Ask YC.news: Adequate, cheap motels near the YC-plex? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> If you're going to have a car, there are a whole bunch of independent motels on El Camino Real in Palo Alto and Mountain View. Many of these aren't advertised on sites like Expedia, so just use Google Maps to find them, and then contact them directly for rates. Some of 'em look kinda sketchy, but they're all safe, lots of nearby food, and probably clean enough. ;-) Hit me up directly if you want a local's opinion on a particular Mountain View motel. (At least how it looks from the outside.)

Also, you can get great deals on Priceline for excellent hotels near San Francisco Airport. I've gotten rooms a couple times for under $40 per night for 3 or 4 star properties. (The 3 star ones may be better because they won't gouge you on parking and Internet.) Check out www.biddingfortravel.com to see what kind of rates people are getting. Most airport hotels have transportation shuttles, so you can stay near the airport and take Caltrain to your interview. But, shuttle-BART-Caltrain is a bit of a schlep.

Congrats and good luck! Are the interviews this weekend or next?

</comment><comment><USER3> I also highly recommend using Priceline for hotels. Especially in the bay area. We pay 28-45 dollars/night and often end up in 3.5-4 star hotels.

</comment><comment><USER4> You don't have to be near us. You can stay anywhere near a Caltrain stop, because it stops within walking distance of YC.

</comment><comment><USER5> Pacific Inn in Redwood City.</comment>


Iwahai – Map Audio Recorded Launches Free Web Version - <AUTHOR> http://www.iwahai.com <comment><AUTHOR> Iwahai, the geo-tagged voice memo app for Android and iPhone has launched a free web version with all of the publicly shared markers on it. Listen to the web.</comment>


New branch in family tree of exoplanets discovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/New_branch_in_family_tree_of_exoplanets_discovered_999.html <comment><USER2> Does anyone undestand this sentence?

      "Most of these close-in planets were found to be roughly between the size of
      Earth and Neptune, which is about 4 times the size of Earth."

Wikipedia says Neptune's volume = 57.74 Earths and Mass = 17.147 Earths. [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Neptune](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Neptune)

<comment><USER3> Neptune radius: 24,622 km

Earth radius: 6,371 km

That's your 4 times the size measure.

<comment><USER4> Correct. Transit methods measure size not mass.</comment></comment></comment>


Bridgnorth pub's live music poster goes viral - <AUTHOR> https://www.shropshirestar.com/entertainment/bridgnorth-entertainment/2017/05/04/bridngorth-pubs-live-music-poster-goes-viral/ <comment><USER2> Excellent, but please everyone don't copy it mindlessly.

<comment><USER3> We all already know that it will be. I saw yesterday on imgur, hell of an idea.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What can I do to be become better at thinking like a hacker? - <AUTHOR> My experience, at least, has been hacker mentality and that "quickness" that comes in being able to absorb new ideas, paradigms and become productive is a facet of many things.  In particular, I find people around me exposed to programming at young ages and who have built things (little computers, emulators, Haskell programming etc) seem to be better at adapting and doing. For those that didn't do that growing up, apart from writing lots of code and learning, are there any other ways of getting better? I, for example, have found DNB very useful.  What other ways are you guys hacking your brain? <comment><USER2> What's DNB?</comment>


Placer.ai: Visibility into consumer foot-traffic - <AUTHOR> https://www.placer.ai/ <comment><USER2> > Deployed into millions of devices via 500+ mobile apps

A straight up in your face example of why the current wild west approach to privacy is simply not sustainable. A company can embed their tracking along with what ever it is that end users actually wanted to install, no questions asked. Saying this is covered by the ToS is not convincing, this should simply be illegal.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is absolutely disgusting, developers, please don't install this in your apps, please don't fuel the surveillance economy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Flagged. There should be no place in our society for privacy vampires like this company.

</comment><comment><USER5> How do they collect this information?

<comment><USER6> It seems to be embedded into a mobile app SDK, deployed on 20M+ devices [0].

[0] [https://www.placer.ai/resources/our- data/](https://www.placer.ai/resources/our-data/)

<comment><USER7> Deployed how? Why are they hiding main information?

<comment><USER8> Good question. According to Venture Beat they have their SDK installed in top 100 apps in 2018.

[https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/24/placer-ai- raises-4-millio...](https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/24/placer-ai- raises-4-million-to-use-ai-to-track-foot-traffic/)

So then through app publishers, either intentionally or through an SDK dependency that they are unaware of. I wonder how app revenue sources is evolving over time. Could it be that "data monetization" is one the rise with the proliferation of startups like this one?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this just an ad? Or a warning?

<comment><USER10> Yes.</comment></comment>


Lessig: How I Lost the Big One [2004] - <AUTHOR> http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2004/story_lessig_marapr04.msp

<comment><USER2> tldr;

Just Lessigs long account of the story.

Lessig made practical law mistakes because he acted like an academic. He corrected Supreme court justices rather than answering their questions.

He thinks a more practical lawyer could have won the case, maybe but he never says how, and there is no clear single mistake.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree there's no clear single mistake, but his main conclusion is that he erred by not trying to convince the justices that as a policy matter, extending copyright in this way was a bad idea. Instead, he thought he had a legal argument for why it was unconstitutional that the justices, given their previous views, would _have_ to accept. What he didn't count on was that they didn't want to accept it, and so dodged the issue. So he concludes he should've spent more effort convincing them that not only did they _have_ to accept his argument legally, but that they should also _want_ the outcome it produced.

He correctly guessed that Ginsburg would vote to uphold, and Stevens would vote to overturn, and those were both consistent with their previous opinions. He incorrectly thought Breyer would vote with Ginsburg, against him, and didn't know what Souter would do.

But he thought he had an argument that the 5 conservative justices would have to accept, given their previous opinions. What he didn't count on was that, since they as a political issue didn't want to strike down the law, they would just sign on to Ginsburg's opinion _without comment_. That is, the conservative justices didn't explain anywhere why this decision was consistent with their previously expressed views on tests for limiting enumerated powers. They just ignored that argument entirely, and silently voted for Ginsburg's opinion, which analyzed things from Ginsburg's perspective, with a heavy focus on legislative precedent and no discussion of originalist arguments. The 5 conservatives didn't write separately to explain how they could possibly agree with Ginsburg's reasoning, given their previous views (especially the originalist ones, who were usually skeptical of legislative precedent).</comment></comment>


A great example of MVC in PHP - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fulldecent/cameralife <comment><AUTHOR> Don't actually look at the project, just look at the MVC part, starting at index.php (and explained in CONTRIBUTING.md).</comment>


U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks - Details on intimidation attempts - <AUTHOR> http://wikileaks.org/#spying <comment><USER2> I've recently read a good book that I think is insightful here. It was written by a Bush Administration official and is called "How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack."

No matter how you feel about the obvious pro-Bush slant this book is worth reading for two reasons...

1\. The author actually spent time talking to the CIA people who carry out Ops. He got to ask them "why do you do this?" and "why does this work?"

2\. The information shared wasn't available until the Obama administration declassified it. So it gives an unprecedented look into how intelligence agencies work and how much of their work is simply psychological.

After reading the book my opinion is they're screwing with Wikileaks. Again, the real expertise the CIA has built up over the years is in how to get people to think what the CIA wants them to think. In this case I believe they want this editor to think he's being spied on at every turn.

Increased paranoia, especially on someone who is already prone to it, will eventually drive a person over the edge. As this post shows his instinct is to fight back in public meaning the more paranoid they can make him the more likely it is he'll start ranting in public and (they hope) discredit himself.

<comment><USER3> Except that the author of said book is totally full of shit, and his book has been ripped to shreds:

[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/03/29/10032...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/03/29/100329crbo_books_mayer)

<comment><USER4> Ugh sorry, I just accidentally downvoted this while trying to upvote it. Sorry again. Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Did anyone else draw a parallel to the current Internet censorship in China?

There are differences of course, but they are both instances in which the government feels threatened by the power of information that the Internet gives the individual.

<comment><USER6> Yes, and no. Because while clearly there are parallels in that they feel threatened I think that, ultimately, there is a line which the US currently hasn't crossed (e.g. stifling media reports about wikileaks, snatching them and imprisoning them on fluff charges, human rights abuses etc.).

