Judge: Give NSA unlimited access to digital data - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2855776/judge-give-nsa-unlimited-access-to-digital-data.html <comment><USER2> Wow, Judge Posner's comments are so outlandish and comical, I had to reread a couple of times to make sure I wasn't reading a satire article.

"I think privacy is actually overvalued. Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct"

Wow, just wow. I have no words. Is Posner not familiar with the 4th amendment? I would love to hear his thoughts on what rights he believes American citizens actually have.

<comment><USER3> "If someone drained my cell phone, they would find a picture of my cat, some phone numbers, some email addresses, some email text," he said. "What's the big deal?"

Wow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another person I'll need to strike from my "sane conservative" list :(.</comment>


How Nantucket Came to Be the Whaling Capital of the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nantucket-came-to-be-whaling-capital-of-world-180957198/?no-ist <comment><USER2> Obligatory Moby Dick chapter:

[http://americanliterature.com/author/herman- melville/book/mo...](http://americanliterature.com/author/herman- melville/book/moby-dick-or-the-whale/chapter-14-nantucket)

"With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales."

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're interested in more depth, a great book to read is Away Off Shore, written by Nathaniel Philbrick. It's a very well written and readable history of Nantucket.

<comment><USER4> He also wrote In The Heart of the Sea which is an incredible read about an ill fated crew sailing out of Nantucket.

<comment><USER5> I think you will find that one of the nice things about HN is that most people have read or skimmed the linked article before commenting. The book is explicitly mentioned in the second paragraph of the article and is alluded to in the epigraph of the article highlighting the upcoming release of the movie with the same title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I once knew a man from Nantucket. The stories weren't true.</comment>


Kngine Aims To Build A Natural Language-Driven App That Can Answer Any Question - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/30/kngine/

<comment><USER2> does god exist?</comment>


Mozilla does not renew the 5-year contract with Google, but Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/19/mozilla-partners-with-yahoo-which-will-become-the-default-search-engine-in-firefox-next-month/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook

<comment><USER2> Yahoo's search is utter garbage [1], cluttered with misleading ads and other nonsense. This is a major downgrade for Firefox, as it no longer comes with a working search out of the box.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/sZUIGwc.png](http://i.imgur.com/sZUIGwc.png)

<comment><USER3> Yahoo's rolling out a new interface for search for Firefox by the end of this year, and other browser beginning next year. The official Mozilla blog [1] has screenshots of the new design, which mimics the existing cleaner Google site.

[1]: [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice- an...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and- innovation-on-the-web/)

<comment><USER4> So the new interface will look like Google but won't have Google's results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > That contract with Google was set to expire this year, though, and it look > [sic] like either Yahoo made an offer Mozilla couldn't refuse or Google > decided to walk away from the deal.

I imagine most of us are assuming the latter?

<comment><USER6> Google's actions are increasingly negative from a personal freedom and personal privacy standpoint.

Mozilla specifically mention that supporting DNT (Do Not Track) user preferences was part of the deal with Yahoo.

Google's whole business model relies on huge numbers of users of their "free" services to monetise eyeballs on ads (plus of course further building profiles on users) - I find it very hard to believe they initiated this change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uhh, does Yahoo's "new" search look like a clone of Google to anyone?

<comment><USER8> Yep. Complete with Google's cards look and everything. It should be noted that Yahoo has a five-year contract to deliver search results from _Bing_ in the US

<comment><USER9> > It should be noted that Yahoo has a five-year contract to deliver search > results from Bing in the US

Isn't that 5 years remaining on a 10 year contract?</comment></comment></comment>


The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2018/10/17/our-lives/empty-seat-crowded-japanese-train-10-years-gaijin-seat-still-grates/#.XavCSEZKg2w <comment><USER2> I experience this empty seat phenomenon in America, as a regular white man. I noticed it in college. Nobody would sit by me unless they had to, but they were never obvious about it either as far as I could tell. It just seemed like I had some social forcefield around me that pushed people away.

I told me wife about it, and we had a laugh. But over the years it continues to manifest itself. I send me wife pictures of me at a full conference with empty seats only around me. I set up experiments to test my theory. At the airport, or even at work, I will deliberately sit in a middle section that would force people to sit next to me. Yet time after time, the seats next to me are the very last to be taken, if at all. I've tried being extra approachable (smile a lot), dull, aloof, be on or off my phone, etc.

I am a good looking skinny guy who has excellent hygiene. But I have some negative social forcefield I can't explain.

<comment><USER3> I've read that in body-language terms, sitting in the middle seat of a small row of seats communicates "I would like to be alone here", whereas sitting in the edges communicates "feel free to sit here". This might have confounded your experiment :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've lived here for 5 years and it's something that doesn't really bother me a lot. At the very least I'm not getting racial epithets shouted at me which I saw happen to a lot of foreigners (riding public transport) growing up in New Zealand.

</comment><comment><USER5> This just seems like pure racism to me. I spent 2 weeks in Japan recently, and I took all kinds of trains, from the Shinkansen, to Tokyo metro to random local trains. In various cities and towns. I am, and I look white af. Not even remotely Japanese or even Asian. Not once on my trip did Japanese people "avoid" me or leave an empty seat between us. In fact some of them even slept on my shoulder! The only time there were empty seats was when only a few people were on the train and everyone naturally spreads out.

The only difference I can tell between myself and this guy, is that he's black and I'm white. But we are both distinctly non-Japanese. So again, it just seems like racism to me. I'd be glad to hear why that is not the case though. Let me know what you think.

<comment><USER6> Nah, it's racism, there's no other explanation. I'm also white and people were not only sitting next to me, but even offering me snacks on intercity trains. Interestingly in my own country people rarely sit next to me unless there's no other seats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been living in Tokyo for quite a bit, I'm married to a Japanese woman. I'm Caucasian, born in Estern Europe.

I just asked my wife about this and she told me that even though it's a stereotype, some westerners have either strong perfume smells or due to their size are very hard to sit next to. So instead of trying to play the lottery when sitting next to a foreigner, they'd rather sit next to a Japanese.

This, obviously, doesn't apply to what they consider attractive foreigners.

</comment><comment><USER8> This was truly lovely to read. A peek into how cultures change.

<comment><USER9> He explicity said that nothing changed and that the episode on the train was the rarest of exceptions...

<comment><USER8> Yeah, that's kind of the point -- cultures change one kid's unsavory attitudes altered at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a visible minority in Japan, experiences like this are extremely commonplace. In fact, I think the frequency is the most troublesome part.

Every time you step out of the house there is someone there to remind you you are foreign. Just moments ago I bought some donuts and the woman in the shop awkwardly gestured at me instead of speaking to me.

Obviously, this is not the end of the world and it's nothing to lose sleep over but I would advise people thinking of coming to live in Japan that attitudes and norms around race are quite different.

<comment><USER11> > Every time you step out of the house there is someone there to remind you > you are foreign.

In my 2+ years here, I think I can count these cases on one hand. I think you may be picking out things that aren't actually unique to you being a foreigner, or your body language is just making it look like you're completely oblivious to what is going on in the interaction so they feel the need to make the communication extra clear.

<comment><USER10> I'm not doubting you, but I find it genuinely puzzling how our experiences can be so different.

For me, being treated differently to Japanese looking people is just the norm. At first I assumed it was my Japanese level or some other feature, but I think you can't ignore the obvious difference. The other thing that sealed the deal in my mind is how I get spoken to very differently on the telephone compared to face-to-face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This was a heartwarming story. I might add my own experience as a half Japanese/north European that recently moved to Japa. I've experienced the empty seat thing too, but it's not as bothersome as the people that stand up and move to other seats seconds after you sit next to them in a crowded train, now that makes me nervous. Being a foreigner does come with some perks I sometime envy though. Because I speak the language fluently, and one of my parent being Japanese, I'm sometime just labeled as "a rude person" when I act like a foreigner (where I'm born and raised), while a foreigner would just get a pass as people think "he just don't know how things work around here".

