Delete Your Account Now: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier - <AUTHOR> https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/delete-your-account-a-conversation-with-jaron-lanier/ <comment><USER2> "We cannot have a society in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that can happen is if it's financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them" \- From another article about Jaron Lanier

<comment><USER3> Sounds like a reasonable description of pretty much every communication/social platform since the 90s.

<comment><USER4> So what's the alternative? Even if we roll our own software we still utilize ISP lines.

<comment><USER5> You can use a self-hosted federated solution.

Examples are:

\- e-mail (effectively a federated system, before it was cool)

\- Mastodon

\- a social network instance like Diaspora

\- Matrix (matrix.org - "An open network for secure, decentralized communication.")

\- XMPP / Jabber

\- IRC (not federated, but self-hostable)

\----

I've been on Mastodon for the last 3-4 months and it's been awesome so far. It's basically Twitter without all the drama and toxicity. Also, while I don't run my own instance, I've seen many people running one.

<comment><USER6> If you like Mastodon, I'd recommend checking out SSB. It's completely peer-to- peer, you own your own data, you host the data of people you follow, and it's one of the best communities I've ever been a part of. Plus we have other sub- protocols like secret sharding for social password management and chess and other fun stuff. Super neat, I can't recommend it enough.

[https://scuttlebutt.nz](https://scuttlebutt.nz)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The thing I keep thinking is that I want to have social software built on a co-operative model (like a food co-op): you all pay some nominal membership fee (could you fund servers and developers on $5/year/user?), and the software would then be developed to fit the agreed-upon needs of the community, without dark patterns or behavior modification projects, openly, and with some kind of community governance (which need not be exclusive of technical leadership).

Obviously this would probably never get the global reach of a no-fee Facebook, but I would use something like this in a second, many of my friends would too, and I sometimes daydream about what I would need to do to get it off the ground.

<comment><USER8> Well, while I dream the same dream, it feels awkward asking my family and friends to pay 5€ per year so that we can share the cost of running our XMPP- Server. Currently, I pay all the bills and manage the server myself (so no cost/effort for them), and they still keep using WhatsApp with most of their contacts.

I don't know what the root of that evil is, but there are undoubtedly multiple factors involved. First of all, most people have WhatsApp already.

Secondly, it is effortless to use. With federated systems, you always have to choose a provider. Once you have overcome that hurdle, the privacy-sensitive people like us do not want to share their address book with the server so finding your people is a manual setup for everyone (another hurdle).

Last but not least, the client landscape of XMPP is still far from perfect. If you want to use end-to-end encryption (e.g., OMEMO) there are finally some clients which work with each other (Android: Conversations, iOS: ChatSecure, Desktop: Gajim), but configuring all that stuff (Server + Clients), is not as easy as pushing a button. Other features like video calls are still very fragmented and rarely work if different clients are involved.

I think it would take ten dedicated developers about a year to fix all those problems (if they would agree on common goals and focus on those) and even after that, we would still have to sell the product.

<comment><USER9> This is all summed up in one word: friction.

What the big platforms have done is eliminate friction at all the critical parts, to make it easy for users to onboard, easy to share, easy to grow within the platform, and of course hard to leave.

I've been thinking about a low cost but not free platform too. If it ever happens, it will have to be _AT LEAST_ as frictionless and enticing as the existing platforms. The table stakes are very high. Since cost in of itself is a source of friction, that means the rest of the platform needs to be even MORE frictionless.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious, can anyone estimate the developer hours it would take to clone WhatsApp's UX, features and functionality? Would it be doable since it's already developed and they solved the hard problems for syncing messages across timezones and it may be feasible to follow their tech stack as a blueprint/starting point?

Facebook and Instagram had no trouble stealing the concept of 'stories' from Snapchat and Facebook also copied their augmented face masks.

Did WhatsApp use a lot of open source stuff under the covers that we could leverage in building our own secure person to person/ group chat platform?

<comment><USER9> WhatsApp's popularity originally came from how it ran on many WAP phone systems, not just iOS and Android but also all the feature phones. What they did looked crazy from the outside but they effectively re-implemented SMS at a lower cost, for nearly all phones. That was not a trivial amount of effort, but it produced a lower financial friction than competition.

A disrupter would have to have even less friction but would be competing against a product that already has a significant network effect and a very generous backing by Facebook. I'm speculating that FB will eventually nudge WhatsApp users to Messenger, or find a way to gradually merge the services to the point where they are identical, especially w.r.t. advertisement.

In that respect, it was brilliant of FB to acquire WhatsApp: not just for the users, but to make it hard for any newcommer to disrupt things (hard to compete againsts free and frictionless).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A good moment to mention again that you cannot actually delete your Hacker News account.

<comment><USER12> Hacker New is certainly not GDPR compliant.

I've been asking admins to delete an old account that has identifiable information (which I posted while I was a minor) and which is embarrassing.

They did not care and the info is still public.

<comment><USER13> Were you not able to request to delete individual comments?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I do feel like I'm a sysadmin for my life. I don't know how non tech people deal with it. Some of the BUMMER platforms I dislike (unnamed) are ones I rely on to make money, and they constantly prod you to engage with the platform to fix their bugs. Examples are they allow phishing attacks but then force you to reply or your "ranking" score goes down. Super irritating.

I do notice the most engaged communities are the ones that feel they are part of improving the product. The developers are responsive and there is good flow. Everyone feels good, except, they're basically the product managers for a sub par product and they will not be rewarded for their time.

<comment><USER15> _> I don't know how non tech people deal with it._

They silently suffer, develop coping mechanisms and time-intensive workarounds. Most don't even understand how things could be better. This is part of the reason so many interfaces are horrible. This isn't even specific to social media platforms. People adapt to crap. Sounds like this is what Jaron is talking about.

Design thinking should be taught in schools or as Gen Ed in colleges.

When I worked on user-facing apps my silent motto was "reduce user suffering". Of course, this isn't the kind of thing your employer usually wants to hear.

<comment><USER16> Simply curious - where could I go to learn design thinking? Any online courses you recommend? Free would be nice, but I'm open to paying if it's worth it.

<comment><USER15> Reading Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is a great start.

There is a whole track on design at Coursera, but I only watched one course from it, so can't say anything about its quality.

[https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction- design](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction-design)

It seems the term "design thinking" has been hijacked by consultants. What I mean by it: being aware of how tools/artifacts drives people's actions/behaviors and changing the former to proactively make people's lives better. Sounds simple, but in practice today's world is obsessed with needs, wants and features, not the actual _process of living_ with technology and other human artifacts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I saw an absolutely epic debate between Jaron and a Singulatarian. He totally called them out on being religious in that they were just trying to make a geek version of the Christian rapture. I agree that the guy is like RMS in that he is an original thinker who works from first principles and that tends to give him an understanding that is unique and worth listening to.

BTW, Speaking of RMS and Jaron, is there some requirement that you have to have an iconic hair style to be a revered tech commentator?

<comment><USER18> Thinking singularity is geek rapture isn't really original thinking, it's just regurgitation of a cliché. Now dead blog by Steven Kaas had a nice article, listing reasons why this comparison is not valid.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20110718031848/http://www.acceler...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110718031848/http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/steven/?p=21)

I won't quote the long list of arguments, just a tangential remark:

"It's also interesting to think about what would happen if we applied "Rapture of the Nerds" reasoning more widely. Can we ignore nuclear warfare because it's the Armageddon of the Nerds? Can we ignore climate change because it's the Tribulation of the Nerds? Can we ignore modern medicine because it's the Jesus healing miracle of the Nerds? It's been very common throughout history for technology to give us capabilities that were once dreamt of only in wishful religious ideologies: consider flight or artificial limbs. Why couldn't it happen for increased intelligence and all the many things that would flow from it?"

<comment><USER19> I may be misreading this blog post, but it seems like the author believes that calling the singularity the "geek rapture" is saying the singularity is unlikely to happen (presumably what the author believes about the the non-geek rapture). That is...not the critique I believe anyone is making when they call the singularity the "geek rapture."

I believe the phrase is used to critique the singularity for the way it is used to hand-wave away a huge set of problems. It's pointing out that, even if you believe in the singularity, its time horizons are uncertain at best. Bringing it up as a response to problems that exist in there here and now is textbook "apocalyptic thinking" and should be called out.

<comment><USER18> > _That is...not the critique I believe anyone is making when they call the > singularity the "geek rapture."_

I think you read the article correctly, and that this is precisely the critique being made. The way I seen it used is, "this quacks like religion, so it is religion, therefore it's all bullshit".

The arguments about the nature of Singularity and possible time frames are made from applying logical reasoning to extrapolate from observable facts. The reasoning can, and absolutely should be criticized on the object level. But just dismissing it because it sounds sorta, kinda similar to some religion shouldn't be considered valid criticism. It's a thought-terminating cliché.

> _I believe the phrase is used to critique the singularity for the way it is > used to hand-wave away a huge set of problems._

Such uses of the concept should definitely be shot down. But it's not something I see popping up frequently among people discussing the concept seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Jaron Lanier is an interesting character. He's not just a smelly hippy. He's pretty smart but I don't buy into him being a "Silicon Valley Philosopher". No one can predict the future.