Additionally what scares them is the handing out of classified material; which isn't quite the same as stifling criticism of the government etc. Whatever your feeling on whether it _should_ be classified or not they have an obligation to reasonably mitigate information they consider secret.

There is a very very fine line and, if true, I feel it's being extremely closely tread on this occasion.

(just to add: I support both sides in this, so sorry if I am sat on a fence somewhat :D)

<comment><USER7> > Ultimately, there is a line which the US currently hasn't crossed

If US government is killing civilians in various countries and is orchestrating arrests of minors, morally it is not really rising above China by much. Yeah, it is not sending 'guidelines' to the media, because there are other methods of influencing what gets published and what doesn't -- namely intimidation of journalists and sources, appeals to the owners of media corporations and so on.

> Additionally what scares them is the handing out of classified material;

Well what kind of classified material? Yes, if these are nuclear launch codes, or frequency hopping codes of military radios, they would have a valid reason to detect the source of the leak. I think most of us and most US citizens would agree with the government doing that. But these are videos of slaughtering of civilians. At this point, the CIA should be appologizing and not running around arresting and following people. There are now showing their true face (well to the rest of us who didn't know it yet).

> Whatever your feeling on whether it should be classified or not they have an > obligation to reasonably mitigate information they consider secret.

That is what I have a problem with -- "an obligation". Obligation to who? Government? Why should we have an obligation to them that trumps our moral sense of right and wrong? Luckily there is someone there, who is an actual human being, with a moral sense, that knows that killing innocent people is wrong no matter how many classification layers get slapped on top of it. That is why these leaks happened. Someone put their job, freedom (and life?) at risk because they felt that the "obligation to hide murder under the carpet" is wrong.

<comment><USER6> > Well what kind of classified material?

Any classified material. I don't think they should be discriminative based on some ill specified metric; if _they_ feel the material should be classified then _they_ should attempt to keep it so. If Wikileaks feels it should be public then _they_ should attempt to make it so. Therein we have the makings of balance.

> Obligation to who? Government? Why should we have an obligation to them that > trumps our moral sense of right and wrong?

 _We_ certainly don't have an obligation, that's silly. _They_ have an obligation to stand by the laws they impose. Otherwise whats the point :)

<comment><USER8> And _They_ have an obligation to do what's in the best interest of the _citizens_ of this country.

Classification is useful only so far as it improves our well-being. Nuclear launch codes and radio frequencies fall under this. Keeping something classified because it embarrasses a gov't official or maybe costs him a job is not.

<comment><USER9> Reality is not so clear cut. There is a huge span of information which is useful to potential enemies without directly being a risk to people's lives.

For instance, in the Army counterintelligence report that Wikileaks recently published one of the classified items (much of the content of the report was actually unclassified information) lists certain countries that were believed to have the capacity to hack Wikileaks. Now, if you were (say) North Korea, then your presence or absence on that list tells you something about what the US knew about your cyberwarfare capabilities. If you were the US, leaking this information undermines your desire to not reveal all you know, and might even reveal something about your own intelligence capability.

I've intentionally chosen a fairly benign example because my point is not that _this_ information is so valuable, but that classification of information does not simply break down into "nukes" and "embarrassing".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I want to help them out by writing software, but I live in a CIA-infested country (the UK) and these reports make me genuinely afraid of reaching out. While I greatly admire their courage and respect their cause, I'm not really brave enough to sacrifice myself for the greater good.

<comment><USER6> I've reached out as number of times to them and never had a reply... which kinda sucks

<comment><USER11> Yeah, same here. I'd guess they have no end of volunteers, probably about 0.05% of whom actually end up panning out.

<comment><USER12> I've worked with non profits (habitat for humanity, etc) who were too busy to take on more help. Each untrained helper needs resources to be trained. If you're lucky they need of unskilled labor (or untrained labor - skilled is the wrong word) but if they don't then you probably wont get a call back.

I've started some of the work unsolicited. Advertising and fundraising to be precise. I kept them in the loop and eventually they want to be involved.

Organizations often need to put more work into allow people to help them but they often need to put more work into everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Alright, has anyone actually read some of these documents.

Check out the US'govt report about WikiLeaks posted on WikiLeaks.

<http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf>

Am I the only one that after reading it agrees with the government?

Specifically WikiLeaks posted classified documents showing troop equipment allocation and anti-IED jamming equipment specs. What possible purpose does this serve? There is nothing embarrassing/illegal about what our troops are carrying and how they are fighting IEDs, but there is a lot of extremely valuable intel for the enemy in those documents. Honestly the guys at WikiLeaks are lucky as hell they live in a country where they are not strung up for treason already. You would not be seeing Tweets from these guys in many parts of the world.

Frankly I don't WANT to help WikiLeaks. If you are endangering my friends actually deployed, what is the purpose of leaking this stuff? To show how good your sources are? So the guys running WikiLeaks value their journalism cred and their own ego over the lives of people actually relying on IED jammers to work?

</comment><comment><USER14> "We freely admit to doing illegal stuff, and the government needs to stop trying to figure out what we're up to." Yeah, that makes sense...

<comment><USER15> Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. -- Henry David Thoreau

<comment><USER16> That's easy for Thoreau to say when he lives alone in the woods. And that peaceful place in the woods was only his to live in because earlier English- speaking settlers in North America had gained that land from the aboriginal inhabitants.

<comment><USER17> Thoreau spent a year in the woods, but he was not an anchorite by any stretch of the imagination. Besides being a civil libertarian he was also an accomplished engineer who developed pencil making machinery and built milling equipment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone know if there's an archive of documents released by wikileaks? I've not been able to find them through the website's homepage.

<comment><USER19> <http://mirror.wikileaks.info/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've got some very mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, the more open the society is the better it is for everybody. Wikileaks performs an impressive and valuable service by allowing a place for information to get published.

On the other hand, even in a perfect world, hell if everything should be out in the open for everyone. There are lots of examples, going back as far in history as you'd like, of state secrets serving a necessary and important role. Even averting war.

So my question to the wikileaks folks is this: where's the line? Would you publish anything, and the more secret the better? Or is there some kind of rule you use? Would you publish nuclear launch codes? The identities of spies in countries that would execute them for it?

There is way, way, way too much secrecy in the world, especially among U.S. Agencies. They classify anything they want, and the biggest reason is political CYA. Having said that, I can't give carte blanche to Wikileaks either. Before I support them, I need to know what standards they have.

Even more serious, this isn't bean bag, guys. A country pays a few billion to keep something secret and you blow the whistle? You might want to make sure your life insurance is up to date.

So is wikileaks there for the leaks? Or there for the public? I don't think the two goals are the same thing.

<comment><USER21> >Would you publish nuclear launch codes?

Afaik, wikileaks has never been about publishing launch codes. It's about revealing cover ups and there should be no government cover ups. If they are trying to hide something they've done then it's probably because it's illegal.

<comment><USER22> IOW, if you're not doing anything wrong, you can't have anything to hide? :-)

<comment><USER23> There is a difference between personal privacy (which does not affect others) and government secrecy (which affects many people).

If the military/police force killed people, whether those people are terrorists or civilians, the deed should be reported and let the public decide whether it's good or bad.

Maybe the public decide killing a few civilians in a war is acceptable and voted in agreement, who knows?

<comment><USER24> And what about government employees with access to sensitive information who can't keep the secrets they agreed to when they signed up? Do you think the public should get to know who they are so they can decide whether the leakers can still be trusted to hold government jobs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The problem of Wikileaks is that it is centralised and, therefore, is vulnerable. Freenet offers a much more resilient approach. It is true that Freenet is not yet easy enough, but it is just a java application which almost anyone can run. Of course, writing wikileaks.org on the browser bar is easier and faster than installing Freenet, but it puts lives in danger. By the way, there is a wikileaks mirror on Freenet. It might be better to do the other way round, wikileaks should be a mirror of the freesite.

<http://freenetproject.org/>

update: of course, the lives in danger are those of the editors of wikileaks.

<comment><USER26> How do you know it's centralised?

<comment><USER27> It has a centralized structure. There is a hierarchy of responsibility, etc. There is an 'entity' to attack, whether it's the servers, or the editors/leaders/etc. Which is different from something that is truly distributed where each person is -- for all intents and purposes -- equal to anyone else in the group.

