Why OS X just doesn't cut it - <AUTHOR> http://cloudhead.io/2011/04/18/why-osx-doesnt-cut-it/

<comment><USER3> The title is missing "For Me" from the end. I moved from Linux to OS X because Linux couldn't cut it _for me_.

The closer is arrogant too:

"If every thing I said went over your head, and you think I'm crazy, it just means your time hasn't come yet."

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, why did you switch to OSX? I'm on OSX now, and I love much of it, but the author's points ring very true. I'm less and less sure every day why I stay on Mac as apposed to Arch, which I use on my servers.

<comment><USER5> I personally find X to really annoying due to it's architecture, no matter how pretty Gnome and KDE get. Just one example that happens all the time for me on linux.

1\. Taskbar yells that I have updates. 2\. I click the notification icon. 3\. Nothing happens. No hourglass. 4\. Wait. 5\. Click it again. 6\. No feedback. 7\. Two copies of synaptic pop up. One flips out because another copy is already open.

The analogous version of this never happens to me on Windows or OSX.

Sure it's not the end of the world, but when weird stuff like this happens more than once a day, it gets annoying. It's like having that toilet where you need to jiggle the handle.

<comment><USER6> Same here: X is annoying for reasons hard for me to articulate, and the analogous part of OS X is significantly less annoying.

If Canonical completes their plan to replace X with Wayland in Ubuntu, I will give Ubuntu another try.

ADDED. I ran Linux for 13 years.

<comment><USER7> None of the problems he listed are caused by X, they're caused by various decisions in GTK+, Gnome, and Synaptic. Moving to Wayland won't fix any of those things.

It will get you slightly faster compositing, though.

<comment><USER6> It might be _possible_ to fix these things without changing X, but I get the impression that it is _harder_ to write an app that does not annoy me in X than in OS X.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While I appreciate the sentiment this obviously comes from an author who has very little Unix experience in general. For instance he claims that Darwin is an odd duck and that "Things which build & run cleanly on other *nixes won't necessarily build & run that easily on Darwin."

Really? Ever tried to compile anything on HP/UX or IBM AIX? Darwin is a bed of roses compared to that. Even Solaris has its problems when compiling things. The author obviously thinks that Linux = Unix even though the heritage of Darwin / OS X is that of the BSD branch of the Unix family whilst Linux takes a lot of inspiration from the System V family.

I kind of agree with the article in general I just think it was so badly written and some of the claims so down right ignorant it masks a decent point.

Oh and as for managing daemons, launchd is a significant improvement over the standard Linux initd and cron scripts. At least launchd will restart crashed / stopped daemons when needed. Plus you don't even need to run the daemon at all times on OS X. It will be automatically started when an incomming request for it is made. To do that on Linux you need to move over to daemontools (which actually also works on OS X as well so that nullifies that advantage).

</comment><comment><USER9> His profound disgust for Terminal.app to me is a case of Princess and the Pea syndrome: I remember typing into actual glass terminals, so—without trying to sound too much like grandpa here—he sounds a bit spoiled to me.

I knew a lot of people like this guy. I'd be sitting at a SPARCstation in the computer lab running twm and there'd be some dude next to me that was never content with something that _just fucking worked_ and he was constantly trying to _optimize_ everything. As someone else already said, whenever I see people like this, I want to ask, "Better for _whom_? Better for _what_?"

And what of this? "I don't think I need to further argue this sub ject—we all agree open-source is good." _Hello?!_ You're talking to Mac users here, they may not agree to some statement that you find blindingly obvious, given that they're not using a $300 netbook based on Linux.

Yeah, all things considered, maybe I'd prefer to _program_ Unix on a FreeBSD box, but I do more than just program.

<comment><USER10> I've done programming on computers that didn't even have a proper backspace key, you had to literally hit CTRL+H, written hundreds of thousands of lines on a system with no windowing system whatsoever, and this guy is complaining because you can't "full screen" or use the mouse in Terminal.app?

If you want Linux, install Linux. Not hard. No reason to write an angry post about how OS X isn't X11.

<comment><USER11> So true. As the <http://usesthis.com> interviews have shown, people can be highly productive using highly divergent development setups.

Even serious coders in the neckbeard tradition, which seems to be what the OP aspires to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't take this seriously. The author complains that MacOS X's support for Valgrind is in its infancy. Well, how is DTrace support in Linux coming along?

One could write an essay like this that accentuated either platform. For example, I'd like a diff/merge GUI like Changes on my Ubuntu machine. What do I have at my disposal? Meld? I can't even navigate & merge individual changes with the keyboard. Darned thing actually makes me use the mouse. The _mouse_...on _linux_.

Yeah, I know: submit a patch.

</comment><comment><USER4> Those points are all reasons I get closer, every day, to switching to Arch. However, OSX still has a lot over the Linices. To name a few advantages:

Great applications/uses that require a Mac:

1\. Todo lists (Omnifocus or Things): I manage far too many things, and need to rapidly move through my data in a way org-mode doesn't allow. A GUI, a beautiful one, is key here.

2\. Interfacing with my iPhone.

3\. 1Password, Alfred, DaisyDisk, Delibar

4\. Honestly…I'm struggling to come up with a lot more. I really like my calendar application (BusyCal or iCal, depending on the year). Mail.app is nice, but I just haven't taken the plunge to command-line applications yet. I wonder which I'd prefer if I put in the time required.

What is holding others back?

<comment><USER13> What stops me from switching to Linux is that I value my time. On Linux I have to spend time on meta things. My video driver stopped working, how do I get flash to work, why isn't it finding my memory card, how do I get sleep to work right, why doesn't copy and paste work between these two apes, why did the dropbox menu item disappear when I updated my distro, etc, etc, etc.

<comment><USER14> Stops being valid when you buy a Linux computer instead of installing Linux on hardware designed for Windows. They (System76, ZaReason, etc.) vet the upgrades, the drivers and it should "just work". If it doesn't you know who to blame.

<comment><USER13> can you link to some examples that you'd recommend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I generally prefer to use Linux on a desktop myself but honestly I really haven't had any issues using macvim and the default terminal on my MBP and doubt i'll ever buy a non-apple laptop ever again. For laptops having a *nix interface on reliable hardware that works, the MBP just makes sense.

I actually refused to try it for a long time and stuck up for linux but after yet another hardware issue and a laptop lasting for a year I decided to open up my mind and try osx out. I don't consider myself a fanboy in any sense but I have found osx to be a suitable workstation running on laptop hardware for both working as a sysadmin and doing web application development. I do use homebrew.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am always puzzled when I read articles like this and people say *nix when its clear they means "linux". I remember working on Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX or AIX and it was always full of little annoying variations.

The dominance of Linux and package management made everything so much easier, articles like this just make me appreciate it more.

</comment><comment><USER17> Meh. I stopped using Linux a few years ago because KDE 4.1 was ugly and slow, and there was only one viable WebKit browser (Chrome) while Firefox was laggy, and pretty much everything X was laggy and so was apt, which took forever to read its package list...

More recently I tried xmonad on my college's Linux desktops, enticed by the idea that it might solve my window management woes and that it was a "killer feature" of Linux, but I couldn't stand not having control over window placement-- it was too hard to just temporarily maximize a window. Maybe I needed more practice, but it didn't help that I couldn't figure out how to get dzen2 to not go off the screen in the desktops' dual monitor configuration, so I didn't have a working clock on my desktop.

I could switch to Linux on my laptop, but I love OS X's trackpad gestures, and as far as I can tell the only Linux support for them is by some proprietary "Gesture Suite" crap that only supports Synaptics trackpads.

Yeah, Terminal.app doesn't support a mouse (although it is extremely fast and responsive, like everything), and MacPorts takes time to compile things, and I had to manually patch gccgo to compile on OS X. And I _love_ open source and hate to be running code I can't read. But all in all, it's hard to conclude that Linux is worth the pain.

<comment><USER12> _Yeah, Terminal.app doesn't support a mouse_

FWIW, iTerm2 supports "mouse reporting", allowing you to position the cursor in vim or emacs (for example) with a click:

<http://www.iterm2.com/#/section/home>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I had pretty much the same experience as the author. After several years developing on OSX, the development tools, package management and simpler desktop experience of Linux just were more appealing.

It also isn't a disadvantage that now my desktop setup is a lot closer to what we also run on the servers, down to exactly same packages and dependencies.

And it has to be said I love the regular upgrade cycles of major projects like GNOME and Ubuntu. Every six months I get a new version with many incremental updates. No need to speculate what Apple will put in or leave out from the next big cat

</comment><comment><USER19> I never understood: why do people hate macports so much? Ok, it kind of duplicates half of the libraries in the system, but it has worked fine for me for many years, and it's usually reasonably up to date and quite large.

<comment><USER20> For me, the constant re-downloading of dependencies was a pain in the ass. I got MacPorts in order to get the apps OSX _should_ have come with, like wget and curl. In the process, it fragged Python to high hell by installing just about every version out there (often several for each package), which broke the bangpath in all my scripts. I'm aware it's probably a pretty easy fix, but a program whose use breaks other programs is a fundamentally broken and Bad one.

I still use MacPorts on occasion if I really need a package, but my dreams of using it to make the OSX terminal as functional as that of Linux is long dead.

<comment><USER21> OS X does come with curl, doesn't it?