I do feel that too many foreigners (including me) jumps to the "racism" explanation too quickly though. It's not unreasonable because some things, such as finding a apartment as a foreigner are a experience filled with racism. Japan sure don't mind writing racism down on their list of preference. But most Japanese people simply runs on auto-pilot most of the day, and if they see something out of the ordinary (foreigner in the train) they just get really confused and stay away. Giving them a smile and a friendly nod usually lower their alertness pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd never sit in the last or even last 10% or so of seats on a subway train, as a healthy middle-aged man who isn't escorting a child or something. I'd also be highly suspect of a man who did that, and would be reluctant to sit next to him if I were disabled/woman/with-child/etc. Much more so in Japan. The illustration also shows him seated in a 'priority seat' where I'd never sit even if the train were empty. (This might just have been the illustrator, however.)

<comment><USER14> No/low priority doesn't mean forbidden. Also, how is a healthy man different than a healthy woman? Both genders have the same ability to stand?

<comment><USER13> I don't want to sit in a priority seat because some disabled/etc. people (including someone who appears healthy but has some hidden health problem, etc.) has to actually ask you to get up, etc.

Male vs. female is a societal thing. I don't really think younger women should have particular priority in seating, but I'd probably say a middle-aged woman would have reasonable priority over a middle-aged man, all things being equal. There are enough cultures where women > men for this particular issue that I tend to go with it, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> barry-cotter My god, it must be so unpleasant to be the kind of person who thinks about that for the hours necessary to write an essay like the one he wrote ten years ago, and to continue stewing on it for ten years.

I've lived in China for more than seven years and I definitely have an empty seat beside me on the metro more often than Chinese people and children and tourists say 老外(foreigner) regularly enough. So what? Life is good. I'm never going to be Chineses, same as he's never going to be Japanese. If that bugs him why not go home? No one's making him stay in Japan.

Change the things you can, accept the ones you can't and if you can't deal with that get out.

<comment><USER15> Out of curiosity, would you be ok with someone telling a non-us citizen black man in the US "If you don't like people acting racist toward you, go back where you came from"? That is fairly widely considered inappropriate in the US (though not universally).

<comment><USER16> It's rude to say that to someone, but as a foreigner if you can't come to terms with the face that you ARE an outsider, leaving's your only alternative (America's pretty diverse so eventually anyone can become a local, but in many places the visual difference will always set you apart).

I've been the foreigner before and there's a big gap between not being treated like a local and being actively encouraged to leave.

<comment><USER17> It's still racism even if it's culturally acceptable.

<comment><USER18> Is that form of racism still bad if it's culturally accepted? There are places in the world where it is not only culturally but legally encoded that non- natives are second class citizens. Should those places be denied the opportunity to self-determine that policy?

<comment><USER17> This is only one facet of a common problem that virtually every people on earth deals with. Is it so hard to acknowledge?

> There are places in the world where it is not only culturally but legally > encoded that non-natives are second class citizens.

Hell, in Israel you can even be a native and be a second class citizen. I wouldn't look to these countries as role models for human rights, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sure, Japan is a ~monoracial country and there isn't the level of racial awareness there that you have in the US. I feel like you have to accept some of this if you choose to live in Japan as a person of color.

I experienced this myself when I wanted to do the "teach English abroad for a year" thing in Japan after college. I have Top 1% English skills and have won literary prizes for my writing in college, and speak in a normal American accent that you might find in a news anchor. But everyone wanted a white person.

<comment><USER20> Japan is also definitely not a monoracial country - people are ignoring for example the Ainu people.

<comment><USER19> Added a character to clarify.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think there is a lot of over-interpretation of his. It never seems to happen to me. When you want to be the victim, you might seem to notice it happening. And certainly, there might be some people who don't like foreigners. But as far as I can tell I don't notice it. Perhaps the author has some other features that might make one want to sit beside someone else. The discriminative feature might not him being a foreigner. Furthermore, as a kid I did not like to sit beside foreigners (anyone I did not know) either. I was scared of anyone.

<comment><USER22> Perhaps, but the discrimination one feels living in Japan is more about the sum total of a bunch of separately innocent actions that, taken together, feel kind of crappy.

I've lived in Japan for about ten years now and certainly sympathize with the author. It's a great place to live, but there are still things that just plain suck about it, too.

It's kind of like this. Imagine, if every time you started a conversation with someone they, just once, wrinkled their nose. If it happened a single time, you might not even notice it, and even if you did it's not really a big deal.

However, after it happens day in and day out with pretty much every person you interact with, it's easy to start doubting yourself, "Am I making a weird face, too? Do I stink? Am I the one causing this for some reason? What's going on?"

The same sort of thing happens with the empty seat. It's relatively harmless as an individual instance. However, after it happens a thousand times, after having anything you share get interpreted, for the thousandth time, as a This Country vs Your Country Compare and Contrast session, after getting ignored in favor of people trying out their English on you for the thousandth time, then it just gets a litte exhausting.

Any of those things is fine in isolation, but the straw that broke the camel's back is the same as the million that didn't.

<comment><USER23> I just do not understand this mentality. We live in a primarily homogeneous society. There will be friction there. It comes across as overly sensitive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've been living in Japan longer than this guy and I can say that these sorts of things happen, but I find it totally ridiculous to get upset about them. If you are angered about the way your are treated, you really should return to your home country.

I say this because the level of self-absorption in this mentality is astounding. People are naturally going tend to feel a range of emotions around a foreigner that they wouldn't feel around someone who looks like them. Rather than being upset or lambasting the Japanese culture for "racism" it is much more productive, I feel, to treat people kindly and let them discover that there really is nothing to fear.

While he did do that with the little girl in the article, he also went ahead and wrote an entire newspaper article that effectively condemns Japan.

The overt cultural aggressiveness that I see dominating the airwaves thanks to websites like twitter more often than not leaves me feeling sick to my stomach: I have no respect for people who feel they have to right to forcefully make someone else do or act a particular way regardless of how "correct" they feel their way is. It is a seat on a train for gods sake.

<comment><USER24> If you don't like racism, go back to where you came from..?

Are the Japanese also against freedom of speech? Writing an article about racism is not "forcefully" doing anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This guy should cash in on the empty seat by having a staged Japanese friend break the ice and sit very conspicuously during his approach and settling in to claim that empty seat. Maybe even with verbal announcements along the way, walking through a crowd from an adjacent car to meander next to the expected to be empty seat. If they could stage cameras about to capture reactions from the crowd that could be slightly entertaining, possibly more.

<comment><USER26> > verbal announcements

At this point the foreigner is more Japanese than the local friend.</comment></comment>


The End of American Meritocracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c17d402a-12cf-11e6-839f-2922947098f0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct#axzz4851qhzRc <comment><AUTHOR> The interesting idea to me here was to link Affirmative Action to income rather than race.</comment>


A Test Drive of the Death-Trap Car Designed by Buckminster Fuller - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-test-drive-of-the-death-trap-car-designed-by-buckminster-fuller-1429890152 <comment><USER2> I suppose a lot of "great men" are well known because they self promote. I have a lot less respect for Fuller after I read how he stole the "transegrity" idea from one of his students.

 _" Bucky's warm and uplifting letter arrived about six months after I first showed him my small sculpture. In that it was dated three days before Christmas, I suppose he was in a festive, generous, mood. A year later, January 1951 he published a picture of the structure in Architectural Forum magazine and, surprisingly, I was not mentioned. When I posed the question some years later why he accredited me, as he said, in his public lectures and never in print, he replied, "Ken, old man, you can afford to remain anonymous for a while.""_

[http://www.grunch.net/snelson/rmoto.html](http://www.grunch.net/snelson/rmoto.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Vehicle dynamics are hard to get right particularly if you want some sort of suspension. Mr Fuller would likely of gotten things seriously wrong with any number of wheels. Having 4 wheels is not some sort of magic design spec as the article strongly implies. There is a lot of really subtle design that we depend upon in our day to day life that we don't even suspect the existence of...

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of the Robin Reliant, here's a video by a popular overseas motoring show that gives you a glimpse of the problems incurred when a high center of gravity is met with 3 wheels. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8)

<comment><USER2> 1 wheel in back with 2 wheels in front (like the Bucky car has) is actually pretty stable. 2 wheels in the back with one in front (like the Robin) is not.</comment></comment>


Plotagon free trial can now export movies and has expansion packs - <AUTHOR> https://plotagon.com/alice

<comment><AUTHOR> Free trial is two characters and two scenes. Full pack is now 5 bucks and gives you five actors and six scenes. There's a store with expansion packs and soon we'll add YouTube export as well.</comment>


SQL injection interactive tutorial using SQL.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/benjamingr/pizzahack <comment><USER2> Very interesting idea, but I don't think the example application is a good tutorial at all.

