groups of people with AK shooting near your house(2010) is when _you are involved_ despite your desire.

dforrestwilson made a great point about instability risks.

PS speaking from personal experience. I no longer live there

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like this story. One thing I've noticed is that if you can find a great engineer from another country and they help you recruit good locals, that turns out to be the most effective kind of offshoring experience.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's quite of bit of interesting startup stuff going on in Bishkek, given it's size.

[https://maddevs.io/en](https://maddevs.io/en) is quite a cool development consultancy based there, which has been involved in development of namba taxi, an uber type app.

namba itself has a whole host of projects similar to the more well known startups in Europe, e.g. Namba taxi, Namba food, and a video streaming service.

ololo (which was referenced in the piece) is a lovely community of different startups, and art projects fostering an entrepreneurial spirit.

</comment><comment><USER7> What's it like to get a temporary work Visa for Kyrgyzstan for Canadians? Seems like a fun place to work/intern for a couple months.

<comment><USER4> Just noticed your question. It is fun place indeed! As a Canadian you don't need Visa for <60 days stay.

Feel free to ask if you have more questions

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is very cool. I wonder if Central Asia can work closely with the Indian startup scene - it is closer physically and culturally as well.

<comment><USER9> I live in Central Asia. No, culturally we are not close to Indians. We are close to Turks and Russians, but not Indians. For example we have no difficulties saying that something cannot be done or we do not know how to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kainar looks like Terry Tao (mathematician).

</comment><comment><USER11> Once did project working on tourniquettes for rapid transit in Astana for Beijing Second United Construction Group. Later, we somehow stumbled upon custom made drone tender for Kazakhstan's border guard (which later was found out to be just a cover for presidential guard regiment...)

My intention was to try to hire few juniors as assistants, and UI devs. Seemed trivial at first, but the moment applicants heard of us being a foreign company, they instantly switched the talk to paid relocation package, hiring immigration lawyer, and if we can bring them a Chinese passport on a golden platter... This was the case with like 4 out of 5 applicants.

My advise, keep quiet about you being an overseas company till the last moment.

<comment><USER12> So you wanted to take advantage by not informing them?

<comment><USER13> I think he is saying it's not a no brainer or cost effective setting up remote teams in these areas as some stories make it out to be.</comment></comment></comment>


MicroHoo: corporate penis envy? - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/05/microhoo-corporate-penis-envy.html

<comment><USER2> Having a "monopoly" on which IRC client is bundled with KDE and which search engine 80% of Internet users use is a _bit_ different... and the innovation stifled as a result is also _slightly_ more important when it comes to global Internet search.

</comment><comment><USER3> Arrington has a good response to this on TechCrunch. I think O'Reilly's out to lunch on this one.</comment>


LiveJournal creator leaves as Six Apart fails to spin - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/tech/brad-fitzpatrick/livejournal-creator-leaves-as-six-apart-fails-to-spin-286218.php

<comment><USER2> Brad has created so many incredible projects (MogileFS, Memcached, Perlbal, LiveJournal, OpenID) with many of them being OSS. He's a really bright guy with a good head on his shoulders. Whatever company he goes to will be a lucky one.

<comment><USER3> I've got several friends that were on the LJ dev/abuse/support teams (all volunteers; none were paid employees). Brad is a good hacker, but a _terrible_ manager. He makes all the mistakes that novice technical managers tend to make: not trusting underlings, micromanaging technical details, solving the most interesting technical problems himself, belittling workers, and getting defensive when he screws up.

Google or Facebook would do well to hire him in a technical capacity, but I can understand some of the "watch out Google employees; you don't want this guy as your manager" comments on the Valleywag article.

<comment><USER4> I never want to manage _employees_. I think that model is broken and perpetuates wage slavery. Similarly, I think the concept of "leadership" is primitive -- why is it a given that someone else is going to make our decisions _for_ us? Or, being a leader, why should I want to be "in charge of" other thinking, autonomous human beings?

So I'm not surprised when I hear yet another "bad manager" story. The organizational structure itself is the problem. Almost all innovation comes instead from individuals or small groups of co-equals; the startup model of equals _cooperating_ is the source of practically all progress.

When founders try to turn that into a big company, they choose a model for stagnation -- trying to preserve things as they are. (This is akin to the folly of the Elves in LOTR.) That is, they start out with some actual innovation, but then they try to hold onto a worldview in which it remains at the top, even as the world is changing around them. In trying to sell it as long as possible, even when it is no longer new or cutting-edge, they will fight to stop change, including _progress_ \-- competition -- by controlling markets or channels rather than continuing to innovate.

I am going to keep my startup small, human-wise, and automate instead of employ.

<comment><USER5> Except there has to be someone, or a small group, to make overall design decisions as the organization gets bigger. I doubt the iPhone would be recognizable if Apple were a design democracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Six Apart should have been what Facebook became. They screwed up.

Good for Brad, though.. he'll have lots of fun at Google!

<comment><USER4> Facebook strikes me as a force for evil. They want real names, real background info, real explanations of relationships, all of which they will data-mine ruthlessly to the extermination of your privacy. They even ask for your e-mail and IM passwords so they can mine all your contacts and information!

I don't trust them one little bit.

<comment><USER5> I prefer to think of it from the other angle. Humanity is evolving to the point where you can contact anyone. Old friends, super-intelligent people you've heard of, band singers, anyone. As long as the government stays out of the way, the next twenty years are going to be a ride.

<comment><USER7> I don't trust corporations more than I trust governments.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fighting forest crime in Guatemala - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/08/guatemala-fight-against-rosewood-trafficking/ <comment><USER2> I suggest using Drones. They've been used successfully in other low resource countries for fighting forest crime. A single drone can cover much more area than an officer on the ground. Native tribes are starting to use them in different places to protect their territory.

</comment><comment><USER3> Okay, can you vaccacinated the trees- make them useless to lumberjacks? As in give them a bad scent, taint them with a colour, so that they are visibly not worth anything to the market, without cutting them down?

<comment><USER4> Yes. You can drive ceramic spikes into random trees across a forest.

If you drive them at a low height, it will break chainsaws, and disrupt lumber operations. If you drive them at a higher height, it won't disrupt the harvesting, but will produce a truly spectacular surprise at the sawmill that processes the lumber. If done a few years before logging operations, it is almost undetectable.

Having a $10,000 sawblade ruined, and a work line being taken out of service until the blade can be replaced seriously sours lumberyards on the prospect of dealing with spiked wood.

Of course, the spikers will be called lunatics, eco-terrorists, communists, job-killers, worker-killers, and every possible effort will be taken by the authorities to hunt them down like dogs. Tree spiking is a felony in the United States, and, given the track record of how resource firms tend to deal with environmental/native/land rights activists in developing nations (quickly, and violently), is almost certainly a 'needs killin' offense' in much of Central and South America.

<comment><USER5> Why ceramic spikes - would regular iron nails not suffice?

<comment><USER4> Ceramic doesn't respond to a metal detector.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo Terminal Interface - <AUTHOR> https://duckduckgo.com/tty/ <comment><USER2> I thought maybe this would be an actual terminal client, as in a way to search DDG via the terminal.

<comment><USER3> [https://github.com/jarun/ddgr](https://github.com/jarun/ddgr)

<comment><USER4> Nice, though I suspect a bunch of the parameters can be submitted with the request.