<comment><USER25> That's it. If the server is down, goodbye wikileaks. If the bank accounts are seized, goodbye wikileaks. If the leaders are imprisoned, good bye wikileaks.

Freenet offers a more resilient architecture.

<comment><USER26> They don't just have one server in one location. They're not stupid.

<comment><USER25> Ok, then they have 10 servers on 10 locations. That's not resilient enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If they supposedly have the video, why don't they just release it?

<comment><USER6> From the article:

 _Some of the new interest is related to a film exposing a U.S. massacre we will release at the U.S. National Press Club on April 5_

Personally I'm willing, for the moment, to take on faith everything posted so far (and that they have a video of some kind) - we'll see what happens April 5th.

<comment><USER28> I'm okay with waiting, but I'm just wondering why a site that's about leaking things is holding a carrot in front of us.

I have a strange feeling that the video is not as juicy as we're lead to believe, and it's just a publicity stunt, which is why I'm posing the question to HN.

<comment><USER29> The submitter can request Wikileaks to hold onto a document until a specific date.

<comment><USER30> Clearly we need a WikileaksWikileaks

<comment><USER31> Such as <http://www.wikileak.org/> ?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stolen Web Site - <AUTHOR>

How should one handle the situation where a website has been built/launched as part of an informal partnership between two developers and then one of the partners "quits" and launches the a new competitive website on a different domain, but using the exact same code, design and functionality while only changing the logo?  Anyone been in a similar situation before? <comment><USER2> Reminds me of Jason Cohen's post on real competitive advantages:

"What happens when employee #2 makes off with your code and roadmap and marketing data and customer list, moves to Bolivia, and starts selling your stuff world-wide at one-tenth the price?"

Rest of the article here: <http://blog.asmartbear.com/unfair-advantages.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a great article, atldev... thanks for the link. Although, it still leave me SOL. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I guess you have 2 immediate options.

1\. use your version to fight for some market share

2\. quit

There are others but these seem like the most realistic alternatives to me.

Lawyer up and fight is one other but I don't think it will bring you true resolve (or happiness) whether you win or lose. The true legal situation depends on a lot of factors and you don't give enough information to comment really on that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sort of. Sites are not exactly the same anymore, because we just pushed a new version of the site, but compare splunk.com with webskydev.com. They get bonus points for renaming our employees with Russian names. In our situation, because they're in the Ukraine, there's not much we can do about it. Does help that we're not in the same business.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just tell him you're going to wait to see if he's successful and then sue him and take half of it. That should bring him back to the discussion table ;-)

Really though you guys need to sign a legal agreement dissolving the partnership and specifying who owns what. Otherwise neither of you can re-use any of the existing IP safely.

</comment><comment><USER6> IANAL, but with no agreements in place you're probably shit out of luck.</comment>


Visual Studio Code's Privacy Statement Takes Your Rights - <AUTHOR> https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/dn948229 <comment><USER2> "Data will include the following"

In lawyer speak, does that means data collection is limited to that or will include that plus whatever else?

</comment><comment><USER3> Well it is time to block some ip addresses in the firewall. Did this with the technical preview.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds conservative and reasonable.</comment>


SAGE manual: an introduction to the first air defense network - <AUTHOR> http://ed-thelen.org/SageIntro.html

<comment><USER2> Botter Reeves, one of my best friends and a great all-around computer guy (back when that meant being as comfortable with a soldering iron as a keypunch) had a hand in building this. He has fantastic stories of those days. I hope he gets around to writing them down.

I'll try and relate one of them from memory. I apologize in advance for getting details wrong.

Back in those days you didn't just put out a help-wanted ad for programmers and start filtering resumes. Programming as a professional barely even existed. Instead, you had to find people with the right mindset and train them from scratch. And you had to be willing to look anywhere for the right people. IBM had created the original Programmer Aptitude Test (PAT) and was giving it to college students, teachers, and just about anyone they could round up. The best-scoring testers were immediately offered a job in California as trainees for what was to become SAGE.

This was, I think, an office of Federal Systems Division and the job was really a boot camp where the trainees had to learn the principles of radio, radar, tracking, computers and programming. It was quite hard on most of them and people would wash out of the course as it become progressively more difficult.

No one outside knew what was really going on at FSD (even the trainees didn't know what they were really learning) but it was getting quite a reputation for itself.

It seemed a little cruel to send someone across the country (a big deal in those days) for a job that didn't last more than a few weeks. Botter assured me it was no problem. Even the wash-outs were in demand. Software Development Corp. had a recruiter outside the IBM building to offer them new jobs when they quit IBM.

The final, carefully-chosen test prior to graduating boot camp was to understand and explain how a certain subroutine worked. This subroutine was special. It was granted exclusive access to the tiny amount of core memory that was available (most of the memory was probably drum, iirc.) Its purpose was to monitor the results of the radar signals as the antenna dish spinned and piece them together to associate the individual signal samples with the correct objects (planes or missiles), and identify their altitude, speed and direction as quickly as possible. It was unusually complex, self-modifying code.

Botter said that few people could understand that code and fewer still could successfully modify it. Those who passed were ready to graduate and move on to work on SAGE.

</comment><comment><USER3> My favorite part: the auxiliary console includes a built-in ash tray and cigarette lighter.

<http://ed-thelen.org/SageIntro-fig3-08.gif></comment>


A good book to re-learn php? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice has a lot of advanced stuff. [http://www.amazon.com/PHP-5-Objects-Patterns- Practice/dp/159...](http://www.amazon.com/PHP-5-Objects-Patterns- Practice/dp/1590593804/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7637886-1359244?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192217491&sr=8-1)

Zend PHP Study Guide has the basics without much examples. [http://www.amazon.com/architects-Zend-Certification-Study- Gu...](http://www.amazon.com/architects-Zend-Certification-Study- Guide/dp/0973862149/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7637886-1359244?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192218522&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have occasionally used php over the years, but not lately. Soon I will probably have to take up project with it again. So I wanted to go trough a book or two. But everything I found have rather bad coding style, just the one for what php if famous for. What would be good source to learn more advanced features and good practices of producing quality php code?

<comment><USER3> I don't (and won't) use PHP, but I'd suggest starting with an O'Reilly book like <http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progphp2/></comment></comment>


Microsoft Equips Individuals With New Training Resources Needed for Jobs: Elevate America - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/feb09/02-22elevateamericapr.mspx <comment><AUTHOR> /. thread: [http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/23/220227&fr...](http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/23/220227&from=rss)</comment>


EETimes.com - Intel builds 80-core chip - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=UWMRJO3X2B4G%20%20WQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=196901229 <comment><USER2> I think hardware makers should just chill out, relax, take a few weeks off, and maybe even help out with software.

It's not like current software usually utilizes anywhere near the full potential of given hardware.

Surely part of the fun is squeezing every last drop of performance out. Making hardware do cool stuff it wasn't exactly designed to do.

Ah well :)

</comment><comment><USER3> This article is old and the chip is useless; it's virtually impossible to program.</comment>


Show HN: Array Slices Optimizer – Shared memory arrays views in C# (Fody&Nuget) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Codealike/arrayslice

<comment><AUTHOR> We built this to optimize numerical algorithms. I am pretty sure there may be other uses. Let me know if you find it useful outside of number crunching.</comment>


Our IQs have never been higher – but it hasn't made us smart - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160929-our-iqs-have-never-been-higher-but-it-hasnt-made-us-smart <comment><USER2> The whole "young people don't read" angle is totally tangential. The article makes a big deal of it up front but never justifies it with a concrete tie-in to the research.

As an older millennial that's gotten pretty cynical: why should I read? Most of what is written is just like this article: an attempt to mash some ideas together and explain an underlying phenomenon that the author doesn't really understand. I'm pretty bitter about how much time I wasted in school reading things that were bunk (wait, Columbus did what?) And as study after study gets debunked (until last week, I used to believe exercising willpower sapped physical energy--thanks HN), and "experts" can't agree on questions like what caused the financial collapse, I've become pretty convinced that most of the theories underlying public policy, diplomacy, and the course of history are pseudo-science if not outright fantasy.