When teaching people SQLi the whole 0 visibility, slow feedback thing is a hindrance. A good app with instant fake sqli feedback, with the option to view the query live would be a great help. Sure, it's not realistic, but it's good for beginners.

<comment><USER3> The application alert()'s the query when it is incorrect, which was pretty helpful. It would have been better if the application's own queries contained all the field names instead of *, though. So you wouldn't have to guess.

<comment><USER4> Yes, that would be easier. I used google to find "xxxxxx".

Edit: Removed the spoiler. There is a SQLite statement showing the table outline which works just fine. Hint: pragma</comment></comment></comment>


HyperDither - <AUTHOR> http://john.tinrocket.com/hyperdither/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure I'd call Atkinson Dither "sophisticated" (the author does). In fact it's a mathematical error that happens to look very cool on certain material.

Sadly, the effect falls apart when scaled. You can craft a beautiful Atkinson dithered vibey image but you pretty much can't deliver it. Text it, put it on a web page, drop it into iMessage, Skype it -- nobody just delivers bits any more. It looks particularly awful when not at 100% zoom.

Also the page's comparisons to Photoshop are misleading because you can do a Atkinson dither in Photoshop by setting the "Dither" slider to 75%. You'll probably find it looks better at 87.5% which throws away 1/8 of the error instead versus his 1/4.

While I realize this violates the "if it's new to you..." rule, Atkinson dither has long since been strip-mined to the bone for blog posts and karma. Flickr did it as an April Fool's joke years ago. Frankly if there's a graphics tool that doesn't support it I'd be surprised.

</comment><comment><USER3> More info here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither#Algorithms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither#Algorithms)

This particular one seems to look pretty good when the pixel size is relatively large, but would give an inferior result compared to some of the others listed above for higher dpi. Also, it's too bad he didn't just disclose the specific details of the algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you like dithers check this game and its beautiful dev-log: [https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg121719...](https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg1217196#msg1217196) (return of the Obra Dinn)

<comment><USER4> more dithered companion cubes: [http://www.tannerhelland.com/4660/dithering- eleven-algorithm...](http://www.tannerhelland.com/4660/dithering-eleven- algorithms-source-code/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there anything like this for Linux?

<comment><USER6> netpbm, imagemagick, Gimp. Take your pick.

<comment><USER7> They implement Atkinson Dithering? I wasn't aware of that.

<comment><USER8> Netpbm for one does:

[http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/pamditherbw.html](http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/pamditherbw.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A friend of mine ported this to client-side JS a while back:

[http://gazs.github.io/canvas-atkinson-dither/](http://gazs.github.io/canvas- atkinson-dither/)</comment>


This time is different (stock market crash) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2011/08/08/this-time-is-different-stock-market-crash/

<comment><USER2> It is an interesting analysis and I hope he is right.

One of the comments on his post articulate my big fear:

"This time IS different Phil. The western world's economy has yet to deleverage. What was a housing / credit crisis is now a global sovereign debt crisis. Massive stimulus spending, 0% interest rates & QE 1 & 2 have simply delayed the inevitable. The staggering bills must now be paid. There are only 4 ways the US & Europe can deal with them: austerity, higher taxes, default or inflation"

In 2008, the thing that saved the western world's behind was China's slowdown. I must admit, that one surprised me. I assumed that local Chinese demand would replace the lost exports for China. That didn't happen and China experienced a slowdown just like the rest of the world. All in all, we rode through that one. This time, China seems to have inflation and have deemed it undesirable. How will things play out this time, I have no clue.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best places to buy and sell an independent SaaS product? - <AUTHOR> The State of Independent SaaS report got me thinking about the current marketplaces for SaaS products. I built and sold a small product back in the late 90s and it was all so very different back then. How are devs moving projects these days? <comment><USER2> [https://transferslot.com/](https://transferslot.com/)

[https://www.sideprojectors.com/](https://www.sideprojectors.com/)

[https://1kprojects.com/](https://1kprojects.com/)

[https://feinternational.com/](https://feinternational.com/)

[https://empireflippers.com/](https://empireflippers.com/)

[https://transferhub.io/](https://transferhub.io/)

There is also Flippa, but I'd stay away from it. Too many scams.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://crowdmna.com/](https://crowdmna.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> There are numerous marketplaces out there ranging from AWS to Salesforce's. It all depends on who the audience of your SaaS is. Is it targeted at pockets, developers, enterprises etc... Figure out the watering holes of your customers and work from there....

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not looking to acquire customers. I'm asking about buying and selling the actual business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are you asking how to sell the business (as opposed to how to sell subscriptions to customers)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm asking about current marketplaces for SaaS businesses as in to buy and sell them.</comment></comment>


WordPress for app development - <AUTHOR> http://torquemag.io/yes-you-really-can-use-wordpress-to-build-apps/ <comment><USER2> This could use a discussion of advantages vs. disadvantages of using WordPress to build apps.

Advantages:

* Can use WordPress plugins for rapid development.

* Can use a WordPress theme for a quick beautiful design.

Disadvantages:

* Large amount of internal overhead (which caching plugins won't solve)

* Plugin conflicts must be handled manually

* Need to maintain proper versioning when adding/removing/updating plugins.

* Your website is a beacon for hacker attempts because it's running Wordpress.

It's good to work with WordPress in a pinch, but if you _can_ build an app using traditional tools, it's better in the long run.

<comment><USER3> Advantages:

* You only need to learn to use one hammer for everything.

Disadvantages:

* Eventually you'll realize the things you've beat into shape tend to fall apart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First things first. It's a great post. But just because you can doesn't mean you should.

The growing pains and the transition to a "real" solution later on will be a huge pain in the.... It's literally a duct tape hack more than an actual app. The database models and security of apps built on top of WordPress are horrible most of the time.

I agree that WordPress is enabling for a lot of people who bootstrap this kind of things and are not tech savvy or don't have the funds to build an application. I also know that it's scary to tackle these things when you don't know where to start. A false assumption people fall for a lot of times is that it'll be cheaper that way. It won't. If you consider starting with WordPress you should keep in mind to change the framework as quickly as possible. A good time to change it is when the idea is validated. But in reality people keep patching and patching until it collapses.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes, you can really use steel wool to wipe your ass.

<comment><USER6> I'll try that right after I finish using this chainsaw to brush my teeth.

<comment><USER7> This is an interesting discussion for old-school types like me who used to think, "Why would you run apps in a browser, native code on the machine is so much better, less overhead, better designed for it."

We had to take the hit, realize and admit that, "Well, browsers are nearly everywhere, it's what people are used to."

Now, I see the "browser app" people saying, "Why would you run apps in Wordpress, the browser is so much better, less overhead, better designed for it."

What's next, people using "Yo" as an app platform? ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Can", but shouldn't...

</comment><comment><USER9> To be a viable web app development model Wordpress really needs to follow down the ExpressionEngine -> CodeIgniter route. Slowly evolving into a set of modular components that work together. (Or how bulky symfony evolved into lightweight symfony2 + components)

Wordpress is still very much stuck in the old-school PHP world: download one big codebase, add some Wordpress specific packages (themes and plugins). That's a far away from where modern PHP is: smaller components brought together with composer and packagist. Which leads to more nimble frameworks for putting together web apps, picking and choosing the right set of components. Don't like Doctrine, use Propel, or RedBean, or Eloquent.

It's okay if your app fits into Wordpress' constraints of the world.

My concerns over the current state of Wordpress as a web-app framework:

* Plugins are special snowflakes, and so raises a gnarly set of conflicts and issues.

* Themes that do a lot more than theming - like WPGeo, which is an entire location-based functionality. It's like there's a packaging construct that involves themes + set of plugins that's missing. So themes become a dumping ground for any code.

* Dependence on global variables (like $wpdb)

* The datastore being SQL is leaked through the codebase.

* The visual layer drives the processing - so themes take control.

* Plugins are wordpress plugins, not well-built PHP packages.

* The extension mechanism (pseudo-event-binding through global functions) makes any code "Wordpress code", it's a lock-in.