I've got a bash function wrapper around w3m that fires off searches from the shell. It's not a dedicated DDG client, but then again, after you hit the search results, the goal is to view the results page. This _does_ use the "lite" page, which is console-browser friendly-er

        ddg ()
        {
            w3m https://duckduckgo.com/lite?q="$*&fd=-1"
        }

Full params list: [https://duckduckgo.com/params](https://duckduckgo.com/params)

Nothing for number of results on page, that I see, though I've just added the toggle for no redirect ("&fd=-1", included above now).

<comment><USER4> NB: that should be "&kd=-1", not "fd".

        ddg ()
            {
                w3m https://duckduckgo.com/lite?q="$*&kd=-1"
            }

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This could be an excellent way to convert those who enjoy the command line (including me). I get awfully sick of google's garbage, "We've detected automated traffic from your systems." I don't scrape stuff, but if I did, so what? This is worse on things like tor or if I can't use JS. Why can't I just type in a query and get back a result?

Now, please make this an actual CLI. I want to type `search "performant c hash table"` from my command line and get back results. I can open the resultant link in something like lynx, as all I need is probably textual. This is perfect for development use cases.

<comment><USER6> [https://github.com/jarun/ddgr](https://github.com/jarun/ddgr)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I liked DDG a lot .. but when I discovered that it is effectively an UI over Bing (Yahoo?), I am a lot less impressed.

Is there any search engine which is NOT backed by an extremely heavyweight player?

<comment><USER8> Seems people can't find your source, so I did some digging and found this:

"We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing."[0]

[0][https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help- pages/results/so...](https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help- pages/results/sources/)

<comment><USER9> But what percentage of it comes from which partner? They never say this.

<comment><USER10> And more importantly, what percentage does not come from _any_ partner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So I'm sure this is cool to programmers, but this feels like if DDG wants to go towards popular use it should be going in the opposite direction, yeah? I guess this probably wasn't much work (maybe even an internal hackathon project) but still feels like DDG isn't really headings towards popular adoption and I'm curious what their internal focus is.

<comment><USER12> It's one of the most popular sites on the internet already.

[https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/duckduckgo.com](https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/duckduckgo.com)

It's also built into browsers. So, whatever they're doing, it's working.

<comment><USER11> Come on, we all know that doesn't mean it's getting as wide use as a search engine as Google let's say. And popularity doesn't mean that it's not leaving things on the table. I'm just trying to give feedback as a potential user from a non-technical perspective, which I think most developers overlook.

<comment><USER12> You can't beat Google by trying to be Google without having Google level money, and even then, you still probably can't, Microsoft and Yahoo tried.

So, do something different. It's possible to grow by endearing yourself to geeks first. How'd Firefox catch on to begin with? Geeks, then they recommend to family and friends etc.

Hell, even if geeks were their only users, it'd likely be viable. There are a lot of us.

<comment><USER13> > Geeks, then they recommend to family and friends etc.

Or, in my case, parents ask their kids to set up their computers and they install firefox and add things like adblockers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can't seem to search for "kubernetes" or "kubernetes linux"; with or without quotes.

<comment><USER15> That's a feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Somehow the input on this doesn't register as an actual textbox. Many of my keystrokes are read by Vimium instead, making this unusable.

<comment><USER17> in vimium you can go i and you will be in insert mode ( till you hit escape ) and you will be fine.

<comment><USER16> TIL, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just earlier today I thought it would be very cool to use Google assistant in a terminal. It looks like there is an example python project that is close to working with some polishing.

Google assistant is also lacking a client for web browsers, or desktops in general...

It appears free to use the assistant API for non commerical purposes. Until it gets randomly deprecated.

</comment><comment><USER19> The search results are ddg pages suggesting search terms based on the input?

Why can't I just search normally and the list is a list of the actual results of my query.

Now you navigate to the ddg search results page and have to then browse as usual. Almost useless. You'd think this would be made to skip that step.

</comment><comment><USER20> Fedback (see #1) from my use on Firefox 70 on Mac OS Catalina

1\. Feedback isn't being sent anywhere (looking at the network requests.)

2\. Searching for sum or difference of numbers (eg. 2-1) returns [Object].

3\. Typing / or ' invokes the browser's quick find option

4\. I can never search for the letter M (or m, or 'm' inside quotes) because it always gives "\-- End of search results." instead of the search results.

5\. I can never search for a URL (say, [http://duckduckgo.com](http://duckduckgo.com)) as a keyword. No results at all.

6\. Pressing CTRL-L after typing some text clears the text as well (unlike any other terminal)

7\. Pronounce doesn't work at all (audio plays well on Forvo)

Discoveries:

1\. Searching for \anything takes you to the first result (on a popup that's blocked by the browser).

2\. [Added] A `duck` CLI would be useful.

<comment><USER21> Re: 6. I found that annoying as well. I use CTRL+L to jump to the address bar, not clear the terminal. MacOS uses CTRL+K to clear it and I'd assume that be the case on linux as well.

<comment><USER22> Hmm? ctrl-L clears the terminal in iTerm (and in linux terminals too I believe)

Ok looks like CMD-L and CMD-K also clear the terminal in iTerm. But we're talking about "ctrl" here

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Various comments are noting that certain queries are not working.

I think this is hitting a caching/prefetch layer and not actually querying the main index.

My theory:

\- this was a hackathon/weekend/20%(ish) project...

\- ...using JSON for simplicity...

\- ...said JSON endpoint needs to be exposed in a straightforward way...

\- ...without implementing authentication/obfuscation (which would have blown the allotted time budget)...

\- ...and so the decision was made to "break" the results in some way instead, so that once you realize [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&o=json](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&o=json) is EXTREMELY easy to parse, it's of no value.

<comment><USER24> > :why

> Because Devdas uses vimperator with Google?? I don't think they mix well. > Devdas, you should try this instead.

I'm not sure this was ever intended to be more than just a quick project. It breaks because parsing has a lot of edge cases, and this was done quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It can be a little bit better if the url's are dimmed a little bit (they can be still green to mimic the mono-color terminals, but dimmer).

</comment><comment><USER26> 1+1 returns [Object object]

[https://imgur.com/les9QqQ](https://imgur.com/les9QqQ)

</comment><comment><USER27> Doesn't work in FF with "Search for text when you start typing". I expected better implementation.

JS hijacks pretty much every event, and cursor is just a styled span, not a real input, which introduces a bunch of usability bugs.

</comment><comment><USER28> Weirdly this doesn't seem to work using their own Android DDG Privacy Browser app

</comment><comment><USER29> Nice.

Could I use this on my Terminal now?

<comment><USER4> Not unless your terminal interprets Javascript.

Though you might appreciate [https://duckduckgo.com/lite](https://duckduckgo.com/lite)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The default keypress for / isn't captured and makes it difficult to type in an URL to search for (not that the URL search returned anything).

</comment><comment><USER31> It sucks so much! I tried typing but apparently was typing too fast and more than half of the letters didn't appear on the screen?

<comment><USER17> do you have vimium installed? I had similar symptoms till I realized, then realized what was going on. If this is the case, press i to go into insert mode, and you should be good from there

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is a lot of fun. Right now I'm hitting a few issues with the Vimium plugin in Firefox.

Pretty sure that can be fix though.

</comment><comment><USER33> For some reason it doesn't work for me (nothing happens after typing a search term).

<comment><USER34> Same here, was pretty excited to try it out too! Help and the likes work, but not just searching.

<comment><USER35> Wait, help? When I type help I gest a list of search results for help. Did you actually get help text?