Millennials, I think, are utilitarian and unromantic. Fancy ideas in books don't hold much appeal to us because as the web makes information more available, we realize nobody knows what they're talking about.

<comment><USER3> Read poetry: you will find wisdom, not science. Truth, not facts. Beauty, not data.

Go to museums.

<comment><USER4> If you can't analyze your wisdom then it's not worth discussing, facts and data are objective - I don't perceive the the things you mentioned as smart but pretentious.

<comment><USER5> > facts and data are objective

Sure -- it's just a pity neither you or me or anyone will ever come in contact with them. _Everything_ we think/write/read is based on assumptions/axioms. You don't even have to "dig" to realize that, you just have to scratch the surface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, "smart" can mean above-average problem-solving abilities, and/or learning new cognitive skills at rate that's faster than the average population.

Another definition of "smart" is the accumulation of _knowledge and facts_.

The 2nd definition is what the BBC headline and James Flynn is talking about. He's concerned we're not _" smarter"_ in the sense of not reading more books, and not knowing about history like The 30 Years War, etc. In contrast, when another writer like Joel Spolsky talks about _" Smart and Gets Things Done"_[1], he's emphasizing the 1st definition (aptitude).

So yes, IQ and knowledge are decoupled from each other and can increase at different rates. E.g. there are a lot of high-IQ physicists out there that can solve crazy equations but are not interested in reading a bunch of history books. In JF's framework, this makes those scientists "dumber".

[1][http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html)

<comment><USER7> History like philosophy has a rather inflated importance in peoples minds. Knowing say the names of Roman rulers is no more important than know the starting lineups for a 1980's sports team.

<comment><USER8> You're right, but history is not about knowing the _names_ of the people. US Public Schools do us all a disservice by pretending that History is about memorizing names and dates. It's about remembering what they did and why.

Hadrian is interesting not because he's Hadrian and he was once a Roman emperor. Hadrian is interesting because he commanded to be built an enormous military fortification. The history of that fortification includes his motivations and that of his generals. There may even be a relationship to the economic circumstances of the time, and there were likely some interesting political ramifications. That's what's interesting. Hadrian could just as well have been named Buttface and there would still be something to study there.

<comment><USER7> Don't get me wrong, history is interesting, but so is chess. That does not make them important. Part of the trap is history is a great way for people with power to justify why they have power.

However, in a wider context the history of disease, the history of technology, and the history of systems of thought do more to shape our world than the history of people. Yet, sanitation for example is generally ignored relative to the story's of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At the core of this article, to my mind (and ignoring Flynn's typical baby- boomer lament that _kids today don 't know what I know_), is the false dichotomy of "nature vs nurture." The article claims that IQ is 80% predicted by genes by adulthood. It's the same point stressed by Charles Murray in "The Bell Curve," which suggested that government social programs were a waste because African Americans lacked the genes for higher IQ and were therefore doomed to poverty [1].

But then, as the article notes, if IQ is so reliant on genes, then why the Flynn Effect? Why are IQs collectively rising year-over-year in our society [2]? If it is the result of our modern society, where technology perpetually challenges us to think abstractly every waking minute of our lives, then wouldn't the Flynn Effect eventually level off at some point in the future? If it really is 80% genes (and I'm still waiting for my 23andMe results to identify the specific SNPs responsible for my Mensa membership) then how far can that 20% environmental influence take us?

These are the most interesting questions to me. Our brains exhibit a high- degree of plasticity. Making students and teachers aware of neuroplasticity can have significant positive outcomes on their education [3][4].

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

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

[3] [http://www.edutopia.org/blog/neuroscience-higher-ed-judy- wil...](http://www.edutopia.org/blog/neuroscience-higher-ed-judy-willis)

[4] [http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational- leadership/dec0...](http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational- leadership/dec09/vol67/num04/How-to-Teach-Students-About-the-Brain.aspx)

*edited for formatting.

<comment><USER10> Maybe IQ rises because people are learning to take IQ tests. I read in some HN posting: in the 40's folks registered ~70 on IQ tests (old tests found in drawers at some University). The questions were 'trick questions' and the test-takers weren't familiar, so answered pragmatically and were marked wrong. Example: "There are no Rhinos in Germany. Munich is in Germany. How many Rhinos are in Munich? A) 0 B) 1 C) 3 D)other" Folks would answer B. We imagine they are thinking "Well Munich is a big city, and probably has a zoo. There would be at least one Rhino in the zoo." Are they wrong? As an "IQ test question" they're wrong. But as a real-world issue, they're on the right track.

Today people have encountered trick questions by the time they take IQ tests, so they do better. That might be all there is to it.

<comment><USER11> For questions like that, it's less that it's a trick question (unless you're familiar with the Munich Zoo), than that you are only supposed to take the constraints of the problem as presented. The situation is presented as a hypothetical, it's not a trick, it's an abstraction that (many) people have trouble with. Like getting students to understand that a figure in a geometric sketch isn't _precise_ , it's just representative, look at the numbers included to actually understand it.

<comment><USER12> If it's abstract, why does it use a real place in the question? Answering the question correctly is in fact predicated on a sophisticated assumption of how this particular type of question is constructed: using metaphors of real life to construct abstract scenarios to test arithmetic or logical predicates. You need to know that it's abstract, and that the construction of the abstract scenario is by metaphor with reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In my country, unlike the US, it's legal to use psychological tests for hiring purposes.

Still, as I grew my company, I've realized how inaccurate they can be. Some of the best performing testers couldn't demonstrate a long-term perspective or broad set of knowledge/opinions.

Whereas they were terrific at solving puzzles, they couldn't accept or recognize a puzzle itself.

</comment><comment><USER14> "the major intellectual thing that disturbs me is that young people like you are reading less history"

For me history is just fiction that by sheer accident actually happened (well kinda, because there's a lot of post-factum narrative in history that might be false as any other story). It's interesting that it happened but not that interesting to give it some value that trumps other factors that make fiction interesting.

<comment><USER15> That must make it difficult to understand other people.

<comment><USER14> Certainly I have trouble to understand why do you think that. Just not sure if that's because my perception of history or some other fundamental difference in our viewpoints.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I hate to say this, but IQ tests are BMI tests for the brain, and about as accurate. If a coffee, bad sleep, or a dose of Ritalin can change the result – at its very nature – it is not a scientific method of measurement (the ability to retest and get the same result).

We could say it's a good read of a _spectrum of mental capacity_ , but to suggest that IQ is capable of anything more is whack science.

<comment><USER17> BMI is a perfectly valid first-order approximation of appropriate weight ranges for the 95% of the population who are not body builders.

<comment><USER18> Perhaps BMI isn't very accurate for slightly short people. It says I should weigh 115-149 lbs. I currently weigh 190 and when I manage to get down to 170, I look very athletic. The last time I weighed 149, I looked like I was starving.

It seems similarly unreasonable for most of my friends and family.

<comment><USER19> Your standards are based on living in a society of fat people. At 149 you'd still be sporting copious amounts of flab.

<comment><USER18> My standards are based on objective reality and a decent knowledge of physical fitness and nutrition.

When I weighed 160, I had slightly defined abs. Similar to what you would see on someone with 10-15% body fat.

The existence of a lot of overweight people in the US doesn't change what the words "overweight" and "athletic" mean.

<comment><USER19> First you looked "very athletic" at 170, now your abs were "slightly defined" at 160. Uh huh. If that means anything, that means you had a lot of visceral fat, or it's more stored in the legs.

<comment><USER19> And well, it's WAY past the edit window now. The next time you are at 160, I recommend using the tape measure to measure things like waist to chest circumference, and thigh circumference. Then ask if those measurements are bigger than what can be explained by the muscular performance you get. Another thing you can do is try jumping rope, running in place, or doing jumping jacks. When I do these activities, I get "jiggle." My moobs and stomach get jerked around, because there is some flab there. The effect lessens as you lose weight.

What is not objective is looking in the mirror in some lighting and thinking you look pretty good. That's a subjective measurement based on objective reality. Your body might distributed fat in a way that's relatively aesthetically pleasing -- mine does too, it hides it all in the thighs, and people think I'm way more in shape than I am -- and that's not the same thing as being healthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Having capacity doesn't imply the desire or motivation to make use of it. IQ is "capacity" but it doesn't mean that we inherently make better use of our "greater" intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER21> So we got better in solving IQ tests?