<comment><USER22> And wget as well.

<comment><USER20> Not so much: [http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=wget+osx)

<comment><USER22> Doh, forgot that I compiled it into my home directory. My bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Unless you're developing an app that _targets_ OS X, I don't understand why not just develop in a Linux VM. As a bonus, you get all the benefits of a VM - easy snapshots, can run multiple at once, crashing the server doesn't bring down your IDE, etc.

<comment><USER9> How often does your OS X box as you're programming it?

/me runs `uptime`...

17:32 up 27 days, 2:13, 11 users, load averages: 0.11 0.15 0.24

<comment><USER23> How often have I crashed a whole system while testing software on it? Not very often, but it really sucks when it happens.

But it's quite common that I want to see how some server code runs on the exact same kernel as will be used in production. This is a pain if that kernel is also running your IDE.

<comment><USER24> The corollary to this is corrupting your VM on a crash. For whatever inane reason, my Mac reboots itself every few days. I grew tired of corrupting my VM and having to rollback to a snapshot, losing whatever I had in there since the last snapshot. So, I gave up on that and just develop on the Mac natively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Useful list of tiling window managers for OSX:

[http://superuser.com/questions/162849/tiling-window- manager-...](http://superuser.com/questions/162849/tiling-window-manager-for- mac-os-x)

I use Divvy, personally, but I'm not super-hardcore about tiling all the time.

</comment><comment><USER26> OS X became so popular as the unix hacker laptop over the last few years, because it "just worked". That and "normal" apps from MS and Adobe run on it.

Imagine it's 2003-2006 or so - sending your linux laptop to sleep/hibernate was like russian roulette - will it start up again? Won't it? Kernel panic? ACPI improved things, but often still has hardware specific issues.

Nice hardware and good design helped as well.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you really want Linux with all the bells and whistles when developing, but also enjoy using a computer for other things like Music and web browsing, boot up a Fusion image and you're off.

<comment><USER28> What's not functional about Linux for music and web browsing? There are certainly areas where it's not quite there for some things, but I wouldn't say those two had ever been pain points for me..

<comment><USER29> I love Linux's elegance and power for development, but can't use it as a "regular computer" for three reasons:

1) The GUI is terrifyingly ugly, in every single distro I've seen. Ubuntu is trying, but they're still way behind. If I only ever needed command line interface on my computer, I would've fully switched to Linux yesterday.

2) It doesn't have Netflix, Vudu or anything else with Silverlight. This is not a "don't have it yet" type of deal - Linux doesn't have it and won't have it in foreseeable future because of philosophical differences (because it's using proprietary Microsoft code)

3) Most things don't work out of the box, and need some tinkering with. This is not such a big deal, since I love to tinker and after tinkering, they usually work much better than anywhere else. But for many non-development things, I love when programs I install on my machine _just work_. For that, OS X is light years ahead of everything else, and Linux is dead last.

<comment><USER30> > Most things don't work out of the box, and need some tinkering with. This is > not such a big deal, since I love to tinker and after tinkering, they > usually work much better than anywhere else. But for many non-development > things, I love when programs I install on my machine just work. For that, OS > X is light years ahead of everything else, and Linux is dead last.

It depends on the hardware. If you pay attention up-front, it's very easy to end up with zero-hassle just-works-for-everything. Anecdotally, I've been using Thinkpads with Intel graphics drivers as my last three laptops, and the last time I had to manually edit a config file for hardware was back in early '07. With OS X, on the other hand, I can't use my phone to tether without navigating a bewildering driver labyrinth.

Anyway, this stereotype is played out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Although it was a bit arrogant at times, I find myself at a similar place as he seemingly was before he switched right now. I'm doing all my development on MacVim and iTerm2, which is way more smooth for me than the TextMate / Terminal.app combo I came from. I am however increasingly annoyed, like the op, by having to use my mouse at all while developing. Divvy is making window management manageable, but it's still not quite the way I want it. The package-manager-situation is just the top of the iceberg for me. I think maybe my time may have come, so to speak.

I still love Apple hardware though, which leads me to my question; what is the best distribution in terms of support of Apple hardware? Especially MacBook Pro 5,5 which is my day to day development machine for the time being.

<comment><USER32> Out of curiosity, how does iTerm2 help you more effectively use the command- line? I've seen many people say it's better.. but the features listed on the site just don't seem to be things I need (or things more appropriately done elsewhere, e.g. my zsh does completion).

The author cites mouse events, but this is something I've _never_ missed (and never use it when I'm working on Linux). Is that something you use? If so, what for? You use MacVim, so presumably you don't need mouse events in your terminal for vim.

I should note I don't use a vanilla Terminal.app - I use it with Visor (<http://visor.binaryage.com/>) to quickly invoke the command-line from anywhere, and I use MacVim as my editor.

I get what he says about package managers. MacPorts really was something I loathed. I recently discovered homebrew and "breath of fresh air" covers it exactly.

<comment><USER31> Well, for one, with iTerm2 I don't have to use visor, the app itself handles this. To be totally honest with you though, iTerm1/2 over Terminal.app hasn't really been that big of a change, I mostly like the improved key-settings and the theming. What motivated that change was that I was having a lot of trouble with getting the modifier keys do what I wanted, as strange as that sounds. Changing to iTerm just fixed it, and I liked what I saw, so there never was any reason for me to go back and figure out what I did wrong.

The biggest change by far for me was going from TextMate to MacVim/vim, which has boosted my programming speed immensely (after the usual month of pure frustration and all development grinding to a near halt).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> One wonders what is he so angry about?

I switched from Slackware to OS X precisely because I felt OS X did more things automatically for me. Also, If you've used slackbuilds, they are actually quite similar to homebrew, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER34> His evidence from the author of Redis is not accurate - <USER2> speaking Salvatore jumped to the other side of the fence to OS X more recently than two years ago on 8/27/2010.

He stated in his interview for usesthis.com that:

"In the past my desktop was running Linux as well, I used fvwm2, for more than 10 years, with this minimalistic setup. Now I miss it a bit… but switched to Mac OS as it delivers a much better "just works" experience for me, every time I want to do Skype, print a document, or alike."

</comment><comment><USER35> I for the longest time was a developer on Linux and FreeBSD and was extremely happy when I got my first Mac.

OS X for me is by far more superior than anything Linux has to offer, and mostly with MacPorts it has all of the software I could ever want/need.

</comment><comment><USER36> I posted a comment over on reddit, but someone who thinks linux is the greatest thing ever (I've been using it since the mid nineties, don't get me wrong) should be able to give me just a few of the unix server development features I get for free on OS X:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/gt29r/why_os_x_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/gt29r/why_os_x_just_doesnt_cut_it/c1q3igo)

</comment><comment><USER37> I am in the same boat as the author is. I have vnc running on the linux box which I connect to from the Mac. Mac is just a dumb play box for me when html/js/css/py is being hacked.

Only time I am using native Mac is for mobile app developing using xcode/eclipse.

I am thinking of getting a ghetto laptop with linux installed so that I don't need to have my linux box switched on 24hrs a day.

<comment><USER38> If your Mac is powerful enough, why not just run a VM? With the great

For the past 5 years, I have yet to have a web-app dev environment meaty enough to require more than a small VM (Oracle CRM can be nightmarishly huge) which ran fine on my macbook.

With git/svn scripts, it's easy to build and unit-test on your local VM, then push to your stage/prod-test box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I run macosx along with 64bit Arch Linux and 32bit unbuntu under VMware Fusion. If I ever get around to upgrading to a quad core notebook with 8 gig of ram I think I should be able to get about 10 years out of that computer instead of the usual 3. Of course I will probably need to buy at least 6 smartphones/tablets during that time between me and my family. Everybody sees the trend, right?

</comment><comment><USER40> At this point, I just prefer the way gedit renders text compared to OS X. It seems crisper and easier to read than OS X's anti-aliased with no regards to the pixel grid. That's the main reason I do all of my non-mac development on linux.

</comment><comment><USER41> This guy uses OSX: <http://twitter.com/#!/hipsterhacker>

You need OSX to revolutionise social, and engage your target markets in the mobile sphere. That and the other reasons the guy above uses OSX. Get traction, get OSX.

</comment><comment> the-kenny If you don't like it, don't use it.

</comment><comment><USER42> For someone who is singing the praises of linux, his website (it does look like his personal website) is pretty awesome. Specially <http://cloudhead.io/></comment>


Should Scientists Publish Their Personal Biases? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/should-scientists-publish-their-personal-biases <comment><USER2> The second a scientist gives her stance on policy he is losing half of the public listeners. Or at least thats how i imagine it going down in the US in 2017. I get the point that the author is making, but science should be objective and the scientists should take personal responsability for understanding their biases and not letting it affect their work.</comment>


Mandated Third Party Static Analysis: Bad Public Policy, Bad Security (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.oracle.com/maryanndavidson/entry/mandated_third_party_static_analysis <comment><USER2> What I find interesting about the article is the tension between Oracle's business interests in avoiding customers running static analysis of binaries within the acceptance process and Oracle's clear technical expertise with the problem domain static binary analysis is intended to address. I have to wonder if it is a case where Oracle may have worked backward from a position to the correct solution.

Or to put it another way, it's hard to see a median quality static analysis tool vendor having significantly better top engineers than Oracle's top engineers while it's easy to apply the "hate on Oracle" meme and dismiss their position as purely self interested.