<comment><USER33> It's :help

<comment><USER35> Ah.

Thanks for the er, help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> it doesn't work. today i was asking ddg why sys.maxint is no longer works in python3. got immediate answer. but this terminal app just keep silent about that.

</comment><comment><USER37> relatedish: [https://gitlab.com/surfraw/Surfraw](https://gitlab.com/surfraw/Surfraw)

<comment><USER4> Trivium: written by some guy named Julian Assange.

<comment><USER37> I think they are trying to kill him in Belmarsh. [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mumbling-assange-tells- judge-...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mumbling-assange-tells- judge-t-121202397.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> DDG coincidentally makes almost every post to the frontpage as if it was a trillion dollar company meanwhile almost all interesting SHOW HN threads upon which the entire future of livelihood of many indie devs and micro startups depend are buried without even getting the slightest chance to get any coverage.</comment>


Show HN: Markdown 2 HTML converter - <AUTHOR> https://nemo.stdlib.com/md2html/ <comment><USER2> I should say that I like stdlib idea, but I don't actually understand what does the service does and what it offers (I've tried many times).</comment>


Redis on Windows prototype - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/MSOpenTech/Redis

<comment><USER2> I'd be much more impressed if they just spent some time on their POSIX layer (which exists and is close to tolerable), so that arbitrary projects would compile. Why massively hack one project when you can make multiple work?

<comment><USER3> For a fairly large number of reasons, actually. Lets say you wanted to start the work now. The POSIX layer is probably owned by the OS division. They're pretty busy finishing up Windows 8. New versions of this layer would almost certainly require a new version of Windows, and as it would be too late to get into Windows 8, the earliest it would ship would be in the following release of Windows. Additionally, the OS team probably doesn't have much of an incentive to improve the POSIX layer, whereas whichever organization is funding this project is likely to have goals which align much more closely with the work being done.

People sometimes seem to think that Steve Ballmer is Steve Jobs: micromanaging these kinds of decisions from the top. Instead, they're often made fairly far down in the org chart

<comment><USER2> You're completely right.

I also feel bad. I accidentally did one of the things I hate, off-topic comment on actually cool project, and would delete my post now if I could.

I commend everyone who worked on this for pulling it off - it can't have been easy. And if it allows them to offer redis on Azure, that's awesome, as long as it keeps current with redis proper.

It doesn't matter at all for consumers really, but in the server space I think the inability to run great open source applications is a bigger issue than even licensing cost. I hope, likely in vain, that they'll address this at some point in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The comments here seem brutally negative, but I applaud Microsoft for yet another step in what seems to me to be a firm-wide aggressive embrace of open source tech. The Microsoft of yore would not have built this at all, let alone released this on Github.

<comment><USER5> _> The comments here seem brutally negative,(...) firm-wide aggressive embrace of open source tech._

Some of us still remember how Microsoft used to Extend and Extinguish right after Embracing. Protocols, formats, standards; you name it, they did it. It is true the company seems changing to better, but you can't re-build damaged reputation overnight.

For example, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3900348>

_> The comments here seem brutally negative (...)_

Those aren't _that_ brutal yet. Read up some discussion on software patents. Or on PHP ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is inline with their work to get hadoop, Linux etc. They are not adding any new featues. They are simply porting to their proprietary operating system.

<comment><USER7> Supporting a major new operating system is not a new feature for any software?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> see also [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2012/04/26/...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2012/04/26/here- s-to-the-first-release-from-ms-open-tech-redis-on-windows.aspx) for more details and reference to dmajkic project. The main difference here seems to be they managed to do the asynchronous persistence without a fork. They also mention in the comments that they are planning to release it for Azure.

</comment><comment><USER8> Previous HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3333298>

</comment><comment><USER9> I was using this, <https://github.com/dmajkic/redis>, previously.

</comment><comment><USER10> can someone post a pointer to the diffs?

<comment><USER11> Here's something to get started:

[https://github.com/MSOpenTech/redis/compare/antirez:2.4.11.....](https://github.com/MSOpenTech/redis/compare/antirez:2.4.11...MSOpenTech:2.4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> @antirez said: sorry, NO THANKS!!

<comment><USER13> No I did not ;) What I think is:

1) It's cool to see Redis ported on win32, especially now that they are trying to provide an implementation that can persist asynchronously and so forth.

2) Not interested in backporting changes into the main Redis codebase at the moment, because there are little reasons to deploy on WIN32 IMHO, and the changes to the code base are massive.

So it's interesting, it's listed in the "download" page of hte official site as an external project, but there are no solid reasons to make the official code base more complex.

<comment><USER14> _because there are little reasons to deploy on WIN32 IMHO_

There are plenty of reasons to deploy on Windows, and it has lost Redis a lot of momentum and wins that it doesn't support it.

<comment><USER15> We've had this discussion a while ago. The outcome is that it's antirez's call. There's plenty of us who'd like him to take out a few months to drop new features and do windows portability instead, but it's his call. If antirez would always take the easy way after some user space resistance, he'd be a mysql contributor.

<comment><USER14> _The outcome is that it's antirez's call._

Absolutely true. He owes me or anyone else nothing. I am not saying that he should do it, I'm just replying to the specific statement about deploying on Windows. There are plenty of reasons someone might prefer to deploy on Windows, which explains why almost all successful technologies have first- class windows options (Mongodb, PHP, Ruby, Apache, MySQL, postresql, Membase, and on and on and on).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Next week from the Cool Stuff ported to Lame Platforms department: Node.js on OS/2</comment>


Can San Francisco Be Fixed? - <AUTHOR> https://sf.curbed.com/2020/1/3/21030045/san-francisco-sf-fixed-problems-ideas-solutions-help <comment><USER2> Maybe.</comment>


YC Advice: Travel - <AUTHOR>

Discuss your personal stories of how travel has influenced you. <comment><USER2> You don't have to travel and just look around, shouting 'Hey! I'm traveling!"... though, that's an incredibly fun thing to do, and you meet a lot of smart, amazing, and ambitious people in a very short time by doing it.

You can work abroad, easy- I'm currently working on a startup in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I'm from San Francisco. The LLC is based in Delaware via LegalZoom, our mailing address is an EarthClassMail Account, our phone number is GrandCentral forwarding to Skype.

We work from cafes around Buenos Aires, usually camping out in one place the entire day- much cheaper than renting an office, and the food is great to boot.

And, speaking of cheap, let's talk about rent real quick- for an apartment all to myself with an amazing view, internet, utilities, and a weekly maid cleanup included, it's $500 in a great location. At the grocery store it's eight pesos for two big steaks, or, about $1.25 a pop.

The subway and bus are both one peso (1 USD = 3.15 Argentinean Pesos) and I can get anywhere in the city within a half hour or so. I meet lots of very cool, interesting, well-travelled backpackers and expats all the time, and have made plenty of friends with people who are living here for the next six months to a year.

Right now the weather is perfect, sunny during the day, rain at night to cool things off (as Eluvium plays on my MacBook, fading out slowly) as I go to sleep. In another couple of months it'll be winter, weather will still be decent, and I'll be a first class suite bus ride away from a weekend skiing.

I could go on, but, really, travel isn't just a way to relax, it's also a great way to work. Your costs are cut and you don't have to sacrifice as much of your lifestyle as you would in the States.