* The custom data storage is a joke and inconsistent. serialised php being stored in mysql field, or serialised JSON. Wordpress is missing a mechanism to encourage structured data. I care about the quality of my data, my app needs to care too.

* Unit tests. Wordpress' architecture makes decent unit test coverage difficult.

* The quality of third-party plugin development isn't great. Understandable considering the typical Wordpress audience. If the plugin works, great. If there's a conflict, that can open up a pile of hurt.

* Essentially it's a code-coupling problem. It's difficult to disentangle. So you're mostly writing Wordpress specific code, not componentised PHP modules.

I like the admin interface, I wish that was a separate component that could be forked, and used as the basis for a web app.

I can't see how Wordpress can deal with these issues in a backwards compatible way. Yes, they can create a modular and componentised core that can be packaged up for use outside of Wordpress, but at some point there's going to have to be a shedload of Adaptors to translate that clean crafted and organised code into a bunch of global variables and global functions that themes and plugins rely on.

I can see good bits of Wordpress (like the admin ui) being forked off into separate projects and worked on in isolation to the point they catch up with modern PHP development. But these won't be backwards compatible with Wordpress without a grungy wordpress layer over the top.

Perhaps the damning thing is the lack of a consistent and appropriate data model, backed with a properly structured database. Sure, I can define my own relational database, do by hand what a content management system should already be doing for me - at that point where's the benefit? What if I want to be using a noSQL store instead?

It's hard to justify starting with Wordpress, when there are so many much better frameworks available for PHP that are more suited to packages and componentised code.

First step, up-to-date autoloader and namespaces.

<comment><USER10> ExpressionEngine? All all the cool kids are moving over to Craft CMS. The ExpressionEngine template parser is a mess of a find and replace engine while Craft uses Twig etc.

<comment><USER9> Not ExpressionEngine per se, but CodeIgniter that came from it.

Thanks for the Craft CMS pointer. I did not spot that when looking for something more modern that supported custom content types last year. I played briefly with Bolt CMS, but it didn't quite feel right to me.</comment></comment></comment>


IPad has 1/2 the features I wanted in 2008 - <AUTHOR> http://deathbyprotools.com/2008/12/if-apple-knew-what-was-good-for-them.html

<comment><AUTHOR> admittedly, Apple has figured out a better way to implement the other half than I was thinking of when I wrote this.

Things they left out that I'd REALLY like to see:

\- SD card reader (or other removable storage) and yes I know there is an attachment. I'm pretty sure it only works for photos.

\- Camera

The Stuff they left out (and were right):

\- USB ports (this is arguable, but I think that usb ports are just asking for trouble. if you're going to follow a strategy of complete control in exchange for reliability and quality, forcing everyone to use a proprietary port is probably a good idea. Whether their closed-system strategy is good/bad/right/wrong is a different conversation

\- All those buttons: less buttons is better... I was an unwashed heathen in 2008</comment>


JPHP – an implementation of the PHP language and runtime - dim-s http://jphp.develnext.org/archives/20

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting that people keep coming back to this issue of PHP on the JVM: project zero, quercus, and likely others.

As someone who works in both PHP and Java, I see pros in both (and cons, of course). The couple of comments in the OP post makes me think he doesn't really 'get' PHP's strengths for what they are.

"You still can emulate the zend php working mode, when each request executes inside isolated environment + hot-reload"

No, it's not 'hot reload' \- it's not even 'reload'. It's just 'load', because everything is gone at the end of the request (yes, you could call it reloading, but it's not reloading and replacing an existing internal thing, because that thing is gone).

Rethinking this... yeah, I know why some people use the term, and 'hot reloading' in Java is a 'thing', it ticks me off a bit that people push Java- land mentalities in to PHP to 'fix' things that aren't problems (and yes, there's plenty of problems with PHP, as with almost any language).

"You don't need Apache or Ngnix to implement web apps on JPHP"

Technically you don't need to for PHP either - there's been a built-in web server for a few versions now, but... it's not marked for production. Given how many people put up nginx or apache front-ends on Java app servers... this doesn't seem to be an issue so much as a benefit - front-end caching/proxy servers provide more benefit than just serving the app directly.

<comment><USER2> > No, it's not 'hot reload' \- it's not even 'reload'. It's just 'load', > because everything is gone at the end of the request (yes, you could call it > reloading, but it's not reloading and replacing an existing internal thing, > because that thing is gone).

And it's not things are gone at the end of the request - it's more like each request has nothing until it acquires it. You have multiple requests in parallel in a modern setup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> The features page is interesting: [https://github.com/jphp- compiler/jphp/wiki/Features](https://github.com/jphp- compiler/jphp/wiki/Features)

> Unicode for strings (UTF-16, like in Java)

This isn't an implementation of PHP, then. PHP strings are binary, and making them suddenly unicode would break much existing code unless there's some hacky workaround in use. Also, UTF-16 is horrible.

> What JPHP does not yet support?

> Importing namespaced functions (php 5.6)

Surely that's not the only thing unsupported?

Then I see this: [https://github.com/jphp-compiler/jphp/wiki/Core- Extension](https://github.com/jphp-compiler/jphp/wiki/Core-Extension)

...so, it doesn't have PHP's standard set of functions, huh?

As noted below, this doesn't use PHP's normal request model, and apparently now it doesn't have PHP's standard library, or even have the same data types (Unicode strings). Is this really _PHP_?

Edit: oh, I see, it also has standard PHP stuff here (though a lot is missing): [https://github.com/jphp-compiler/jphp/wiki/PHP- standard](https://github.com/jphp-compiler/jphp/wiki/PHP-standard)

<comment> dim-s JPHP supports binary strings. You are right about zend php runtime functions and classes.

One of goals of the project is "replacing the ugly runtime library of Zend PHP with a better runtime library".

JPHP is not a replacement for the Zend PHP engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Neat idea. I'm far more curious about seeing projects like this implemented on the Graal/Truffle tools when they're closer to ready.

However, I'd be surprised to see this in the wild. There are a bajillion choices today about ways to do web scripting, and IMO PHP is only an advantage if it's really convenient or if you have an existing codebase written in it. The _only_ reason I've ever considered using PHP (or ever seen it used) is because it's conveniently already installed and configured on a server that needs to be used. If you have to set up a new toolchain or server to use it, then why wouldn't you just use a "better" language? If you have an existing project in PHP, and if you all of a sudden need performance or a desktop GUI, wouldn't your time be better spent porting it to a more performant/robust language, rather than adapting it to a new and unproven PHP runtime?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd think best use of effort would be getting this to support (and trivialize) writing PHP for Android apps. "Best use" meaning what would entice people to use it.

"Faster applications" won't entice _most_ PHP devs to switch entire stacks/tools and deployment process to shave off a bit of execution time. PHP7 will offer a roughly 100% improvement already in a few months time - the "JVM will be faster" argument just doesn't hold enough weight on its own in 2016.

<comment> dim-s JPHP can be faster PHP7: [http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hnw/20150117](http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hnw/20150117), also each version of the java virtual machine becomes faster than the previous 10-30% so and JPHP becomes faster. Thanks to Oracle and OpenJDK community.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not saying it's not faster - I'd expect some (maybe many) JVM scenarios to be faster than PHP. But "PHP is slow" is just not a real world problem for most use cases of PHP in web applications.

Running your business 15-20% faster will not be enough of a compelling argument for people to switch to an entirely new toolchain and way of thinking. I give you Ruby and JRuby as one major example.

Using JPHP as a way to get PHP running on Android, if it's seamless and strong experience, would be something to focus more efforts on, imo.

Every single successive version of the JVM being 30% faster is simply not born out in the real world across the board. I ported JVM web apps from JDK 6 -> 7 -> 8, and didn't see anywhere near those performance increases. Does the JVM improve with each iteration? Sure. So does PHP, and PHP7 is going to be a _huge_ across the board improvement, but I doubt we'll see this sort of doubling of performance from a single release any time soon after PHP7 release.

<comment><USER4> PHP already runs on android, there at least half a dozen PHP runtimes in the play store. Its just standard PHP recompiled to run on ARM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > when you plan to support web sockets in your app, you forced to use > something else

[http://socketo.me/](http://socketo.me/)

[https://github.com/varspool/Wrench](https://github.com/varspool/Wrench)

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of Quercus [1]. I tried this many years ago and at the time it seemed to work pretty well.