It's also easy to pretend that the fundamental problems are easily solved with open source by ignoring that organizations run Oracle and other proprietary software because it abstracts over writing and maintaining and QA'ing code that does what the proprietary code does. Organizations buy expertise and Oracle and other proprietary code vendors sell it at scale.

</comment><comment><USER3> This blog post starts out with some truth: 1\. 3rd party binary static analysis is not industry standard

devolves to half truths:

2\. the amount of vendors doing static analysis for security is not what I would really call "Many"

3\. You're probably not going to get good ROI from a static analysis tool. But you might reduce your risk significantly by not buying Oracle.

And then devolves into pure bullshit (4, 5, 6, 7)

But despite the fact that Mary Ann Davidson seems to have a much greater interest in hiding Oracle's issues from everyone, rather than actually fixing them, the attempt to get 3rd party binary static analysis mandated is clearly Veracode attempting some good ol' fashioned regulatory capture.

Customers really should have the right to attempt binary static analysis on their vendor's software, but mandating that companies use one niche, specific technique supported by very few vendors to achieve a broad goal is total bullshit.

Also, Coverity was bought by Synopsis, not IBM like the post claims.</comment>


A Desert Spider with Astonishing Moves - why-el http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/science/a-desert-spider-with-astonishing-moves.html?hp&_r=0

<comment><AUTHOR> Even more amazing to me than the discovery is the fact that Dr. Rechenberg, who apparently also was big into the formation evolutionary computation ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_Rechenberg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_Rechenberg) ), managed to already make a robotic model of the spider. At age 80.

</comment><comment><USER2> Wow!</comment>


How To Change The Language Of Your WordPress Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulund.co.uk/change-wordpress-language

<comment><USER2> I think WP comes with many languages out of the box.</comment>


50% Cheaper GPUs for cloud-computing / Saving devs 50% compared to AWS - <AUTHOR> Hey! I'm Nick from Drofika Labs. Felt it was only right to share this on here (posted on Reddit too), as we are in our current beta testing.
We used to process images for companies and then turn these images into 2D and 3D models but ran into a problem, we were used to processing images from 5k acres worth of land but then had a customer wanting us to process images from 250k acres of land.
We crunched the numbers and couldn't afford the compute price AWS were charging us (Even with our credits etc - You know the story) and we couldn't find another alternative to help us around this, apart from buying a bunch of servers (Which was a no, no - since we couldn't afford them at the time).
So what did we do? Lucky for us, Charles (Our CTO) has a PhD in Multi-Core Processing. We reached out to GPU owners (miners for now) from all over the world to contribute their latent GPU power to our marketplace, so that small startups, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning developers /PhD students - all with low cloud budgets could get access to powerful GPUs (P100s etc) for at least 50% cheaper compared to the likes of AWS.
Let me know if you have any questions - or would like to join our beta program (if you're a startup or a developer with cheap compute needs), fill the quick form out on our site.
We are currently saving AI/ML developers from around 25 startups about 55% on their EC2 costs.
Our aim is to provide compute, cheaper … like significantly cheaper. (I have hopes for up to 85% cheaper than AWS but we'll see).
And yes, we are on boarding more GPUs shortly (thanks to those that reached out in the previous post and have contributed their GPUs to us)
site: drofika.co email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Thanks! <comment><USER2> How does your pricing compare to [https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated- rootserver/ex51-ssd-gpu](https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated- rootserver/ex51-ssd-gpu) ?</comment>


China regulator bans TV parodies amid content crackdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-laughing-matter-china-regulator-bans-tv-parodies-052528200.html <comment><USER2> China is the living embodiment of what 1984 can look like in 2018. I do wonder if an ever increasing crackdown and everything ultimately becomes so unwieldy that the whole country falls apart.

<comment><AUTHOR> It'll hold so long as the economic output keeps rising, incomes keep rising, etc. The people of China will put up with a lot so long as that vague social pact remains. The CCP & Xi know that of course.

<comment><USER3> > _The people of China will put up with a lot so long as that vague social > pact remains_

Counterfactual: Venezuela.

<comment><USER4> Venezuela is far from stable ATM. The country could just implode anytime.

<comment><USER5> Venezuela is so sad, and scary at the same time considering it didn't need to go that way and was "ok" before it took such a nosedive.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was the wealthiest nation in Latin America in the early 1980s, with a GDP per capita considerably higher than Argentina and several times that of Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Colombia.

Oil output peaked the few years prior to Chavez taking over and then began a persistent decline. Oil exports boomed from 1987 to 2000, going from 1.5m to 3m barrels per day. Under Chavez that collapsed by nearly 50%. Maduro of course has just continued the trend line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this when we get the accounts that show up with something like

"Oh I've been there and it's nothing like that."

Followed by something like:

"And it's not at all like things I worry about back in the west like" \+ Insert sort of odd complaint with odd verbiage.

<comment><USER6> The Whataboutism is predictable.

And then, yes, there are the outright defenders/deniers. As it turns out, the Chinese are well-acquainted with astroturfing. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where is the original source article?

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems like creativity will die in China. If we just stop giving them our intellectual property they should promptly decline.

<comment><USER9> I think that would be worse for the world stage as a despot with nothing to lose is always going to be more dangerous than a despot in a prosperous economy.

But I also this is a moot argument because I doubt the lack of consent would stop China from using intellectual property.</comment></comment>


Why No One Has Tamed Email - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/19/why-no-one-has-tamed-email/ <comment><USER2> I don't really buy into this. Largely, email is a product that works pretty well out of the box. Filling in 2 forms can pull in gmail to a Mac or iOS device. Spam filters knock out spam pretty easily, which would likely need to be configured by the user anyway. Haven't really had a serious pain point with e-mail. I like technology so I would be willing to try this out, but to really get high adoption they would have to provide like a 10x improvement over traditional email, and clients. I frankly don't think this is possible. Also, email is largely free, so if you are not offering a crypto product, I can't see a business case for this. People already have completely simple and free email.

</comment><comment><USER3> Because Microsoft's Exchange is to email as IE 6 was to HTTP/s. It is by far the most popular[0] mail server in the world and more to the point it is used by a lot of influential organisations (government, accademia, et al).

However Exchange hasn't done anything innovative in at least ten years and if Exchange doesn't move forward then nothing else does either, as everything else is aiming to be compatible with Exchange and little else.

If Google (Gmail) and Microsoft (Outlook.com, Exchange, Office 365, et al) came out tomorrow with a way to progress email into the future it WOULD happen. It wouldn't happen overnight (unless backwards compatibility was assured) but it would eventually happen.

If you could get Google, Microsoft, and the OSS crowd onboard (Postfix, Sendmail, et al) then it would be even more successful and we might be onto something new within five years give or take (as most of the webmail would migrate, Exchange, and so on).

But Microsoft and Google are businesses, and why would they invest capital into new-email when it won't generate revenue? Exchange/Office 356 is going to sell with or without this as is GApps.

[0] [http://www.stillhq.com/research/smtp/survey/poster- lisa2007....](http://www.stillhq.com/research/smtp/survey/poster- lisa2007.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Most of the "problems" listed here are UI and client (and people) issues which the author (who runs an email startup) places at the feet of his competition, and they have nothing to do with email itself.

The reason no one has tamed email is that email works just fine - and an argument that everyone should just switch to a particular startup or app is just absurd.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interestingly enough, I was watching a PG's interview at the Airbnb office. PG mentioned that a really good way to find good startup ideas is to see what hackers are talking about. Has anyone else noticed how any post email related seems to get a fair amount of attention on HN?

<comment><USER6> It's on PG's list of ambitious startup ideas. [http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html)</comment></comment>


Google Opens Up Infographic Tools for Everyone's Use - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663247/google-opens-up-infographic-tools-for-everyones-use-2pm-embargo

<comment><USER2> Another data analysis tool that has been around for some time is IBM's "Many Eyes" project: <http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/>

There is quite a large volume of user-submitted data at that site, and some very effective visualisation options.</comment>


Getting Out of JavaScript Fatigue – React Edition - <AUTHOR> http://www.code-experience.com/getting-out-of-javascript-fatigue/ <comment><USER2> a nice technique is also the ostrich technique: ignore the community for a couple of months, check in, evaluate the latest developments; pick the ones that makes sense; then ignore the community again. ;)</comment>


Good news: automation already destroyed most of the jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/4/15/11422266/automation-starbucks-job-loss <comment><USER2> >But after decades of automation (and some increases in global trade)

This should read:

>But after decades of global trade (and some increases in automation)

But of course, that would mean that the author wouldn't have support for their thesis. Unfortunately, making shit up doesn't support the thesis, either.

>Starbucks could lay off all of its baristas and make its stores fully automated... But Starbucks isn't going to do that because they know customers aren't just coming for the coffee. The ritual of ordering coffee and having a human being prepare it is an integral part of the Starbucks experience.

FFS. This is obvious bullshit to anyone who's been to a Starbucks.

Journalism shouldn't be the process of writing a clickbaity title and then shoehorning reality into it. Shouldn't be, but it is.

<comment><USER3> Classic Journalism had people cite sources and show facts and credible evidence to support a story.

Internet Journalism is about making up stuff to get more hits on the article to sell more stuff via advertising on the page so they can collect more money.