<comment><USER3> I'm currently living in Buenos Aires as well and completely agree that city has a great vibe, not to mention how far you can stretch the dollar. Although I don't have experience working here (I'm here learning Spanish), I can say that travel has taught me more about the world and opened me up to more social interaction. And learning a new language isn't too shabby either.

btw, Colin - if you're interested in grabbing a coffee sometime, shoot me an email. My address is in my profile.

<comment><USER2> You've got mail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> In many threads people suggest traveling. Lacking motivation? Travel. Depressed after a startup failure? Travel.

I always agreed and have been positively impacted by traveling throughout my life. I just returned from a trip to Asia that reenforced this.

As always happens, I reached a point where things were starting to go poorly. My motivation was lacking, I was developing tunnel vision and overall was just not that excited. A short trip of a week and I am revitalized. I have an abundance of energy, motivation, and the whole flight back I was writing outlining my plans for the next few months.

So go travel. Now. Get it out of your mind that you don't have time, the break will pay dividends. You can't afford not to.</comment>


SF Open Data Mashup: Your Favorite Restaurants Are Filthy - <AUTHOR> http://reasonengine.wordpress.com Combining Department of Public Health open data records with Yelp restaurant review scores paints a revealing picture of dining our in San Francisco. <comment><USER2> The part where the author picks out a subset of "unforgivable" violations is arbitrary and unsupported. It's like "what sounds the grossest" with a bunch of Data Science Analysis layered on top.. Because boy do we nerds love our charts-n-graphs. But the assumptions are faulty.

Improper storage and refrigeration (not on the "unforgivable" list) are undoubtably some of the biggest causes of food borne illness.

<comment><USER2> I just want to take the opportunity to comment further on the hygiene thing, because it's relevant to public health in a very unexpected way.

The author has such a fixation on hygiene that they arbitrarily elevate it to a special category, above proper refrigeration and storage, beyond all reason and logic. What reason and logic, you may ask? Hygiene's mainly an issue if a food handler is _sick_ or come into contact with a sick person. Whereas improperly stored food will get you ill a very high percentage of the time regardless of the health of the staff. Just do a quick calculation of the odds in your head of which is a more critical issue.

But it's super gross, right, and most people can't help but put it at the top of their mental list of "grossness", even above unrefrigerated meat and eggs (that have been previously refrigerated), which are far more likely to make you sick.

So how does an irrational fixation with hygiene affect public health? There was a study done that compared poor Russian kids with rich Finnish kids living across the border from one another. It found higher rates of auto-immune diseases, allergies and diabetes in the Finnish kids. Similar genetic profiles and all that.

Long story short, the theory is the rich Finnish parents were more obsessed with hygiene and keeping their kids clean, and it actually hurt the development of a normal immune system.

Interesting, right? Moral of the story: mere quantity of data is insufficient to draw correct conclusions. One must also adhere to a rigorous scientific methodology that controls for biases.

Source: [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The- Unintended-...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Unintended- and-Deadly-Consequences-of-Living-in-the-Industrialized-World-199164051.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _" Data science is powerful because it maximizes leverage in the presence of finite resources."_

Regular old "science" does that too.

<comment><USER4> Hush. Their ego is trying to feel important.

[Old Adjective] [Old Noun] = New Thing We Can Be Experts At Before Everybody Else!

"DJ'ing is powerful because it maximizes sound combinations in the presence of finite source material."

<comment><USER5> "Disc" and "data" aren't adjectives.

<comment><USER6> nouns are commonly used as adjectives

[http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns- adjective.htm](http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns-adjective.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" Employee discharge from eyes, nose, or mouth"_

With the US's health insurance system and management habits? Makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is great, thanks. How replicable is your process for other cities that have open data?

Code for America recently worked with Yelp and several cities to standardize restaurant inspection data so that services like Yelp (and perhaps you) can display it nationwide.

[http://www.yelp.com/healthscores](http://www.yelp.com/healthscores)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a little disappointing that the author didn't go into more detail on arguably the most interesting part: the modeling that they explored. It would be really cool to query Yelp's api to gather more data to factor into the model for each restaurant. Unfortunately, Yelp's api always seemed severely limited to me, it's a trove of rich data that they've kept locked down. Their api only allows you to gather 3 reviews on each business [1] and there's no way to query for data about a user.

[1]: [http://www.yelp.com/developers/documentation/v2/business](http://www.yelp.com/developers/documentation/v2/business)

</comment><comment><USER10> I've noticed this trend before, and I don't even have a hypothesis to explain it. To _me_ , clouds of flies inside the restaurant are off-putting. Yet apparently most people either don't notice, or don't care...?

<comment><USER11> If the food wasn't great, then somewhere so gross wouldn't stay in business very long.

All of my favourite places to eat or drink are hardly cleanrooms. If I were elderly or had a weakened immune system, that would probably concern me more than it does currently.

<comment><USER10> I don't fear for my health per se, but the disgust curbs the enjoyment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recently spent four days in hospital on IV fluids after a bad restaurant meal. Here's what I learned.

1) Most restaurants are primarily in business to make money, not to provide high-quality healthy food.

2) Much of the food served in restaurants is not made there. There may be a chain of 3-4 intermediary suppliers between the raw ingredients and what you are served.

3) Most restaurateurs don't know what is in the food; not because they don't care but because it is impossible to monitor the supply chain.

Having nearly died as a result, I will never again trust my food to someone whose primary motivation is financial gain. Now, if I eat it, I made it.

<comment><USER13> This "primary motivation is financial gain" describes capitalism in general does it not. So you could extend your distrust to all those business that produce the raw ingredients too. You probably do not grow or raise all the food you consume.

Also there may be financial gain in rarely making your customers ill so that does not automatically make food businesses untrustworthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The extent I will frequent a Mexican restaurant is generally inversely proportional to how clean it is (or at least appears).

</comment><comment><USER15> Doesn't surprise me, either the problems or which restaurants are the worst. Immigrant entrepreneurs from countries where hygiene standards are far below what we are accustomed to in the west just don't "see" these things, or if they do, don't consider them to be problems.

</comment><comment><USER16> What about the deliberate mishandling and, or, adulteration of food by disgruntled employees?

Anyone who's seen the move "Waiting" knows what I'm talking about.

 _What happens in the kitchen ends up on the plate_

</comment><comment><USER17> I went a really mediocre, boring restaurant yesterday that had a score of 98. Didn't change my mind on it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Seems like, that many times, money involved in a business is directly proportional to filth. Odd.

</comment><comment><USER19> Leopold's? Damn would not have guessed</comment>


Ask HN: What are some terminal tricks you wish you knew sooner? - aj-4 Here are mine:
1. create aliases for everything in ~/.bashrc to speed things up
2. window stacking / multi-tasking in iTerm with  cmd + (shift) + d
3. turn on vi(m) syntax highlighting by adding :syntax on to ~/.vimrc
4. use jq to format and colorize json files / streams with the pipe | operator (so useful!)
5. Generate a custom command prompt at http://bashrcgenerator.com/ (just for fun)
I really like this topic, so made a video going into more detail on mine, if anyone's interested
https://youtu.be/okGN2RXFw_U <comment><AUTHOR> Using the caret (^) character to correct mistakes.

Imagine you write something like this:

# moutn -o ro -o remount /dev/hda0 /

Arg! I should have written mount, not moutn!

Easy fix:

# ^moutn^mount

I find it better than editing the last line (with cursor). It even works at boot and without 'doskey-like' arrow history.