[1] [http://quercus.caucho.com/quercus-3.1/doc/quercus.xtp](http://quercus.caucho.com/quercus-3.1/doc/quercus.xtp)</comment>


The Top 35 Startup TechCrunch Missed out on this month - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupplays.com/blog/top-35-startups-in-tech-that-techcrunch-missed-out-on-%E2%80%93-september-2012/

<comment><USER2> Awesome - glad to see PicBackMan on the list. We are excited about our mission to end photo backup anxiety for everyone around the world!

</comment><comment><USER3> Excited for ScheduleMAX.com to be featured among these other amazing startups! Check us out if your biz could use online scheduling.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think startupplays.com is very useful tho get acknowledged in what is really hot in the startup world.

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for the awesome opportunity to spread the word about Chic Engine!

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for featuring Contur!

</comment><comment><USER7> promising startups.</comment>


Ask YC: What is Y Combinator's position on startups who want to focus on non-US markets? - <AUTHOR>

i.e. We want to apply to the YCombinator winter program and we do not mind moving to the US for 3 months (if accepted of course) but eventually my business will be aimed at users in Asia/Australia, so we will want to move back to our home country. Will YCombinator accept such applications? TIA! <comment><USER2> Sure. The high bit for us (and for you) is whether or not you're going to succeed. Songkick seems to be mainly based in the UK, and we're glad we funded them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had the same question too. I am from India, I want to apply for Winter Cycle and the product is for all the users. I had read a post where they say it is tough to get into ycombinator if you are not from Ivy League colleges or from USA. This is a scary part for me, I took leave from college this year to get into winter cycle and then i read about it how difficult it is for people from other countries to get into ycombinator. They said it is difficult not impossible, so trying my 100% to get in.

<comment><USER4> azharcs,

I too planned to do the same thing as you did - taking leave from college. But you know how strict it is in India. You must be lucky that your college gave you the 'requested' leave. I planned of taking leave and then the idea itself scared me off(what if I don't get selected and I am on leave).

<comment><USER3> I can always get educated whenever i want to but market is not always favorable for launching products always. It is not like i am not getting educated now, everyday learning little bit more than i knew yesterday be it programming, designing or start up culture. I am self-learning now and it feels great not to be spoon fed.

I know it is tough to quit education in India, they think of education as spiritual rather than a commodity they purchase by paying yearly fees. Which city in India do u stay, I am from Bangalore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys and thanks pg, looking forward to getting the prototype done and begin the application process.</comment>


I'm STILL Not Sayin' Aliens. But This Star Is Really Weird - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/01/18/tabby_s_star_faded_substantially_over_past_century.html <comment><USER2> This is absolutely fascinating! What the heck could it be? Seems like it'll end up being multiple phenomena unless it's simply something outside of our understanding. Aliens? That would be amazing but I'd assume that's the most unlikely scenario...but the one I'd want to be true the most.

I hope we figure out this mystery, one way or another, before I die.

</comment><comment><USER3> The encoded messages just say, "These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along."</comment>


Ask HN: No-code tool for creating API shims? - <AUTHOR> At Fivetran we frequently get requests for connecting to sources that we don't support and may not ever support, like your own API that you are the only user of. We'd like to build a connector to:<p>- A no-code tool<p>- That's powerful enough to pull data from arbitrary APIs<p>- Accessible to semi-technical users (analysts who know SQL)<p>These analysts would then use this no-code tool to create "shims" that connect Fivetran to arbitrary data sources. Is there something out there that fits the bill? <comment><USER2> Sounds like something you could pull off in Zapier (or an open source equivalent) perhaps?</comment>


How I Got Stung By Amazon EC2 - <AUTHOR>

So a few months ago I launched https://socialcrawlytics.com/ and to save a few bucks I thought I should use an Amazon Micro instance to run some workers off, it is free for the first year so it was a good option. Must admit, I really wanted to get on Heroku but Amazon's free tier was much more attractive.
For those of you who are interested, Social Crawlytics is based on the following technology:
1. Redis 2. FuelPHP 3. Node 4. Pubnub 5. MySQL
To cut the chase, within a couple of weeks I discovered that my pet project was attracting a lot of attention and out of nowhere the app was processing hundreds of large reports a day - which meant we needed more workers. So we developed the app pretty much based on Amazon's AMIs, every time there was a huge spike the app would auto launch new instances and instantiate workers until the spike was over and then it would terminate the extra instances.
This was obviously an expensive decision because we had instantly moved from a "free tier" to basing pretty much most of the app on Amazon's infrastructure. I knew the costs would add up but I sought solace in setting up Alerts so every time a certain threshold was hit I would get an alert. Turns out that Amazon's alert had a bug and and so did Social Crawlytics, basically in a matter of hours we clocked up over £640 bill and I wasn't alerted by Amazon at all.
Luckily, I just logged in to AWS and when I saw the cost I almost had a minor attack. So why did I share this here? Simple! If you are on Amazon watch your account like a hawk, you just never know what the costs would add up to and if you have a bug, it could cost you thousands in matter of hours.
I hope this will help someone somewhere. <comment><USER2> If there was a bug at Amazon I recommend giving them a call on the phone. I've found that the customer service reps for AWS are quite nice, thoughtful and genuinely seem to care about developers on AWS.

A while back I found a bug on AWS which caused our costs to skyrocket. SO, I called and pointed out the issue and they gladly refunded the money and apologized.

<comment><AUTHOR> This issue was caused around 3 months ago and you are completely accurate about how Amazon deals with such events.

Basically, if I didn't have an Alert set up I would have been completely liable for the costs and that is the point that I am trying to put across.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I had some great experience with Google in this regard. When cloud SQL didn't have alert, we overshot budget due to a bug in our app. They analyzed the whole problem for us & reverted almost 80% of the bill!

<comment><AUTHOR> I have never used their cloud infrastructure but what you are saying sounds promising.

I was lucky that I had set up an alert otherwise I would have not recovered the costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does Social Crawlytics work on a delayed report basis? Ie. you request a report, and all your AWS instances start building it and you get it X hours later?

What are your monthly costs so far?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not delayed, you get real time crawling and data hence we had to use Pubnub.

Monthly costs vary really, its normally upwards of $600.</comment></comment>


Crystallization of the Object Oriented Style - <AUTHOR> http://www.314t.com/blog/crystallization-of-the-object-oriented-style/29-03-2011/ Comparison of ideas and goals behind smalltalk and ruby <comment><USER2> Meta-comment:

At the top is an animated graphic, and the sides are a sketchpad with the pen always down. While this may be a good article, I have to wonder: do you want me to read it or not?

Sorry to be so negative, but really, consider just what your blog is _for_.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are absolutely right, that's why we're in the process of creating new website there, with new design and better readability.</comment></comment>


Show HN: PongFace - a fun way to give a gift card - <AUTHOR> http://pongface.com

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I'd love any feed back on things to improve.

<comment> j-hernandez Very interesting idea! Knee-jerk thoughts:

Ball seems a bit too big Colors seem a little off, assuming this is a first pass and that the polish will come later though Maybe add the ability to ratchet up the difficulty? Really make them work for it Evil Mode - Throw up a scary photo with novelty_scream.wav when the player wins and display their gift card code. For the sadists out there. Maybe set up a request for reaction videos on Youtube later on. Just spitballing.

Cool idea over all, hope to see it fleshed out a bit more!</comment></comment>


Improving Remote Meetings and Presentations - <AUTHOR> https://aaronparecki.com/2020/03/24/4/tips-and-tools-for-remote-meetings-and-presentations <comment><USER2> I have a $15 USB headset with a mic that comes out in front. It the sound quality is absolutely awesome. I don't personally mind the look of a little mic like that.

I also have my house wired with raspberry pis on WiFi hooked up to stereos on different floors linked using snapcast. It's cool because I can pipe the audio from a long meeting that I'm listening in on to it and then walk around the house.

Since I can get my phone to play the snapcast feed too, even the hottub Bluetooth speakers can now be playing the all-hands meeting ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems to be getting HN hug of death, but my tips:

Plantronics Blackwire headsets don't cost much and the noise cancellation of background noise on the microphone is superb. Your colleagues will thank you for it. I don't need noise cancellation on the headphones myself, but getting something with a decent noise cancelling mic will make life more pleasant for others, so do invest.