It is sad to see sites like Vox doing the Supermarket Tabloid type of Journalism where they make stuff up for ratings and ad clicks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, twenty years from now software/AI will destroy even more jobs. For example, JournalismBot will write delightful fluff pieces with the most irrestibly click baity titles.</comment>


How to ride the viral wave to your advantage. - <AUTHOR> http://30matches.tumblr.com/post/42662540713/how-to-ride-the-viral-wave-to-your-advantage

<comment><USER2> In retrospect can you imagine an approach that could have capitalized on the success of VineFlow? Could there have been some prize IN VineFlow that could only be unlocked by playing CelebrityPop?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's definitely a valid option, but I'm not sure it would have worked, since both apps are quite different. They don't really complement each other, so I guess blocking a certain VineFlow feature until for example, you download CelebrityPop, would just piss people off.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Preview links in Google Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nphfkpgklibhnhgegdblhnhicgfginnj

<comment><USER2> Please also add "blocked extensions" so we can add zip/rar/.tar.gz/.torrent/etc as these will download if you hover over them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the idea. We will make that update right away

<comment><USER2> Great, I'm loving this extension a lot, great idea and execution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just released swiftpreview 2.1 and we are now blocking common extensions. Check it out here[http://blog.swiftpreview.com/post/31242655847/swiftpreview-2...](http://blog.swiftpreview.com/post/31242655847/swiftpreview-2-1-tons- of-new-features)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Strange that the video is only 58 seconds long, but runs out for 2:08 with just the logo.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's to fix youtube's weird thumbnail choosing algorithm

<comment><USER4> You can manually choose the thumbnail:

[http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...](http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=72431)

The days of gaming youtube thumbnails by putting in frames at the 50% mark are long gone..

<comment><USER5> Nice option, but not perfect. It still only gives you three thumbnails to choose from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe a bug ... hover over a download link (e.g. install on nodejs.org) and the file downloads.

Very much dig it. Very fast rendering of preview.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a bug, we will fix it asap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It even works on the reply links on this page, pretty neat.

<comment><USER8> Now we just need to get a parent link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great - a real time saver.

</comment><comment><USER10> really neat tool. i like the shift option</comment>


Everyday: A Dailybooth competitor just for the iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/everyday-iphone-app/

<comment><USER2> I'd say Dailybooth has evolved passed the idea of just taking a photo in the same pose every day of the year in to more of a photo-based communication tool.</comment>


Does "Science" Make You Moral? - <AUTHOR> http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057989

<comment><USER2> > Previous work has noted that science stands as an ideological force ...

Nonsense. The degree to which science "stands as an ideological force" is the same degree to which it has failed in its primary mission -- to accurately and objectively measure nature, unswayed by human beliefs and attitudes about nature.

Oh, well, the authors are psychologists, a profession famously out of touch with science and its requirements.</comment>


Show HN: The Task Switch - <AUTHOR> https://doug.pacifico-hammond.co.uk/software/hardware/2018/06/24/the-task-switch.html <comment><AUTHOR> I have built a little box of buttons which I can use to record the time I spend on each activity at work. Mostly just for my own amusement. I've open sourced the entire concept, software and physical designs.

<comment><USER2> Very interesting and enjoyable read, thank you.</comment></comment>


CSIRO megatrends report - <AUTHOR> http://www.csiro.au/resources/Our-Future-World.html The five interrelated megatrends identified in the report are:

   1. More from less. This relates to the world's depleting natural resources and increasing demand for those resources through economic and population growth. Coming decades will see a focus on resource use efficiency.
   2. A personal touch. Growth of the services sector of western economies is being followed by a second wave of innovation aimed at tailoring and targeting services.
   3. Divergent demographics. The populations of OECD countries are ageing and experiencing lifestyle and diet related health problems. At the same time there are high fertility rates and problems of not enough food for millions in poor countries.
   4. On the move. People are changing jobs and careers more often, moving house more often, commuting further to work and travelling around the world more often.
   5. i World. Everything in the natural world will have a digital counterpart. Computing power and memory storage are improving rapidly. Many more devices are getting connected to the internet.
 <comment><AUTHOR> The five interrelated megatrends identified in the report are:

       1. More from less. This relates to the world's depleting natural resources and increasing demand for those resources through economic and population growth. Coming decades will see a focus on resource use efficiency.
       2. A personal touch. Growth of the services sector of western economies is being followed by a second wave of innovation aimed at tailoring and targeting services.
       3. Divergent demographics. The populations of OECD countries are ageing and experiencing lifestyle and diet related health problems. At the same time there are high fertility rates and problems of not enough food for millions in poor countries.
       4. On the move. People are changing jobs and careers more often, moving house more often, commuting further to work and travelling around the world more often.
       5. i World. Everything in the natural world will have a digital counterpart. Computing power and memory storage are improving rapidly. Many more devices are getting connected to the internet.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm embarassed at what the CSIRO has become. This is not the output of a world class research organization.

'More from less' 'A personal touch'? Spare me this entry in a 'state the obvious in a cliche' competition.

This looks like the sort of regurgitated drivel I would expect to find in Cosmopolitan magazine, right next to '7 ways to make your man love you more'.

They need to go back to their labs and start doing some real science again. And whoever wrote and authorised this needs to get the boot, pronto.</comment>


Show HN: Hot or not for yachts called Yacht or Knot - <AUTHOR> http://www.yacht-or-knot.com <comment><USER2> It would be easier if you could see both yachts at the same time. I don't even see the 'vs' above the fold so it's not initially clear what's going on. In addition, there is some sort of jerky shuttering happening when I scroll to the bottom of the page. It sort of overscrolls and then snaps back 2 or 3 times. Perhaps a consequence of having one scrollable element inside another, which is often awkward.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just noticed that for the first time. Good catch. If I slide the header down on the iPhone it locks the container inside. That sucks. It must be an Angular Material thing. Thanks for pointing it out.

I don't fully understand the jerky shuttering thing. Angular Material has an md-content container element with overflow property set to auto. It prevents using scroll properties on the child element for smooth scrolling. So I borrowed from a Stack Exchange post rolled my own.Gist[0]

I just increased the scrolling duration by 450ms. That makes the automated scrolling much smoother.

I rushed to get this online because all the boats are showing in the Boat Show that is happening right now. I wish the images were all the same size. I think a lot of problems come from not having control over the images.

[0] [https://gist.github.com/adam-s/e54c4357648ed0ca6bee24eb8573b...](https://gist.github.com/adam-s/e54c4357648ed0ca6bee24eb8573b0cd)

<comment><USER2> The rankings page does a good job of showing multiple boats - could you do something like that on the head-to-head page? I'm not sure I understand what you changed in the scrolling, I'm just using my mousewheel. It still overscrolls past the bottom now, just with a much faster snap. BTW, I'm using Chrome on OS X.

But it's definitely a nice site for a quick hack. I've often thought there should be a general service for ranking things like this, where you can dump a bunch of items in and do head-to-head judgements until it has enough data to make a reasonable ordering.

What sort of scoring are you using, ELO?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This brings back memories. The original hot or not seems to have disappeared and been replaced with a dating site. Too bad - I would love to see the photos of myself I uploaded so many years ago...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It would be a lot more compelling if all the yachts were the 2000 largest yachts in the world or at least all yachts sailing and motor 30+ meters.

The world's largest boat show is happening now here in Fort Lauderdale.[0] I just took all the data from their site. All the boats on the site are showing today at the boat show. I want to find the Best in Show like the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance has. I don't think the website communicates that.

[0]: [http://www.flibs.com/](http://www.flibs.com/)

<comment><USER4> No, it's nice to see vessels that mere mortals could conceivably afford on there!

I went through about 10 pages and didn't see anything under sail, though... (Edit: okay, there's one sailing yacht in the top 48, and she's currently languishing at #36. It seems most people have a rather different idea of what a _real_ yacht should look like!)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, if you're into sail this is not the convention for you. Annapolis just had their boat show which is oriented towards sailing. Strictly Sail Miami is in February.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is supposed to happen after you click on Mega Hot a bunch of times? Is something supposed to happen?

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea is to have a different voting mechanism for the web. Of course, this is what Mark Zuckerberg did with Facebook that almost got him kicked out of Harvard. Surveys are super popular but so easy to be brigade(d). This creates a token that stores each of the items voting one per user with a TTL of one minute. When the battle is submitted, the token is looked up and the contenders are validated.

It is really just a stupid idea and I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. All the boats on the website are showing at the Bahia Mar marina now for the boat show. This is a more interesting way to explore all the boats there than a boring, plain directory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I clicked through a dozen times and none of those were yachts.</comment>


Benchmarking JS - <AUTHOR> http://mrale.ph/talks/goto2015/#/ <comment><USER2> Can always trust Vyacheslav Egorov to pump out super high quality stuff about v8.

His blog [http://mrale.ph/](http://mrale.ph/) is full of hidden goodies like Object.create vs function constructor [1] and hidden classes vs jsperf [2]. Lots of good stuff on his SO too.

It'd be great if he (hi if you're reading this btw!) could write a bit about TF and the changes being made to v8 internally from an overview point of view.