Anyways, for a rip roaring good time I highly recommend this debate on artificial intelligence featuring Jaron ([https://youtu.be/Qqc0t8ghvis](https://youtu.be/Qqc0t8ghvis)). On the opppsing side is Martine Rothblatt (male turned female, inventor of satellite radio, found a cure for the previously incurable disease her daughter had!). The panelists are definitely capable of producing novel ideas.

I view Jaron as going by his feelings more than anything. Like I doubt he has some statistical evidence for any of his claims. But I can't help but agree with him on this.

<comment><USER21> Most of what Lanier has to say isn't predictive - it's description and prescriptive. In other words he's not guessing at some ghastly future, he's describing the ways that social networks are manipulating behaviour right now, and some of the affects that's having. Similarly his analysis of AI is about reframing whats actually going on as digital sharecropping, rather than laying out a future course of developing.

Also - should hardly need pointing out, but philosophy has never had a project to 'predict the future'. That's futurology, which I agree is largely hooey.

<comment><USER20> I know philosophy isn't about predicting the future but Silicon Valley has a strong focus on the future. I'm saying I don't think it's possible to be a "Silicon Valley Philosopher" because the industry changes so fast that you can't speculate on either thr present (as it will soon change) or the future (which we can't predict).

I do like the cut of his jib. Like I said he has a few novel ideas which are always worth listening to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Jaron Lanier is interesting in the same way the RMS is interesting. You don't have to subscribe to all of their views to get something useful out of reading their output. RMS is the better prophet.

<comment><USER23> Maybe he is, but he spreads his message and communicates in the absolute worst way for anyone to actually listen to him or take him seriously. Which is really a shame.

<comment><USER24> Is he? To me he comes off as the quintessential rich Silicon Valley outsider nerd. His path has been so singular and so rewarding that he gives the impression of someone who doesn't need to be the least bit concerned about how he expresses himself.

From a street hobo, that gets you instantly dismissed, but there's a counter- intuitive aspect where if you're a Jaron Lanier, it just further underscores that you're Jaron Lanier and can do as you like. Because he is not trying to maximize trust in any way, he comes off as plausible even when expressing stuff that's unusual.

For instance, his reaction to 'how do you define a BUMMER platform?'. He essentially said, "I know Russian Intelligence made special effort to control this, this and this platforms, so define it as those!"

I'd not heard about the specific agencies he cited, but I've personally seen all sorts of sketchiness going down in every platform he listed, and it clicked. I stuck 'em all in a folder with each other, and they do seem to belong together.

I can think of people who're purportedly much more trustworthy, that I would not accept their statements on things like that without investigation. But I've heard from Jaron before and he's always (a) speaking out about something with NO concern for how his statements will come across, and (b) citing stuff that he's deeply familiar with. There are times I've looked into his details and found them interesting and all he said they were, so it only underscores the impression of him as the Cassandra truth-teller, privy to important things that are typically overlooked.

Maybe he consciously adopts that manner for that very purpose. In marketing it's always best if you can brand yourself using the core truths of yourself: then you can't get it wrong, or slip up and reveal inconsistency. He may take pains to seem the raving prophet.

<comment><USER25> > _From a street hobo, that gets you instantly dismissed, but there 's a > counter-intuitive aspect where if you're a Jaron Lanier, it just further > underscores that you're Jaron Lanier and can do as you like. Because he is > not trying to maximize trust in any way, he comes off as plausible even when > expressing stuff that's unusual._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersignaling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersignaling)

<comment><USER24> Absolutely. That's exactly it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wish there was still hope for Ted Nelson's concept of Hypertext.

Up until some time in the mid 90's people were thinking of the internet as something intrinsically decentralized. The idea was that we, as individuals, would participate in new forms of discourse and creation through the "media" of hypertext _without_ intermediaries other than (perhaps) agents we would create for ourselves on an individual basis (like your own personal "max headroom").

Instead what we got are giant "media" companies acting as middle-men, cattle- herders or disinterested extractive entities that are pursing goals totally unrelated to the actual services they provide to the people who use "their media".

Why do we need colossal-scale datacenters for social media anyway? Could there be a totally decentralized solution consisting of just the people and their devices? Or is that just a pipe-dream or sitcom plot like "Pied-piper" on the Silicon Valley TV show?

<comment><USER27> Nelson's concept was more centralized, and that's why it failed. Having no implementation didn't help.

<comment><USER26> It is only the media itself that is centralized in Nelson's vision. Today it is the giant middle-men that are "centralized" and call themselves "media".

According to Jaron Lanier, Xanadu (Ted Nelson's concept) was all about "two- way" connectivity, not in a trivial sense like client/server websites today but deeply as in a "we're all authors" sense.

        > "A core technical difference between a Nelsonian network
        > and what we have become familiar with online is that [Nelson's]
        > network links were two-way instead of one-way. In a network
        > with two-way links, each node knows what other nodes are
        > linked to it. ... Two-way linking would preserve context.
        > It's a small simple change in how online information should
        > be stored that couldn't have vaster implications for
        > culture and the economy."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson)

<comment><USER28> The two-way connectivity was between documents (or actually, pieces of media, regardless of type), not in the "we're all authors" sense (the latter was common back then, and in fact the early web browser was also an editor and server).

The Xanadu idea was that if a link was created from A → B, it would be visible in B as well. They have some cute 3D renderings of XanaduSpace on their website that makes it clearer: [http://xanadu.com/XanaduSpace/btf.htm](http://xanadu.com/XanaduSpace/btf.htm)

Lanier further claims this would make Google redundant (since you'd "just see where most of the links led" \- it's not clear to me how you'd do that without processing (ie, scraping with a bot) all the documents and their links), and also Facebook because, apparently, what we were missing is a way to see who is linking to our content, so we can "meet people who share out interests" (personally, this is what I see forums or Reddit being used for, whereas Facebook was primarily about people you knew personally).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I would be interested in his opinion about slapping the user in the face with greyed-out content and a subscription box on top when he tries to follow a link to read this interview. Isn't this a great example for how the digital world doesn't let us do what we intend to and doesn't deliver on its promises?

<comment><USER30> Jaron supports premium payment for articles. I don't know why so many hacker news readers both are illogically irate about paywalls and also irate about data collection. The irony is almost overwhelming.

<comment><USER31> > _I don't know why so many hacker news readers both are illogically irate > about paywalls and also irate about data collection. The irony is almost > overwhelming._

Because they're not the same HN users? I don't care at all about data collection but I abhor terrible UI such the modal ad in the original post.

<comment><USER32> > Because they're not the same HN users?

This; people keep confusing conflicting vocal minorities with a minority with shared but incoherent preferences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I guess one could write a book about anything, but wouldn't this message read better on a flyer or short article?

Is deleting a social media account such a brave move that people have to really ponder it, read a book, maybe talk with close family and friends before making a decision?

The 1st Facebook account removal I saw was something sudden: this girl had a really bad experience and the next day all her stuff was gone.

<comment><USER34> In a sense, writing a whole book about your decision to delete some social media accounts is just as bad as social media. The whole world doesn't need to know about every mundane detail about your life. You can do things and not feel inclined to tell everyone about it.

<comment><USER35> How do you know someone doesn't use social media?

Don't worry, they'll tell you.

<comment><USER36> You're the first person I've told about it during the last 6 months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Yeah, actually, one thing that's really interesting is that Facebook is not > a normal company, in the sense that its valuation when it went public wasn't > based on how much money it made, which is what would normally happen with a > business. It actually somehow talked the SEC into creating this other > category, where it would be valued based simply on how much it was used, > just on user engagement. And I think that was one of the most dreadful > decisions in the history of financial governance, because, unfortunately, it > set the pattern for other companies that went public later, like Twitter. So > it's almost like a government mandate that, instead of actually making money > and serving customers, a company will become an addiction and behavior > modification empire.

I didn't know this, can someone give more information on exactly how/why this happened?

<comment><USER38> I came here to post that too. It doesn't seem to be true. How can the SEC override a P/E ratio that is displayed on almost all financial sites?

<comment><USER39> It can't, he's talking out his arse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Jaron is very good at articulating his ideas. He is preaching to the choir with me though. I was somewhat addicted to Twitter, but snapped out of it 7 years ago, and find the idea of using one of those networks tiresome.

</comment><comment><USER41> Funny, the thing that struck me the most was the tag at the end where he's talking about learning pedal steel guitar. I tried and failed - it's the most difficult musical instrument I've ever played. It's harder than drums, which are really really hard to play well.

Pedal steel involves doing a lot of things simultaneously. Chords are assembled from strings and slide, but there are pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of individual strings up or down. So you can do something like play a DGB triad (G major chord), and press a pedal to turn it into EGC (C major chord), while the strings are still ringing. _No other instrument can do this_. It can be sort of faked by bending a note against another note on guitar, but it's pitifully shallow next to pedal steel. But the pedals and levers, plus the slide, plus right hand picking, plus a volume pedal to control attack and sustain... wow. It's _so complex_.

</comment><comment><USER42> Can't on HN :/

</comment><comment><USER43> An excellent discussion — glad to see this here.