One place I worked a few years back was almost entirely remote before it was fashionable, and the #remote channel in Slack had a topic of something like "Wires are great. Trust me: _wires_ " or similar.

I have come to agree - WiFi is more a packet loss protocol than it is a networking protocol, especially in built-up areas with neighbours networks, microwave ovens and other disturbances. An ethernet powerline extender giving me effectively ethernet from my Mac mini to my DSL router might be the best investment I've ever made for home working.

Bluetooth is possibly the same: being wireless might look like you're from the future, but nothing beats wired headsets, keyboards and mice, period.

Zoom, WebEx, Google Hangouts, etc. all have preferences and settings. Learn them and get used to them, and learn shortcuts. For example some people still aren't aware you can stay on mute in zoom and just hit the spacebar when you want to talk. This is great when you're not presenting.

Lastly, dedicated webcams are worth it _unless_ you're on an iPad Pro. I think you'd have to spend hundreds to get a webcam as good as the front facing camera on an iPad Pro. Otherwise, a decent Logitech camera can make you look less tired - trust me! :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Becoming a master of the mute button is, in my book, the modern remote equivalent of knowing how to use Excel or Salesforce.

<comment><USER2> In Jitsi there's a cool push to talk feature where you hold down the space bar to unmute and when you let go it mutes again.

<comment><USER4> What a great idea. Would love to see this in Zoom or Hangouts

<comment><USER5> Zoom has this available to turn on in options (on the Windows client at least).

<comment><USER6> isn't that the default behaviour when you're muted? pushing the spacebar unmutes until you let go. Is the option for turning that feature OFF?

<comment><USER5> There is, at least in Windows. Advanced options screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a Logitech C920 (or very similar). I feel like he didn't even make an attempt to make it look decent. The brightness is completely blown out (and it is adjustable via software). I certainly wouldn't say a C920 is as good as a dedicated camera (with a much better lens setup), but it's much better than what's represented.

I have a less than ideal setup and I get results closer to the Canon camera.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd agree use of the mute button is the single biggest difference you can probably make.

The next best free technique is possibly not using the laptop camera from the desk. No one wants to see up your nose. There was a UK pub quiz last night (some 180k people joined), one of the many things that people are trying online at the moment, and the host was struggling not to show everyone the light on his ceiling.

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing the quarantine made me realize is how atrocious the image and sound quality is for videoconferencing. It doesn't need to be atrocious in this day and age. It's just that we don't demand a better product, so companies keep feeding us barely functional garbage to save costs.

</comment><comment><USER10> Zoom is a lot smarter than this blogger implies. Even if I sit with my back to the sun, it still tracks my face and differentially exposes the image so I am not a silhouette.

<comment><AUTHOR> This commenter doesn't seem to understand the article is not for exclusively for Zoom but for any video/audio recording.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Funny thing is I cannot use my rather expensive Bose QC53 because my Bluetooth audio insists on mono playback when using the microphone. And that really sounds horrible.

<comment><USER12> This has to do with the bandwidth of Bluetooth. [https://www.howtogeek.com/354321/why-bluetooth-headsets- are-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/354321/why-bluetooth-headsets-are-terrible- on-windows-pcs/)

<comment><USER13> I'm surprised this is still an issue, even after Bluetooth 5. Anyone know if there are plans to fix it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you are streaming HD video, bandwidth becomes important. This is especially true for internet services with slow upload speeds.

</comment><comment><USER15> finding those capture cards now for hdmi is not cheap anymore :(

<comment><USER2> I found a VIDBOX on eBay that shipped in 2 days and got it yesterday to hook up my 2012 HD camcorder as a webcam in Linux. It is an amazing upgrade and was indeed hard to find. Luckily I already had a few HDMI mini adapters.

Last night I got a v4l2loopback working from Open Broadcast Studio with it and now can have "pro" transitions and compositing of my camera, my screen, text, images, etc. in Teams and WebEx or whatever. Pretty neat.

Keep trying, it's worth it.</comment></comment>


Modern China Is So Crazy It Needs a New Literary Genre - <AUTHOR> http://lithub.com/modern-china-is-so-crazy-it-needs-a-new-literary-genre/ <comment><USER2> I think the "crazy" aspect coming into play is an iteration of the world- shattering view that occurs when a child realizes his or her parents are just people, not infallible perfect protectors. This fundamentally changes the view of the world for a person because a fundamental truth is no longer true. This change can be viewed as "crazy" and reality becomes more chaotic in the new world view.

I believe the same thing is happening right now in modern China. Simply substitute constituents and the oligarchy instead for the child and parent. When the citizens realize the infallible groupthink propaganda touted by the ruling class is in fact being touted by people inflicted with the human condition, they also experience a change in world view. Again, this change is "crazy" and more chaotic: A fundamental truth in their world view is no longer true.

Remember, China favored building a society on Confucianism where society had a set order. There is no room for the chaos in a Confucian society. However, the less-promoted Dao De Jing was written in an attempt to perfectly capture the chaos, contradictions, and hypocrisies of reality. And in a way, applying its teachings to itself indicates it both succeeds and fails in doing so.

The "ultra-unrealism" that the author keeps espousing seems to me a reaction for coming to grips to the mind-expanding change that comes when realizing a truth previously fundamental is no longer true. I am not trying to dismiss their feelings but am appreciating the personal growth. I hope others do too.

<comment><USER3> > When the citizens realize the infallible groupthink propaganda touted by the > ruling class is in fact being touted by people inflicted with the human > condition, they also experience a change in world view.

As someone who has grown up in and is Chinese, I very much disagree with this sentiment, especially in modern day. There has always been a discordant and uncomfortable relationship with authority in Chinese culture- we are polite to put on airs to our authorities but we also secretly hate them in some respects. We understand they are human, like us, but for the sake of society rule airs are put on to keep them. It has always been understood that authority and corruption are tightly bound, perhaps even more understood than in America.

The young see all the holes the government has and both desires to being justice and also acutely feel the burdens of society's structure on them, but to upend society has an almost horrific cultural connotation, a cultural catastophe referred to only as "that critical time" or "those difficult times". In this triangulation we have also the need for simple food, water, love, shelter, peace. The modern world and the ancient world are so intertwined in China, that going of the cities is like a form of time travel. The difference between my mother's home village and the city less than 1 hour away by train is the entire industrial revolution.

Much of modern China is also influences from "the critical time" on the modern history. China still has not recovered, culturally, emotionally. It might never will, not in any real way. People have been producing this kind of literature since that time. The most accurate thing in the article is when the article notes that China might "always" have been like this.

Yes, China has always been like this in its own way. China has had these methods of storytelling for a long, long time. Now the new generation of writers is applying this methods to modern problems and modern society in its complex, cage-like structure that everyone is aware of in their bones.

I disagree with the assessment that this is "crazy" or "coming to grips with a fundamental truth is no longer true". It is a rational consequence of applying ancient storytelling methods to a complex triangulation of the new generation's situation, where we are all aware that the government is a corrupt and easily-swayed monster, but social upheaval is horrifically dangerous monster in its own right. It is a problem with no certain solution, so we write.

<comment><USER4> > but to upend society has an almost horrific cultural connotation, a cultural > catastophe referred to only as "that critical time" or "those difficult > times"

In historical context the Chinese have every right to be weary. Between WW2 and the "Great Leap Forward" over fifty million have died due to famine and warfare, either inflicted by international forces or the ruling class.

<comment><USER5> Don't forget the overthrow of the Qing dynasty by the British in the 1800s.

<comment><USER4> Yeah the Opium wars, where Britain arguably got a whole nation addicted to Opium in order to secure better trading conditions for the East India Company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, some corrupt officials, a polygamist, a wanted official seeking asylum in a foreign consulate, and restaurants reusing cooking oil too much is an example of "unreality"?

Where exactly did the author grew up in? Cushioned upper class life, or Disneyland?

And those examples in a country with over a billion people? You can find all those examples in Africa, Asia, South America, etc.

A lot of those are hardly uncommon in the West either, just in more "white collar" versions. Restaurants re-using cooking-oil? Tons of restaurant are closed every year for just that and worse hygienic offenses. Or we have some company like VW falsifying emissions data (and lately, it comes out that several other companies did), impacting the environment in a huge scale.