</comment><comment><USER2> byobu and tmux are god-tier

vim: use :!some_shell_command --with_arguments to run a shell command from within vim quickly

also :set hlsearch to allow search highlighting, and use :noh to disable the current highlight once you no longer need the text to be a different color

tmux: Prefix-[ to scroll up console text. use / to search down, and ? to search up (just like in vim)

tmux: Prefix-z to zoom current pane to full size of window

zsh: vi-mode plugin to quickly use vim shortcuts on terminal input text, history-substring-search plugin to quickly remember what finicky command I was using earlier

also shells in general: ctrl-s to pause text (eg if you want to pause log spam), ctrl-q to resume

ssh -XC for compressed x11 forwarding, to speed up x11 responsiveness

on remote server: python2 -m SimpleHTTPServer 8080 --bind localhost to quickly start a simple file/http server from the current directory that is NOT internet accessible (ie nobody steals your shit)

then on local computer: ssh -L 8080:localhost:8080 to tunnel to remote server's localhost server. then just type in localhost:8080 in firefox to access remote server's files

<comment><USER3> vim: use :%!cmd to pipe the current buffer into a command, and replace the buffer with the output from the cmd

vim: use :w !cmd to pipe the current buffer into a command but display the output from the cmd to screen and discard it afterwards

vim: use :r !cmd to read the output from the command and insert it into the current buffer

All of the :! and :r and :w commands that deal with a shell can also be passed the filename for the current buffer with %, eg:

":r !md5sum %" will execute md5sum with the filename of the current file (if it is unsaved, it will use the on-disk version, obviously) then pull the output checksum into the current buffer at the cursor position

<comment><USER3> Emacs equivalents are (by default) mapped to M-! and M-| with/without prefix arguments (so C-u / M-<num> etc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If your SSH session gets locked, you can kill the session without killing the terminal window by pressing Enter, ~, . (period)

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty sure these count:

ctrl+r (reverse search) on steroids: fzf ([https://github.com/junegunn/fzf](https://github.com/junegunn/fzf))

put a symlink to my dot files to a dropbox folder (always backed up .bash_profile or whatnot)

ssh tunnel to expose a port from a remote server on my computer: ssh -L 8500:localhost:8500 $remotehost

expose a port on my machine to the internet (demos and such): [https://ngrok.com/](https://ngrok.com/)

git bash prompt and git completion: know at a glance the branch I'm on and if there is un-staged/un-committed code. Allow tab complete for remotes and branch names. Lots of options here.

autojump ([https://github.com/wting/autojump](https://github.com/wting/autojump)): `j foo` will jump directories to my /whatever/foo directory. Better than popd and pushd.

And before I had it baked into my prompt: `echo $?` to show the exit code of my last command.

</comment><comment><USER6> ctrl+r for reverse searching of previous command

add a "# tags" at any commands end to use above for future.

so lets say you have a ssh into multiple servers

$ ssh -Uasfd host1 # server1

$ ssh -Uaiouhqe host2 # server2

then later, ctrl+r -> and type ver1

</comment><comment><USER7>
      $ mv file.text !#:1:r.txt
      evaluates to:
      $ mv file.text file.txt

      (colon separated)
      !# means this command
      1 is the position of the argument to be modified
      r means strip extension

There's tons of history modifiers and a lot to be learned reading `man bash`.

</comment><comment><USER8> 1\. for vim - [https://laymanclass.com/vim-essential-setup-to-boost-your- pr...](https://laymanclass.com/vim-essential-setup-to-boost-your- productivity/)

2\. autojump

3\. solarized theme

4\. zsh and antigen(particularly [https://github.com/desyncr/auto- ls](https://github.com/desyncr/auto-ls) and [https://github.com/psprint/zsh- navigation-tools](https://github.com/psprint/zsh-navigation-tools))

</comment><comment><USER9> sudo !! to run the previous command as sudo (so useful when you forgot to sudo a long command)

<comment><USER5> silly tip: alias fucking=sudo

      $ rm file
      > denied
      $ fucking rm file

<comment><USER10>
      $ rm file
      > denied
      $ fucking !!

Hmmm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Do you mean cmd shift t? The d exits the terminal, which is the opposite of what I assume you meant. T for Terminal, and D for Die.

Also in .vimrc I add: set noswapfile, set nobackup, and set nowb

These were probably useful when terminal sessions were conducted over flaky modem connections. I use Raspberry Pis a lot, so I'd rather not speed up the SSD card's inevitable failure.

<comment><USER12> So, your vi never crashes? Your ssh session never abruptly terminates?

I understand that you don't want to further shorten the lifespan of your raspberry pi MicroSD card life, but maybe you should just buy better cards with a longer life?

Or maybe don't work directly on the raspberry pi all the time, and only scp or rsync the files over there when you're done developing stuff?

Do you make /tmp unwritable by all processes, too? What about /var/tmp?

Any other standard safety measures you always turn off that you want to share with us?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> fd is a simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to find. Install from [https://github.com/sharkdp/fd/](https://github.com/sharkdp/fd/). Example: to find all files with .md extension in current directory : fd -e md

</comment><comment><USER14> Ctrl-z to suspend a program, jobs to view the list of suspended programs and fg to resume a program.

They are the terminal equivalent of iconising a window. You can do some form of multitasking without screen/tmux/byobu

</comment><comment><USER15> Search in bash history -- CRTL+R (many people also bind this to other keys)

</comment><comment><USER16> ctrl-r to history search commands

ctrl-a to go to begining of line, ctrl-e to go to end of line, ctrl-u to delete line

oh-my-zsh to display nice contextual info on git, navigate more easily etc.

If you have commands you use regularly (unit test, building, git, etc.), keep a tab for each and create a profile so that it goes directly in the folder you need, and can have a different color.

<comment><USER17> The CTRL-U was one I just recently learned and it has been surprisingly helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> use less for safe read-only mode and to utilize vim commands still

esc-b to jump back a word on the terminal

esc-f to jump forward a word on the terminal

nerdcommenter (my favorite vim plugin)

git-gutter (my 2nd favorite vim plugin)

!-2 (repeats 2nd to last command)

practice! [https://www.shortcutfoo.com/app/dojos/vim](https://www.shortcutfoo.com/app/dojos/vim)

</comment><comment><USER19> history

I didn't know that command even exists. You can just use it in pipe with grep/sed/... to look for specific commands used in servers you do not directly manage often (Eg last time I used them I was looking for all the docker commands in a server to understand how to startup the correct containers and in which order)

</comment><comment><USER20> Using vi for the terminal prompt and history:

set -o vi

<comment><USER14> You can set this for all the programs that use readline... can't remember what's the configuration file to edit though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> fc ("fix command") opens an editor with your last command and executes it when you leave the editor. fc -l lists your latest commands, fc -ln does so without line numbers. Useful if you want to write a script (fc -ln > myscript.sh).

</comment><comment><USER22> \- CMD + A to go to front of current line.

\- CMD + E to go to end of current line.

\- `sudo !!` to run last command with `sudo`

<comment><USER23> Slight generalization of the first two: many emacs keybindings work in bash.

<comment><USER14> Slight generalisation: many of the emacs keybindings work with commands whose command interpreter is built using the gnu readline library (bash is one of those).

Also, iirc the readine library cod also be switched to vin-like keybinding.

Also, a nice surprise thst i found in macOS is that come keybindings like C-a and C-e work in textboxes in macOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> pushd/popd - manipulate a stack of directory paths.

Useful to save the current directory, go somewhere else, do stuff and then come back to the original directory.

It works awesomely in bash scripts too!