I warmly recommend Jaron Lanier's album of classical music, Instruments of Change: [https://open.spotify.com/album/2E4m0Uy7w5873OUGVowJfu](https://open.spotify.com/album/2E4m0Uy7w5873OUGVowJfu)

[http://www.jaronlanier.com/music.html](http://www.jaronlanier.com/music.html)

</comment><comment><USER44> There is a new documentary called "The Creepy Line", it's on both Amazon Prime and Apple I-Tunes that also talks about this. Well worth watching. This is a big issue today, and makes it far too easy for big tech to have enormous power, and as we've seen with Google etc. it is not being used for good the way the marketeers are trying to portray they are.

</comment><comment><USER45> I am of the belief that we are better off trying to connect everyone in the world than going back to living in our community bubbles. I also think that it's too late to change the centralized nature of WWW. That ship sailed two decades ago. So we just need to live in the reality we have and try to incrementally make it better.

</comment><comment><USER46> Another great article which makes a more balanced argument:

[https://quillette.com/2018/04/17/social-media-case- deactivat...](https://quillette.com/2018/04/17/social-media-case- deactivation/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Amazing guy I once saw him have a talk about how to communicate with aliens that would have no vocal or written language and later that nite he played an instrument he had invented.

</comment><comment><USER48> > Well, a pretty good test for whether a platform is BUMMER, is whether the > Russian intelligence warfare units like the Internet Research Agency decided > to target it and use it for manipulating people. That's a really good > measure. And so, if that's the way you're going to classify BUMMER, then the > list is Facebook, Google including YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and, of course, > a few other Facebook properties like Instagram. There are a few others out > there, but those are the primary ones. Snapchat is an interesting one. I > just spent some time with them and they're sort of an edge case; they're > better, but they still have some problems.

> Another example is LinkedIn, which has some addictive techniques but doesn't > seem to bring out the worst in people. So, you know, I don't think this is > exactly a universal criticism of the whole idea of social media — in fact, > I'm sure it isn't. I'm sure there could be better social media. Basically, > if Putin was there, maybe you shouldn't go there. Maybe that's a good rule > of thumb. Basically, don't sleep in the bed where anybody who works for > Putin has been lately. I think it's a very good rule for us all to follow.

It never ceases to surprise me how any mention of the Russian spooks in the context of social media inevitably comes to the same conclusion: you cannot co-exist with them. Either you fight them (which is the mainstream position) by demanding that social networks ban them, or you leave the social network.

Weirdly, there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. I do not hear of any messages directed at users about developing some sort of online personal hygiene. Maybe take any ads with a grain of salt? Maybe do not trust total strangers until you get to know their online personality (if you are interested in their opinion at all)? Maybe limit your social circles? Maybe exercise more self-control in online debates? There are probably numerous other suggestions of how to be a more intelligent consumer of media content. And then Putin won't be such a comical bogeyman of online media he has lately become.

<comment><USER49> Here is why the middle ground wont work. Changing technology is a lot faster than changing human nature. Propoganda works because it exploits how our mind works. Sure we can learn to listen to our better angels more often--we need better media education and critical thinking in schools for sure. But that takes time, and it's not perfect either. In many cases, the problems are better served with changing the plarforms or the technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Can I start with my hacker news account?

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm not totally convinced this guy has quit his social media accounts, with his unoriginal opinions on Trump, MeToo, BLM, etc.

I haven't been on FB, Insta, Twitter in years, or Reddit in months and I don't even think about those things anymore.

But I guess he could just hang around people who are still deep into social media.

<comment><USER52> >> _" I haven't been on FB, Insta, Twitter in years, or Reddit in months and I don't even think about those things anymore."_

The terms used to talk about those things today might have their origins on social media, but the issues existed before someone coined a term. You might want to re-evaluate your associations if _no one_ talks about sexual assault and harassment or the over-policing of black people.

<comment><USER51> > You might want to re-evaluate your associations if no one talks about sexual > assault and harassment or the over-policing of black people.

Why? I've never been happier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This guy sounds like a child. I was surprised about the lack of depth in his reasoning and explanations.

</comment><comment><USER54> > Google will kill Facebook or vice versa.

That's where I stopped reading. How silly to think either of those two terrible outcomes would ever come to fruition.

<comment><USER40> I don't know, nothing lasts forever, and one might 'die' at the hand of the other. It could easily happen through acquisition as he says.

<comment><USER55> What if the merge? _shudder_

<comment><USER56> Well... Facebook is worth ~$15bn and Google is worth ~$740bn. I'm sure Google could scrounge up 2% of it's overall worth to buy-out Facebook... but then, Google already know everything about you, so for them, Facebooks data is worthless.

<comment><USER57> Your Alphabet/Google market cap is about right, but Facebook's is 442.50B as of today.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the frustrating part of the job search process as a candidate? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Being ghosted</comment>


Ask HN: What does HN think about adding "A" to STEM? - <AUTHOR> I have to admit, when I first heard about this I thought it was a clever joke. But at today's Apple keynote, Cook mentioned STEAM himself.
For those unaware, STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It's the category of fields considered to be in high-demand all over the world. There however seems to be a group of people concerned with inclusivity, and so they are pushing the addition of "Arts" to STEM -- i.e. STEAM.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> The technology, engineering and applied mathematics fields have applications that benefit real-world industries, whereas theoretical science, mathematics and art are more academic pursuits with little proportional real-world investment or degree of financial assurance. If STEM is meant to be an acronym for high-paying high-demand jobs, it seems imprudent to change the definition just for inclusivity's sake. Changing the meaning of words isn't going to alter reality.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of these things is not like the other. And it kind of defeats the purpose of the acronym. It's like changing FAANG to FAANGG because you care about and like GitHub. Even though it's not in the same genre as the others.

I'm all for promoting the arts, but this idea is silly.

</comment><comment><USER4> Arts are important in their own right, but STEM is about the numerate disciplines - and they include creativity as an intrinsic part. If you're going to add Arts to STEM, why not Humanities? At what point do you just get to a broad and balanced curriculum?

<comment><USER5> I'm reminded of the Sesame Street song "one of these things is not like the others...". STEM makes sense as an interconnected cluster of highly demanding but economically valuable disciplines. The arts might be equally important on a personal and social level, but they don't fit the category.

You can reasonably tell a young person "study a STEM subject and you'll probably get a good job". You can reasonably ask "why are there so few women in STEM?". You can reasonably ask "why do so many students start high school without the maths skills needed for STEM?". You can reasonably say "arts and humanities students are being used to unfairly subsidise STEM students, because STEM degrees have the same tuition fees but cost much more to teach". Add arts to the category and it suddenly becomes a much less useful term.

I understand why arts educators want parity with STEM subjects, I understand why they want a piece of the hype and the funding that goes with it, but I think that the term STEAM might have a detrimental effect by creating a meaninglessly broad category.

<comment><USER6> While I don't think STEM makes sense, precisely because it isn't "an interconnected cluster of highly demanding but economically valuable disciplines."

Eg, we don't see politicians who want more people in STEM calling out for more people to go into anthropology, archeology, marine biology, horticulture, or linguistics.

The US government also seems to de-emphasize an education in ecology or climatology, compared to those fields like computer science which are more economically valuable for US companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone who grew up "A" and migrated to "STEM" later: No.

1) Art is dramatically different from the math and sciences. I can do both and it is a huge context switch to go from analytical and creative and back. I always feel like the other half of my brain suffers when I pick one.

2) The addition of art means that STEAM is basically general education. So what's the point?

3) I think one of the goals of STEM was to promote getting children into technical high paying jobs where there was a severe labor shortage. You're not going to get more programmers or engineers with a music or art degree.

</comment><comment><USER8> A little conflicted, if only because if the definition expands over and over it'll eventually just mean "education".

But maybe that's not a bad thing! I really strongly believe that the coming decades are going to need engineers to think about ethics and culture a lot more than they have historically, as tech moves directly in the center of our lives.

I think STEM is fetishised a little too much, so maybe diluting it would be a net positive.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a truly awful idea. You can't add an "A" to "STEM," you can introduce a new word, "STEAM" with a different meaning, but the word "STEM" will still exist, and will still have the same meaning. If you're talking about "adding meaning to a word" what you're really talking about is prescribing language. I.e. telling people don't express this idea "STEM," I find that idea uninclusive, express the idea I want instead. It's especially egregious in this case because STEM is the opposite of arts, so you're destroying as much meaning as possible. Down this road is a world where everyone is "included" and completely unable to communicate with each other because you've suck all the meaning out of the words to make them feel more inclusive.

<comment><USER10> I agree with the other reply - I don't think arts and STEM are opposites. I do engineering at home outside of "work" engineering, and the work I do at home feels like a kind of techno art to me. I am personally curious about the history of art though we never studied it in engineering school.

I agree that adding an A to STEM does not spell STEM, but I think the question is more about the merits of STEAM as "the goal" versus "STEM".

Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say art and STEM are "opposites"?

<comment><USER9> Opposites may have been the wrong word here. But STEM expresses a concept which arts are very much not part of.

> I think the question is more about the merits of STEAM as "the goal" versus > "STEM".