[1] [http://mrale.ph/blog/2014/07/30/constructor-vs- objectcreate....](http://mrale.ph/blog/2014/07/30/constructor-vs- objectcreate.html) [2] [http://mrale.ph/blog/2013/08/14/hidden-classes-vs- jsperf.htm...](http://mrale.ph/blog/2013/08/14/hidden-classes-vs-jsperf.html)

<comment><USER2> And, since you're reading this (in the other comments) I just want to point out that the presentations you're giving got a lot better (the deck). This one is a lot more witty than the old ones. Props on getting better at presenting - a big step from your old presentations and blog posts, the English is good too here :)

<comment><USER3> Agree : ) Deff. awesome experience watching him present. Such talks stick with you through out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anybody happen to have the video for the talk? I'd be much obliged. Just the slides leave a bunch of holes I want to fill in.

I can only find the videos from 2014.

<comment><USER5> It was recorded but I don't know when it will be publicly released.

This talk is a combination of two separate talks I have given before plus two new examples, based on my recent endeavors.

Talks merged here are LXJS 2013 one[1] where I talk about microbenchmarking pitfalls and WebRebels 2014 one[2] where describe how bugs in VMs can affect benchmarking results.

If you have any questions about the slides just ask them here or send me an email --- I will try to answer as soon as I can.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65-RbBwZQdU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65-RbBwZQdU)

[2] [https://webrebels.23video.com/crooked-mirrors-of- performance...](https://webrebels.23video.com/crooked-mirrors-of-performance- by)

<comment><USER6> Your talks always frighten me when it comes to VM's. I just want predictable performance- is that too much to ask? (Semi-serious question).

edit: to clarify. In C++ I write dumb but readable code knowing that the compiler will always perform specific optimizations. In JS it seems that there are many factors resulting in different optimization levels. How do I ensure that the VM does not execute my 'dumb but readable' code literally? Without that guarantee it seems that I have to frequently resort to optimized yet unreadable code.

<comment><USER5> I obviously craft/collect examples of V8 going off the rails for these talks just to show that VMs are software and all software has bugs --- and those bugs don't necessarily manifest as crashes and incorrect results - they can lead to worse performance and developers must be ready for this: must be ready to diagnose these issues, report them and work around them.

For a single test case where V8 goes off the rails there are millions of lines of code across the globe which V8 optimizes correctly.

On a funny note: I actually do have a version of this talk where I show GCC going slightly of the rails and producing a code that is 3 times slower than it should be because it hits an (infamous) partial register dependency stall --- see StackOverflow question[1] for the gory details.

> How do I ensure that the VM does not execute my 'dumb but readable' code > literally?

Well, as I do say in the talk: reasonable code should be reasonably fast. If it is not the case --- file bugs with VM vendors.

Keeping your code relatively static / monomorphic is the best way to achive performance in any language.

In any case I think it's much much much more important to optimize algorithms not their concrete implementations.

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26585977/64-bit-code- gene...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26585977/64-bit-code-generated-by- gcc-is-3-times-slower-than-32-bit/26588074#26588074)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found this very interesting since I'm working on something similar where I need to be able to measure how long certain operations take.

And I had no clue that js-engines has come this far, optimizing code during runtime this efficiently(if you ignore the bugs.. :)).

<comment><USER8> It's actually really well written

Some of the optimizations compilers/jits will perform would blow your mind.

LICM is a very simple thing to do.

There are more advanced things, like [http://www.cs.rice.edu/~keith/512/2011/Lectures/L06CLZ-1up.p...](http://www.cs.rice.edu/~keith/512/2011/Lectures/L06CLZ-1up.pdf)

etc

That's just on the code movement side too.

Most good static compilers can symbolically evaluate even linear systems of equations/recurrences/etc that are solvable, and transform loops that calculate them into constants, etc.

<comment><USER5> > LICM is a very simple thing to do.

Yeah, it sometimes surprises me how much value the most simple optimizations have and how much they break people's attempts to measure performance.

There is another side to this medal which is best expressed in a quote I picked up from a relatively old paper:

"A survey of the literature on optimization uncovers many techniques that are hard to understand, harder to implement, more general than necessary and of marginal value. Our approach was to do the most profitable machine independent optimizations in the most profitable way" (A Portable Optimizing Compiler for Modula-2 by Michael L. Powel)

In some sense the more microbenchmarks an optimization breaks the bigger its impact on real world code is :)

<comment><USER8> While that paper makes a generally true statement, trying to do the most profitable optimizations in the most profitable way is what dead-ended gcc for many many years :)

At some point, you have to step back from what you are doing and actually design and engineer optimizations coherently, not just "do this little thing and that little thing"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This was a great talk and funny one at that : ) Great perspective on what to really be concerned with. There were other great talks at #GOTOChgo but this one is one of the best ones : )

</comment><comment><USER9> You should never "optimize" JavaScript code, like objects vs arrays or methods vs functions. But instead try to optimize your algorithms, like leaving out square root when comparing witch line is longer.

I did optimize JavaScript in the past, but it always worked different in different JS implementations and could change in different releases of the same JS engine. So I gave up on it, and it actually makes me more productive not having to think about with method is faster.

<comment><USER10> That is simply not true. To write fast JS you need to understand the basics of the engine, like what a hidden class is, what exactly garbage collector does, how to keep your methods monomorphic or how types work in arrays. I was stunned when recruiting people to see how many just didn't understand why the prototype chains they build are actually creating a separated method instance per each object they allocate. You can see that easily when serious people suggest that an object constructor should return another object with methods on it. Sure, it's valid JS, it has it's advantages and compiler MAY be able to optimize it (last time I checked it didn't), but there will be a limit in what it can do and performance will be impacted.

You should perhaps not optimize trivial things like methods vs function, because there is no good underlying reason for them to be much different. You should know when to optimize and what. I love the longer version of Knuth's quote - "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.". The overall architecture, the way you write and organize your code, in my opinion, and in case of JavaScript is likely to be in the 3%.

But I also agree not caring too much about it improves productiveness. Most applications really don't need to worry about performance in such depth. Even when they do, it often boils down to keeping one or two core components optimized.

The only worry I always have about it, is that when you notice your code style and architecture doesn't play well with JS engines, it's often too late to change it. A friend called me a day before a prod release asking what to do about his program taking a huge chunk of memory for what the profiler described as a "compiled code". It was a large corporate application, with dynamic code loading. We digged into the framework internals just to notice there was no built-in way of deregistering a class once it's created. Since it didn't play nicely with the JS engine, there were many more hidden classes than business models in the system, and most calls were polymorphic. All this compiled code had to be kept somewhere. At this point there was no way he would replace the framework and even quickly fixing it was a challenge.

<comment><USER11> > To write fast JS you need to understand the basics of the engine

The problem is that there are many different engines out there.

Unless of course you are talking about server-side code. But for the server- side, there are more efficient solutions than just javascript.

<comment><USER10> Sure they are, but they employ mostly the same techniques. The implementation may differ, but the ideas remain the same, at least to the extent where well organized code optimized for one engine is unlikely to be slow in another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You should optimize your images. These are 6000x4500px 2.4MB PNG images:

[http://mrale.ph/talks/goto2015/images/intro- slide.png](http://mrale.ph/talks/goto2015/images/intro-slide.png)

[http://mrale.ph/talks/goto2015/images/last- slide.png](http://mrale.ph/talks/goto2015/images/last-slide.png)

<comment><USER5> Oops, sorry for that. Forgot to shrink them before publishing. Will fix as soon as I get to a place with a stable internet connection - traveling right now.

upd. done, scaled down to 1024x768

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is the acronym LICM pronounced?

<comment><USER5> I always pronounce it as /līkm/, but I am not a native speaker so I can't be sure about correct pronunciation.</comment></comment>


ACM signs anti Open Access letter - <AUTHOR> https://presspage-production-content.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/1508/coalitionletteropposinglowerembargoes12.18.2019-581369.pdf?21461 <comment><USER2> > As noted above, we have learned that the Administration may be preparing to > step into the private marketplace and force the immediate free distribution > of journal articles financed and published by organizations in the private > sector, including many non-profits. This would effectively nationalize the > valuable American intellectual property that we produce and force us to give > it away to the rest of the world for free.

Breathtaking hubris at work here. If the intellectual property was produced with taxpayer money, it was already nationalized from the moment it was created. These rent-seekers aren't providing value, they're putting a fence around public property and charging admission.

</comment><comment><USER3> Truly puzzling how that letter neglects to mention none of a scientific journal's income goes to the researchers, but instead tries to blur the line between research and publishing, making it seem like research will suffer, despite deriving no profit from publishing.

Perhaps someone should tell them they have their facts confused, and that they should add some clarifying language to their letter.</comment>


Inventor of Those Eco-Friendly Hipster Bulbs Is Getting Ready to Sue Everyone - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/the-inventor-of-those-eco-friendly-hipster-bulbs-is-get-1836858714 <comment><USER2> The irony of yet another round of light bulb patent wars, in Edison's name no less, is rich.

[https://slate.com/technology/2014/05/thomas-edison- charles-g...](https://slate.com/technology/2014/05/thomas-edison-charles- goodyear-and-elias-howe-jr-were-patent-trolls.html)</comment>


Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom Win Nobel in Economics for Work on Contracts - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/business/nobel-economics-oliver-hart-bengt-holmstrom.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Interesting regarding incentivization:

>Where measures of job performance are inadequate ...erformance pay can backfire

>Companies have turned increasingly to this kind of deferred compensation, particularly for senior executives.