</comment><comment> aj-4 hyperlink btw [https://youtu.be/okGN2RXFw_U](https://youtu.be/okGN2RXFw_U)

</comment><comment><USER24> fill the screen/DEC tube alignment sequence

        printf "\033#8"

</comment><comment><USER25> bash disown command, particularly useful if I forget to prepend nohup

</comment><comment><USER26> cd - to come back to your previous directory location

</comment><comment><USER27> ctrl+r to search previously entered commands.</comment>


Human Skulls Mounted on Stakes Found at 8,000-Year-Old Burial Site in Sweden - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/human-skulls-mounted-on-stakes-found-at-8-000-year-old-1822936885 <comment><USER2> Ancient people almost universally suffered from severe childhood trauma and abuse. A majority must have lived with deep psychological problems. They did all kinds of messed up stuff, including perpetuating the cycle of abuse all the way to today. Impaling a few skulls is (sadly) the least of it.

Children being born today are some of the first to have parents that even understand what child abuse is. Which means it's possible that there will be a drastic reduction over the next generations.

It's likely that this would result in a markedly different global society. Maybe even one that eliminates most forms of abuse and needless suffering.

<comment><USER3> Minoans sacrificed children in at least one of the palaces and practiced ritual cannibalism, according to recent finds. Romans destroyed the site of Carthage with great care, but you have to wonder what the myth of child sacrifices in the brazen bull really means.

<comment><USER4> _> you have to wonder what the myth of child sacrifices in the brazen bull really means._

The stories of sacrifice to Moloch are supported by archeological finds of child remains around Carthage.

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginian...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginians- sacrificed-own-children-study)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a lot of recent research showing hunter gatherers were not as passive as once thought. Quite a few discoveries of mass graves from attacks on rival tribes and things like this are new in our understanding of ancient peoples. This is a neat find.

<comment><USER6> No different than today.

<comment><USER7> I think it was a response to how often we have heard that peaceful hunter societies _were_ different from today

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can appreciate how European Mesolithic cultures dealt with the corrupt CEOs of their big banks.

<comment><USER9> You're sort of implying that "free riders" were less of a problem earlier in our history because aggressive coalitions of lower ranked members were able to force the hierarchy more in favour of egalitarianism. But that is hardly supported by the facts. Kings are an obvious counter-example. The caste system in India is another good example of a structure that were very robust (for many many many years) against any kind of aggressive revolution from below.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Displaying decapitated heads on wooden stakes is something you might expect > from the Middle Ages …

I dunno, _I_ tend to think of Amazonian headshrinking: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrunken_head](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrunken_head)

> Historical examples include European colonists mounting the skulls of > murdered indigenous peoples, or indigenous peoples using skulls in both > burial rituals and as trophy displays.

Ah, so Europeans mount the skulls of murder victims, while _indigenous peoples_ bury them, or keep them as trophies.

What a very interesting viewpoint on human history prevails amongst the editors at Gizmodo.

<comment><USER11> You can take the Gizmodo out of Gawker, but you can't take the Gawker out of Gizmodo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Probably just children's toys.

</comment><comment><USER13> Blog spam. Go here instead: [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/ke...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/keep- your-head-high-skulls-on-stakes-and-cranial-trauma-in-mesolithic- sweden/39BD3070DCC745A9CBAB1DF52FEC2782/core-reader)

It isn't a particularly long or difficult read.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think calling it blog spam is a little bit unfair. The Gizmodo article is about 1/4 the size of the paper, but nevertheless reads like the writer actually read the original paper and tried to fairly summarize it.

<comment><USER14> But what can summarize the Gizmodo article in 1/4th of its size?

Parasitism all the way down!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how do such news get to line one of this website? An algo or actual human moderation?

<comment><USER16> This is one explanation: [https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker- news-ranking...](https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking- algorithm-works-1d9b0cf2c08d)</comment></comment>


So, You Want to Write Your Own Language? (Walter Bright) - <AUTHOR> http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/so-you-want-to-write-your-own-language/240165488/

<comment><AUTHOR> These are good suggestions, Walter. Let me add a couple more.

Always think of your language as a compiled language even if you start out just writing an interpreter. Otherwise you are likely to add features that are very difficult to compile efficiently.

If you're trying to design a language for accessibility -- ease of use by relatively inexperienced programmers -- be aware of the tradeoffs. For example, weak typing, such as automatic conversions between strings and integers, is commonly thought to make life easier for novices, but it can make it much harder to build large reliable systems -- and if your language is successful, it will wind up being used for large systems, regardless of its suitability for that purpose. Conversions from strings and integers to booleans have been a particular problem area. Make sure that comparison operators are transitive and equality is an equivalence relation -- and if you don't know what those terms mean, you need to study programming language design before you attempt it yourself.

<comment><USER2> I mostly agree with this, but _" if your language is successful, it will wind up being used for large systems"_ assumes somewhat particular definitions of "success". The Logo language was successful in providing room for experimenting with programming at a time that was comparatively inaccessible. It was also successful in that it ran on quite a few machines and people paid money for implementations. I would be mildly surprised if it has ever been used for a large system, and tremendously surprised if this was prevalent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, fair enough, there are different kinds of success. But I don't know that Larry Wall or Rasmus Lerdorf would have predicted, in the early days of Perl and PHP respectively, that their languages would wind up being used for large systems -- and yet, they have been. This is the point I was trying to make.

<comment><USER2> Agreed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NSA: It Would Violate Your Privacy to Say if We Spied on You - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/ <comment><USER3> Regardless of whether spying on US citizens is good from the standpoint of security or civil liberties, it is a problem when two elected Senators don't know the extent of what they're voting on. This would turn the power of the government from elected officials to appointed ones. Imagine if the US Army wouldn't divulge the capabilities of a new fighter jet to the very people who were authorizing the money for its construction. The civilian-military hierarchy has long been recognized as a cornerstone of American government. I find it hard to accept an NSA (preceded by the DoD) that has the ability to say no to two Senators, and answers only to the President.

This makes me wonder if the Wired article got a little jumpy when it wrote "the National Security Agency won't tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up." Perhaps they've been told, but are not allowed to disclose the number publicly? Even if the latter is the case, it is disconcerting that elected officials cannot convey basic information about the laws they vote for to their constituents.

<comment><USER4> > _Imagine if the US Army wouldn't divulge the capabilities of a new fighter > jet to the very people who were authorizing the money for its construction._

No need to imagine. This happens. Covert areas of defense spending have always been conducted in the dark, often with blank checks.

The military, NSA, CIA, etc. are in the game of accumulating hidden capabilities. This is the job the American people have given them, and yes, it is a constant arbitrage at odds with, among other things, their own privacy and fiscal responsibilities.

A fascinating read on this topic, regardless of accuracy: [http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-The-History- CIA/dp/030738...](http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-The-History- CIA/dp/0307389006)

<comment><USER5> There is a difference in doing things overtly and covertly. If they are doing it covertly they will probably think it through a lot more carefully, since the stakes are higher. And if some things that were previously done covertly but are now done overtly, it doesn't sound so far fetched that other things that were earlier not done at all are now done in secret.

EDIT:speling

<comment><USER6> > _And if some things that [were] previously done covertly but [are] now done > overtly, it doesn't sound so far fetched that other things that were earlier > not done at all are now done in secret._

Citations?

<comment><USER5> I have only stated my beliefs, and have not claimed to have the facts. I base my belief on this idea <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The headline is misleading - it's worse. The question isn't "did person X get spied on?", it's "how many people in the U.S. have been spied on?"