</comment><comment><USER22> Going to university has completely destroyed my capability to appreciate novels. After years of reading maths/programming/electrical engineering books and the like, when I pick up a novel and it says "Tim said this, and Julie replied that", etc., I am bored out of my mind. Why should I care what they say, get to the point. You could compress this 700 page thing into 10 pages and barely any of the content is lost (in other words, low information density). I wish I could sill appreciate novels, but in most cases I can't.

In my eyes, most novels are trash and there are only a few worth reading.

<comment><USER23> "In my eyes, most novels are trash and there are only a few worth reading."

That's actually the expected result, by the way. Sturgeon's Law, roughly "ninety percent of everything is crap", is one of those ha-ha-only-serious sorts of things. You can put math around it if you want; if the quality of a given type of media is normally distributed (probably with the bottom end cut off by it never getting published), the best of the best is generally much much better than the vast bulk of what is out there, and so if you measure by the standard of what the best puts out, almost everything is crap.

One of the things that keeps the world going around is that we all have different distributions, though; what is for me a +6sigma novel might be well below average to you.

I'd say to you that bloated page counts are definitely a common thing. It's what you get when you pay by the word. I'd also say that _any_ story can be reduced to a couple of sentences, if you're being really cynical ("One day, Bob defeated the evil overlord and peace reigned throughout the land."). There are stories out there that are quite dense and everything has a point. But, yes, they are the exceptions. The trick is in finding them.

<comment><USER24> > I'd also say that any story can be reduced to a couple of sentences, if > you're being really cynical

Lord of the Rings LITE(tm): Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring in a volcano.

See also: [https://www.youtube.com/user/HISHEdotcom](https://www.youtube.com/user/HISHEdotcom)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The quality of a person, as well as how well they can recognize what exists as it is, is determined by their degree of truthfulness.

</comment><comment><USER26> Those who fetishize history are doomed to annoy everyone about it

</comment><comment><USER27> IQs can't be higher. The tests are designed to be normally distributed with an average of 100.

<comment><USER9> This statement is true, but a bit misleading. Yes, IQ tests are constantly being adjusted so that the mean is always 100, but the average person today will score above 100 on an IQ test from a decade or more ago. This is what the article is referring to when it asserts "Our IQs have never been higher." It is a factual statement and the basis for the "Flynn Effect," which has tracked our steady increase in average IQ for many decades now [1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)</comment></comment>


Enterprise Collaboration - <AUTHOR> http://www.dynamicalsoftware.com/ecm

<comment><AUTHOR> The video of this IASA ITARC summit is now available including PDFs of the presentation slide decks.</comment>


Why I'm boycotting TurboTax this year - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11320386/turbotax-boycott-lobbying <comment><USER2> I would also be highly surprised that using a free version of TurboTax or using any of their other products like Mint don't result in them selling all your financial information to all kinds of predatorial institutions' solicitations etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> From 2016, updated in 2017; so, still more than a year old .

<comment><USER4> but still 100% relevant

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> TaxAct has been great.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does everyone in the US have to file their own tax return? In Britain, what's called self-assessment is relative rare, with only about 10m people having to file returns. Everyone else is on something called PAYE (Pay As You Earn).</comment>


What are young men doing? - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/07/what-are-young-men-doing.html <comment><USER2> Within a few sentences they connected 'no 4-year degree' with low skill. That's completely false. I have 0 degrees and I am 100% certain that I am much more skilled than many people with multiple advanced degrees.

<comment><USER3> Try telling that to an employer. A degree is the best way to bootstrap your career.</comment></comment>


ASP.NET Core – 2300% More Requests Served per Second - <AUTHOR> http://www.ageofascent.com/asp-net-core-exeeds-1-15-million-requests-12-6-gbps/ <comment><USER3> I did .net development for 8 years, then moved to Ruby, but recently I started working on a little side business built with .net core targeting deployment on linux. I do most of my developing in Visual Studio Code on Mac osx.

Not going to lie, i've had my pain. Dependencies are still hell, getting stripe to work meant taking an open source library, and modifying it... and there's still some stuff I want to use, but haven't gotten working yet.

That said the platform keeps getting better, and I love what i'm seeing. I feel like it combines a lot of what I loved, with a lot of what I learned to love in Ruby.

Plus Microsoft is offering so many sweet deals with Azure, its hard to pass it up.

<comment><USER4> Plus, or "only because"? For us it's "only because"... I have no intrinsic loyalty to any provider and am happy to use any - I wonder if there's a difference!

<comment><USER3> If you mean, AWS vs Azure... it's an "only because". Although if they were the same price, i'd still choose Azure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember reading these results a little while ago and thought the numbers were great until I saw the netty results. There is a lot of work left to be done.

<comment><USER6> http.sys smokes netty in almost every way.

<comment><USER7> Doesn't looks like it does: [https://github.com/aspnet/benchmarks/blob/dev/README.md](https://github.com/aspnet/benchmarks/blob/dev/README.md) \-- look under experimental baselines

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It makes me happy to see .net developers get nice things.

</comment><comment><USER9> It is a great time to be a .Net Developer :)

<comment><USER10> Unless you want to use F#, then it's an awful time because it still doesn't support .Net Core :(

<comment><USER11> I was able to get my F# code to compile using .NET Core yesterday! It's difficult to find the correct project.json parameters and you have to build the latest CLI yourself, but it works.

<comment><USER12> I used fsharp-dnx. The problem was it then doesn't support non .NET core targets. So for library development it's a real pain in the arse when you want to build multiple .NET targets (net45,net46,dnx...) with the same project.json.

The whole thing is a total mess at the moment, so I'm personally going to stay away from dnx until MS produce something that's close to their old RTM quality releases. It seems there's even a rival system with the dotnet CLI.

So I disagree strongly with the OP, it's not a great time to be a .NET developer. The improvements to C# and F#, yes, fantastic. But the ecosystem around it is so brittle at the moment; which is something that we never had to deal with in the past, and was one of the big selling points of the MS ecosystem.

<comment><USER7> It's still in development. In the past you weren't even able to glance inside the sausage factory. If you want something solid then wait until 1.0 is out, preferably 2.0.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the history lesson. I am fully aware of what stage it's at. I am commenting on the solution and what appears to be a meandering target, with huge holes. It's currently at RC but no support for F#, no support for SignalR, VS2015 tooling is comically bad, cripplingly slow build times, and now a totally new toolchain (dotnet-CLI) that doesn't support the same dependency system that dnx supports.

That doesn't sound like a RC to me. I have a general feeling that the RTM standards are slipping massively at MS. Windows 10 was a dog when I tried it - and obviously not finished, VS2015 is very unstable, then the issues above... It feels like stuff is being pushed out the door much earlier than it previously would have been.

I do appreciate the direction they're taking, it just feels rudderless atm.

<comment><USER7> They may call it RC, but it's barely beta. Recently they said they'd take their time to get it right - less conference driven development. This is a new start, SignalR will come after RTM, so lots of things won't be there. Think of it as version 1 rather than 5. There's currently no VB support either, so F# may take a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great job Ben, the dotnet core team and the asp.net team!

</comment><comment><USER14> anyone here could give the ideal dev environment for developping on mac and deploying on linux while programming with asp.net core ?

<comment><USER15> Easiest way to get set up is to run the installers at [http://get.asp.net](http://get.asp.net) \- there are installers for Windows / OS X / Linux there.

If you'd rather install via command-line, there are walkthroughs for all platforms here: [https://docs.asp.net/en/latest/getting- started/index.html](https://docs.asp.net/en/latest/getting-started/index.html)

There's an easy tutorial showing how to dev on OS X using Yeoman and VS Code (free) here: [https://docs.asp.net/en/latest/tutorials/your-first-mac- aspn...](https://docs.asp.net/en/latest/tutorials/your-first-mac-aspnet.html)

<comment><USER14> Seems like deplying on linux server is still a second class citizen, am i right ? Different, slimmed down framewoek, not so many resources for using clouds other than azure (didn't find any article for deploying on heroku using official tools for example).

That's not really surprising, because ms still got to make some money somehow, but that means i'll have to wait a bit longer to get anything descent on the server side..