I think this can only help and not only for CxOs but also premier athletes who on occasion are known to have terrible seasons.

and Contracts:

>[...] And sometimes, he concluded, it is more efficient for companies to simply merge [rather than rely on contracts] because a single owner would make better overall decisions.

Definitely interesting ideas which have not completely caught on in industry or government regulation.

</comment><comment><USER3> It still baffles me there are no Nobel prizes for engineering, yet we have one for economics.

<comment><USER4> Well, it was never the intention of Alfred Nobel to have a prize for Economics. The so-called "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics" was established after a large donation from the Bank of Sweden in 1968, but has been regarded by many (including Nobel's grandson) as an inauthentic award.</comment></comment>


The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/21/drugs-industry-scandal-ben-goldacre

<comment><USER2> There is more here about the current sad state of pharmaceutical research: [http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/17/reboxetine_d...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/17/reboxetine_doesnt_work_but_thats_not_the_real_problem.php)

According to the accepted animal model reboxetine ought to be even better than sliced bread, yet in the clinic is performs no different from placebo.</comment>


Oni Apollo: Stratified JavaScript library - <AUTHOR> http://onilabs.com/blog/oni-apollo-0.9

<comment><USER2> Is this open source?

I could find the github for Apollo but what about StratifiedJS

Adding some concurrency in javascript is an interesting idea, I wonder how this would blend with coffeescript...

<comment><USER2> Note, <http://github.com/onilabs/apollo/blob/master/oni-apollo.js>

This might be the implementation of StratifiedJS, but it displays as a long, half minified, 92kb line of code... not ver readable like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Oni Apollo is open-source, and you've got the right repository. The assembled library, oni-apollo.js, is composed of a whole bunch of different bits and pieces and tools which we'll all be publishing on github eventually. It will take a bit of time, so please bear with us. The source code for the built-in modules is already there, see <http://github.com/onilabs/apollo/tree/master/src/modules/> .</comment></comment></comment>


WikiLeaks Springs a Leak: Full Database of Diplomatic Cables Appears Online - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/08/wikileaks-leak/

<comment><USER2> Could someone please just start up a new Wikileaks with the exact same policies & capabilities, but with better people?

<comment><USER3> "Believe nothing that you hear, and only half of what you see."

<comment><USER4> Or maybe just believe what you want to believe.

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure yours is a tautology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wikileaks is denying this, I am really wondering who to believe at this point.

<https://twitter.com/#!/wikileaks/status/108251897961517056>

If it turns out the full db is out in the wild after denying it wikileaks is done for.

The tweets seem to hint that the file is available out in the open but that wikileaks is not the (immediate) source of the file.

<comment><USER4> The Times isn't reporting that the "insurance" file was decrypted, which is all Assange denies with that tweet. The allegation is that the unredacted "cablegate" cables, which Assange already provided to major news outlets (all of which were given an additional layer of redaction by editorial staff) have now been published directly.</comment></comment>


Techstars is a YC-style program out of Boulder. Has anyone considered it? Why or why not? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techstars.org/ <comment><USER2> It was brought up in a past discussion that TechStars are not exclusively seeding-stage and have close ties to VCs, which is something to be very wary about. If you take a look at their application, it's near-idenical to Y Comb's. If they can't be bothered to write their own _app_, I'm not convinced that their program is anywhere near well thought-out.

Plus, YC understands young hackers and the startup community like no other group of individuals I've ever come across. We're solely focused on applying to them as far as seed funding goes.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know very little about techstars, but it might be worth taking pg's advice, since "Bad Location" is #2 on the 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups:

<http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>

There's a reason YC is only Boston and Bay Area.

<comment><USER4> However, in "How to be Silicon Valley" he singled Boulder as a place with most of the ingredients for being a startup hub even though it currently isn't. So there are probably worse places to be. Still at best a distant third, though.

<comment><USER5> I know a guy here in Italy who ran a startup from there, and did quite well by himself, to boot. Now he's set and he can come spend his time here hassling with Telecom Italia trying to get his DSL line working.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems like a decent program. The location threw me off though. I'm not interested in moving to Colorado anytime soon. But I'm pretty sure it's a decent place to start a business even though other locations such as Silicon Valley of Boston would be better.

</comment><comment><USER7> It will be interesting to see which of these two programs produces more successful startups in the long run.

<comment><USER8> I think it will only be interesting if Techstars produces more successful startups than Y Combinator. Techstars is a clear underdog.

<comment><USER7> Indeed that would be interesting. Regardless of their ultimate success, as the co-founder of a startup I have a soft spot for any underdog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've applied to it. Waiting to hear back. Has some pretty smart people behind it.

-Zaid</comment>


InboxQ (YC W10) brings its Twitter Q&A service to Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/10/inboxq-firefox/

<comment><USER2> I've been using InboxQ for two weeks now. Not specifically for my product, but for my topic of interest. So far, the questions that InboxQ finds seem to simply be a keyword search that also contains a question mark.

I'd say 1 out of 100 have been a real question. The other 99 are usually someone complaining on the internet in the form of a question "Why can't I ever pick the fastest line at McDonalds?".

I'm curious, have others found better results or a combination of keywords to get better questions?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for trying out the plugin!

If you are open to sharing, it would be great to see the keywords/phrases you are tracking and quality settings you are using. You can email me at email@example.com if you like and I can do my best to help you find the right mix that will improve the output for you.

There are about 1.5m Tweets with a question mark each day. We start with that pool and then use a bunch of filters to get down to about 30-60k actual questions. Our models aren't perfect, so you will likely see some tweets that may be in the form of a question but not have an information need. But that number shouldn't be 99%.

We've also seen that there are big swings in question quality based off of the topics related to the keywords you are tracking.

At any rate, happy to help figure it out so please email if you are so inclined.</comment></comment>


The Enemy within: A New Pattern of Antibiotic Resistance - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-enemy-within&print=true <comment><USER2> The New Delhi "bug." Kind of funny because my girlfriend and I both got sick in Mumbai. I told her we got the Mumbai virus. Two months later and we still have a cough, even after antibiotics.

The real problem is anyone can buy antibiotics in India. Just go to a pharmacy and tell them what you want.

Don't want to discourage anyone from going to India. It was a great trip. See the Taj, stay at the Lake Palace,... Stay at all the palaces, if you can afford it.</comment>


How to Support a Woman in Tech - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dear-blank/263af3375ae <comment><AUTHOR> Exactly :)</comment>


Show HN: Command Line Tool to push Docker images to a server over ssh - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/coherenceapi/docker-push-ssh <comment><AUTHOR> A little bit on how this tool works.

Usually you can easily push your local docker images by calling docker save, scp the tar file, then docker load on the remote host. The downside here is that you are pushing every layer of the entire image every time (maybe GBs).

An alternative is to set up your own private registry or use a public one like dockerhub. This can be undesirable or cumbersome for a number of reasons, especially for code you prefer to keep private.

So this tool essentially establishes a private registry on your host which is only bound to localhost (no outside access), establishes an ssh tunnel from your host to the remote to access that private registry, pushes only the layers which don't yet exist on the host, and then cleans up after itself (closing down the registry, ssh tunnel, etc...).

<comment><USER2> You could just ssh tunnel the docker host tcp port right? And then push straight at it, intermediate registry is to reduce privileges?

<comment><AUTHOR> As I understand it, push only goes to a registry. So even with an ssh tunnel to the docker host tcp port, there's no obvious way to transport the image from your localhost.

You should be able to "docker build" the image on the remote host that way. Downside there is that you are transporting the entire build context rather than just the layers. IMO most cases will be less efficient.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where to Get Started with Cryptocurrencies? - <AUTHOR> What is the best place for a hacker to get a Bitcoin or Ethereum and other currencies accounts? <comment><USER2> If you want to start hacking right away:

I started with setting up my own Bitcoin/Lightning node with LND/BTCD, since I was a little more comfortable in the Go ecosystem. Nowadays I would probably use Bitcoind since it is the de facto standard.

As a wallet I often hear about Wasabi and Samourai to be relatively comfortable.

If you want to read/listen first, there are some good podcasts, e.g. Stephan Livera. And Jameson Lopp has a good collection of links for every purpose [https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information.html](https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin- information.html) .

Bitcoin development is focussed on building a maximally decentralized store of value and thus rather careful.

Only if you do not care about monetary value and just want to play around with crazy ideas that may or may not prove useful in the future, take a look at Ethereum or one of the other altcoins.

</comment><comment><USER3> Find an exchange in your own country, as it makes it easier to withdraw your cryptocurrency profits into your bank account at a later stage. But also be aware that not all exchanges trade all the different cryptocurrencies out there. Best thing to do is to work out which currency you want then source the appropriate exchange, keep in mind any fees associated with trading in that particular exchange. Then you need to decide how and where you want to keep your cryptocurrency. Either locally on your phone or computer at home or USB, or leave it in a wallet on the exchange you are trading on. Remember each time you move or convert your coin you may be charged a transaction fee.

</comment><comment><USER4> The "accounts" are called wallets. There are all kinds of wallets, from minimalist "command line" ones to full featured mobile apps.

To buy crypto, you will need an account in an exchange, so you can exchange your fiat currency (dollars?) by crypto. Binance and Kraken are popular choices.