Neither of these is a goal, they're words. Words enter the lexicon because they're useful. There was never hacker news post saying: "hey guys, we should have a word that encompasses all the in demand technical subjects" someone used it and others picked it up because it expressed something they wanted to express. STEAM is a perfectly well formed concept, and if people had any interest in expressing it then it would probably already be a word. Now, maybe people do have a need for this concept (I very much doubt it, but maybe) in which case I would expect to see it take off in usage. But trying to forward a goal by telling people they should change their use of language in some way is an inherently destructive process. For example, imagine a child asks you which subjects in school they should focus on, easy you say: "STEAMHLHGFS..." we've included everything in this acronym, and now there's no way for you to actually express anything to this child that provides the least bit of focus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hate it. It's just an indication that we don't know how to talk about education. How is STEAM not basically just "education" itself? As someone pointed out, only the humanities are missing, so surely it will soon be SHTEAM, or METAHS or...actually METAHS sounds pretty good.

<comment><USER12> MSHEAT

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think STEAM is particularly the application of STEM create artifacts/experiences.

STEM encompasses all of science/engineering teaching, but in the context of STEAM, STEM is "how to make a thing", and STEAM additionally addresses "why to make it, how it should look" etc. I think the "A" is also likely a rather restricted subset of Art, in this context.

<comment><USER14> I think that is correct.

The STEAM idea has been around for some time. I first heard about it from John Maeda like 7 years ago ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yc- _Ei2Yto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yc-_Ei2Yto)).

"STEM" by itself lacks an emergent, creative quality. There is very much a need for that in technical curricula.

<comment><AUTHOR> > "STEM" by itself lacks an emergent, creative quality

I think many would argue otherwise, there is an inherent level of creativity with regards to all four disciplines, in particular Engineering, where novel solutions to real-world problems can be both practical and creative, although you might argue this extends into the other three as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It strikes me as those in the Arts trying to make themselves appear more relevant by forcing themselves onto to coat-tails of STEM. The thing is, the Arts are extremely important to humanity, and heavy-handed attempts like this just serve to cheapen their image.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also get this impression, but with my university for example, they all but shut down departments that were non STEM related. We weren't a particularly notable institution, so the administration decided to focus their efforts on engineering fields to set us apart. I don't imagine this sat well with the faculty and students outside of STEM but it may also be that there is a downward trend of people willing to spend the money on a liberal arts degree, and that threatens the livelihood of those who rely on it's existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maybe it was just an assumption that I never thought about, but I had always thought STEM to mean the _intersection_ of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. There's already a large overlap between them, so the intersection was also large. So STEAM would not be the addition of all Arts but the intersection of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and the arts. For example, something like the Mona Lisa is not a part of STEAM, but the aesthetic design of a UI would be. In that sense, the arts matter very much. If we ignore the arts, we have ugly and non-intuitive designs, which lead to lower usability.

<comment><USER17> I agree that UX is an important intersection of engineering, but I feel like - in the context of education - institutions will not stick to your informed/moderate definition. Most "artists" I know would totally suck at UX. In today's world where interface design is embedded into every team's workflow, and where we have versioned stylesheets and designers extracting CSS... I'd say modern UX designers are definitely under the T for Technology rather than arts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> MEETS (Mathematics, Engineering, Ergonomics, Technology, Science)

"Art" is too broad. if anything should be added, Ergonomics is a good pick.

If a tool or process made by STEM industries can be better fitted towards being used for people (regardless of if it supposed to be used by niche groups or the general public) then it's going to be better used.

</comment><comment><USER19> STEM is a meaningless buzzword used to conjure happy thoughts about careers that pay well. The reality is that many of the careers contained in STEM do not in fact pay well at all. Adding another letter seems to be fine once you have already created a set which contains careers which do not pay well.

</comment><comment><USER20> What is the purpose of adding the arts, or any other field, to the idea of "STEM"? Or similarly, what is the purpose of the concept of STEM?

It seems like people have started thinking of "STEM" as some label that means "better or more worthy of focus than other disciplines and careers." That's probably because of the push to put more focus on STEM fields, especially in primary education.

There's nothing wrong with non-STEM fields, and I feel like this push to include more and more things in the label implies that STEM means "good" and non-STEM means "bad." It reminds me of the common recreational debate about which things qualify as "sports," as if any activity that isn't considered a sport is somehow worse than activities that are considered sports.

<comment><AUTHOR> I initially took the addition of Arts as a matter of inclusivity and for that reason I thought it was an awful idea.

> I feel like this push to include more and more things in the label implies > that STEM means "good" and non-STEM means "bad."

I take it that is the impression students are getting, or rather, teachers are assuming that students are getting, and in an attempt to curb any feelings of inferiority, they are making the addition. I think in this case, it is a dangerous precedent. University will cost the engineer as much as it will the liberal arts major, but you are lying if you tell a student that society values them all the same.

I suppose we would need to determine how to measure the value of a given field. Is value determined by impact on society/human civilization, or by job availability and salary. In either case I would argue that STEM fields rank higher, and of course even within STEM, some do far better than others, but suffice it to say, there definitely seems to be an agenda by stretching the definition of a very simple acronym to include fields that are probably being phased out. I seem to recall reading that Japan was no longer going to offer liberal arts in Universities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> STEAM is one of the (many) variations listed on Wikipedia's page on STEM. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_enginee...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics#Other_variations)

> It's the category of fields considered to be in high-demand all over the > world.

The same WP page mentions one criticism of STEM is that the 'S' might not belong. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_enginee...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics#Criticism)

Personally, my favorite subject is the intersection of art & math. I wish math teachers would use art to teach math, and I wish more art teachers would use math to teach art, and feel comfortable expecting some mathematical rigor of their art students.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have mixed feelings about this. My sons are both involved in technical careers. They both develop S/W for a living. They both were also involved in the arts, both musical and graphic. The younger one continued with music through college (UIUC marching band.) In fact, there were probably more STEM majors in the Marching Illini than music majors because marching doesn't really attract music majors.

Notwithstanding, there is a strong mathematical underpinning in busic and graphical arts and it seems not unreasonable to consider that effort in one area supports learning in the other. For this reason I believe that the arts are an important component in technical education and perhaps earn their place in STEAM.

OTOH art on it's own does not seem to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other disciplines in STEM.

(The younger one is recently involved in music performance in his spare time.)

</comment><comment><USER23> I think all the starving artists out there prove that it's in a somewhat different category

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't like it, but if I was going to add an extra thing it would be more focused and be "design" which can already be part of STEM courses.

So Architecture / Industrial Design / Ux

etc.

</comment><comment><USER25> I read through all the comments, I think there's a point which is being overlooked. The addition of the 'A' category will serve as a useful idiot to increase the participation of otherwise under represented groups.

I'm all for it. It's generally the 'A' people that do not at all understand how statistics work and would be most likely to be placated by this type of addition anyway.

</comment><comment><USER26> It sounds to me like at that point it is a made up new word for _classical liberal arts_ (or, as others have said here, _education_ ). See explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555514)

</comment><comment><USER27> It seems like a classic money-chasing move to me, like when Big Pharma had all the money, and suddenly everyone did "bioinformatics." STEM roughly divides undergrads by whether or not they have to take Calculus. STEAM... I can't figure out what line that's trying to draw.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is there a shortage of Arts graduates? Is there a shortage of Women/Minorities in Artistic careers?

</comment><comment><USER29> I think it's stupid. Once you add Art, what is the point of even calling out the category?

</comment><comment><USER30> Each is a creative and skilled discipline focused on bringing things into the world that haven't existed before for the advancement of humankind. I have no issues.

It seems to mirror the ascent of design in the tech world.

Might as well get the creatives working together early.

</comment><comment><USER31> Funny, STEAM is basically everything but the humanities. It's actually _less_ inclusive in a sense.

To me the common thread in STEM is the importance of quantitative skills, and everything else emphasizes those abilities much much less.

</comment><comment><USER32> I thought STEM is mainly a category that includes subjects that have certain principles and approaches, that are distinct from, say, humanities or art: they are based on falsifiability and mathematical theories.

</comment><comment><USER33> I hate it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Creating a new acronym does nothing to depricate the old one. It's just a new acronym for a different concept. We'll see if it's useful by whether or not it's used.

</comment><comment><USER35> Interesting, although you'd likely need to verrrry precisely define what is meant by "arts" to have any meaningful discussion about it here.

</comment><comment><USER36> Well it depends if the thing you are doing makes sense to include Arts or not, if so, call it STEAM otherwise call it STEM -- case by case.

</comment><comment><USER37> I read the title and thought to myself Analytics could be a good add to STEM, but IMO arts seems a bit far off from the others.

</comment><comment><USER38> It has been in common use for a few years. At my kid's school in Mountain View we have had STEAM night for the past four years.

</comment><comment><USER39> "There however seems to be a group of people concerned with inclusivity"

this is how we ended up with a problem in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER40> Love this. Design and culture impact matters.

</comment><comment><USER41> If art contributes as much as the rest to the well-being and advancement of mankind, then sure, stick it in there!

</comment><comment><USER42> the proper word is then "education".