Corrupt politicians? We have Presidents and PMs, senators and MPs openly retiring and joining the boards of companies they helped during their political career.

Heck, in Mexico the mob abducted 140+ students, executed them all together, and for the country it was business as usual for the country.

And those are examples or unreality? LOL.

<comment><USER7> You're doing no better by trivializing the author's purview. He doesn't live anywhere else you mentioned, he lives in China and in Tibet before that. That is the world he inhabits and that his writing reflects.

Not to mention that problems are relative; you think an American balking at finding out their favorite restaurant was closed because of hygiene issues doesn't feel something comparable to a Chinese person who finds out their favorite street vendor used gutter oil? [0]

Also in all of those Western examples you gave, China was much worse off. How can you say that China's situation isn't bad with a straight face? This is a country where the smug is so bad you can't see a few feet ahead of you. Where people who criticize the government can be made to disappear. Where the internet goes through a firewall [1] and is closed off from the rest of the world. [2] Sure, there are many countries worst off, but that doesn't mean we can completely overlook issues with our own countries.

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

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

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China)

<comment><USER8> > Not to mention that problems are relative; you think an American balking at > finding out their favorite restaurant was closed because of hygiene issues > doesn't feel something comparable to a Chinese person who finds out their > favorite street vendor used gutter oil?

I don't think it's unreasonable to have a strong reaction in either case. But I do agree with the parent commenter that believing this to be unprecedented and "beyond unreal" shows a level of ignorance or naivety that is more remarkable than the event itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I only skimmed the article since reading familiar @#$% in Chinese context in another language made me feel sick. I think this guy is just like many other Chinese that want to make a claim on a global stage with little awareness of what the reality on that stage might be. They often coin a concept for China and claim its uniqueness and somewhat advancement. People are easy to make that kind of claim when all they can see are just raw observations, especially when they think they know what they observed.

<comment><USER9> OK, I finally found something related he wrote in Chinese "超幻时代的写作(宁肯)": [http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/bjzjw/publish/article/657/530...](http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/bjzjw/publish/article/657/53058.shtml)

From what I can guess, he is from the inside of the system "体制内". So most likely, someone in the system needs to do some more "theoretical" work to prove/claim the advancement of "us" (Chinese). That's it. Don't worry about what it actually delivers, it is way less related than we think. The only difference nowadays is that we can make those propaganda seen by westerners. Even on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sorry but I really don't think "chaohuan" is a Chinese word. I don't like the author's writing style, use measures instead of the content to gain readers interest. Also I agree with some fact in the article, but it overemphasizes the bad side and neglect the good side. I agree the "Good fortune is that wherein disaster lurks", but I don't think we should stop progressing because of the afraid of the disters. There is also another Chinese saying "Righting a wrong must first Overcorrect", although it's saying overcorrect but I think it's saying all the cost of doing right. And the bad side can be seen by the public is because the Chinese government is doing something to deal with the bad things.

<comment><USER10> And HN prefer to write a bad China, but as a Chinese citizen I think my life is becoming better and richer instead of worse. And mood and bias both have huge impact to make us misunderstanding the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know about 'new'. I read Dos Passos's _U.S.A._ trilogy many years ago, and what I kept thinking in reading articles and essays about China's modernization over the past decades is, 'it's _just_ like in Dos Passos!' Especially when you read about some Chinese businessman who has founded a dozen businesses none of which have anything to do with each other after starting as a beggar or something, I kept finding it an echo of the people in Passos. China is really in a similar stage as the USA was in the Gilded Age, right down to the muckrakers in Hong Kong and private security agencies.

</comment><comment><USER12> Whilst I'm sure China has some 'ultra-unreal' situations, I don't think anything it can produce will top this one... 62 people have the same level of wealth as half the world's population. If you're talking ultra-unreal, nothing else is likely to come close to global inequality.

[http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press- releases/2016/01/...](http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press- releases/2016/01/62-people-own-same-as-half-world-says-oxfam-inequality- report-davos-world-economic-forum)

</comment><comment><USER9> "chaohuan" perhaps means "超幻" in Chinese.

</comment><comment><USER13> The astonishing thing is that China works as well as it does after the utter madness of the so-called "Great Leap Forward."

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone have a link to the original Chinese source of this article?

<comment><USER9> I'm not able to find the article in Chinese anywhere, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Modern Chinese writer so crazy he invents new literary genre.

</comment><comment><USER16> i don't know about a new genre, but modern china on it's current trajectory would be perfect material for an epic dystopian novel

<comment><USER14> You subscribe to the thesis that China's future is grim compared to it's present state? Or that it is a dystopia of epic proportions right now? If you care to elaborate, I am interested in your perspective.

<comment><USER16> It's in the process of materialising, the conditions are already set. Firstly, China's "rise" came from cheap labour and the destruction of the environment. Labour is not so cheap anymore, and the environment is all but destroyed. But that's okay, China's already rich, right? Problem is the people are still poor, and much of the money already left the country. China's GDP (PPP) per capita is less than that of Iraq, but the media and hence the masses are too fixated on national GDP to even notice (as times get tougher, this will change). Now that manufacturing is on the way out, where's the money going to come from? The people still haven't woken up but the party certainly has. They know there's a ticking time-bomb of social unrest. Time to bring back Confucian ideology to maintain social order, and find an appropriate scapegoat for all the problems; western values (which they never even clearly defined). Enter the State Administration of Film, Radio and Television (广电总局) to ensure that all media, including movies and TV series, push this agenda, and the Social Credit System (社会信用体系) to ensure that your level of success in life is determined by how closely you follow the party line. People will not even dare joke about the party, let alone criticize it; too easy to get caught and too much to lose. Power will go unchecked at unprecedented levels and be enforced by technology. I could write a lot more, but these are just some of the reasons I think China's future is grim. I have lived in China for a few years and I've been seeing these changes happen before my eyes.

<comment><USER14> Interesting... Thanks!

What city were you in, out of curiosity?

<comment><USER16> guangzhou

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting: the links at the bottom of the article doesn't work.

</comment><comment><USER18> The author's examples of so-called ultra-unreal are not so new. Like there were no corrupt courtesans in olden days?

Re: The Internet: It doesn't necessitate a new genre anymore than the invention of the telephone did. Good literature incorporates technology just where it's needed to move the plot along and it's all just window dressing over the basic proverbs and parables at the core.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hey, look, no offense China.. but you ain't that crazy.

Also... this has been going on in the US for decades.. and if you think China is ultra-unreal, AVOID Japan.</comment>


An archive of the best articles from Marc Andreessen's - <AUTHOR> https://pmarchive.com/ <comment><USER2> The last articles have been deleted.

e.g. Top 10 books for high-tech entrepreneurs</comment>


Ask HN: Why do you prefer Docker over a non-Docker approach? - <AUTHOR> This is regarding situations in which both Docker and a non-Docker solution would both have satisfied your use case.
I work at an organization following a microservice architecture via Azure - we create API services and have all of the Azure tools to handle things such as load-balancing. We have four environments, Development, Testing, Staging and Production. I've found that if we're working on a feature, we run 1 service and point it to Development environment, which in the Development configuration is pointing to the other required Development services, so we have no need to run multiple different services simulataneously unless we need to work on those specific services. Additionally, we build web apps, so there's no need to build for different PC architectures. Ultimately, there is no need for us to use Docker, but as I suspect many web app developers are using Docker for...something.
So, what is Docker doing for you that isn't solved by a non-Docker solution? <comment><USER2> I think for your setup, I'd want to know how you ensure that your local development environment matches what you use elsewhere. Docker does a good job of defining what environment your code runs in. You could also do this with VMs and something like Ansible, or even manual instructions for configuring a clean os install. Each requires various setup time vs maintenance cost.

Do you ever find that a bug presents itself in production that doesn't locally, then when you debug do you find that your local system was setup differently?

<comment><AUTHOR> The only thing different between local and cloud is the configuration files, so if there is a difference, it comes to checking the configuration files first, and they don't have to navigate for changes, they can check the git history for any changes to the production configuration file

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How long does it take to onboard a developer at your company to start developing?