For keeping up with developments and meeting other hackers, Reddit is the best forum so far. The Hacker News crowd usually don't dig crypto currencies for whatever reason, so it's a little harder to discuss them here (but count me in!).

</comment><comment><USER5> Pro-Tip: don't.

The hype isn't worth it.</comment>


The 10 Best Philosophy Books for Beginners - <AUTHOR> http://www.commonsenseethics.com/blog/the-10-best-philosophy-books-for-beginners <comment><USER2> There's irony in a site that claims to be about "ethics" using a URL shortener to _hide affiliate links_.</comment>


Opp YC: AWS hacker in midwest - <AUTHOR>

we are getting antsy to sign up a few paying customers and we are trying to get past a catch 22 moment, where local investors want customers, and customers want a working beta.
our front end is good and very attractive the companies we have talked to.  they also seem to be on board with price, but what we need is a back-end that works.
the guy that is working on the backend now can put in 8-16 hours worth of work a week, and has about 80 hrs worth of work to do on it.  he did it in .Net, and if we were to do it again, we would probably do it in PHP on an ec2 instance.
I would like to talk to any hackers out there that know AWS 1st and foremost.  We know c#, php and as3, but are open to any just get it done technologies out there.
do any of you have an idea of how i can find some help.
we are open to equity or some mix of pay. <comment><USER2> The midwest is pretty big. Are you looking from someone to be onsite or telecommute?

<comment><AUTHOR> to sometimes visit us in MKE. or us to visit in Chicago.</comment></comment>


Seth's Blog: Making vs. Taking - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/making-vs-takin.html

<comment><USER2> I don't think he has a valid point... everything is taking, there isnt really "making" any more just recombination of factors...

Saying that Making is something like creating Sugared Cereal for Adults misses the fact that you've still just taken the sugared cereal concept and tweaked it

<comment><USER2> Innovation is much different than creation and its also much different than ripping something off, but he fails to make this distinction...</comment></comment>


Mocking Pad for iPad – Week 1 Sales Stats and Other Things of Interest - <AUTHOR> http://accidentalfish.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/mocking-pad-for-ipad-week-1-sales-stats-and-other-things-of-interest/

<comment><AUTHOR> Long time lurker first time contributor. I recently released an iOS app and thought sales stats etc. might be of interest to other iOS developers.

Any questions feel free to ask.</comment>


Medium.com has such a beautiful UX (please ignore, just a love post) - <AUTHOR> I'm in love with medium.com's UX.  It's just so clean, responsive, simple, and beautiful.<p>Just giving a shout out to you guys over at medium. Your team must be amazing to produce something so elegant. <comment><USER2> A fresh page load (no cache) of a medium article downloads close to 1mb of assets in 11 seconds on my home ISP connection.

It's nice, but it could be faster. Considering medium is just displaying text posts, there really is no need for so much cruft.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely a reasonable critique. What I didn't originally realize is that medium is more than blogging software. It promotes community among writers. You can also create an account and just follow people. (Yes, I know this is obvious to most)

I'm of the opinion that when you're developing an app that will be used regularly, it is justifiable to have an expensive initial load time, provided it allows for a better experience on following uses.

I understand there are purists out there that disagree with this, but... "Yeah, well, that's just like... their opinion man". There are always trade offs. You just have to make tradeoff decisions based upon the needs of your primary user base.

<comment><AUTHOR> Down vote instead of engaging in a discussion? Here's another comment for you to down vote.</comment></comment></comment>


Pandora to Acquire Key Assets from Rdio - <AUTHOR> http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/Pandora+to+Acquire+Key+Assets+from+Rdio/11079117.html <comment><USER2> There's not enough listeners for the number of music services. If your service stumbles, it's easy to move onto something else, so you really only get one or no chances to convince your potential customers.

My experience with Rdio was one of frustration. Their desktop player was buggy and frequently failed to play anything at all. When it did work, I found the consistency of the music catalog to be unreliable. One week they'd have the license to an album I wanted to listen-to, and then they'd lose it, and I couldn't listen to that anymore. I'm not sure what factors were at-play on their end to cause that to happen, but it was a horrible experience for he listener.

I wanted to like Rdio, but they failed at the basics for my needs.</comment>


Hack turns the Cisco phone on your desk into a remote bugging device - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/01/hack-turns-the-cisco-phone-on-your-desk-into-a-remote-bugging-device/ <comment><USER2> Yes. Physical access to devices is usually considered "game over" anyway. This is just proving that devices other than PCs are vulnerable to having their firmware overwritten if you have physical access.

However, there are a number of items here:

1) You need command line (SSH) access to the phone. This can be done via the Aux port, or remotely.

2) With the latest version of Call Manager, once a phone is provisioned: SSH is disabled, the Firmware is Signed, and only signed firmware can be loaded. Therefore this exploit only works on a) older networks with SSH still enabled, no Firmware signing, and you know the SSH password for the phone or b) newer networks with SSH actively enabled, actively disabled Firmware signing and you know the SSH password for the phone or c) non-provisioned phones.

3) You must then spoof the TFTP server, containing your malware, and request an update.

4) The 79x1 series lets the exploit listen to the handset microphone with no indication. The speaker phone microphone cannot be activated without the "Speaker" LED turning on.

5) The 79x2 and 79x5 series don't allow the handset microphone, so only the speaker phone mic is available, with the LED turning on.

6) You need to get "out" to your recording destination. This should be impossible on the IP Phone VLAN.

So all in all, a lot of FUD spreading. Sure, there is a user-space to kernel- space permission escalation vulnerability, and that's not good, but the rest? Hmm.

Disclosure: Cisco employee.

<comment><USER3> That's all well and good but your #3 here belies what really happened.

If you watch the presentation, the TFTP server attack is a very simple ARP poisoning. Everyone who watched that video did a double take on the two TFTP attacks because they're frankly a little ridiculous.

The IP Phone VLAN might not be an issue if you pwn the phone...

So look, is Cisco FUBARR'd? Not any worse than Avaya, Shoretel or any other phone manufacturer. Ang just happened to pick on Cisco because they're the most popular; __every phone vendor has these issues __.

In short, yes this exploit is bad, yes you probably need physical access to the device to pull this off, but YES it is quite serious.

Disclosure: I work at a company (2600hz) which does a lot of work on many phones including Cisco devices.

<comment><USER2> Sorry for the naivety, but what should be done against the TFTP arp poisoning? This is a non-provisioned phone, it doesn't know who it's owner is. OK, in the case this is registered, and you know the SSH password, then yes, I agree the phone could do more to verify the TFTP. But if you're running an up-to-date call manager, then more has been done.

If you pwn the phone, true, you'd probably be able to register it to another VLAN, pretend to be a PC plugged into the PC port, and bingo.

Not disagreeing, it is quite serious. But the coverage it's getting is rather overblown - compared to the coverage that most remote execution exploits get (almost none).

<comment><USER3> So the hack being demonstrated is against a provisioned phone, which requests a secure auth list from the TFTP to authenticate SSH access.

The SSH access file is checksummed and the processor on the phone would be too slow processing this file, so it asks the TFTP server for this. A simple way to lock this down would be MAC filtering, another alternative would be building a secondary auth mechanism into the firmware. Either way, this shouldn't happen.

So in answer to your question: there are a lot of things Cisco could do to mitigate this, but they haven't done them for whatever reason.

I don't think Cisco is the only guilty party here (these exploits would likely work on many other manufacturers with a little modification), but pretending this isn't a serious exploit is ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yawn. Physical access is a joke compared to what you can sniff out of an unencrypted call (all audio, SIP registrations, etc) if you can get in the middle of the network, regardless of manufacturer.

</comment><comment><USER5> PSIRT advisory on this: [http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/csa/cisco- sa-20130109-ui...](http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/csa/cisco- sa-20130109-uipphone.html#@ID)</comment>


Atlanta introduces bill to regulate Uber and Lyft - <AUTHOR> http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2014/02/05/the-gold-dome-bill-to-regulate-uber-and-lyft-has-been-introduced-and-its-a-doozy

<comment><USER2> This highlights the fact that Uber and Lyft are not disrupting so much as exploiting regulatory arbitrage. That is, for all intents and purposes they are taxis, but they are attempting to ignore licensing, regulatory and fee requirements

<comment><USER3> well ask yourself this, how many jobs and services performed by people should require the permission of a governing agency? Far too many such agencies only exist now to restrict competition. Heaven forbid you try to get into the taxi business, or worse the moving business.

As in, where does it stop or where do we begin? Florist? Movers? Hairstylist? Nail care? Plumber?

<comment><USER4> How about you argue the issue at hand on its own merits instead of introducing red herrings? Taxis aren't like nail care. In many cities, particularly Atlanta, they serve as an important extension of the public transportation network, and are core to tourism and commerce. Heck, taxis are the reason why bars in the city, most of which are accessible only by car, can even pretend that they don't cater mostly to people who drink then drive.

Taxi services aren't regulated for the sake of limiting competition. They are given a monopoly in return for agreeing to be regulated as quasi-extensions of cities' transportation infrastructures.

<comment><USER5> While the regulations were at one time created to keep shady players out of the industry, Taxi services nowdays are most certainly regulated for the sake of limiting competition. Consider that in Manhattan in the 1950s there were roughly 13,000 taxi medallions. Today there are still only 13,000 medallions available- they sell at auction for a million dollars a piece.