</comment><comment><USER43> This looks like an attempt to lower the bar of a serious thing, which is based entirely on merit and hard work, just for the sake of inclusivity.</comment>


Ford pins electric future on new Mustang Mach-E - <AUTHOR> https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2019/11/14/ford-pins-electric-future-new-mustang-mach-e/2563888001/ <comment><USER2> More details at [https://www.ford.com/powertrains/battery-electric- vehicles/](https://www.ford.com/powertrains/battery-electric-vehicles/) with a live reveal on Nov-17 at 6pm PST.</comment>


Spacetime alarms - <AUTHOR> http://gregdetre.blogspot.com/2009/09/location-alarms.html

<comment><USER2> The android application Locale ( <http://www.twofortyfouram.com/> ) certainly seems like it could do (or come close to doing) most of these things.

</comment><comment><USER3> That shouldn't be too hard with GPS, minus the whole "no background apps" thing: Just prompt users for a location (i.e. tap on a map) when setting an alarm, with a radius perhaps. And to accommodate the "alarm" case, just add a checkbox to "only activate while OUTSIDE this range".

Not sure if anything like this already exists either. It well might.

<comment><USER4> > minus the whole "no background apps" thing

That's kind of a huge thing - it's the difference between this idea working and not working on the iPhone... and a great example of the kind of app innovation Apple could inspire by allowing background processes.

<comment><USER5> I bought an ipod touch hoping to make some productive use of it The no background processes thing makes that next to impossible. I can't risk my fancy dancy alarm clock not going of because I went and checked my email and forgot to re-open the alarm clock program. It's a huge problem with the platform in my opinion. Heck, my Dell Axim PDA from 5 years ago would happily run 6 or 8 apps at a time.

<comment><USER6> Really? The Apple Clock program's Alarms seem to work in the background for me.

<comment><USER7> you're correct. Apple does not expose this functionality to 3rd party apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you could integrate this with calenders and to-do lists on a hand held device you'd really have something. In general the idea of an integrated, contextually-aware smartphone would be great.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hm, active comment moderation on the blog. Anyway, someone has indeed done this for the iphone (not that I've used it or can comment as to how well it works):

<http://www.moop.me/inap.php>

It does appear to only cover one of his use-cases, sadly. But the others would be difficult without backgrounding (and the theft alarm may require far too much polling and battery drain to ever be useful.)

<comment><USER9> Its cake on my pre. Its literally just a crontab entry and curl command and the phone tweets its gps at intervals. It be easy to watch for a tweet outside a range and alert me. Seems to add no battery drain at all. I'll have to see if I can add playing a sound locally as well.

[http://palmpre-hacks.com/palm-pre-hacks/how-to-tweet-palm- pr...](http://palmpre-hacks.com/palm-pre-hacks/how-to-tweet-palm-pres-gps- location-to-your-twitter/)

<comment><USER10> I would hate to have my gps location constantly be tweeted, personally, but that's an awesome hack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A fourth example:

A game where you try and assassinate your friends by setting imaginary time bombs to go off at a particular location when you think your friend will be there.

Of course it could also be built on top of something like Loopt or BrightKite if you and your friends compulsively check in everywhere you go.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've wanted behavior-aware alarms for a long time, but this is a good first approximation.

</comment><comment><USER13> Maybe something like that could tell me when I'm close to the grocery store that I need to buy milk.

Wait a minute... Firing up the Ycomb application right now ;p</comment>


Luminar Plans $3.4B Reverse-Merger IPO - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestreet.com/investing/luminar-driverless-car-producer-to-go-public-through-reverse-merger <comment><USER2> Damn. Taking your company public in a multi-billion dollar SPAC deal at 25. I'd barely figured out how to pay rent on time by that age.

</comment><comment><USER3> For a company with no market? Yet another LIDAR company? Claiming to ship in 2022?

The whole automotive LIDAR industry is in a slump, because nobody is buying in quantity.

<comment><USER4> I really appreciate your constant LIDAR analysis in these posts. I always expect to see a comment from you when posts are about self driving or lidar advancements.

<comment><USER3> I'm all in favor of LIDAR, but I don't see what makes this company worth $3.4 billion as a public company. The investors are putting in $570 million.

Here's a list of the top players in automotive LIDAR: Delphi Automotive, Continental, ZF Friedrichshafen, Infineon Technologies, Velodyne Lidar, Texas Instruments Incorporated, First Sensor.[1] Not seeing Luminar on that list.

Their 2022 product seems to be yet another rotating scanner. 120 degree horizontal field of view, 30 degree vertical. Possibly with some steering on the vertical axis to deal with hills. Nice renders of the packaging. Why is this worth $3.4 billion?

There are lots of other cheap LIDAR real soon now companies. Quanergy. LeddarTech. InnoViz. Continental bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, which had expensive solid-state LIDAR working well. Continental put that product on hold because nobody wanted to order a few hundred thousand of them. Continental is an auto parts maker, and they do volume products only. They will sell you an expensive prototype if you want one. Delphi seems to be taking a similar position.

[1] [https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/lidar-for- automoti...](https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/lidar-for-automotive- market-potential-growth-share-demand-and-analysis-of-key-players-research- forecasts-to-2026-2020-08-13)

<comment><USER4> I have definitely noticed a bias towards Continental in a lot of your posts. Do you really think they have a leg up on the industry?

<comment><USER3> I liked the Advanced Scientific Concepts technology when I first saw it in 2003 or 2004 in Santa Barbara, when it was on an optical bench. No rotating machinery. A later version is used by Space-X to dock the Dragon spacecraft with the ISS.

Their device was very expensive because it required custom ICs made using an unusual InGaAs process. But that's the kind of thing that becomes cheap when production gets into millions. Continental is an auto parts manufacturer, where every penny per part is carefully counted. If they thought they could get the cost down in volume, they probably could.

But no market appeared. Continental appears to be able to make the things; they have demoed and offer a prototype. Setting up an assembly line to bang them out has to wait for a big order. Automatic driving isn't far enough along to generate such orders.

Which is the big problem in all this. Nobody needs a million LIDARs yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I understand Reverse-Mergers generally, but I don't really understand how the money works.

?People? buy stock in an existing 'shell' company.

The shell company buys the target company and immediately re-brands itself as the target company.

I guess I don't understand valuation and dilution and who has ownership after the acquisition. It would seem that the founder would want to have a lot of the stock (more than 50%), but the owners of the shell company would also want to retain the ownership of their stock... Where does the stock come from for equity for the founders and employees?

<comment><USER6> Matt Levine has been talking about SPACs a lot this year. Here's one of his articles that gives a good overview of how they work (esp. vs an IPO): [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-07-27/money-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-07-27/money- stuff-spacs-aren-t-cheaper-than-ipos-yet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lidar is almost always discussed in relation to self-driving vehicles.

What are some other applications that stand to benefit significantly from a price reduction? Submersibles come to mind as a cost-prohibitive tech where this could help somewhat.

<comment><USER8> Augmented Reality apps. Apple includes a LiDAR Scanner in their latest iPad that performs plane detection for AR object placement.

[https://developer.apple.com/augmented- reality/arkit/](https://developer.apple.com/augmented-reality/arkit/)

<comment><USER9> I think it's a sign I need to go to bed when I read "plane detection" and start wondering what airplane detection has to do with AR...

<comment><USER10> I've been thinking idly about how to feed ADSB signals into the new Microsoft flight sim so you could fly alongside real aircraft in real time...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > All current Luminar holders will roll their equity stakes into the combined > company , Luminar said.

Does this mean nobody is actually selling any of their shares?

Edit: Ah I got confused because this is called an "acquisition" but it's not really an acquisition, is it.

<comment><AUTHOR> They may sell later, but not at the time of IPO itself. Often, there's a lock- up period, where current stockholders are not allowed to sell to the public until a certain amount of time has passed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a copycat move following Velodyne going public in a reverse merger with GRAF

I think Velodyne will do better as they have a larger market share and the first mover advantage

</comment><comment><USER13> Not surprising imo. There are a lot of lidar companies that have come out and just like how self driving car teams/startups are almost required to be strapped with an OEM or big co (torc with mercedes, zoox with amazong for example), specialized lidar companies like Luminar and Ouster are pretty much on a straight path to a merger or acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER14> Congrats, but is their LIDAR any good?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/ifqzg7/com...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/ifqzg7/comment/g2r8zhe)

</comment><comment><USER15> Awesome stuff. I'm actually more excited to see what all the autonomous vehicle compute and sensor stuff will be used for in different domains. Just like cheap SoCs and MEMS from smartphones ended up being integral to the drone industry taking off.

<comment><USER16> I see the applications/overlap with driving down the costs/size of multi-mode precision-guided munitions: guided missiles and drones that use a mix of laser, radar, and infrared sensing for all-weather accuracy. I'm not really a hardware guy but I'd love to prototype something Spike-sized with COTS sensors, then try to setup a factory in a developing nation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAVAIR_Spike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAVAIR_Spike)

</comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf Can someone here please explain the motivation behind all these SPAC transactions? Is it just to avoid the red tape and S-1 of IPO filing?

<comment><USER17> An SPAC lets the company negotiate a firm, fixed price, whereas an IPO is (semi) exposed to the market. Of course that comes at a cost - the company accepts a lower average price in return for reducing its risk. You can understand why that has become a bit more appealing in the last few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How do we tell whether autonomous cars are actually making progress? Is this a big bang final reveal, or is it possible to tell that every quarter, something on the way to full autonomy is developing?