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends, but it's not dependent on the number of microservices. They are usually tasked with fixing some bug in a specific service, maybe 2, so they open those services and point any URLs being referenced to Dev services so they don't have to run everything on their machine</comment></comment>


CoDel: wireless-friendly adaptive queue management - <AUTHOR> https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2209336

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a new algorithm to fight bufferbloat by Kathleen Nichols and Van Jacobson. It has no tunables, and is able to adapt to bandwidth changes of two orders on magnitude, making it suitable for radio links (3G, WiFi).

Patches for the CeroWrt home router are being tested: [https://gettys.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/fundamental- progress...](https://gettys.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/fundamental-progress- solving-bufferbloat/) Via <https://lwn.net/Articles/496250/></comment>


A 48 Hour Hack, A 100+ year Flood, and a Nenshi noun - <AUTHOR> http://lucasyyc.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/calgary-floods-of-2013-the-48-hour-hack-that-was-inspired-by-it/

<comment><USER2> Cool, I am in calgary and ya I wanted to know the same thing, I was wishing gps data was saved with all the photos posted so that I could plot it as well, great that you filled that! Then perhaps it could be shared with [http://google.org/crisismap/2013-alberta- floods](http://google.org/crisismap/2013-alberta-floods)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah.. I want to get it working better and try and make some good use of it... i really like the idea.

were you in the evac'd areas.

PS: upload some of your pics!

<comment><USER2> Luckily not, I was on the edge of 2 evac / power out areas, glued to twitter and Facebook for updates and pictures. PS: I will, I have some before / after pics</comment></comment></comment>


Andy Kessler: Put Down That Shovel (Gov't Projects for a Recovery) - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574572230780152344.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion <comment><USER2> These sound like good ideas, but it doesn't change the fact that, every once in a while, roads and bridges need to be rebuilt. Our transportation infrastructure has been in need of an update for years.

<comment><USER3> I (mostly) agree. It would seem that to do infrastructure especially in the middle of a recession (when you might be able to get it done cheaper) is the time to do it. That being said, you have to layer on the inevitable inefficiencies/corruption when such projects are rushed in order to have any impact to a recession.

I wonder if there are more creative ways to go about it like encouraging private firm participation through road privatization (which means that you get the same impacts without the government spend from private firms that are incentivized to be more efficient to maximize ROI). There are also creative experiments like congestion pricing that have the potential to greatly recoup costs while improving productivity.

There also obviously environmental impacts though of cheap free roads which have also been blamed for enabling urban sprawl. Again, it would just seem to me that yes, infrastructure is important (and much of the existing infrastructure is aging and needs to be replaced) but the way that we've gone about building it in the past and in how it's being proposed to build out now as stimulus, is less than optimal.

<comment><USER4> There are very few examples that you could point to where privatizing a public good has been successful. In general it leads to rent-seeking behavior and slow decay while the current owners try to wring every last possible nickel and dime out of users before reselling the husk down the line to someone else who thinks they can squeeze a few more pennies before the state eventually steps back in to clean up the mess. Private enterprise does exceedingly well in many areas, but infrastructure and sustainable resource management are not areas where it excels.

<comment><USER3> "There are very few examples that you could point to where privatizing a public good has been successful." I suppose that depends on how a public good is defined. After all, airlines for some countries were considered to be in the national interest to the point that many were owned by their national governments - ditto for steel plants, etc.

These days, I'm not sure the issue is black and white what with quasi public/private partnerships where an infrastructure project is owned by the public but leased to an infrastructure firm, or capital is raised using bonds sold to the public.

I think it's a bit naive to think that in the hands of government, rent seeking behavior doesn't happen - it is possibly even worse with contracts developed and awarded based on political connections/favor or in building roads/infrastructure in places that neither need it or even want it in some cases. There are however good and bad ways to privatize as well. I live in Ontario and the privatization of the 407 has been highly successful (both profitable and useful for private users and performs its function admirably). I try to avoid it during rush hour because of the cost (as is encouraged) but it's quite well maintained and built. Can you provide a few examples where roads have been privatized but made public again because "rent-seeking behavior and slow decay while the current owners try to wring every last possible nickel and dime out of users before reselling the husk down the line to someone else who thinks they can squeeze a few more pennies"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Neither medical idea is feasible.

You don't need 100,000 biologists to sequence every cancer; you need 100,000 Illumina machines (or, take your pick of next gen sequencers).

You don't need to scan all old medical records right now. You need a system that makes it worthwhile for doctor and patient to have digitized records. (And I'm not talking about "doctors will get punished until they go digital" as being an incentive. I mean true, medical or productivity-oriented incentives: your job will be done 10% faster; you will be able to identify trends in your patients' disease patterns; etc.) Once you provide the medical world with software that actually improves what it's like to be a doctor, or improves patient care, or both, we'll gladly jump aboard. And sure, you can threaten with payment withholding at that point if you need to.

</comment><comment><USER6> Two big reasons this article is wrong:

1) The more sophisticated a technology, the poorer a job that government is going to do picking winners. The US Interstate Highway was an unvarnished success - it is used, well, rather often. The National Information Infrastructure? That was a failure.

2) Paying to create good jobs is worthwhile and concrete infrastructure generates jobs of some reasonable social value. A massive biological program simply couldn't hire enough biologists to put a dent in unemployment. Even concrete infrastructure programs need sophisticated tech too, so it wouldn't all be shovels.

Now, I'd mention that rebuilding the _school system_ would also qualify as basic infrastructure. And that's beyond over-do. Of course, the problem is most reform has gutted actual learning a la no child left behind. Hard to know what to do...

<comment><USER7> Isn't the IPv4 internet --- the product of DARPA, run with federal money for decades --- kind of a stark counterexample to that?

<comment><USER6> No, sorry, I considered this before my original post. The Internet is not an example of the government _picking winners_.

The Internet was just one of _many_ inventions government research _produced_ through DARPA and many other agencies. IP, a portable protocol that a variety of companies simply picked up, won _despite_ any bets of policy maker, not because of them.

The Internet was never the subject of a _massive infrastructure funding drive_. It was not seen as a technology which would jump-start the economy until people started making money through servers stored in their dorm rooms. No, the boom was not the result of government picking winners here.

My argument: Government doing basic research = good. Government picking particular winning technologies = bad.

<comment><USER7> Securing and developing right-of-ways for bulk fiber is also not an example of the government _picking winners_. I suspect you're being a bit knee-jerk.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


California Could Drop Daylight Saving Time - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/628655/california-could-drop-daylight-saving-time/ <comment><USER2> Must be that twice a year time again. 1000 articles about daylight savings times. Where everyone has an opinion but no-one does anything about it in the end.

 _first requires that the legislature approve a constitutional amendment_

good luck with that

</comment><comment><USER3> Surely many people appreciate the extra daylight as I do.</comment>


Ask HN: Why there's not a "better dashboard app" built on top of PayPal API? - <AUTHOR> Paypal dashboard for developers (I mean apps using the Paypal API to collect payments automatically, but you get this confusion, it is because Paypal is confusing) is very bad.
It is limited, it is kinda slow, the session expires in a few minutes, it doesn't show all the data it could show, it doesn't allow you to perform actions manually or use it in any practical way besides setting an "app" and getting API keys.
At the same time, Stripe has a dashboard that has all these features and probably more. It is a pleasure to use (for sandbox testing, first-time implementers and for small apps with low revenue, at least). Also, there are services like Baremetrics that add features to these.
The question is: why not build an app that accepts Paypal token and secret and makes all the needed API calls automatically to display a nicer and friendlier dashboard for developers?
It sounds like a thing that should and could be done, but for some reason I can't find anything about this, not even someone suggesting it, on Google. Why is that? Am I missing something pretty obvious here?
(I'm not missing the fact that some people wouldn't handle their API secrets to a third-party service, because we know some would, and that's not bad, you're already trusting Paypal with your money, and probably others with even more valuable things -- but, if this is really a serious issue, this app could be an open source client-side app that runs locally, it doesn't need to be SaaS.) <comment><AUTHOR> For people not getting how bad the Paypal dashboard is, here's an anedoctal example of its badness in action: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27276797/paypal-show- sand...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27276797/paypal-show-sandbox- transactions)

(But I would also like to say that the dashboard is in fact getting better recently, along with the REST API and its documentation.)</comment>