<comment><USER16> Part of the point of the new asp.net core is that it's slimmed down everywhere, not just linux (you're not getting jipped, they're just cutting off weight you don't need).

And to be fair, other cloud providers are responsible for implementing their own C# IaaS stack. To use heroku as an example, they implement their own stack and add languages that they support at their own pace (I think they only allowed JS/Python/PHP/Ruby the last time I used them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's on! Waiting patiently for the Techempower entry...

</comment><comment><USER18> It's unfortunate that they don't have the numbers for Linux and instead used the Windows operating system. I'd like to see the Linux benchmark be on par with Windows (or ideally better) but I'm not sure if there is an interest from Microsoft to meet or exceed performance of Windows with a Linux based host.

<comment><USER15> Update: Checked with the team, latest Linux benchmark for plaintext with pipelining from January was 928,023 rps, which is a lot closer to the Windows numbers (78%). Updated here: [https://github.com/aspnet/benchmarks/#plain- text-with-http-p...](https://github.com/aspnet/benchmarks/#plain-text-with- http-pipelining)

Linux benchmarks are included here: [https://github.com/aspnet/benchmarks/](https://github.com/aspnet/benchmarks/)

The team definitely wants to make ASP.NET Core run fast on Linux, too. The ASP.NET team perf rig runs both Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Windows Server 2012 R2. A lot of the perf enhancements are due to community pull requests, mostly from Ben (author of parent post). The perf work's been discussed a lot on the weekly community standup calls ([http://live.asp.net](http://live.asp.net)), here's one going over the rig and perf in general: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O81CAjmOXk&list=PL0M0zPgJ3H...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O81CAjmOXk&list=PL0M0zPgJ3HSftTAAHttA3JQU4vOjXFquF&index=21)

There's a lot going on right now - both ASP.NET Core and .NET Core are new to Linux, the teams are working on getting 1.0 releases out the door, etc. I expect perf on both Windows and Linux to continue to improve, both before and after 1.0 release. This week on the community standup, Damian said that perf is one area that's lower risk as RTM approaches, and that they're hoping for more improvement there.

And this is very much an open source project, as you can see from the merged pull requests in general ([https://github.com/aspnet/KestrelHttpServer/pulls?q=is%3Apr+...](https://github.com/aspnet/KestrelHttpServer/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed)) and the fact that Ben (non m-dollar) is battling with a Microsoft dev to be the top contributor. It'd be great to get some more devs with Linux HTTP serving background contributing.

I think I remember that they only posted benchmark updates when there was a significant change. Checking with the team now.

Source: long time ASP.NET groupie, Microsoft employee (until they find out I'm goofing off on HN instead of replying to e-mail).

<comment><USER19> Who in your opinion is the most responsible for the remarkably positive change in certain parts of Microsoft? (ASP.Net and Azure would be two examples of the new and improved Microsoft, Office would be an example of the old Microsoft mentality.)

<comment><USER20> Much of the openness seems to coincide with when Satya Nadella became CEO.

<comment><USER19> Do you think he has any interest in enhancing the programmability of Excel, for the first time in over a decade? (Serious question)

<comment><USER20> Desktop, no. Hosted version, maybe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> what's special in ASP.NET core that allows then to achieve this?

<comment><USER22> As I understand it, because it comes with less bloat than its predecessors (i.e. more focused library). From the blog post itself:

      "ASP.NET Core and .NET Core come with the great advantage of only including the libraries and functions you explicitly want to use in your application rather than bringing in the entire framework. So you only "pay", programmatically speaking, for what you use."

<comment><USER21> Really, that's it? I thought it'd involve something about concurrency, networking or some IOCP magic going on.

<comment><USER7> The fastest code is the one that doesn't run. Joking aside, there have been numerous low level improvements with Ben making big contributions - <USER2> Ben!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Was it this bad before?

</comment><comment><USER24> I still don't get why anyone would brag about how poorly they optimized something the first time around.

<comment><USER15> ASP.NET wasn't necessarily slow previously - for example, StackOverflow is running on it, and they're getting some pretty good perf (albeit with pretty beefy machines): [http://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the- arc...](http://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the- architecture-2016-edition/)

Most sites, even relatively high traffic sites, don't serve 50k requests per second.

However, it wasn't granular or modular. For a lot of sites, it was a good balance of features to performance, but in a lot of cases you paid a performance penalty for features you weren't using. That includes the memory footprint penalty - each ASP.NET site loaded up a chunky system.web DLL with the kitchen sink. Back in the day that was fine, but as there are a lot of front-end heavy sites now that use servers mostly as API endpoints, and package managers are pretty standard, devs like to only pay the performance cost (including memory footprint) for the features, middleware, etc., that they're using. That was a big design consideration for ASP.NET Core, and you can really see the results in these specific benchmarks (Techempower plaintext).

<comment><USER25> Speaking of performance. I read that blog entry, and saw that they use their own DB library called Dapper:

[https://github.com/StackExchange/dapper-dot- net](https://github.com/StackExchange/dapper-dot-net)

I was suprised to see that it's almost 4x faster than linq2sql and more than 10x faster than entity framework. (according to the table "Performance of SELECT mapping over 500 iterations - POCO serialization"). There must be a lot of slow sites out there running on entity.

<comment><USER15> They're different kinds of tools - maybe like comparing an RV to a motorcycle, or a guided missile to a sniper rifle. Or a...

Well, anyhow, while at a high level they're both tools that map between database commands and statically typed objects, the approach is very different.

Entity Framework is a full object relational mapper - it's generally the active record pattern, and it supplies things like migrations and entity tracking. The design philosophy is to abstract the database mechanics as much as possible, so you just work with collections of objects (e.g. DbSet<Person>) - add new Person instances to the set, set properties on them, etc. EF converts your intent into database commands (SQL queries in many cases, although EF7 supports some non-relational databases and in-memory storage, too). EF is tracking the state of all your objects, so it knows whether they need to be updated in the data store. That might be fine for a lot of cases - if you're managing a small list of products or customers, working on an intranet app, etc., you're not going to see a difference. I've seen (and fixed) a lot of horrible SQL queries that intranet devs built by concatenating strings; EF is at least going to _usually_ give you decent, secure SQL. (If you're gnashing your teeth right now because EF crushed your dreams in the past, they've done some decent work on SQL generation lately, including some good stuff in EF7). It works pretty well on a lot of apps in lots of dev shops, and can be tuned to work well on big apps if you know what you're doing.

Dapper, and other "micro-ORMs" want to work closer to the metal. Dapper's tuned to taking the results of a database command (SQL query) and populate static objects. There's no entity tracking, state management, etc. Take results of a database query, stuff it into a bunch of object properties, walk away. Because of that, benchmarks showing the performance of select mapping over 500 iterations - POCO serialization are going to run a lot faster, just as (sorry, can't help myself) a motorcycle's going to beat an RV on a race down a tiny dirt trail.

So there may be some slow sites that are running on EF that would be faster on Dapper, but not without evaluating how they're interacting with the database, how they're doing database updates, etc.

Also, to be fair, you can disable a lot of features in EF (or other more fully featured ORMs) and get perf numbers pretty close to micro-ORM's like Dapper. See this comparison: [https://github.com/StackExchange/dapper-dot- net/issues/246#i...](https://github.com/StackExchange/dapper-dot- net/issues/246#issuecomment-90598911)

However, if you're turning off all the features and hand crafting SQL statements and working with untracked entities, you probably want a micro-ORM, anyways.

<comment><USER26> Great explanation. If you want to get even closer to the metal there is Simple.Data [http://simplefx.org/simpledata/docs/](http://simplefx.org/simpledata/docs/) where you write queries like

        var albums = Database.Open().Albums.FindAll(db.Albums.GenreId == 1);
        //or FindAllByGenreId(1)
        foreach (var album in albums)
        {
    	  Console.WriteLine(album.Title);
        }

and they return dynamic objects. It's smart about cases, _s and all with 0 configuration.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Five Lessons from Clippy's Failure - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/twentybn/5-lessons-from-clippys-failure-efc69297eac1 <comment><USER2> Yay, an F5bot alert on Clippy that actually is about the MS Office character!

I wish the MS Agent technology was still around. You could create a character, give it some animations, then feed it to, say, MASH, the Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper, and it would render the character on screen.