It seems that these spinoffs and acquisitions of Lidar companies, etc. all say they solve a piece of the puzzle, but it still seems no closer to a real system.

<comment><USER19> Autonomous miles driven measures to a degree, but does not address concerns about hardware being too limited.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > The CEO at Luminar, Russell, is 25. At age 17 he received a Thiel fellowship > to build out Luminar.

Does the Thiel fellowship mean he dropped out of College? I am not familiar with the founder but this feels odd and wrong to me given it's describing a (technical?)founder for a autonomous driving startup? Fully autonomous driving is a really hard technical problem and I believe you need a deep understanding of many advanced topics understand the boundaries of this space, yet alone innovate.

<comment><USER21> Yes, that was the point of the Thiel fellowship. It gives out grants if you apply for people who decide to drop out / not go to college and pursue something ambitious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can we remove Thiel Fellow from the title ?

It's kind of annoying that startups are being defined by which investor did or didn't write a cheque.

Founders deserve the credit for their startup's success not the VCs.

<comment><USER23> I think it's remarkable the CEO got an investment at age 17 and made it to an exit.

Peter Thiel took a risk nobody else did.

<comment><USER22> Taking a risk implies that you are going to be personally impacted if everything falls through.

Peter Thiel is worth $2.1b and almost all VCs are investing institutional money.

So I think it's ridiculous to even mention them in the same breath as founders who are typically working 70+ hour weeks, dealing with immense stress and are poorly paid for an idea that is statistically likely to fail.</comment></comment></comment>


Acronym: Acronym CReatiON for You and Me - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.12180 <comment><USER2>
      fiatjaf@menger ~> acronym 'wow, this is amazingly funny'
      Collecting word corpus
      Identifying matching acronyms
      Process Complete
      WOMANLY WOw, this is aMAziNgLy funnY
      WHINNY Wow, tHIs is amazingly fuNNY
      WHANG Wow, tHis is AmaziNGly funny
      WOMAN WOw, this is aMAzingly funNy
      WAIF Wow, this is AmazIngly Funny
      WAIL Wow, this is AmazIngLy funny
      WHAY Wow, tHis is amAzingly funnY
      WHIG Wow, tHis is amazInGly funny
      WHIL Wow, tHis is amazIngLy funny
      WHIM Wow, tHis Is aMazingly funny
      WHIN Wow, tHis is amazIngly funNy
      WILY Wow, thIs is amazingLy funnY
      WING Wow, thIs is amaziNGly funny
      WOLF WOw, this is amazingLy Funny</comment>


Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2 (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/ <comment><USER2> A couple things to add:

1\. Microsoft got paid about $400 million for their work on OS/2, supposedly, through to v1.3 .

Development of Windows through to v3.0 was much much less. It is safe to say that Microsoft made money from the partnership with IBM.

2\. OS/2 installation had a fatal flaw: if your PC had cache memory you had to disable it while the installer copied the files from floppy. It didn't hurt install speed since floppies were the bottleneck but it was very confusing to the newbies to OS/2 that IBM was trying to attract.

3\. The Ziff-Davis magazines were pay-to-play in editorial content and they plugged Microsoft as being the better choice all the time. And pre-Internet they were a big source of information.

<comment><USER3> The other OS/2 installation fatal flaw was there were 20+ installation diskettes, so your chance of coming across a bad disk halfway through a 2+ hour installation was pretty good.

If you were an OS/2 administrator back in the day, hearing the disk drive start trying to re-read sectors on Disk 18 was a terrifying prospect.

<comment><USER4> Who here remembers installing Slackware 1.0 from 24 floppies? Same story, except at least it was free!

<comment><USER5> A few years later they were passing out free copies of OS/2 CDs as if there was no tomorrow (which, by then there really wasn't...)

<comment><USER4> Free as in beer unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> " _So a rogue group in Boca Raton, Florida—far away from IBM headquarters—was allowed to use a radical strategy to design and produce a machine using largely off-the-shelf parts and a third-party CPU, operating system, and programming languages._ "

At IBM around this time, Boca Raton was known as the place where people who weren't competent but couldn't be convinced to leave were transferred.

<comment><USER7> Yep never underestimate the capabilities and ingenuity of people, especially those with curiosity and time on their hands. They where basically sent to Boca to rot, so they really did not care what they did, they gave them a marginal budget and approved almost any project that did not increase headcount or budget. You would have thought IBM would have caught on then or at least after Bell Labs that incubators work and funding incubators is a good bet. The only strange part is incubators never seem to be able to retain their culture and seem to be temporal in nature.

<comment><USER8> > The only strange part is incubators never seem to be able to retain their > culture and seem to be temporal in nature

Because incubators work only as long as they're not administrated and controlled. The moment they produce a successful project that brings in money, you need to control the process and put administration in place.

<comment><USER7> Not if you spin said project into an independent company, take the key players and replace then with energetic and creative individuals. Incubators need product guys that can see beyond the technicool aspect of the project and spin it into a company. The problem now days is there is just too much cargo-cult around incubation. There is a happy middle between Bell Labs and today fake it till you make it incubation. Don't get me wrong it takes some believing in yourself and I think Job's and Musk had and have the right amount. But believing and outright lying and borderline scamming is what we see more of today, with no technical assets and a story. Where in the days of Bell Labs you had the tech but no one to sell it into a product, much less an independent company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I liked OS/2 and used it simply because it meant I could develop 16 bit code using a protected mode operating system, which made development much faster.

Only as the last step was it ported to real mode DOS.

<comment><USER10> Combine 16 bit mode with pointer magic --> bird shot the OS.

<comment><USER9> Usually it's the interrupt vector table that got scrambled. Enough to scramble your hard disk. I would always simply reboot after any erratic program behavior. This is why OS/2 was soooo much better for development.

Intel made a large mistake putting the interrupt table at 0000. It should have put the boot ROM there.

<comment><USER11> Is there any known reason for _why_ the IDT is initially at address 0 and the boot address is 0xFFFFFFF0?

<comment><USER10> I don't think there is any technical reason it couldn't be anywhere. Except that they were expecting the IDT table to be mapped to DRAM. And you have basically two memory areas, DRAM and the BIOS in ROM. If the addresses don't start at 0 and max memory then you end up with RAM being non contiguous which is a fat wart. Pick your poison.

Also remember too C and C++ weren't really a thing back in 1977. C and C++ tends to love splating low memory when you mess up your pointer magic. Other languages didn't have that problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > IBM rules about confidentiality meant that some Microsoft employees were > unable to talk to other Microsoft employees without a legal translator > between them.

Haha, this is so ironic. I've worked on projects for MS that were just the same. We had to have code names for their code names and a code name for MS itself. Even our own code names had to be uttered with caution. Maybe they learned from IBM? Edit: Thinking about it some more, maybe they really did. None of the other big tech companies we did work for were _that_ secretive.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is Arca Noae[1], but I don't know how successful their business is.

[1] [https://www.arcanoae.com/](https://www.arcanoae.com/)

<comment><USER13> Thanks. Didn't know they existed. From their page:

[https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/](https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/)

"ArcaOS is more compatible with modern hardware, makes more efficient use of memory and system resources, and installs more easily than any other OS/2 distribution…ever. Really.

Do you have a system with 16GB of RAM in it? Want your apps to really fly? Configure ArcaOS to utilize all memory above 4GB as a RAM disk, and at bootup, copy your most frequently used applications there. It's like running your OS/2, Windows, DOS, REXX, Java, and ported Linux applications on air."

And they develop further for the newer hardware:

[https://www.arcanoae.com/arca-noae-progress-report-usb- arcao...](https://www.arcanoae.com/arca-noae-progress-report-usb-arcaos- updater-multimedia/)

"When IBM left off USB driver development, OS/2 had a working, 16-bit USB 1.x and 2.0 driver stack. Fast forward to 2019, and this is no longer adequate for the needs of today's hardware.

The Arca Noae USB stack is now fully 32-bit, and USB 3 support development continues to make good progress. Implementing USB 3 support has been tedious because the OS/2 USB architecture didn't accommodate the peculiarities of USB 3 well."

"entry last updated: October 16th, 2019"

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> SOM was much more advanced than COM and nowadays it is almost impossible to find any documentation online.

WinRT is closer to it, but still lacks the metaclasses capabilities that SOM had.

<comment><USER15> SOM was pretty cool, for sure. But using SOM objects (more than a couple) and it would bring my 486 to it's knees.

<comment><USER14> Interesting, I never got to use it, only wonder in awe reading articles and OOPLSA papers about it.

My OS/2 experience is based on playing around with it at trade shows.

When I finally got a PC, I went with a 386SX, which was unable to run OS/2, as the only shop in town selling PCs with OS/2 was selling it with alongside PS/2 systems, about 1000 € more expensive (in today's money) than compatibles running the DOS + Win 3.x combo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6792010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6792010)

One comment from 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14070102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14070102)

</comment><comment><USER17> (2013)

> This story first ran in November 2013, and it appears unchanged below.

<comment><USER18> I was pleasantly surprised that Ars re-ran this story. It was one of my favorites to write. Also probably the most popular single article I ever did.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I almost got to use OS/2 for a commercial project.. we had fetch information from a PC desktop and feed it to an IBM mainframe while servicing up to two simultaneous users.