The answer to that question cannot possibly violate the privacy of any individual.

>> What's more, McCullough argued, giving such a figure of how many Americans were spied on was "beyond the capacity" of the NSA's in-house watchdog...

So, either: 1) They are totally disorganized ("dang, it's not like we keep a database we could SELECT COUNT(*) from, you know...") or 2) there is no way to estimate because they're doing wholesale collection of all the phone calls, web traffic, etc that they can get their hands on.

Pretty sure it's #2.

<comment><USER8> I don't even see why "did person X get spied on?" would violate anyone's privacy anyway, especially if person X didn't know about the spying to begin with. They're not asking _why_ anyone got spied on.

<comment><USER9> Knowing that someone was the target of investigation/spying-on of one particular person would be very damaging to the credibility of a person. It doesn't matter if you don't tell the public _why_ , the mere fact of telling the public _that they were spied on_ is enough to damage someone's carrer & life.

It's debatable whether this falls under "privacy" or general "right not be slandered" etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The world is changing.

Facebook and Google are the new Halliburton and Lockheed of the age of behavior tracking and counterterrorism...

Both companies spend millions per year to provide elaborate back doors into their network for the NSA, FBI, and other government agencies.

Both firms are too important not to become members of the military industrial complex... Their behavior tracking technology is trusted, ubiquitous, and has far broader reach than government systems.

It starts with backdoors and warrants, then backdoors without warrants, then massive data mining and "preemptive" search of personal data, then installing government payloads on customer laptops, etc. etc.

I don't see how anyone can trust firms that go along with warrantless backdoor policies not to install government payloads on customer machines when asked.

First counterterrorism, then the IRS and immigration policies (better not mention your cleaning lady in a gmail message), then GPS data harvested and speeding tickets retroactively issued.

<comment><USER11> Could you provide some references please? I'd like reading up on the things you mentioned.

<comment><USER12> I remember reading somewhere about the "google aurora hack" that the hackers were able to access gmails built-in backroom and were monitoring email accounts. I cannot find the link right now but here are a couple for google and facebook.

Google: <http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/>

Facebook: <http://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/>

<comment><USER13> When I tried to find more about this once, I found out that all "sources" were basically Bruce Schneier opinion pieces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The answer is simple - everyone is being spied on. Not to tinfoil hat the issue but: <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/> EEEVVERYONE

If you want to really get a feel for the situation, read Crypto: [http://www.amazon.com/Crypto-Rebels-Government-Privacy- Digit...](http://www.amazon.com/Crypto-Rebels-Government-Privacy- Digital/dp/0140244328) It's a book about how cryptography was finally accepted and allowed in the U.S., and how the NSA handled the growth of everyday crypto (hint: not without a fight).

It's not about a government agency trying to control everything and turn the U.S. into 1984, it's about an agency getting swept up in their own mission of secrecy and surveillance, and sometimes (in my opinion) using it as an argumentative technique to advance their agenda. This is just another obvious example of that.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there anybody here that doesn't assume they're analyzing everything?

<comment><USER16> We know they do it. They know we know they do it. But they still cannot acknowledge it. It is just how things work.

When the Wikileaks leak happened, there was an article (or comment on HN) about how seemingly obvious things are still classified. Say that US govt. knows about the crimes some dictator is committing against his own people. The locals in that country know it (and experience it). The world, including US citizens know it or can very easily find out, yet the fact that US government knows is classified.

The reason is because an official acknowledgement would also demand some sort of official denouncement or some other similar action in order to maintain a certain propaganda-ready image (universal support for human rights, democracy & freedom promotions etc etc)

<comment><USER17> There are seemingly obvious things that are classified for valid reasons, too. Sometimes the motivation is not to shield the information itself or propaganda-driven feigned ignorance, rather what matters is protecting the classified source from which the information was obtained.

This still only applies to a small portion of classified material, much of which is simply subject to classification inflation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think we can safely assume the answer to "how many US citizens" is "all of them". The fact they're not even willing to give a suggestion of magnitude speaks volumes.

<comment><USER19> I think it's just an indication that they don't want to be fired or prosecuted for leaking sensitive information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This _really_ makes me want to launch a new "Government Information Awareness"[1] initiative. The tagline should be "Snoop unto them as they snoop unto us." Seriously, if these assholes are gonna spy on us, we should spy back.

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

<comment><USER21> This is probably not a great idea due to the difference in capabilities at work. For instance, they can get big corporations to cooperate and offer them indemnity, while you can't. Even more importantly, their ability to lock you up and smack you around with a pipe wrench when they catch you spying greatly exceeds your ability to do the same to them.

<comment><USER20> Doesn't matter, somebody still needs to do it. I mean, if you look back at the American Revolution, you'd have been nuts to bet on the revolutionaries, right? At some point it becomes simply a matter of principle and you accept the consequences, hoping it leads to a better day in the future.

I'm not eager to go out as a martyr, but with every passing day I'm closer and closer to saying "fuck it" and accepting that that may happen anyway.

But, then again, I've always been a bit of a radical and a hot-head.

<comment><USER21> The American leaders had an endgame planned. "Let's spy on them" is not an endgame. Unless it's part of a much more detailed plan, I don't think the comparison holds up. Spying on your own government is more akin to a couple of 18th-century Americans saying, "Hey, I know, let's go shoot a couple of British soldiers." Outside the context of a revolution, it's only good at getting you killed.

<comment><USER20> _Outside the context of a revolution,_

The point is, doing it, and the resulting fallout, may be part of what it takes to instigate a revolution. And, to be honest, I'm leaning more and more towards the idea that it's going to take a revolution to fix the problems with the American government... I still hold onto a little bit of faith in the democratic process, but it's fading.

<comment><USER22> _And, to be honest, I'm leaning more and more towards the idea that it's going to take a revolution to fix the problems with the American government..._

Likewise; though is a U.S. revolution even remotely possible in this day and age?

<comment><USER20> It's hard to say. And I have mixed feelings about saying "I hope so" or "I hope not." On the one hand, I think freedom is it's own end, and that we have sacrificed far too much and given our government _way_ too much power, and that it'll take a revolution to roll things back a bit. But, I sure hate the idea of a bloody armed revolution and all the death and suffering that would entail. _sigh_ I dunno man, I just don't know...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well, then, if that's the only sticking point, allow people to waive this "privacy" matter and thus indemnifying the gov't. Something like how patients can release their own HIPAA data, if they so choose.

[edit] of course provisions for being of sound mind (as with any contract) and being of age of majority (i.e. an adult capable of consenting)

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't really agree with the whole thing but it sort of makes sense and the headline is quite mis-leading. The violation of privacy supposedly would occur when they go do the research to figure out the answer to the question. The "saying" is irrelevant.

<comment><USER25> I completely agree. There are two important points here. First, they don't currently know the answer to the question, so they would have to figure it out, probably by examining a bunch of the conversations to identify who is and who is not a US Citizen. That examination would mean violating the privacy of US Citizens. (Collection does not equal examination.) Second, the wording in the article is a bit misleading. The article says that the NSA "won't" give this information to the Senators. Technically, that is true, but it would probably be more accurate (and less inflammatory) to say that they "can't" provide the information. Won't and Can't imply very different intentions. I'm not saying it is right/acceptable that this info is not known, just saying that the way the article is written is a bit misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wasn't that also the justification at one point for not releasing details about the interrogations of Gitmo detainees? That it would violate the prisoners' rights to privacy?