I once used it in middle school to give a short survey, where Merlin asked 5 questions about class or somesuch while 'writing the answers down'.

One of the big deals with these agents is that MS Office didn't DO anything with them. They had all of these animations and capabilities but unless you followed a rigid process (open new doc, type Dear, press enter), it would not trigger any agent reactions.

If it were easy to create a macro involving the agents to start a survey or 'agent-hosted guided wizard', the feature might have been more used in the LOB applications of the day.

Then again, easily defining actions or surveys is the main thing that stops current AI voice assistants from being more useful than, say, an internet connected Dragon Dictate with predefined scripts.

Hopefully Almond and Snips fix the latter problem long term.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well, it's time we pay Clippy some proper attention, but probably more to learn from his failed career so that we can build better products!

</comment><comment><USER3> There should never have been a Clippy.</comment>


Ask HN: Help For Clojure Addiction - <AUTHOR>

I have recently been playing with Clojure for personal projects. It is quite addictive. Also I am shocked by its leverage and how productive I am in it.
Now at work (Java and C++) I am constantly thinking of ways of getting my next Clojure fix.
How should I solve this problem? The problem is that I would rather program in Clojure than anything else. Here are some ideas and issues with them.
1. Switch jobs. Except that most of the jobs on Craigslist (SF Bay) that mention Clojure list it with five other buzz words. It sounds like interview bait. There is no guarantee there will be Clojure on the job.
2. Ask my company to use Clojure. I suspect they will not be open to this because they have a mob of Java programmers who won't understand the code. They rejected another person's request to use Scala a few months ago. Still worth a shot. But I can see the PHB eyes glazing over.
3. Create a web-based start-up using Clojure. Despite Clojure's productivity this will take some time. This is the path I am working on right now. But it seems like such a long slog.
Ideas? <comment><USER2> I am a "PHP" developer at work. All day I sit around writing "PHP" code. Here is how I start my day: _"You guys want this done quickly and reliably or should I do it in PHP"_ ..

We're a PHP shop with a huge Common Lisp code base.

</comment><comment><USER3> Use Clojure to generate your Java code. As far as anyone else is concerned you're writing Java.

I've used code generation at work quite a bit, whenever I've had somewhat repetitive code to write that I couldn't factor away. It makes my job a lot less tedious and more fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there any public Clojure code for this?

<comment><USER3> I have no idea. It's easy enough to make special-purpose code generators yourself...don't bother trying to make some kind of universal system, just hack out code to generate exactly what you need for your current project. You may see ways to generalize it later.

I'm at a C# shop myself, and generally just write my generators in C#. Just spitting out strings of sourcecode and writing them into files. I would think Clojure would be better for this sort of thing, since it's got macros.

On the other hand, doing it in C# worked really well for one project, because after writing the generator I realized that I could convert it from a compiler into an interpreter, and make a program that didn't need a generator after all because it was so flexible at runtime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Get some busines knowledge in some domain. A lot of business folks do not care about what technology one uses as long as one can solve their problems using it.

We are actively using Clojure, located in New York City and looking for programmers with financial experience. Send resumes to (->> ["dimitry" :dot "gashinsky" :at "picotrading" :dot "com"] (replace {:at \@, :dot \\.}) (apply str))

</comment><comment><USER5> I recommend #3. Hang out on IRC & the groups, open source the non-secret-sauce from your startup. Build a brand around yourself as a badass Clojure programmer. Best case scenario, you have a successful startup. Worst case, you're a well known Clojure expert, and someone will hire you to work for them.

</comment><comment><USER6> There is a company named WeatherBill which I personally know is interested in hiring Clojure users. (I think the only online advertising they did was a tweet which was maybe picked on disclojure.org.) One person there recently told me that they're very friendly to telecommuting -- but only within the US.

(This telecommuting thing probably doesn't matter much to you, given they're IIRC in SF, but others might like to know that...)

BTW, have you tried going to Clojure meetings, if there are any in your area? Some people prefer to go to them to find coworkers.

<comment><USER7> "One person there recently told me that they're very friendly to telecommuting -- but only within the US."

Just curious, but once you accept telecommuting what does it matter where someone is? quick in person meetings at a few hours notice?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I didn't understand the reasoning either, and he didn't explain. The context was that a mutual friend introduced us, because he thought we'd work well together. (He knew that the WeatherBill fellow was actually going around to local Clojure meetings to try to find interested people.)

I mean, they have telecommuters on the opposite US coast. Dunno why crossing an ocean is a bridge too far. (And how would this apply to South America?)

Yeah, I'll try to ask him; these managerial decisions puzzle me. I have the suspicion it's two things: a) a gut feeling which is hard to articulate and b) the Google practice of not hiring if you have a whiff of doubt. (WeatherBill was founded by ex-Googlers, IRRC.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can sneak a lot of functional style programming into Java/C++. It's easier with C++ because they have first class functions, but you can do a lot even with Java. I think it's not optimal to do a 100% functional style, even though you can, because all the syntax junk gets in the way, but just by thinking in terms of higher order functions instead of objects it will make a lot of the pain go away.

<comment><USER9> > they have first class functions

No it doesn't. C++ has function pointers, and you can make functors objects. But that doesn't make first class functions at all. Thinking in terms of higher order functions in C++ is just a different sort of pain, though it's admiteddly usefull sometimes. But you better like making template functors then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Challenge yourself by thinking whether you could write better java code, in the light of your new knowledge from the clojure side. Straightforward example: produce far more orthogonal java code by using composition and the strategy pattern more, programming more to interfaces and delegating more some "general" work on interfaced objects to static methods in helper classes, etc.

That is, don't throw the baby with the bath water. Though coming with more "boilerplate" (as in "more ceremony"), there are still ways of programming in java that can make you happy at the end of the day: when you feel that your code is more DRY (which does not necessarily mean less code, BTW), and more orthogonal (more interfaces -e.g. callback interfaces- are generally a step in the right direction, though not necessarily a general rule).

</comment><comment><USER11> Don't ask for permission. Recognize the need for something important at work and write it in Clojure and often coworkers/bosses will be so glad to have it and not have had to write it themselves that they won't care what language it's in. Of course now you're responsible for it.</comment>


UK Government forces benefits claimants to use Windows XP and IE6 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2265744/government-forces-benefits-claimants-to-use-windows-xp-and-ie6

<comment><USER2> Read the entire article, you will see Firefox 1.0.3 listed.</comment>


Writing Cleaner Asynchronous Objective-C/Swift Code with PromiseKit - <AUTHOR> http://littlebitesofcocoa.com/post/120620198336/13-writing-cleaner-asynchronous-code-with

<comment><USER2> Javier Soto gave a great talk on Promises/Futures at Swift Summit. There's an edited transcript with code samples, if you haven't got time to watch: [https://realm.io/news/swift-summit-javier-soto- futures/](https://realm.io/news/swift-summit-javier-soto-futures/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! Javi is a friend and this is a wonderful talk. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in this topic!</comment></comment>


10 Tips for Using GNU Find - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/316404-10-tips-for-using-gnu-find

<comment><USER2> The 3rd example has an error:

       $ find -empty -type -f
       find: Arguments to -type should contain only one letter

Should be instead:

       $ find -empty -type f

Unfortunately, the site requires you to create some kind of account to comment. Not very user friendly :(

</comment><comment><USER3> The -regextype option was new to me.

<comment><USER4> that was also new to me. It also doesn't work on most of my (non-Linux) systems with their bsd-derived find.</comment></comment>


11,000 years ago, our ancestors survived abrupt climate change - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/health/climate-change-hunter-gatherers/index.html <comment><USER2> Literal _survivor_ ship bias. Our ancestors did, but many others did not.

<comment><USER3> _Humanity_ may very well survive.

 _You_ may not.

<comment><USER4> Humanity is a temporary situation. We're going extinct or going to evolve into something else eventually.

<comment><USER5> Not to pick on you but this is a common misconception of evolution. You don't outgrow your ancestry. You are and your descendants always will be _human_. Just as they will always be _primates_ and _mammals_ and _animals_.

<comment><USER3> Based on how evolution has gone over hundreds of thousands of years - I cant say I agree with you - but mostly in the concept of human-centric-time - yeah, I'd agree with you - no substantive change happens over 10 generations, but over 10,000 generations? yes.