OS/2 1.1 EE had EHLLAPI support but was still a few months from release and I couldn't wait for it. I was really disappointed I didn't get to explore it fully because first look was really impressive.

I ended up using DOS + DESQview, and it worked out fine.

<comment><USER19> DESQview. Now there's a name I haven't heard in 20 years.

<comment><USER20> I never used it, but I remember being blown away at the time by the screenshots and advertized features.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> OS/2 was the most impressive "prosumer" OS of the time.

Wasn't as impressed by anything else that was not from Apple or Microsoft except NeXTStep and BeOS.

<comment><USER22> What did you think of the Amiga? Early 90's Amiga OS was contemporary with OS/2 2.x. It had preemptive multitasking, but lacked memory protection.

<comment><USER23> Like everything about the Amiga: in 1985, implausible; in 1989, excusable; in 1991, unforgivable. And by 1994: punishable by death.

(See also, though with timeline offset and/or scaled: RISC OS, MacOS.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Little-known fact: Windows of today is an entirely different OS than early DOS-based Windows because Microsoft took ownership of the 386-based "OS/2 3.0" codebase it jointly developed with IBM, forming the foundation for Windows NT 3 which all modern Windows is based on. This gave them the huge head start in having a modern enterprise-grade operating system that allowed them to dominate the market.

<comment><USER25> I don't think that's the case; Cutler's NT has VMS-esque foundations, not OS/2.

<comment> pickle-wizard Windows NT was originally going to be OS/2 NT. Due to the architecture of NT, it could support many different APIs.

Due to the success of Windows 3.0 and the lack of OS/2 success, Microsoft wisely decided to expand the Windows API to the Win32 API and have it be the default API.

The book Show Stopper, has a good account of the early days of NT.

[https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation- Mic...](https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation- Microsoft/dp/0029356717)

It is interesting read.

<comment><USER26> Original NT contained an OS/2 subsystem layer too, like WSL today. It allowed running of OS/2 1.x apps.

<comment><USER27> WSL is vastly different from the old-school NT subsystems. Both in the technology and in the result. And rightly so, because while SFU&co was in some way more integrated, it effectively was a separate platform from anything else, and who want to support that? Arguably the OS/2 subsystem did not have this problem because the environment/ecosystem to support was way smaller, and it was making existing binaries made for this system work. So on that last point, yes WSL is similar to the OS/2 subsystem; but it could not have been like that in SFU because Linux was not seen as a serious competitor at the time (and well, it actually was not...); and the price to pay now that co- evolution did not happen is a more segregated environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This thread brings back the memories - I was an editor at a Ziff-Davis computer magazine back in the day.

Looking back on all this, the only lasting legacy I can identify is the linux windows emulation layer (wine), which exists only because Microsoft was required to make the Windows API public so it could be used by OS/2.

Given the difficulty of getting an ancient version of Windows running on currently available hardware, linux/wine is now the only practical way to run a lot of old Microsoft Windows application software. If it weren't for wine (which was made possible by OS/2), that application software would be unusable.

</comment><comment><USER29> >Long before operating systems got exciting names based on giant cats and towns in California named after dogs

What operating systems were named after towns in California named after dogs?

<comment><USER30> Not a town, but I'm guessing a reference to this. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks,_California#Origin_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks,_California#Origin_of_the_name)

> In early March 1967, Alex Matienzo, Jim Thompson, and Dick Notmeyer surfed > the distant waves of Pillar Point. With them was Matienzo's roommate's > white-haired German Shepherd, Maverick, who was accustomed to swimming with > his owner and Matienzo while they were surfing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> [https://beta.trimread.com/articles/552](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/552)

</comment><comment><USER32> I was a fan, but looking at the UI now, it's too messy. Has any designer mocked up something like the OS/2 UI, but good?

<comment><USER33> There was something called Tabworks at some point in time, a reworking of the Windows GUI that I always really liked. Very intuitive and worked well on smaller screens.

<comment><USER14> Don't you mean Geoworks, that was bundled with Phillips PCs?

<comment><USER33> No, Tabworks:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TabWorks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TabWorks)

<comment><USER14> Ah thanks. I don't remember ever seeing it.

<comment><USER33> It came pre-installed on the Compaq Aero, a very early notebook format laptop.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Dealing with users who share child porn? - <AUTHOR> We're a bootstrapping link shortening startup and currently we don't have a lawyer to consult. We're working on that. In the meantime...
We got a tip that one of our users was using our service to share child porn. Does anyone have any advice for how to deal with this situation? We plan on reporting what we have to the authorities. Additionally, we banned the user and blocked access to the destination (didn't delete the redirect url from our servers, to retain proof).
Any help would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> I run a couple of short URL websites and this kind of short URLs along with links to phishing and spam sites is what you'll get on a very regular basis in this business.

Those short URLs are often being used in mass mailings, guestbooks, comment forms etc. and they'll get reported pretty quickly to URL blacklists. That gives you the chance to disable the shady short URls before too many people come across them.

Here is a list of URL blacklist providers that you should check each URL against, both before accepting it into your database and again before you deliver it to the user:

multi.surbl.org, uribl.swinog.ch, dbl.spamhaus.org, url.rbl.jp, uribl.spameatingmonkey.net, iadb.isipp.com, dnsbl.sorbs.net

You can find out more about this stuff on [http://www.surbl.org/](http://www.surbl.org/)

Since I've implemented these checks I only receive complaint emails every other month and no contact from the authorities so far (in contrast to the disposable email services I run).

When you get a complaint about a URL, your software should allow you to disable all the URLs of the reported domain. There are times when the spammers have taken over a forum (or any site really) and created a large amount of spammy content.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you - I'm going to check out those blacklist providers. I have the ability to disable by host; up until now I haven't had the need to exercise that feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The EFF may be able to help you. I would prepare a document with the logs/info that you have in addition to a copy of your privacy and data retention policy. You may also want to doublecheck to see if the submitter IP is a Tor node, that'll make everyone's lives easier. I believe the FBI has a special taskforce for this should you contact them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Headed to the EFF branch in SF tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion.

<comment><AUTHOR> EFF wasn't much help. They gave me a brochure of their services and told me to email them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> {Random advice from the internet}

My first thought is to wonder why someone would want to be in a space where an arms race against people devoted to child porn was both necessary and constant. Particularly when that space wasn't providing capital sufficient to retain a lawyer.

My gut tells me that as a matter of will, it's going to be hard to keep this class of activity from reoccurring regardless of how this incident works out and that scaling the service will scale the headaches of monitoring and policing user behavior along with it. Personally, I'd rather deal with users I liked. YMMV.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We're working on ways to secure the capital for things like retaining a lawyer. It's not the fault of the space itself; our business model hasn't been fully executed.

As to it being an arms race, I'm not sure the techniques to filter content are really competing against anything. Sure, it seems like there will always be more sites to ban, but its not like adblocking, where the tricks are getting more sophisticated over time.

Also, I like (most of) my users! We've had some spam issues in the past where users created minor headaches, but this was a first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you store photos, Microsoft has a free product called photodna that will match filed against illegal images.

Take a look at the Center for Missing and Exploited children and perhaps call them. They operate a tip line to report this kind of activity. Sad that we need to think about these things.

<comment><AUTHOR> No photos stored, just links. Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> you can use [https://davidwalsh.name/nudejs](https://davidwalsh.name/nudejs) to detect their posts and then: Ban them!!</comment>


We Need to Talk About This - <AUTHOR> http://www.shakesville.com/2014/06/we-need-to-talk-about-this.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I generally want to avoid a shitshow. I have talked about that before, both on my blog and in comments on HN. I am not posting this here with any real expectation that conversation will ensue. I am posting it in hopes that, for a few people, it will be eye opening.

I have actively kept my profile low in recent years. I am slowly working on raising it. I have had shitshows in the past aimed at me. What I have endured is really minor compared to what this woman describes. I would like very much to find a path forward that is less ugly but having very recently been privately attacked for being publically polite to someone, I am beginning to suspect that no matter how polite and well behaved and so on someone is, there is no such thing as publicity without at least some downside.

I have no idea if it is really worse for women per se. My understanding is that plenty of men in the public eye have also been shit on plenty. So that isn't my reason for posting this here.</comment>


Ask HN: if I name my startup "XXX"Upon, would I get sued by StumbleUpon? - <AUTHOR>

The startup is a niche rating/voting service <comment><USER2> With a name like XXX I assume your niche is pr0n? If whitehouse.com (NSFW) can get away with it, probably you can too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol! No Should probably just put one X - meaning could be any word. I'll edit the title with quotation marks now. But thanks for the comment, I wondered how whitehouse.com got away with it</comment></comment>


Dirty COW Docker Container Escape - <AUTHOR> https://blog.paranoidsoftware.com/dirty-cow-cve-2016-5195-docker-container-escape/ <comment><USER2> There's something that has been bugging me for a long time now.

I understand and appreciate the concept of DRY. I use it quite extensively when untangling ratty, convoluted code.

But when I see reports like this, and they seem to be coming more regularly these days, maybe there's something slightly wrong with collapsing all of the most critical code in our systems to a single point of failure a couple of bytes wide. If it's not an attacker, it's shitty SSDs, bad PSUs, brownouts, vacuum cleaners or cosmic rays.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe copy all of the important bits early on. Maybe redundant execution with voting.