</comment><comment><USER27> Am I the only one that noticed the exact phrasing of the question: "how many persons inside the United States have been spied upon by the NSA?"

Last I checked, not everyone inside the US was a citizen. In fact, I would posit that the VAST majority of people NSA is listening in on, are non- citizens.

I am also curious why everyone is worried about NSA and not the FBI. NSA isn't interested in the US, they care about the rest of the world. This isn't anecdotal information.

<comment><USER28> The equal protection clause of the US constitution:

no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Also the due process clause:

[N]or shall any person . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law .

It does not differentiate between citizens and none-citizens.

<comment><USER29> The constitution also guarantees the right to bear arms to "the people" - <USER2> do you suggest we enforce that one across borders?

The US law only applies to the US. Same as in any other country.

<comment><USER30> Not entirely. It isn't clear that the US government can start killing Americans when they take weekend trips to Toronto without violating the Due Process clause.

<comment><USER29> Pretty sure killing people on a sovereign nation's soil might fall afoul of that nation's laws...

<comment><USER30> But all that would do would be cause an international incident and expose those who carry it out to threat of prosecution of not granted diplomatic immunity.

The question is whether US law prevents it. THere are some cases to suggest that the bill of rights still governs to at least some extent when a US citizen is acted against by the US government in a foreign county.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > The NSA, for instance, no longer requires probable cause to intercept a > person's phone calls, text messages or emails within the United States as > long as one party to the communications is "reasonably" believed to be > outside the United States.

Does that mean anything publicly viewable (like this comment) or anything which is broadcast to a large group (like, something that your Facebook friends can see - you can "reasonably" assume one of them is overseas) then it's fair game?

<comment><USER32> If you post something publicly then no one needs a warrant, not your local police, not the state, and certainly not the NSA.

This is about private communications which would normally require a warrant to intercept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Top Secret America is a good if somewhat depressing read on all of this: [http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-America-American- Security/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-America-American- Security/dp/0316182214/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340159699&sr=8-1&keywords=Top+secret+America)

With compartmentization and the short terms of congress people (2 years and then there could be a change, worse if the party in control switches) nobody knows what our top secret money is spent on. It's so bad that we ask the people we give the money to if what they are doing is worth while because nobody knows and nobody wants to be the guy that cut the budget of x y ad z and let the terrorists attack again.

Think on the order of a half trillion dollars that they can kind of account for (it's black, could be more, probably not tons less) that we have no idea what it actually does.

Funny thing, NSA might not know and probably doesn't have an easy way to find out. This is an artistic response in that it doesn't make them sound like idiots for not knowing. there is just a staggering amount of communication going on, even if tried really hard to follow the rules try would still screw up.

</comment><comment><USER34> Why would telling the American people how much you are using the powers given by the people threaten your protection of the people? If Obama said how many drone attacks have been carried out, that wouldnt help a terrorist evade Drones. The idea that informing America of the amount of wiretapping that goes on would threaten the NSA's operations is seriously wrong. Unless the NSA is counting lack of oversight as an operation. Which is wrong.

<comment><USER14> Well, if you know there's 2 drone strikes a year, you wouldn't worry about a drone strike as much. But if there's 100,000 a year, suddenly there's a whole different problem back home defending that.

But what makes this a stupid defense is they aren't asking to make the numbers public, it's about making some top level data available to congressmen, which I would think should be indefensible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's amazing how the realms of secrecy for the government grows unchecked while the rights of privacy for the citizen erodes daily.

But keep feeding that industrial war complex. Peace will certainly come from all that.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is the one of the root reasons why sousveillance is starting to capture public interest.

I'm personally irked at the lack of legislative oversight.

</comment><comment><USER37> They'll waste years just trying to eventually get the NSA to answer with: "lots."

There's some twisted comedy in trying to trip up or catch the NSA though. They already know what you're going to say, ask, or pursue.

<comment><USER38> After reading the article, I tend to think the answer is going to be "all of them."

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Hey, I actually can _kind_ of see where this premise is coming from. Not completely. But let's see how it kind of philosophically does make a tiny bit of sense. It does violate my privacy (even more) if someone tells me they've been spying on me.

To see this, consider: after someone spies on you, what's the least damage they can do to your privacy? Obviously the most is to publish everything they have on you for everyone. But what's the least?

The least damage is to completely forget it, never mention it, never think about it, and not even acknowledge or record it - let the world be exactly the same as if they had not spied on me.

I'm not saying this is better than ACTUALLY not ever spying on me, but it's the best thing for my privacy once they have.

Say you're a security person and do bag searches, a celebrity comes through and you actually see something very embarrassing in their bag, on some subject there's been public speculation on. (Their sexuality, whether they have some disease and you see meds for it, whatever). What's the best way to protect their privacy after you clear them (nothing dangerous in the bag)?

Obviously, by not even mentioning/acknowledging that you searched them, just by moving on.

If all my email (along with everyone else's) is being scanned to see if I'm concocting a terrorist plot, then the best you can do _after_ this fact is not even ackowledge this and in every way act and produce a world as though it never happened.

Note that this does not make the original invasion of privacy any better. It doesn't condone it. It may also make it harder to instate more appropriate privacy policies in the future. But the premise "If I answered you 'every single person on US territory who has sent an email or made or received a telephone call in the past 36 months' then it would violate your privacy" is not completely devoid of any merit. Should every single person's privacy have been violated? No. We have constitutional protections against that sort of thing.

If it has, would it violate their privacy further to go boasting about this fact? What if it means that anyone suing you for anything can use this knowledge to do discovery and request your communications from the government? In this and a myriad other scenarios, telling the extent to which you invaded people's privacy can be worse for their privacy than refusing to do so.

Not saying I'm convinced. I'm just saying there's a little something in this line of thought. Obviously the late Martin Luther King's privacy is far worse off now than if we never knew that the FBI kept detailed files on him...

</comment><comment><USER40> War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

<comment><USER41> Quoting _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ in Threads About Politics is Banal.</comment></comment>


Which advanced audio tech do singers use? - <AUTHOR> Has deep learning made its way into singing? <comment><USER2> Not yet. Modern vocals are still recorded and tuned manually using AutoTune and Melodyne.

The vocaloid scene (Hatsune Miku) was big for a while in Japan, but that's fairly simple phoneme synthesis, not ML.

I've heard some good AI demos of ML-based vocal synthesis, but nothing is available commercially yet.

Like speech synthesis, it's easy to end up in uncanny valley - which is acceptable for spoken synthesised speech in many applications, but isn't good enough for music.

<comment><USER3> I'd argue that Melodyne is pretty advanced. I mean, it can take a polyphonic (multi-voice) audio track and separate the notes so you can manipulate them almost like a MIDI track. That's pretty damned difficult for a computer to pull off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a musician, I noticed something interesting: musicians tend to be _extremely_ conservatives. Guitarists, for example: try telling them to use a solid state (transistor) amp, and wait for the instant explanation of why valves are absolutely better. Only very recently have "modelling" digital amps (axe-fx) begun taking place in professional productions, and those are quite simple (compared to ML) DSP processes.

<comment><USER5> One thing I've found to be a big step to using the modelling products is the user experience. Guitarists want to make music not fiddle with menus and software. A physical amp has all the options visible and they are simple. One knob per feature is much more intuitive and faster to learn and use than one that changes it's behaviour per patch etc. So what is described as conservative could just be a shortcoming of modern products' interface.</comment></comment>