Look at dogs, they evolved from wolves, and while both are still canids, we'd for sure call a dog, not a wolf.

<comment><USER5> No. Dogs did not evolve from modern wolves. They evolved from a common ancestor of both dogs and wolves. If we call that common ancestor "wolves" as we call the modern wolf it is the fault of language not of cladistics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As they say in the stock market: "Past Performance Is Not Indicative Of Future Results"

</comment><comment><USER7> We'll survive too. It's just going to cost a fortune. 9 billion people on the planet by 2050.

The US debt is $21 trillion and we're adding a trillion a year.

We're going to need both an economic and technological miracle in about 50 years.

<comment><USER8> How do you think the US debt plays into that?

<comment><USER9> If you have to pay a lot for food and shelter this month it helps if you're not already significantly in the hole?

<comment><USER10> Your intuition based on your finances, does not apply at the scale of a country. Remember, they can just go to war to take what they want. It's not the same.

<comment><USER11> If anything, the debt solidifies the US position as the global currency standard. The US literally owes the world trillions of dollars. Exactly as if the rest of the world were requesting out currency for use.

<comment><USER9> In the old joke when you owe the bank a million dollars the bank has a problem it's not noted that sometimes the bank decides not to let you owe it 2 million dollars as a way of mitigating the problem. At any rate the comment was regarding problems 20 years in the future. I don't know that the U.S will continue as the global currency standard for various reasons.

<comment><USER11> Unless oil is no longer the chief source of energy. Ultimately I think the US may do fine for itself so long as it protects its natural resources and researches (to ultimately switch to) alternative energy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The thing about getting knocked back to the stone age is that if you're the Jetsons it's the end of the world, if you're the Flintstones it's a Tuesday.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yeah.... if they hadn't survived, they wouldn't be ancestors ....

</comment><comment><USER14> CNN, what was the cause of that climate change?

<comment><USER8> Why are you addressing CNN as if they will respond to your comment?

<comment><USER14> I don't think that CNN is very connected, but that was just a test..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A cataclysmic event around 11,600-12,800 years ago is absolutely what the evidence suggests and nobody covers the topic better than Graham Hancock. Though he seems to think there were both hunter and gatherers and an advanced civilization based on the discovery of Gobekli Tepe and other megalithic architecture located in Peru, Easter Island, Bolivia, China, Egypt, Mexico, & Japan.

Hancock gave an unbelievable presentation on the topic last week. This is well worth viewing. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZhSun9_SYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZhSun9_SYs)

edit: Down voters should leave a comment. I'm curious what you have to say as I've spent a lot of time researching this topic.

<comment><USER16> I didn't downvote you, but it's most likely because Hancock's ideas are considered pseudoscientific. He has no academic credentials: has not subjected his ideas to peer review, or published in any recognized journals.

Plus, you basically said it yourself: _" Hancock gave an unbelievable presentation on the topic..."_

(That said, these lazy 'drive-by downvoters' are extremely annoying. If any of them are reading this, shame on you.)

<comment><USER15> You are likely right. I don't refute that those accusations exist. Hancock is a curious writer who bases his theories on the discoveries of all disciplines such as geology, physics, engineering, & oral history, from both the academic and non-academic alike which a small handful of very powerful archeologists seem to have a large issue with.

In particular Hancock refused to dismiss and instead validated Robert Schoch's Sphinx water erosion timeline and Robert Bouval's Orion Correlation Theory which both essentially discredits Zahi Hawass's work.

I think the using the term `pseudoscience` is going too far when describing Hancock, though I know there was a BBC documentary where he was described that way. His work is supported and respected by many and I even dare say the most competent academics in their field. Hancock visits all the sites and talks to every expert he can. I believe he even spent 2 years performing over 200 dives to explore underwater sites off the coast in Japan. He takes this subject as seriously as anyone in the field and his commitment is undeniable.

> Plus, you basically said it yourself: "Hancock gave an unbelievable > presentation on the topic..."

FWIW - I specifically chose those words for this reason :)</comment></comment></comment>


Will crowd dating be the next big thing? - <AUTHOR> http://grupzon.com

<comment><USER2> Looks like a good idea. I would definitely improve the website but I would see this working.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Same here. Good concept though, connecting groups of guys and girls, right?

</comment><comment><USER3> I am going to go with: no.</comment>


Get Responsive Web Design, Web Design Trends, HTML5 Basics Ebooks For Free Now - <AUTHOR> http://1stwebdesigner.com/ebooks/ It's all about quick learning when we are lacking time! These three quick ebooks will teach you all the basics in super fast time, each book requires just 1-2 hour reading! It's all about maximal knowledge in shortest time! <comment><USER2> Great Books! Read the Responsive Web Design and Enjoyed!

@sufyanism You can get the free Kindle app from appstore and read it on iPod, iPhone & iPad and Mac as well!

</comment><comment><USER3> Gave me a great outline of the key points, didn't waste a lot of time to get to the good stuff ;-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Great deal! Sad thing that it's only available in Amazon Kindle format.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually it's not quite true! Amazon has quite a few apps so you can actually view these ebooks on your PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, tablets - here is the link for those apps - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sv_kstore_1?ie=UTF...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sv_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771)

It's not as convenient as PDF, but well, you get navigation, chance to leave notes and change fonts as you like.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts on 4GL Code Generators? - j-b

I'm currently working on a large scale software project using a 4th generation programming language (LANSA RDMLX). I'm wondering who out there has experience using this type of 4GL or code generators and what was their experience? <comment><AUTHOR> I thought all of these died out in the 80's when most were born. I had a boss at the time who thought that one of these would prove effective - at least in reducing the development burden on the Department. Those that I tried all proved fantastic when applied to tasks very similar to those shown in the demos but quickly proved more complex than standard programming (using a 3GL) when applied to anything but the most trivial task.

A bit like report writers - marginally quicker than hand coding for straightforward reports but wildly complicated when things got tougher or the users asked for 'just one more feature'.</comment>


Clever Cloud PaaS new pricings : cheaper and more finesse in your app config. - <AUTHOR> http://www.clever-cloud.com/en/pricing.html

<comment><AUTHOR> More information on this news here : [http://us1.campaign- archive2.com/?u=0928a3dc4855008ad5808ca4...](http://us1.campaign- archive2.com/?u=0928a3dc4855008ad5808ca4e&id=87d35a7c7d)

</comment><comment><USER2> Sounds like the new Heroku: easier, cheaper, more efficient.

<comment><USER3> Heroku is easy to use, but it's definitely not cheap compared to other PaaS out there.</comment></comment>


H.P. paying Mr. Apotheker more than $13 million in termination benefits - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/business/lets-stop-rewarding-failed-ceos-common-sense.html

<comment><USER2> Includes a $2.4 million performance bonus. That's my kind of failure. I hope the new Troll has a more reasonable severance package, you know 2 weeks per year like the rest of us.</comment>


Early Access Program for JetBrains appCode, Objective-C IDE - <AUTHOR> http://confluence.jetbrains.net/display/OBJC/appCode+EAP <comment><USER2> First impressions after using it for an hour or so:

\- code completion destroys XCode, it's much more accurate.

\- tabs make everything better.

\- code generation is OK, more accessible and better than XCode.

\- seems stable, no crashes thus far.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't remember waiting as anxiously for a product as I have for this, since the original iPhone. Now the problem becomes taming the expectations that have built up.

At the very least, my fingers should be able to revert to the shortcuts and features they've been used to for the past 9 years.

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazing! Now i can use jetbrains ide's for android and ios. I've upgraded to xcode 4 and it has been nothing but a pita. Crashing daily, bad builds, still can't figure out the debugger. Having IDE choices are great!

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure if I will stick to this IDE in the long run, but it is for sure great that Apple now has some competitor for Xcode...</comment>


Vote for applications created during the Rails Rumble 2007 this weekend - <AUTHOR> http://vote.railsrumble.com/ <comment><USER2> Interesting - some interesting ideas, but a lot of applications didn't work. I bookmarked one, YouPlus - instant fun to read the eco-recommendations by random people over the world. Mandatory registration was also in many cases a reason I didn't check the applications out.</comment>