Related but an aside, it's almost perverse that the most important code in my day job is often the code we interact with the least. We spend all of our time and energy touching the inconsequential bits and almost none on the parts that matter the most. I had a situation a couple years ago where one of the bits of code I was most proud of writing, I couldn't recreate it by hand. It had been so long since I touched it that I was forgetting how it worked. All around a troubling realization.

<comment><USER3> I can see the same problem that you describe in the last paragraph. My team is really "full-stack", dealing with bare-metal compute/network/storage equipment at the bottom end and going up to fancy Rails web apps on the top. The infrastructure parts are relatively understaffed while everyone is working on the applications on top of it, because this is where customer value is perceived. We manage to get by because developers feel the impact of problems in the lower parts of the stack, and start to take greater care of these lower parts, but it's a hard journey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It can't be exploited from remote, unless combined with a remote code execution vulnerability. An attack vector could be a "run as docker" application downloaded and run with the idea of sandboxing it. Any other attack scenarioes?

<comment><USER5> There are also many services like heroku that offer customers a container that's multi-tenent with many other containers.

You could break out of yours and examine the filesystem of other's and steal whatever valuables you wish to.

<comment><USER3> That's why it is considered a best practice to implement multitenancy via VMs: Every customer gets their own set of VMs where their containers are scheduled. If an application breaks out of the container isolation, at least it can only see other stuff from the same customer because the VM offers an additional isolation layer that's more battle-tested.</comment></comment></comment>


Is GitHub Racist? - <AUTHOR> http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/06/is-github-racist/

<comment><USER2> Hot button inflammatory accusation. If the developers don't support non- English languages, which of the possible reasons do you think it may be?

1) Github developers aren't particularly internationalization-aware. Because, y'know, every other piece of software on the planet is completely i18n aware.

2) Github developers don't have the resources to support non-English languages because they a) may not know the language, b) may not have the ability to engage someone who does, or c) both of the above?

3) Github developers are all white Anglo-Saxon racists who hate anyone on the planet with the first bit of skin pigmentation and want to express this sheer hatred in the only way they know how: by only supporting English.

(Hint: it's not #3.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh man, so not supporting language other than English characters in a Git name is racist? I stopped reading after I saw that. The thing that really gets in my grill about racism is people who make a racist situation out of a non- racist situation. There is nothing racist here, it's like going to another country and calling people racist because they don't speak your language and can only speak their own.

</comment><comment><USER4> No, but people may be.</comment>


OpenJDK source has too many swear words - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8215217 <comment><USER3> Whatever floats your boat, but why should everyone have to comply with the most thin-skinned and sensitive of the group?

This clutching at pearls is, from my viewpoint, very silly.

I suppose it's easier to just go along to get along, but sometimes I feel like it's reasonable people in the middle who are constantly giving (to both sides of the political spectrum).

<comment><USER4> In my opinion, this is not an issue of people who are sensitive to the f-bomb, it's an issue of professionalism in a professional application. After all, people who would be sensitive to the f-bomb to the point where they would actually be offended by it wouldn't exactly be participating in any community populated by people over the age of 7, right? The issue here is that the author of the sources was obviously not being professional, and the existence of these statements were not offensive, but off-putting, especially when you consider that OpenJDK was made by a legitimate corporation that isn't exactly known for joking around.

<comment><USER5> I'm puzzled by the term "legitimate corporation" in this context.

Feels like a true scotsman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand the point of cussing in software comments. Comments describe the reasoning behind the code, and this shouldn't be emotional at all, but informative. We don't see language like this in bus route pamphlets and assembly instructions, so why is it in source code?

Yes, I understand that sometimes software can be frustrating, especially when doing integration work, but swearing does not contribute anything positive besides a bit of a chuckle from some people. I'm not offended when I see it, just disappointed that the documentation isn't as clear as it could be.

Leave that kind of language to mailing lists and forums, which are designed for venting. If this came up in a code review, I'd reject it on the grounds of not being relevant to the code.

</comment><comment><USER7> First they came for the Common Region for Access Protection, and I did not speak out -- because I was not full of Common Regions for Access Protection.

Then they came for the f-bombs, and I did not Bitch Bend sensitively -- because I didn't care an f'ing BitArray.

Then they came for smarks, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a fan of olwm.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to curse for me!

</comment><comment><USER8> This is absolutely ridiculous. God knows how many swear words are in the Mac/Windows? We know how many are in Linux [0]. These are all professional pieces of software and yet the world does not come to halt because they have swear words in their source code. I'm all for gender-neutralizing documentation and hell, even source code, but this is just an example of people getting offended over nothing at all.

[0] [https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/](https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/)

</comment><comment><USER9> From the JIRA comments:

      Adam Farley added a comment - <USER2>

      After discussion with the community, three determinations
      were reached:
      - "Damn" and "Crap" are not swear words.
      - Three of the four f-bombs are located in jszip.js,
      which should be corrected upstream (will follow up).
      - The f-bomb in BitArray.java, as well as the rude typo
      in SoftChannel.java, *are* swear words and should be
      removed to resolve this work item.

      A new webrev will be created and uploaded to reflect these determinations.

</comment><comment><USER10> But as long as they are in the source code and not in the actual documentation...? jk, this could come out as a harsh environment for newcomers, and as long as it is easy to remove the swear words, I think is a good thing somebody is paying attention to such details.</comment>


There Are 13 Quotations in a U.S. Passport. Guess How Many Are from Men? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/travel/american-passport-quotes-women.html <comment><USER2> Given that nobody even looks at these, it doesn't seem very important. Personally, I'd prefer a raise instead.</comment>


Sending Email with Laravel, SendGrid, Beanstalkd and Go - <AUTHOR> http://b.z19r.com/post/sending-email-with-laravel-sendgrid-beanstalkd-and-go

<comment><USER2> Why do this via queue? It seems like you could in many cases just send right to send grid and it's reasonably fast. That would get rid of the need for beanstalkd and go.

I can see why you'd do it if you want your app to have a certain level of responsiveness, but otherwise this seems a bit like overkill.

One other option would be create an email api service in Go(or node or whatever) that that just returns a 200 instantly and sends the email after that. It would be as fast as dropping a msg into the beanstalkd queue with fewer moving parts.

<comment><USER3> or, if you do want to queue it, why not use postfix as a local relay host?

[http://sendgrid.com/docs/Integrate/Mail_Servers/postfix.html](http://sendgrid.com/docs/Integrate/Mail_Servers/postfix.html)</comment></comment>


Pondering the nature of artistic genius, a social scientist finds that creativity has a bottom line - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/10023026.html

<comment><USER2> I think there must have been a lot of undated paintings in Cezanne's studio that just got dated the year of his death when his estate was sold. His most admired paintings are not from the last year of his life.

</comment><comment><USER3> FTA:

 _It's not curators, it's not critics, it's not the public, it's not collectors who find great artists—it's other artists._

Magnificent insight. Love it.

<comment><USER4> Just like Eric Raymond said that you become a hacker when someone else who is considered a true hacker calls you one. I think with most arts the entry into "greatness" is this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome article.</comment>


HttpFox: The FireFox add-on you can't live without - <AUTHOR> http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/26/httpfox-the-firefox-add-on-you-cant-live-without.aspx

<comment><USER2> How does this compare to Firebug's similar feature?

<comment><USER3> Unlike Firebug and TamperData HttpFox does not change behavior of the browser cache, and correctly reports what is being served from cache and what goes on the wire. Unlike TD and LiveHTTPHeaders it has a convenient user interface for examining HTTP conversation post-factum, including timing, cache info, etc. The interface part follows from it being a direct, if not yet complete clone of HttpWatch, an excellent commercial product for IE. Unlike tcpdump/tcpflow/wireshark it allows convenient capture of SSL traffic, and is quick to use.

In summary, HttpFox is the a great tool for HTTP optimization under Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I just want to see the requests sent to a website, this works fine for me:

tcpdump host thedomain -A -s10000 | grep -Eo "(GET|POST).*$"

More info here:

<http://en.gibney.org/capture_webtraffic/>

<comment><USER5> -s0 does what you're trying to do with -s10000

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> the Tamper Data add-on is quite similar but also allows you to interrupt/drop requests and change header values and POST parameters on the fly.

<comment><USER7> Any chance Tamper Data catches an outbound request early enough you can actually rewrite the target URL, including target host?

Because I've wanted to make an extension that does that for a while, but haven't found in Mozilla docs the right hooks, and would love a working model.

<comment><USER8> You can change any header or content to be sent, including the host header. Is this what you need?

<comment><USER7> I need to change the actual IP address contacted, and URL (path) requested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another alternative to look at is Live HTTP Headers: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829>

</comment><comment><USER10> If you work in an IE world, Fiddler is a nice tool.

<comment><USER11> Now why would someone want to do that :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _unless you've got ninja-like skills and can write an appropriate filter to see just the data you're interested in, the signal-to-noise ratio in Wireshark can be overwhelming._

Nina-like skills? I would consider that just basic competence with the tool.

</comment><comment><USER13> <http://www.site-perf.com></comment>