The Taxi companies that own these medallions have gone to court many times to enforce the artificial scarcity that drives up the value of their golden geese.

A taxi driver in NYC has to pay $80,000 a year over and above his insurance and operating costs just for the right to operate a cab: that money goes straight into the pockets of medallion owners who don't much of anything except own medallions- until a threat like Uber comes along, wherein it's time to deliver brown paper bags filled with bundles of unmarked bills until the problem is solved. Both the drivers and the consumers are getting shafted.

NY is an extreme example, but the taxi industry works more or less same way in pretty much every city in the western world. It's not uncommon for incumbent businesses to hijack goodwill regulations as a way to stifle legitimate competition.

Now Uber and app-based livery services do need to be regulated- but their service is a whole different paradigm from the traditional taxi industry. In California progressive legislation has been passed that places these services in a completely different category than tradition taxi companies, much to the dismay of those taxi companies.

Uber is also expanding aggressively- their revenue has grown 20% per month over the past couple years, they started with 15 cars in 2009 and they are now valued at nearly 4 billion dollars, and operate in 60 countries. Every city they go into, they go into expecting a fight. They win some and they lose some. They were shut down in both Toronto and Vancouver. Uber is a fascinating company to watch- it's trench warfare everywhere they go- and they have mountains of venture capital backing them.

<comment><USER4> New York medallion owners are definitely milking the value of their monopoly, but it's really hard to make the consumers are getting shafted argument when Uber is much more expensive than traditional cabs.

The solution for Uber and the like isn't progressive regulation that puts them in a different category. Uber walks like a cab service and quacks like one, the only difference is a more modern method of hailing. Cities should deregulate their cab systems to increase supply, but categorize services like Uber within the same cab regime.

Also: the population of Manhattan is 25% smaller today than it was in 1950, so that means more medallions per person. Also, it has probably a lot more private cars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am not sure this legislation is terrible. Requiring GPS billing be certified, drivers be insured, drivers be licensed, and some of the other general consumer protections seem pretty sensible. I also did not see anything in the legislation that related to minimum rates as the article implied.

It actually does seem like a decent first draft.

<comment><USER7> The disallowing internet apps seems dumb. Seriously, if I could flag a regular cab with a general purpose app that would be about 95% of the value of Uber to me.

I'm sort of baffled why someone like Yellow Cab doesn't just put out an app.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't matter if it is an app or a phone call there is a culture in the Taxi industry of just ignoring calls for a pick-up in certain areas that they view negatively. Uber and Lyft don't discriminate like that.

<comment><USER9> You've obviously never tried to hail an Uber from a dodgy neighborhood in Boston then. It takes me twice as long to get picked up where I live, versus my girlfriend, and I generally have to go through a driver switch or two.

<comment><USER8> Well yeah it takes a little longer because drivers aren't going to hang out in that neighborhood. You do eventually get picked up though. My experience in Baltimore with taxis is that no amount of calling will get them to come to a part of town they don't like. Nothing is going to change the fact that it is a crappy part of town but the difference between no pick-up ever and pick-up with a small glitch is huge for a lot of people living around those areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fine by me, Uber is a scam company. Here is an email I got from them today.

Subject (large text): "Explore NJ this weekend with FREE uberX rides"

Body (small text): "NJLOVESuberX covers rides beginning OR ending in New Jersey, up to $20. Believe us – at these rates, $20 will get you far."

Fine print (tiny text): "Please note that there is a $20 surcharge for trips between New Jersey and NYC."

</comment><comment><USER11> _Atlanta introduces bill to shut down Uber and Lyft_ is not an appropriate re- titling of this article.

<comment><USER12> Why not? That's clearly the point, and that's why it's relevant to this community. I suppose it should probably be in the passive voice, but that's a nit.

<comment><USER13> That's not clearly the point. It may be inferred but it's hardly clear. The 1k license seems a bit excessive but some of the other points, registering, abiding by current mileage standards, having insurance...all seem completely valid and like places Lyft and Uber are taking advantage of missing regulation and, to some extent, rider's ignorance of the situation they are in if there's an accident or some other mishap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hailo takes the strategy of working with existing licensed taxis so presumably they would be ok?</comment>


The Average Successful Startup Raises $25.3 Million, Sells For $196.8 Million - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/crunchbaseexits/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not going to spend the time going through all of the data but my gut tells me that this is horribly misleading.

What constitutes "success" in this model? Why does a chrome search on "median" return no results?

Bleck...I still don't know why I keep reading TC.

<comment><USER2> Presumably, success is companies with a positive return.

Which is, of course, an inane thing to take the averages for. Survivorship bias means the answer is useless.

The average height of people over 6' is 6'8". Um, ok?</comment></comment>


One of the most revolutionary VR experiences is about sound, not visuals - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-best-virtual-reality-film-at-tribeca-film-festival-was-all-about-sound?trk_source=homepage-lede <comment><AUTHOR> This really strikes home for me because I have been highly attentive to audio for as long as I can remember. Sure, I've got a bit of hearing damage from 15+ years of loud audio, but the fidelity and ability to sort through different sounds is near and dear to my heart.

The sound of rain. Hearing a dog drink from a bowl down the hall, and in another room completely. Different birds. Crickets. A truck with a V8 rumbling away several streets over.

But most importantly, it's in music, where I can study each little instrument, follow a thread from beginning to end if I want. It's like looking at a DAW and inherently seeing the EQ - "Oh the hi-hat is off to the left, wow, that bass wave starts low and rises - hey, an accent shaker that only appears every 4th bar." All of that is really important to me, to what I do, and to my enjoyment of music.

If anybody else remembers how innovative 3D sound was to Half-Life multiplayer and early Counter-Strike versions, this article should also ring true. Knowing the sounds and cadence of a guy picking up a armor pack then a weapon in a certain order could pinpoint a location. Amazing stuff. Then of course later versions clamped down on the distance that fidelity could carry. Cat 'n mouse.</comment>


The dismal science has too much junk science, says Russ Roberts - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-all-economics-is-political-1463178093 <comment><AUTHOR> "So what use is economics to politics? When the White House calls to ask how many jobs its agenda will create, what should the humble economist say? "One answer," Mr. Roberts suggests, "is to say, 'Well we can't answer those questions. But here are some things we think could happen, and here's our best guess of what the likelihood is." That wouldn't lend itself to partisan point- scoring. The advantage is it might be honest."</comment>


Madoff Employee Breaks Silence - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-19/madoff-employee-breaks-silence/full/ <comment><USER2> Interesting read, but I don't believe most of it.

If true, then the feds would have been all over him, and we're heard nothing whatsoever. And not just him - the other people there. He makes it seems like quite a number of people knew stuff, but again, we've heard nothing, except about an offsite accountant.

Also he left in 2007, so his info is quite out of date, and his memory probably filled in details that aren't necessarily true.

And it just doesn't ring true to me. For example someone obsessed with neatness doesn't just drop that when it's a different part of the business - and saying he doesn't care about that part really doesn't sound true - by all accounts, he cared more about that part then any other - he kept trying to make enough money to get out of the hole.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great insight, an interesting read. How did Madoff get started though? And it's still hard to believe that many in his offices were clueless that Madoff was making off with everybody's $.

</comment><comment><USER4> What does this have to do with hacking? I have political feeds as well, There's a whole internet full of what you're looking for. Putting everything everywhere just makes a mess.</comment>


Automattic has purchased Tumblr - <AUTHOR> https://poststatus.com/automattic-has-purchased-tumblr/ <comment><USER2> This is a dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20679387](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20679387) which is the original story. (and also an another annoying instance of HN's ranking algos)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am also talking to the CEO of Automattic live about this story... not a duplicate.</comment></comment>


How are people making money selling knowledge on the Internet? - <AUTHOR> https://crazypolymath.substack.com/p/how-are-people-making-money-selling <comment><USER2> I recently watched a YouTube video about some guy who worked as an engineer at FB, Google, etc and was recently fired by FB because of his YouTube channel. Anyway, YouTube's algorithm thought I was trying to learn CS and blasted my landing screen with these kinds of videos.

This is when I discovered there's a micro genre of content creators on YouTube that say they can teach you how to work through big tech company interviews, and some have spun off separate personal websites where you can get access to premium videos or tutorials.

I mean - there's an industry around how to do well in programming interviews. I had no idea.

<comment><USER3> It's amazing how much his videos get recommended. He plays the algorithm like a fiddle.

As for the actual videos, I finally watched a few and not even sure what to make of them. It seems so ridiculous, but I can't tell how much is real or made up. I'm just kind of amused by the whole thing.

Here's the channel for anyone wondering: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4xKdmAXFh4ACyhpiQ_3qBw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4xKdmAXFh4ACyhpiQ_3qBw)

<comment><USER4> I am pretty sure it's a joke played so deadpan that I hate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From everything I've read and researched on this topic, it seems that self- help content is the winner. Does anyone know other types of content published by people, as opposed by organized entities, that have provided nice financial rewards similar to those identified in this article? History, politics, travel are some of the topics that come to mind.

</comment><comment> andy-x People "selling" their skills on YouTube are not actually selling anything. They help YouTube to sell ad space to advertisers, that is all.</comment>